Help Me Learn How To: Vertical Launch Shuttles/Space Planes (like IRL)

[GoSlash27]

I'm pretty sure this will cause rapid disassembly

Nikky,

At this point, how could you be "pretty sure" about anything in this area? You're the one with the rapid disassembly problem!

JoCRaM's advice is sound.

[JoCRaM]

[GoSlash27]

http://www.scratchpad.eclipse.co.uk/ksp/sshot/full/rocket_assisted_plane_ascent.jpg

http://www.scratchpad.eclipse.co.uk/ksp/sshot/full/rocket_assisted_plane_orbit.jpg

*Snort*

+rep

-Slashy

[NikkyD]

Fair enough, now i have to figure out where to get the extra dV as the budget was already tight and those wings are not for free :/

[GoSlash27]

Fair enough, now i have to figure out where to get the extra dV as the budget was already tight and those wings are not for free :/

You don't have to add wings. You don't even have to add control fins. Just put the drag in the back like I said.

-Slashy

Edited May 31, 2015 by GoSlash27

[viktor19]

Make a copy of your SSME-equivalent, edit it's cfg so it has bigger gimbal range. If you feel guilty just increase your price. That's how I made my Shuttle able to lift a 40-ton payload.

[NikkyD]

@slashy, the idea was to drop only the orange tanks when out of the atmosphere and so on. The 2 long 1.25m tanks are supposed to circ the orbit and reach kerbin SOI. Plane has 2 909s and i wanted to use them for as many things as possible so i stacked tanks.

[GoSlash27]

@slashy, the idea was to drop only the orange tanks when out of the atmosphere and so on. The 2 long 1.25m tanks are supposed to circ the orbit and reach kerbin SOI. Plane has 2 909s and i wanted to use them for as many things as possible so i stacked tanks.

All well and good. You can kick off the Jumbos with a couple sepratrons and proceed.

The point is that you can't have all the drag in the nose of the rocket and expect it to not flip out. so long as you have more drag in the back than you do in the front, it'll fly fine.

Also, those Mainsails have about twice the thrust needed for this job. You could add a whole lot of DV just by increasing the fuel.

-Slashy

Edited May 31, 2015 by GoSlash27

[NikkyD]

The design is far from perfect as i have been trying to stabilize it this way.

I didnt expect the wings to cause ANY sidelift at all as i didnt plan for any deviation from 90° below 25 km

[GoSlash27]

The design is far from perfect as i have been trying to stabilize it this way.

I didnt expect the wings to cause ANY sidelift at all as i didnt plan for any deviation from 90° below 25 km

Well, you live and you learn

You will always have deviations. Even in real life, there's something out there to toss you around a bit.

Whether it's a rocket or airplane, you want it to naturally seek a stable attitude when disturbed. Rockets with the drag in the back naturally tend to point where they're going. Rockets with the drag in the front naturally want to fly backwards.

-Slashy

[NikkyD]

I WOULD put foldable wings on that sucker and put it in a fairing alltogether... and im pretty sure "there is a mod for that"

The design wasnt by choice

[GoSlash27]

I WOULD put foldable wings on that sucker and put it in a fairing alltogether... and im pretty sure "there is a mod for that"

The design wasnt by choice

They rarely are

Best,

-Slashy

[Falkenherz]

I had a similar "topwards-drag" problem and to a certain extend managed to work around with doing two things: Even more drag at the bottom and throttle speed down as much as possible until you reach thinner air at 30km upwards. You´ll need more dV than normal ofc.

[JoCRaM]

As far as I can tell this has the same mass as your original (the canards are slightly heavier than the winglets on the tail they replaced, and the strakes slightly heavier than the winglets on the tanks, so it's roughly even)

By moving the wings to the back, and the control surfaces to the front, I've moved the sidelift closer to the centre of mass, and the control further away, where the extra leverage helps.

It is still unstable, but well within SAS abilities

It seems to fit your mission profile - I escaped from Kerbin with almost full tanks - I doubt I was efficient as I've never done it before - I just kept burning prograde. It also glides with empty tanks (and SAS)

Edited June 1, 2015 by JoCRaM

[ajburges]

While not a space plane, I finally got my shiny new multi mission space craft to orbit. It is essentially a long Mk2 stack powered by two nukes, 2 km/s of nuke fuel, equivalent chemical fuel storage (to act as a lander refueler), docking ports and Klaw. Being a Mk2 craft, it has a lot of body lift that is barely barely balanced buy small tail wings. So while it wasn't designed to go lower than airbrake altitude, it has similar issues to a shuttle.

The easiest launch vehicle I could devise was 2 mainsails, 4 orange tanks, and 8 fleas for 3.2 to 3.7 km/s dV. 6 complete delta wings (wing, elveron 2+3) were placed at the bottom to keep stability at the transonic barrier and provide control authority (only torque was 48 kN from final stage and the mainsails). Lift drops off before drag, so I think the elverons did more to keep it stable.

On an off note, will probably redesign the ship instead of using it for the fleet. Have the full TWR I want (.3+), but the Mk2 body to get that on two nukes is long enough to make fine maneuvers with the claw a pain. Don't think it will make a good klaw craft because of that. Plus 100k is a large investment for a klaw craft.

Has anyone tried drogue chutes for launch stability yet? That would be an interesting source of drag.

[11of10]

Personally, I wouldn't much bother with a lifter that has off axis thrust, but if you really want to, you can try this:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107802

It's called Throttle controlled avionics.