The K Prize - 100% reusable spaceplane to orbit and back

[boolybooly]

Thankyou all for your mission reports. Congratulations to carazvan and Jean Deaux on completing the K-Prize challenge in style making good use of the vast array of excellent new spaceplane parts available in 0.25. Big thanks to porkjet for making this happen and Squad too of course. Links added to the guest list aka roll of honour for v0.25. Particular mention should be made of carazvans Utilitarial Commendation for an efficient satellite launch and Jean Deaux's mission video with additional atmospheric Kerbal transmission sound effects.

RocketBlam, thanks for your report screens, glad to see the successful orbit PE, just one thing, did the Wee Bee manage to land safely?

Edited October 13, 2014 by boolybooly

[Thorium]

Here's my attempt to make a spaceplane. This plane is my first ever successfull SSTO I have made that's actually working. This install is (almost) entirely stock, I'm just using KER for flight stats.

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[Lou]

Very popular post, so forgive me if this design has been done before. Just under 10 tons at liftoff, drops an orbital probe around Minmus before heading home. Click here for more images.

[Valericson]

Hi guys! My first post here. Sharing my Kerbin Service Space Station with SSTO shuttles attached.

This guy is happy with awesome payload lifted up. Voyage across Kerbol system for a next decade is provided.

[zilfondel]

Hi, I'd like to submit my 'SSTO B' to this challenge. I just completed it a few days ago, and have flown a couple of missions into Kerbin orbit with it. So far, I have succeeded in taking a cargo of 6 kerbals to an orbit of 200 km x 510 km and back, safely landing at the KSC runway. Fully stock, .25, no mods (not even Kerbal Engineer).

Stats:

CAPACITY: 6 kerbals to orbit

loaded mass: 21.33 tons

dry mass: 11 tons

fuel: 975

ox: 825

mono: 175

power: 2 x RAPIER, 2 x TurboJet Engine

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Edited October 16, 2014 by zilfondel

[cheeseit]

Well here's my shuttle. I've been using it to take a pretty hefty probe into orbit and then coming home. I then take up a small rocket to attach to the probe so I don't have to do a month long burn to reach a planet. Here's the first half of my mission to Jool and Laythe. It is really stable on the way up but as it comes in to land it tends spin wildly out of control until I can reel it back in and when I go to land it tends to go nose up as shown by the wheelie in the last pic. I couldn't find a way to add a ASAS unit that would look nice so I never did but that would help quite a bit.

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Edited October 15, 2014 by cheeseit

[TheFlyingPigs]

Do we have to land back in the KSC?

[hebdomad]

Do we have to land back in the KSC?

No, but it is worth the extra challenge...

[djnekkid]

Roughly 2 years ago I posted this video in this thread:

Now, two years later we have all kinds of 'easy mode' engines, aka the Rapier engine.

I decided to make this craft a 2014-replica of the original. I do have video captured, but atm no time to make somthing usefull out of it.

Took some screencaps, and added them to a imgur gallery.

I call the craft, USS Kenterprise

Here they are

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[TheFlyingPigs]

Well here is my Entry, with cool thumbnail!

Have Fun!

Edited October 19, 2014 by TheFlyingPigs

[manni01]

I've made a reusable mun ssto. It wasn't made for this challenge, but I might as well

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Its special because it has two turbos behind each other so, flame out will not be an issue. Action groups:

1 - toggle first Jet engine

2 - toggle second Jet engine

3 - toggle nuclear engine

4 - toggle intakes

10 - toggle cargo bays

The cargo bays just make it look cooler. If you return from the mun and if you can land back at KSC (which I can't), you can open the cargo bays and refuel. Make sure to leave away around 200 oxidizer when refueling.

If you don't believe it can go:

Download

[Spartwo]

Kiwi mk2 crew transport

1100m/s before rockets kick in.

100km orbit.

Coming down(at 4x warp )

Too bad there wasn't anything up there to rendezvous with.

