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The Race to Publish the First KSP 1.0 Compatible Spaceplane SSTO

inigma

By inigma
in KSP1 The Spacecraft Exchange

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eddiew

eddiew

Posted
Posted
I'll give it a bash tonight, cheers. Tbh the angle was just for aesthetics - I was going for a look that I suspect FAR wouldn't have been happy about and wanted to see if it worked in nuStock. The only thing that'll stop me from going to nuFAR will be if I can persuade it to make fun and exotic shapes. I feel that FAR (and I hope nuFAR) flies better than nuStock, but I'm a little worn out on realism and the limits that come with it. Being able to be a bit more free in the aesthetics would please me :)

Well I did try planes with perfectly vertical/horizontal, and... it hasn't helped a jot. nuStock makes me feel like the steering wheel is a bit loose; I grip it tightly and yet the plane kind of wobbles just a tiny bit left and right. Usually they like to go left when I pull up, and I'm constantly having to roll them right to compensate, which then overshoots and I'm left juggling the controls. Tis making all my orbits end up on some horrible inclinations :( I miss FAR's wing leveller...

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eddiew

eddiew

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Posted (edited)

Refinement of the Onager B; more streamlined, dumped the excess intake and airbrakes, added an extra half LFO tank, and twitched the rockets up a 'pixel' so's the thrust is better balanced. Little easier to glide home than the B model. Reduced parachutes to two at the dry CoM; probably won't need them, but since it falls at a similarly low terminal velocity, this is all that's required for an emergency landing.

Oddly, doesn't fight my roll-control as much as the B either... needs a little nudge now and then, but nothing that tries to get out of control.

CfnOB2u.jpg

*edit* Turns out patch 1.0.1 increased fuselage drag and reduced wing lift. That'll be why C needed more fuel than B then, I had been wondering about that!

Edited by eddiew
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xtoro

xtoro

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Posted

Able to get cargo the size of an FL-T200 up into orbit, along with longer things of similar diameter, and then return and land. I'm only talking 2-3 tons though. But I need to get bigger things up there. I'm trying to fly up the first part of a new space station which includes a hitchhiker storage container, batteries, solar panels, large docking ports, RCS fuel etc. It weighs in at 6.5 tons.

This pretty much rules out using the MK2 cargo bays because of the size alone, so I'm building up on MK3 parts. I tried using the Carina-Sagittarius craft that was posted earlier in this thread just to try it, but it can't get my station piece up there, it's just too heavy. I'm liking having a new challenge but pre-1.0 it was cake to get something like this up using an SSTO plane.

My attempts continue...

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kicsicsuvi

kicsicsuvi

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Hi guys!

I finally made my first liquid fuel only SSTO. It took half of my day (I never played with FAR or deadly reentry), but at the end, it went much better than I expected when I first played 1.0. 82 km orbit, and 900 m/s delta-v left. The best ascent profile I found is very simple: press T, press Z, go up at 35 degrees, turn on the nuclears at about 19 km, and shut down the air intakes when the turbojets flame out. I tried a lot of other profiles, but this was much better than anything else. I worried about heating, but it isn't a problem, the plane doesn't have time for overheating. The clamp-o-tron and the mk2 crew cabin is 2,6 t, so I think this plane can easily take 5 t, maybe 8 t payload up to LKO, or 2-3 t to KEO.

dUb6SEh.png

1XCZh9g.png

xDZqN2N.png

5VdSnEl.jpg

Sorry for my bad english, I'm still learning it.

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AaronLS

AaronLS

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Two things I *think* I've learned is inline intakes don't blow up as early is ram or circular intakes, and drag on intakes on the front can flipping. This is probably less of an issue for longer planes. So I've been using inline intakes or nacel intakes.

Similar to a couple other small builds. 2 ram jets for ascent to ~25km, and liquid LVT45 for rest. Launches upright with STS, nose down to 25 degrees full throttle and don't touch controls once speed is above 300 km/s or you will bleed off too much speed and/or lose control. Anything less than a 25 degree ascent and you'll get going to fast too low in the atmosphere and overheat.

Can put a small probe into orbit. Only mod I'm using is realchutes because it's too much of a pain to balance stock radial chutes for a flat decent.

In essence, it flies more like a rocket than a plane. No runway landing capability. I plan a descent that let's my stubby wings get me above the base and then drop in with parachute.

2Ib9t4q.jpg

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eddiew

eddiew

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Posted

Did someone say horribly asymmetric thrust from 3 rapiers and a nerva?

Actually it's not that bad; a pilot on prograde hold can keep things going right in space, and it's not capable of interplanetary shenanigans anyway.

Vjpcw5U.jpg

(Technically the only clipping is the nerva; the mk2 bi-adapters are in a cargo bay, so there's no fuel-in-fuel going on here.)

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SHiftER2O

SHiftER2O

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Hi guys!

