Has anyone got a spaceplane in orbit yet?

[Enorats]

So.. I just put a giant heat shield on the front of a super skinny "plane". Then I ramped up the rapier on the rear to full. Of course, the 3.75m heat shield on the nose made it pretty slow at first, limiting me to 300 m/s in lower atmo. It occluded everything else behind it though, including the "wings". What was just silly was that once I cleared roughly 10,000m the rapier got me up to 700 m/s.. and everything behind the heat shield started exploding at 20,000m.. as the atmo was dropping off, and without the heat shield getting "used up" at all. This whole system just seems totally wonky.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Guys I think I have few tips for when you're doing re-entry:

Firstly, 10-20 km is kind of a Death Zone, if you are doing anything like orbital speed in this region you're toast.

That means you need to slow down as much as possible high in the atmosphere. Drag is now your best friend. On the other hand, if you have a needle-like dart then it's going to cut straight through the upper atmosphere and then melt lower down.

With the new areodynamics most planes have very low drag when flying absolutley nose fowards. So don't. Point your nose as far away from prograde as possible. Nose up is best since you can generate a fair bit of lift which keeps you higher for longer (I think proper skip re-entries are now possible). S-turns can also be used.

Lastly I've not tried the airbrakes during re-entry but I gather some people are having great results.

[Enorats]

Re-entry is easy. Getting up there is the problem. Many of the parts melt far too easily in the regions and speeds that spaceplanes normally operate at. Going 600-700 in the 15k range gets your plane melted.

[CptRichardson]

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?

The big shuttle wings can store extra liquid fuel. Lots of it. Way too much lift for a Mk2, though.

[sumrex]

If they would fix ascent blowing up the NCS nosecone adapter or the crew cabin itself my disposition would be better. Anyway here's the delta burner an old reliable that has served me well. Throw her in a 20 degree climb out and adjust throttle and ascent profile from there as needed. (Shouldn't be much) Just ease her off the runway she's fickle on the rotation. Personally I'm going to have to relearn the ascent profiles a bit, but I think the biggest change I noticed is planes in prior versions of the game that languished in low altitudes but shined at the higher ones are the ones that are going to perform well in this version.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84903603/ksp/SPH/Delta%20Burner.craft

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84903603/ksp/SPH/Jabby.craft

Edited April 28, 2015 by sumrex

[Findthepin1]

kerbodyne mammoth engine at bottom, just stack 3.75m tall tanks until you run out of room, then the mk3-3.75m adapter, then the 3.75m spaceplane controller. slap a wing on top and call it a plane. tomorrow afternoon i might record my "efforts" with this. it worked in 0.90 without the wing.

[allmhuran]

Air intakes are the third most explodey part, after batteries and solar panels (confirmed by kasperVid during the KSPTV stream).

Precoolers, on the other hand, do not count as regular air intakes. Precoolers are your friend!

[rodion_herrera]

This is my XB-81. Demonstrating how I do SSTO, from KSC to orbit then back to KSC.

1. Taking off from KSC

2. Taking off from KSC

3. Climbing to 15,000 meters

(no screenshot because I was busy--this is the critical part, RAPIERS are set to manual, not auto and you have to monitor it, while flying at 16,000 ft. don't let it flame out but keep building speed until over 800 m/s, and THEN change mode to Closed Cycle and climb to orbit. Also, pay attention to temp--do not let craft overheat.

4. Climb to orbit using Closed Cycle mode (intakes closed and using oxidizer).

5. Orbit Achieved. Now time to go back to KSC.

6. The key component to prevent exploding craft while on re-entry (kind of a cheat actually)--FOUR airbrakes, prevents your craft from overheating.

7. Having reached down to 25,000 m, and at 1,000+ m/s, I now prepare to fire RAPIERS (now back to AirBreathing Mode and ALL intakes open)

8. Long "glide" down to KSC (minor heating but not critical) from 25,000 m to around 6,000 m

9. At 4,000, runway in sight, time to align with runway. Gear down and locked.

10. Aligned

11. In-cockpit view, aligned with runway

12. Prep for touchdown

13. Landing

and that is how I do it folks!