[GoSlash27]

My first SSTO for version .25: The Butterfly Mk.1.

Successful SSTO to the KSS, rendezvous & docking, crew transfer, and return to the KSC.

13.1 tonnes and 31 parts.

http://s52.photobucket.com/user/GoSlash27/slideshow/KSP/Butterfly

No funny business on this one. It's all legit physics.

Does transferring 4 crew to orbit count as utilitarial commendation?

Best,

-Slashy

Edited October 21, 2014 by GoSlash27

[boolybooly]

Thanks all and congratulations to those who completed the K-Prize. Accomplishments and links added to the Roll of Honour aka the Guest List. Let me know if I bodged anything.

Lou did Lou's Space Plane make a safe landing, the mission report was missing a landed screeny !? Likewise Spartwo, did yours land safely?

Cheeseit lovely craft but are those wings stock ?!

[Lou]

Lou did Lou's Space Plane make a safe landing, the mission report was missing a landed screeny !?

Crap! Can't believe I forgot to take that screenshot! Yes, it landed fine, but I wouldn't ask you to take my word for it. Besides, I think I can do better! New entry inbound...

[boolybooly]

Your word is good here Lou, thanks, so I linked and logged your mission. It would still be interesting to see how it landed though.

[numerobis]

Can I crash the gates with a vertical-launch SSTO?

I've been using variations on this contraption to rescue Kerbals from orbit, and to launch deep-space probes.

The advantage is you don't need very advanced science:

- survivability (LV-909)

- flight control (stayputnik)

- aerodynamics (basic jet and radial intakes)

- either science tech (batteries) or electrics (solar panels)

Later you can improve the model as you unlock better technologies.

To fly, I set up an action to close all but two of the radials. On launch, I hit that action, throttle up to max, and go nearly straight up, about 85 degrees. Eventually, once we're above 15km or so, I have to reopen the extra intakes and I start to pitch over to about 60 degrees. Later, I start to lose thrust for lack of airflow. Keep following the prograde marker to keep airflow as high as possible. You should be able to reach well over 30km by now, with about 400-500 m/s horizontal speed. The second before you start to lose altitude, fire up the rockets! Close all intakes and turn off the jet once you hit 700 m/s or so, which won't be but a few seconds.

The rescuers reach orbit, with a few hundred m/s deltaV to do the rendez-vous. The deep space probes add too much mass; I get up to about 80km but periapsis is still below the surface, so I end up landing clear on the other side of Kerbin. I show there the Munshot 2, which got that payload to sub-orbit (I had a contract to test the 24-77); unfortunately, that probe ran out of fuel on the descent to Mun. The Munshot 3 (not pictured) lightened up the probe and benefited from a contract to test the LV-1R, so it can get much further.

With the science from the Munshot 3 I got access to turbojets, so this line is about to get modified drastically.

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[Spartwo]

Thanks all and congratulations to those who completed the K-Prize. Accomplishments and links added to the Roll of Honour aka the Guest List. Let me know if I bodged anything.

Lou did Lou's Space Plane make a safe landing, the mission report was missing a landed screeny !? Likewise Spartwo, did yours land safely?

Cheeseit lovely craft but are those wings stock ?!

A couple times(It's my new CTV)

[Kokanee]

New entry, "Das LuftVogel"

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75x75km orbit, released payload (comm sat) and returned to KSP.

100% stock aside from mechjeb (I've got a separate stock install now, to avoid "gatecrasher" status)

Edited October 24, 2014 by Kokanee

[Overfloater]

Gotta stay up to date, so here's my new entry.

Astroliner X Saturn:

At first i was worried about all my previous planes gaining an extra 3 tonnes, but thanks to the new wing's larger size I managed to use less of them.

The fuel capacity is the same as the "extended range" variant of the VIII (which I never flew to Laythe), so I had more spare fuel than ever before xD

The cargo weights 22 tonnes. I minimized the weight by draining all the monoprop, but apparently I didn't have to. the plane could probably handle at least 25t...

