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

[AnalogAddict]

My spaceplane entry, from the runway to orbit and back... three times without refueling.

Video available here.

Getting to orbit three times without refueling.

Image Album.

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[Stochasty]

Edit: now that I think about it, I seem to remember Stochasty had a working nuke-plane a while ago, but that was a fair bit heavier than this.

Yep. T'was in a post which got eaten by the kraken, but I still have the craft file lying around somewhere. She was 22 tons at takeoff, if I remember correctly.

In other news, after six months of effort, I finally have a working stock Eve Plane. She's 258 tons at takeoff, Kerbin SSTO capable (so she launches herself, sans staging, and refuels in orbit - note that I did not refuel her for the K-Prize run), and with staging she has ~12km/s delta-v. I've gotten her into orbit from 2.5km altitude on Eve with ~500m/s delta-v left in the tank and a somewhat inefficient flight plan. I doubt she can make it from sea level, but anywhere above 2km is probably doable.

Taking off from Kerbin:

Orbital insertion:

75km parking orbit:

On approach to KSC:

Landed:

Reentry was quite tricky; she was never designed to fly empty, to she's actually just slightly negatively stable and wants to reenter tail first. Once speed drops below ~200m/s in the atmosphere, it's relatively easy to get her turned around, and SAS can hold her pointed in the right direction as long as you don't make too sudden a heading change.

And now to show her doing what she was designed to do - returning from Eve:

Edited August 7, 2013 by Stochasty

[pa1983]

i don't want and i don't need your respect. Your ego it still so hight even when someone present in front of you something better than your construction you still don't recognize it. you don't have a x3m3 cargo bay able to transport winged craft first of all, the almost 116tons of useful fuel once in 120/100 km orbit for second and the absolute absence of glitch while as third, and careful it's still under tests. and after i've build this to proof you were wrong accusing my lack of skill ( you choose the wrong one and you should pay more attention ) i can confirm and subscribe there nothing extraordinary in building those .craft just an abuse for the CPU and for the physic engine. I confirm and subscribe there's an excessive abuse of the physic engine riding the infinite glide bug. that plane can land with the engine turned off and can fly at 40m/s without any problem once the cargo is empty.

What you haven't understand is this: i don't care a bug about how your craft fly because they are full stock and the physic engine permit to do so. You just needed a kick in the aSSAs due to your arrogance ego. As you can see i've made that craft in a 1 day and it is superior to any of your craft. if you can't admit that you are really blind, look at the numbers (at the right-top of the screen the green ones).

Now you will say you haven't brought nothing around, you cannot say that, well the numbers speak themselves and that craft have a bullet for any your task, i just need time to plan mission around.

the real problem of your crafts and why you don't have competitors is NOT because are hard to build and you are better than the other, but is YOUR COMPUTER better than the others ones. Realize it.

Personally i had to lower all the settings to have 1/5 frame and it's really boring to play like that.

p.s.

i can't see no real challenge in those lifters because you can always make a better one by just adding more engines and more wings and more intakes. i find really more harder and interesting and FUN building smaller SSTO craft, the fact is that i can transport a couple of my SSTO in the cargo of that one melting my CPU.

ASAAAA

I dont know what you get your ideas from. First you accuse me off infinite glide out of nowhere then you post some strange SSTO that I could care less about but sure bravo you made on. Then you accuse me of ridding high some how because I defend my self. And when I sad not every one is doing it was not the same as no one else is doing it. There are KSP players with faster hardware then I that do even bigger and crazier stuff. But I do think I have my own STYLE but thats not the same as "performance".

I have never sad Im the best I have just called people out on there lies about what I do. People like you.

I do wounder how you turn your craft, will power? Last time I checked they needed control surfaces and its not my fault how squade made them work but its not like I have more per ton then any other spaceplane.

And why should one not use lots of wings? Its a lot less heavy on the system with few engines and do real planes fly around with 24 engines and small wings? There all about efficiency this days.

How is it abuse to alter settings in the game that is there to be changed? I have run the physics settings on the lowest in the game for 6 months strait and not a problem. Why should I run it at default when its just slower. Its a click away. Not my fault people dont seem to bother changing it. Why did the devs put them there you think? How are you to decide how much time my CPU should spend in a game? Do you think a CPU is made to idle? Are you one of those people that thing your PC is faster if it only uses half its ram, what is the rest good for then? Im just wondering sens you seem egger to force you will on others. Who are you to decide how fast CPU I want or can afford?