[Fengist]

Yes, but don't try to dock it to anything, you won't know what the hell you're doing.

[rodion_herrera]

Yes, but don't try to dock it to anything, you won't know what the hell you're doing.

Was that directed at my post? Kind of confused.

[Brotoro]

I certainly feel like I know nothing about spaceplanes now.

But my old airplanes still fly.

[david50517]

100% Heating

Few remaining fuel

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[AmpsterMan]

Most definitely possible

[Jarin]

AmpsterMan, what's your flight profile with that thing (i.e. how did you avoid exploding)? Also, is that really just two radial intakes under there?

[SkyRender]

I find that part of the problem in adapting to the new system is that the turbojets in particular don't like to behave themselves. Your angle of attack now has a major impact on ram air intakes, moreso even than it does under FAR. They also seem to have sudden bursts of thrust when exposed to a stronger airstream. This can lead to situations where the exact same angle and speed, under different conditions of reaching it, can result in either rapidly losing power to the engines or pushing so hard through the air that your craft's front end disintegrates in a wave of unrelenting heat.

[WanderingKid]

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

[SkyRender]

I cannot help but notice that almost 100% of the successful spaceplanes in 1.0 use RAPIERs. That would fit with what I've noticed in my tests: they're the only jet engine at this point that can operate properly at high altitudes. Of course the basic jets are useless high up, and the turbojets (as I noted) pretty much either burn your plane to cinders thanks to the absurdly unforgiving heat system or just fail to give you any meaningful thrust at the higher elevations with no middle ground.

[Rysq]

Gain Surface Velocity, climb to 12k, more surface velocity, stay just above prograde marker, aim for 600m/s+ before 20k in altitude.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Rysq

[TokiTech]

Takeoff aim 45 angle with all engines on, around 30km with all engines flameout, trigger Action Group 1 shut off intakes and closeCycle RAPIERs, still aiming 45 and shoot up to 71km and close throttle. Wait until 67km and burn horizontal to gain speed orbit.

Re-entry i turn on air-brake with slight angle attack, some burn time but won't blow the cockpit off. As well landing the plane speed won't reduce, air-brake kick in once more.

[Teutooni]

I do like the new aerodynamics. Made a quick Mk3 hull 130-ton plane, 125km circular orbit:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I don't know how realistic the massive thrust boost at mach 1.5-3.7 for RAPIERs is, but it's so much fun feeling them kick off and boosting speed to ~1300m/s in less than a minute while I am scrambling to gain some altitude before the plane melts from friction.

As for the discussion of RAPIERs being the only option for SSTOs, well yeah. And they should be. There is a reason normal turbojets can't fly to space, Skylons SABREs are one of the promising technologies that might be able to. What we need is scramjets to give some variety.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Teutooni

[KAP1985]

I basicly built a Space Shuttle, slapped a couple SRBs on, and would have, if it wasn't for it being unstable, I will try again when I have time

[Secuas]

This my SSTO I made in KSP 0.90. It was compatible with FAR and only stock parts. It got into orbit easier than I had thought. ^^

Javascript is disabled. View full album

By the way... How do these new albums work?

[ShadowZone]

I made a mini jet that got to 60km with turbojets (and lost a few parts in the process by burning them up during ascent), added some LFO stuff but never exceeded suborbital. Will try again. I am pretty sure it's possible

[nilof]

I took the stock Aeris 4A and replaced the rocket engine with an areospike. It easily got into space with a lot of margin.

[Jananton]

I took the stock Aeris 4A and replaced the rocket engine with an areospike. It easily got into space with a lot of margin.

Just tried that too with the same stock aircraft, only I didn't even replace the rocket engine, I did reposition the wings somewhat though to get the center of lift in a slightly better position then the original. It was much easier to get to a 85km high stable orbit then I ever experienced before.

Getting back however, well that's a whole other cattle of fish

Greets,

Jan