I finally made my first liquid fuel only SSTO. It took half of my day (I never played with FAR or deadly reentry), but at the end, it went much better than I expected when I first played 1.0. 82 km orbit, and 900 m/s delta-v left. The best ascent profile I found is very simple: press T, press Z, go up at 35 degrees, turn on the nuclears at about 19 km, and shut down the air intakes when the turbojets flame out. I tried a lot of other profiles, but this was much better than anything else. I worried about heating, but it isn't a problem, the plane doesn't have time for overheating. The clamp-o-tron and the mk2 crew cabin is 2,6 t, so I think this plane can easily take 5 t, maybe 8 t payload up to LKO, or 2-3 t to KEO.

http://i.imgur.com/dUb6SEh.png

http://i.imgur.com/1XCZh9g.png

http://i.imgur.com/xDZqN2N.png

http://i.imgur.com/5VdSnEl.jpg

Sorry for my bad english, I'm still learning it.

HOW were you able to do that?

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eddiew

eddiew

Posted
Posted
HOW were you able to do that?

Looks like a steep ascent with a lot of turbojets; probably kicked him up to a 40-50km apoapsis. Triple nervas for 150kN of thrust is fairly respectable, particularly when you've got 30km altitude over which to be applying it :)

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SHiftER2O

SHiftER2O

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Looks like a steep ascent with a lot of turbojets; probably kicked him up to a 40-50km apoapsis. Triple nervas for 150kN of thrust is fairly respectable, particularly when you've got 30km altitude over which to be applying it :)

I've managed to attempt that, although it didn't get me that much high up than 30-45 range, after which I plummet back down. Dawns.

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eddiew

eddiew

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Posted
I've managed to attempt that, although it didn't get me that much high up than 30-45 range, after which I plummet back down. Dawns.

Not sure if you can get out of atmo with air engines anymore, but once you part company with your turbojet's thrust it's down to your rocket having enough TWR to circularise you. Or to push out the AP even further to give you more time to circularise later. Three nervas is pretty decent for that size of plane, and efficient enough that you can engage them down at 20km for a lot of burn time :)

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Redshift OTF

Redshift OTF

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Posted

Managed to make my own SSTO that can take an orange tank to LKO or rendezvous with a space station. It's quite a beast but this is the best I can do with 1.02 so far.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I am particularly proud of the intake clustering to make something that looks like a real engine. Needs a few more tweaks before I post it.

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kicsicsuvi

kicsicsuvi

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HOW were you able to do that?

The turbojets are so powerfull, at 20 km high the apoapsis is at 50-60 km. Here is the link for the modified version of that craft: it has bigger cargobay, and 940 m/s delta-v left on LKO with 5 t payload. The 3 nuclears and the 4 turbojets are the same (for nuclears, I use tri-coupler now), this is the maximum I'm able to do with them.

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AaronLS

AaronLS

Posted
Posted (edited)

Low tech SSTO. No pre-coolers, no rapier, no nuclear engine. Ram jets and nacelles are about the most advanced thing on here.

After doing some nose cone experiments, I am having a much better time using reversed tail connectors as a nose cone. I have a version of this with an inline cockpit, but I improved its weight by putting a protobodobodyne inside the cargo bay as the plane controller.

This plane is very stable during ascent, relatively to the others I've built. It feels fun, while the others felt like a fight. It doesn't like to glide though, so de-orbit has to be well planned and arrested over base with parachutes.

On my other planes, the ram air intakes were always the first to blow, hence why I now only use inline intakes or nacelles.

4 nacelles provide air intakes and ram jet fuel.

A Mk2 long adapter and duel engine adapter house the liquid engine fuel/oxidizer.

3 reversed Tail Connector type A help cut through the atmosphere (maybe the angled types would be better on the outer side)

2 ram jets power us up to around 1150 m/s at around ~22km altitude.

Once velocity starts dropping, even if the ram jets are still running, I kick in the liquid engines, and the extra speed keeps the ram jets fed a bit longer.

The two LV-909's have a really good ISP even at 24km altitude. They are just powerful enough to get the job done.

With the amount of fuel I had left, I can probably add another cargo slot and carry a just a tiny bit more and still have a wee bit of fuel to de-orbit.

Notice two protobodobodynes, one attached to the payload, the other is the controller for the SSTO.

JMuisXi.jpg

8uogU61.jpg

I gave up on my rocket style "flying fish" design because it depended on the protective nose cone shell shielding my payload, but somehow things inside it were still heating up and blowing up.

Edited by AaronLS
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fededevi

fededevi

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I made an ssto with the mk3 fuselage and the big cargo hold, the craft is basically lots of rocket fuel with a Mainsail and 12 TurboJets engine with one small tank each and one ramjet intake each which are the first things that overheat (still have to unlock better tech). Most of the work is done by the rocket anyway... it just barely touches 1200m/s at 25km with the Turbojets. I managed to bring 20 ton to orbit but I think it can get much more with better piloting.

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dfg26

dfg26

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Posted (edited)
No fair editing your post from 'SSTO' to 'Spaceplane.'

I edited that exactly 1 minute BEFORE you replied. /end of discussion. :P

Edited by dfg26
typo
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