===

Other than that, this plane isn't particularly good. Tilt tail was a bad idea: when the flaps tilt, the tail bends the other way and counteracts them.

So it flies like a pile of poo.

I have no idea why anyone would wanna fly this poop, but here's the craft file.

Edited October 25, 2014 by Overfloater

[Toxicblue]

I uninstalled near for this.. the soup was awful

The Ugly betty doesn't look great, but she held it together for simple SSTO and re-entry

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I really should have shrunk that album some more

Pretty sure that's it. Ran *really* tight on fuel but jeb does it again!

Time to reinstall near

[Roflcopterkklol]

White lightning mk2

Description: Part count -699 (100% stock)

This SSTO carries up to 5000 lf/ox into a 200km+ orbit and is completely reusable once depleted, it can also serve the purpose of a rescue vessel, transport ship (I do not like your chances of getting it to dock with something though) or even a single stage to mun and return vehicle.

Quite easy to fly and fairly stable in the atmosphere, SAS only required if you are lazy.

Not tested on FAR or NEAR

Flight instructions:

After take off pitch up to 25 degrees, turn SAS on and enjoy the scenery, at around 35,000m you will need to switch rapiers to closed cycle and turn the nuclear engines on, at around 38,000m you will need to shut down the turbo jets, continue from here until orbit.

You can orbit this much more efficiently if you know how to fly an air hogger, it will do 2000m/s+ in the atmosphere.

Action groups:

1 Toggle turbo jets

2 Toggle rapiers

3 Toggle rapier engine mode

4 Toggle nuclear engines

Resources:

Download link:

http://www./download/i3joocrfij76s5q/White+Lightning+mk2.craft

Some pictures because why not?

Download link:

http://www./download/i3joocrfij76s5q/White+Lightning+mk2.craft

Edited October 27, 2014 by Roflcopterkklol

[Tarmenius]

I'm really loving the new design options afforded by the new spaceplane parts! And this craft is quickly becoming one of my favorite creations. It reminds me of a muscle car from the late 50's: sleek yet powerful.

I call it the Thresher:

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It's pretty much only good for pleasure trips to LKO, or to rescue kerbals in style. But it flies well and as long as the intakes are closed at high speeds, it glides well, too.

[AstroDoc]

Rescue spaceplane

I'm playing a custom moderate-to-hard game on version 0.25 (I'm at the stage when I still need 'revert' capability), but I still needed something harder than moderate for a challenge. I haven't done a Mun mission yet in this particular game.

I wanted a rescue space plane for the Kerbals that get stuck in orbit and need rescue, because I wanted a cheap solution to this recurrent problem.

Surprisingly, from my son's point of view, I have only just become interested in space planes, and this is one of my earlier crafts.

I had traded some Kerbal currency for some science to get my science tree opened up, for the parts required.

Forum posts tend to be hard on chair users, so I wanted pod. I do wonder if bringing home a Kerbal in a chair is close to Kerbal cruelty, so I somewhat agree with them. Forum posts tend also to be hard on ugly craft, but the more I use this one the more I like the look of it. I did hire a Citroen 2CV (an 'ugly duckling' car) to tour Europe many years ago, and I became fond of the look of that vehicle in the end too.

So here we have a basic functional spaceplane. I've tweaked it to have '72' fuel and '55' oxidiser on takeoff, and the pod is empty. Cost 11885. Mass 2.71 t.

I can rescue the Kerbal and bring him/?her back to the runway. I get 11821 Kerbal currency back on return home. Rescue cost 64.

My son is an advanced user. His takeoff is more aggressive than mine. He uses a touch more fuel but even less oxidiser. He'd likely cope with a '72' '44' tweaked plane.

AstroDoc

Edited October 29, 2014 by AstroDoc

[Plusk]

@Tarmenius Terrific design. Looks like a spider from the front. Loving it