Its obvious hows the one riding the high horse, your the one spreading lies and and assumes things and wants people to fallow your ideals.

I personally dont care how people play the game but I do care when they tell me how I should play and then I dont mean frendly suggestions but people like you. When they right out attack my way I do have a right to defend my self if they are telling lies. And yea any one can slap together a flying brick in a day. until you get more then two jumbo tanks in LKO I cant see how its better, not saying its worse tough sens I see no reason to degrade some once work either I like them or not. So fare I have not had a reason to hull 2 jumbos in to orbit, tonnage have proven less important then cargo bay size when one actually builds bases and space stations for me at least. Those that knows why I make my spaceplanes the way I do is not to make them the best or most efficient, in a game that would look less then a real craft. I do it for the challenge not because its better. Design is one of my criteria to spice it up. But you didnt know that did you. You just assume you know me and what motivates me. I also use stock parts because I like pushing the limits of the game. If people want to call that abuse, well fine with them, but a game is just a set of rules and you cant break them with out changing the code so if something dont work as the devs want its because the code didnt work as intended.

So yea if you want to build something that lifts more or takes more to other planets then me, fine why wold be offended by that? I have talked to other people that do exactly what I do and we get along just fine. But I would not take esthetic's ideas from your hullers sens a flying box is not that hard to make and get working and it docent look pleasing to me. But sure probably more efficient no denying that.

Any way we need to find some way to agree to disagree. Its quite obvious we wont get along so if you want to add something do that then we should drop this sens it wont go any where and the mods will just get upset.

So I'm out of this discussion, I have defended my self and thats all I can do.

Edited August 7, 2013 by pa1983

[Stochasty]

snip

snip

Could we try to keep the bickering out of the thread, please? Take it to pm if you must argue.

[pa1983]

I have been working on a STOL craft for Duna for some time.

The new terrain is hard to land horizontal on at high speeds so I needed something new.

The craft is not a heavy huller, tested it with 18.9T and I had fuel to spare. But its cargo bay is big so should hold enough stuff for most mission like rovers and such.

The need for engines for STOL capability and a stronger airframe then the jumbo and better landing gear support reduced the payload capacity. I could have mad it bigger but part count would just get so out of hand it would not be fun.But it fly nice and yea very stable craft. Its all stock and the nose can be opened to allow the cargo to roll out. This also made it possible to mount engines in the rear. Sens the jumbo tanks are housed in the nacelles I made a 3:e intake on the top like the L-1011 and added intakes there. They can be shut for reentry to avoid drag that would cause severe angle of attack.

I recorded the second mission I did after the final adjustments on the final prototype so a youtube video will becoming for those that are interested. Those that are not dont need to watch.

I named her Falcon XIII Galaxy STOL. Not fancy but Im bad at names

And I dont care what people think of how hard or easy it is to make, this was the fifth or sixth prototype from scratch sens 0.21 came out that did all I wanted close to perfectly. I want my crafts to be easy to fly no mater if its take off, ascending, reentry or landing or just doing a 180 turn with 90 degree bank. IVA landing works very well to with this craft so thats a plus.

Edited August 7, 2013 by pa1983

[AnalogAddict]

I have been working on a STOL craft for Duna

.... <omitted for brevity> ....

I recorded the second mission I did after the final adjustments on the final prototype so a youtube video will becoming for those that are interested. Those that are not dont need to watch.

I'm very interested in this, and seems you take the great care and diligence designing a useful space plane. I too employ a methodology in design to ensure the craft performs well during any phase of flight.

PM me the video when you get it up if you would, please sir.

[tavert]

Could we try to keep the bickering out of the thread, please? Take it to pm if you must argue.

Agreed. And holy crap your Eve plane is magnificent, well done. Mega-asparagus with wings!

[Stochasty]

Agreed. And holy crap your Eve plane is magnificent, well done. Mega-asparagus with wings!

Thanks! It was a royal pain to design - balancing delta-v requirements, TWR, lift, and structural integrity was a nightmare. Even after I finally had a good design for takeoff, I had to completely tear it apart and redo the wings to manage a good landing.

