Has anyone got a spaceplane in orbit yet?

[Redshift OTF]

Just wondering. It seems to me like the jet engines provide massive thrust as the plane gets faster and at lower altitudes than was needed in 0.9 but the heat kills the spaceplane at around 20km and if I try and fly at higher altitudes where the air is thinner and the heat drops off the engines just die. Perhaps I am using the intakes incorrectly? Are intakes occluded by other parts? I've tried the pre-coolers but they didn't seem to help.

I am obviously aware that the everything is very different in this update and welcome that but maybe the balance is wrong? I can't seem to get over 1000 m/s in a spaceplane now. Perhaps this update favours planes that are heavily dependant on rocket engines to reach orbital speeds which would be a shame.

[waterlubber]

Nope, spaceplanes are impossible now. Give up! Abandon all hope all ye who enter here!

If someone does get a SSTO working, (Spaceplane), I would be very surprised. I think Das wasn't able to.

[TheKutKu]

Actually I find it easier than before, using a small plane i made in 10 min with 3 rapiers I nearly got to orbit ( apoapsis a 65 km and peri at 30 ), and the old acceleration phase at 20-30km where you were trying to accelerate to orbital velocity is faster thanks to the new aero and engine buff, also, it seems the rapier is even better than the turbojet at high altitude high speed flights

[SelectHalfling0]

Personally, the old aero was harder. Yes, we all have to re-adjust to brand new aero, but once you get used to it it's not that bad (in fact, some things like planes are MUCH easier).

[Redshift OTF]

Got any pictures of said craft?

[Jarin]

SPH being a buggy, unplayable mess... no, not so much.

[EladDv]

wait what jarin?

[TheKutKu]

no sorry, but it is very simple: mk1 linear cockpit with nose cone, 2 lf tanks, one medium (2.25t) 1.25 m lfo tank, tail fin for the core, 2 parts delta wings, 2 ailerons; and one rapier, a 2.25t 1.25 m Lfo tank and the new intake on each wings, I had to do some fuel tweaks though, I was short on oxydizer, and it easily survived reentry

[eddiew]

I got a Kerbodyne Dolphin (optimised for FAR) to 76x72, with just enough fuel to deorbit to 76x50. Loads of oxidiser left, clearly all existing SSTO's need a rebalance of fuel.

...and it exploded on re-entry How the heck was I meant to be more gentle than 76x50?

[Redshift OTF]

OK, well I was trying to use Turbojets to get my spaceplane into orbit. I think they are near useless for this purpose now.

[rodion_herrera]

After the update, I hastily made one of my own design, flew it (surprised by the massive thrust of the RAPIERS!) and it barely got into orbit (agee = 90 km, pgee = 45 km), which is actually GOOD! This is the FIRST TRY, and I fly with a Logitech X3D joystick with a Logitech Attack 3 as a secondary stick (acting as throttle quadrant plus access to buttons)

I always thought my SSTO designs were so UBER, I have no trouble getting to orbit and getting back to KSC, and now it's more realistic given the new aerodynamic behavior, drag and heating. And I know exactly how to fix my design so I can get to orbit and land back again. SSTO's were too easy in 0.90.0 (at least for me), so now I finally feel that winged SSTO is a true challenge. Loving it.

Edited April 27, 2015 by rodion_herrera

[eddiew]

OK, well I was trying to use Turbojets to get my spaceplane into orbit. I think they are near useless for this purpose now.

Yeah... I can get ~40km AP out of air breathers, but it's not necessarily useful to do so. My one good orbit was a 30km AP, with a kick to rockets at about 25.

Would like to know how to get down without exploding now plz :<

[Captain_Party]

First thing I did in 1.0? Tried my hand at building an SSTO with the new aero model. Managed to get a small unmanned cargo space plane into orbit in 15 minutes from conception, to construction and finally to flight.

Strangely, it's been much easier with the new aero. I could never make a reliable SSTO that worked with the old model.

Cheers, CP

[Redshift OTF]

I've seen airbrakes used for slowing you down before you experience re-entry effects. They are very powerful and make the decent a lot easier, (although you may short fall of the KSC even more now).

Yeah, rapiers seem easier to use to get a spaceplane into orbit than turbojets but even so it's a struggle to get up to 1300 m/s with them. Perhaps that just means you have to carry a lot more fuel/oxidiser to get you that extra 1100 m/s for orbital speed. That means a lot of designs are no longer going to be viable?

[Arran]

There you go..

Only used 2 Turbojets, and 2 Lv909's to get up there..

[Redshift OTF]

Actually, thinking about it, a lot of spaceplane designers have mastered the art of getting as high and as fast as possible using jet power alone, saving most of the fuel/oxidiser for using in orbit. Those who aren't experts probably slap on loads of rocket fuel and rocket engines and rely on that to get them to orbit. This update seems to favour the second method. Possibly it is easier to haul larger amounts of oxidiser with fewer jets engines than before as heating is more of the limiting factor at around 20km than thrust.

[KerikBalm]

I probably should have started small, but I've got a mk3 plane with a large cargo bay nearly to space.

During multiple tries, I overheated in the atmosphere, and blew up.

The last, most successful try, I was climbing at 20 degrees between 16km to 20-something km, seeing reentry effects and hoping it would be ok... a heat meter sure would be nice. Anyway, I symettrically lost 2 inner control surfaces on the main wing... and then it seemed to reach nearly peak speed, but obviously at that point air density was dropping fast, and nothing more happened, it was flying nice and steady.. sans 2 control surfaces it started with.

Everything was going nice... then the air density dropped too much and the engines starte to cut out as I was at about 1,100 m/s (no spin, thankfully), I engaged the KR-2L booster... and apparently had a bit of a thrust imbalance, and soon started to spin out of control. I got to a 56km apoapsis, but wasn't able to keep it under control to finish out the burn.

I'm confident with a bit of tweaking, it will all work out. I'll need to learn the proper ascent profile... too shallow too early ends in disaster...

In the old stock versions, I had some heavy lifter SSTOs that only got to 1200 m/s on jets, so I'm confident I'll be able to get a good cargo carrying SSTO going in this version.

The old SSTOs getting just a hundred m/s below orbital velocity on air breathers alone was ridiculous, good riddance.

Things to consider:

* Rocket Isps have been nerfed, so that cuts into SSTO performance

* More dV is needed after jets cut out, due to lower top speeds

* Payloads will be lighter

-They'll be smaller because they'll have to fit in a cargo bay or an aeroshell.

-They can be lighter because of ISRU - You can lift empty tanks, and fill them up elsewhere.

[panzer1b]

My new Tri-Fighter V works and does SSTO, albeit kinda poorly given that the ONLY way to get anything out of it is to gun it straight up at like 45 degrees and then abuse IONS to circularize.

Still, if all goes well, it appears that i may have a laythe capable SSTO working!

The only issue is that i did clip stuff inside it, the ion engines (for astheitics) are actually clipped inside the main hull, and it has like 300 batteries inside too (dont even ask why).

[UnusualAttitude]

Got an LKO with two RAPIERS and 2 LV909s (which were probably unnecessary). Some fuel left in the tanks.

On the way down, made a very shallow descent and was scrubbing off speed nicely until my cockpit suddenly exploded without warning (not even any re-entry effects), leaving the rest of the headless craft to drift down, perfectly intact, to a hard splashdown.

That felt wrong to me...

[Batz_10K]

Yeah, heating definitely seems to be a problem. The NCS adapter needs fuel in it to delay the onset of heat-related explosions. This one turned out not to be capable of re-entry as I think the NCS adapter is picking up heat from the canards. (use Alt-F12 debug menu: Physics->Thermal->Show temperature in part information). Fortunately it seems to be possible to fly canard-less delta-wing designs much more easily now, So I think I should be able to get something to work... It'd be *really* nice to have some sort of carbon-carbon heat-shield nosecone like they had on the Space Shuttle...

[panzer1b]

Anyone manage to get a SSTO thats lower then 10t into orbit?

While my experimental abusing of clipping craft works (there are 20 ions inside it and 2 engines clipped together), its kinda heavy and looks like a frankenplane.

Finally, what are the best engines to use in SSTOs?

Are the rapiers any good (both rapiers and turbos seem good at high speeds), but neither is able to get a heavy craft suborbital.

[Enorats]

So.. are the nuke engines supposed to run only on liquid fuel instead of LFO? They used to be LFO engines..

If that's not a bug.. then wow, that could be extremely useful. Combine those with turbojets, and if you can manage to make orbit you'd have a plane that only requires liquid fuel to run. Also.. just noticed that the nuke engines mass was cut in half too. Used to be 6, now they're 3.

[FlipNascar]

So.. are the nuke engines supposed to run only on liquid fuel instead of LFO? They used to be LFO engines..

If that's not a bug.. then wow, that could be extremely useful. Combine those with turbojets, and if you can manage to make orbit you'd have a plane that only requires liquid fuel to run. Also.. just noticed that the nuke engines mass was cut in half too. Used to be 6, now they're 3.

Indeed, Nukes now only need LF! Say goodbye to oxidizer!

[Stuigie]

Success! Space "plane" successfully in orbit!

I found that pre-coolers do not have a temperature limit (as they cool the air going in). So I exploited this. You can't use wings though as they need to be placed behind the pre-cooler and thus are occluded (i.e. don't function). Taking advantage of the Rapier engines massive boost in high Mach regions, I catapulted a single seater into a 1600m/s sub orbital trajectory at 72Km. Had enough fuel to complete the orbit and de-orbit.

So yeah, 4 Rapiers, VTOL setup and all is needed is to keep the craft flying at 500m/s at 45 degrees. after 10Km, full pelt until the engines switch over.

http://postimg.org/image/4f2dba15f/

I'm quite a good KSP player, but I still can't built an SSTO that looks normal :/ in ksp 1.0.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Stuigie

[NathanKell]