Also, I don't know what possessed me to try to put half the drop tanks above the wing, but I don't recommend it. I have to pitch up to >60 degrees for every staging event or the damned things crash into her tail.

I think I'm done with Eve for the foreseeable future. Next project: SSTO Eeloo return.

[pa1983]

I'm very interested in this, and seems you take the great care and diligence designing a useful space plane. I too employ a methodology in design to ensure the craft performs well during any phase of flight.

PM me the video when you get it up if you would, please sir.

Sure I try to remember to PM you. But you can use the link in my signature sens it will be on that youtube channel and craft files are in the descriptions on my vids. I hope to edit it to morrow then its a mater of uploading it to slow youtube but the next 24-48 hours it should be there I hope. Its not the best SSTO I have made in terms of payload but I settled for a lower payload so I could get a new referees point to go from for future crafts. Usually easier to improve once one have a design that works well.

[AnalogAddict]

Sure I try to remember to PM you. But you can use the link in my signature sens it will be on that youtube channel and craft files are in the descriptions on my vids.

That works as well! I'll check it out.

[kepicness]

i don't want and i don't need your respect. Your ego it still so hight even when someone present in front of you something better than your construction you still don't recognize it. you don't have a x3m3 cargo bay able to transport winged craft first of all, the almost 116tons of useful fuel once in 120/100 km orbit for second and the absolute absence of glitch while as third, and careful it's still under tests. and after i've build this to proof you were wrong accusing my lack of skill ( you choose the wrong one and you should pay more attention ) i can confirm and subscribe there nothing extraordinary in building those .craft just an abuse for the CPU and for the physic engine. I confirm and subscribe there's an excessive abuse of the physic engine riding the infinite glide bug. that plane can land with the engine turned off and can fly at 40m/s without any problem once the cargo is empty.

What you haven't understand is this: i don't care a bug about how your craft fly because they are full stock and the physic engine permit to do so. You just needed a kick in the aSSAs due to your arrogance ego. As you can see i've made that craft in a 1 day and it is superior to any of your craft. if you can't admit that you are really blind, look at the numbers (at the right-top of the screen the green ones).

Now you will say you haven't brought nothing around, you cannot say that, well the numbers speak themselves and that craft have a bullet for any your task, i just need time to plan mission around.

the real problem of your crafts and why you don't have competitors is NOT because are hard to build and you are better than the other, but is YOUR COMPUTER better than the others ones. Realize it.

Personally i had to lower all the settings to have 1/5 frame and it's really boring to play like that.

p.s.

i can't see no real challenge in those lifters because you can always make a better one by just adding more engines and more wings and more intakes. i find really more harder and interesting and FUN building smaller SSTO craft, the fact is that i can transport a couple of my SSTO in the cargo of that one melting my CPU.

ASAAAA

How hard is it to understand the fact that infiniglide is provocked by a massive spam off CONTROL SURFACES, NOT WINGS OR PANELS. wing or panels increase the LIFT of the plane. PA makes freakin fuselages, wich act as intended. He does NOT spam control surfaces... Its simply called good engineering. seriously, why should this not be possible?

[Apature rocket science]

I made a solar plane and had it slowly fly up to orbit, and it sugsessfuly landed at kerban,

It was 100 parts, most of them where solar panels, it used 2 iron engines and had 1400 exon gas.

[Tarmenius]

For my 0.21 submission, I decided to try for a two-Kerbal spaceplane. Through good use of the cubic strut, I was able to get an extra RAM intake per engine, allowing for a very comfortable fuel margin. The first SSTO 4, designated "Resparcia" reached a 100 x 100km orbit with enough fuel for rendezvous and de-orbit without the need for refueling.

Pre-launch in the VAB:

In orbit, just before performing the de-orbit burn, with Mun and Minmus visible in the background:

Re-entry successful, and on a good glide path to KSC. I would need to re-fire the jets to close the final 7 or so km and give me good control over the landing, but she handled very well under the light fuel load.

And after a textbook landing, the Resparcia quickly comes to rest. The crew appear happy to be back on Kerbin unscathed.

Always a fun time with the K-Prize!

[pa1983]

Yea nice plane. I also prefer the LV-45 for its vector trust compared to say the airospike and higher trust. Also the LV-30 offers more trust for lower tonnage so good if vector trust is not needed or to supplement the LV-45.

[Auriga]

Finally I can say I made it ... with a spaceballs inspired camper craft

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

Auriga, that is awesome!

[pa1983]

Falcon XIII Galaxy STOL on its first mission after prototyping was done.

A small 18.9 ton payload was delivered. Will try to increase that later and send something useful.

http://youtu.be/KtFSIWnvfmk

[Tw1]

. PA makes freakin fuselages, wich act as intended. He does NOT spam control surfaces... Its simply called good engineering.

Exactly. This is what an infiniglider looks like:

The only thing you could possibly accuse PA of is airhogging from time to time, but his planes are awesome.

Finally I can say I made it ... with a spaceballs inspired camper craft

-snip-

This is awesome. Yay for KSP aerodynamics!

[pa1983]

I would never denial doing airhogging

The day I stop intake spam is the day we have proper intakes and aerodynamics.

[Stochasty]

Linking this, since it also qualifies.

By the way, tavert, in response to our discussion in the other thread:

13.5 tons bipropellant, 4 small jet fuel tanks, two turbojets, one nuke, and 30 intakes. She has too much jet fuel, actually; I wound up bleeding off 180 units of liquid fuel before the second Mun transfer.

[Limes]

Four easy(ish) ideas to reduce intake abuse:

- Remove the ability of most parts to transmit the "IntakeAir" fuel. Having parts such as small cubic struts be able to act as a fuel crossfeed for intake air is ridiculous. Restricting it to just jet fuel tanks, those bi/tri/quad coupler parts, and possibly a few others (e.g. the inline docking port) should remove the ability of people to mount air intakes on wings, in long "barrels", or in front of rocket motors (that are away from jet engines). They should really only work if they're mounted directly in front of the jets themselves.

- Increase the weight of the intakes to an appreciable fraction of the engines themselves. This idea was discussed above.

- Give intakes a maximum operating speed. If your craft is covered in re-entry flames, air intakes ought not to work.

- Greatly increase the drag of intakes. If you've got an enormous flat surface of 20 intakes on your craft, a single turbojet ought not to have enough oomph to propel what is essentially an enormous barn door into space from low altitudes.

What do people think? I'm not a fan of simply reducing the number of intakes allowed per engine, as it seems rather arbitrary and unphysical. If you want to slap a ridiculous number of intakes onto some mushrooming array of bi/tri/quad couplers in front of your engine, you should be allowed to do so - HOWEVER, your design should have to cope with some slightly more realistic engineering challenges of doing so. You shouldn't *want* to design the style of intake abuse craft we see in current versions, because it shouldn't be an *efficient* way of doing things. For example, there's nothing stopping you slapping 20 orange fuel tanks on top of a rockomax poodle engine, but nobody does it because it's a stupid way to design a craft.

[pa1983]

No I dont like the idea as I have discussed before to.

Im no expert but I think many suggestions are based on the illusion that the way KSP intake system works is that is some how is based close enough on reality but its not. Once you relise that patching the system dont seem like a good idea any more.

Air intake should be limited to what the engines need. If we have a Unit for that instead that would be better. Real jet engines consume a specific number of cubic meters of air at full power. A J79 I think uses 45 cubic meters a second. So jets should simply have a number like that then a intake should have en equal number so for example a big intake could handle 50 cubic meters and a turbojet engine could consume 50 cubic meters. Smaller radial intakes might supply 25 cubic meters of air. And the intakes cant take in more then the jets digest, after all the jets that suck the air in not the other way around even if intake to some degree can force air in once at high speeds. Then the second factor is density and that is determent by altitude so jets should simply have altitude limits.

So a simple equation should state something like "if intake air capacity is equal or grater then the total consumption of the jet engines combined and the density determent by altitude is equal or less then the maximum then the engines should run if else they should flame out from oxygen starvation.

last important bit is intake air temperature. Jets need air to cool them. About 3/4 of the air is cooling air and not used for actual combustion. And temperature rises with speed due to friction on the air so thats why skylon will have a precooler or it could never go to mach 5.5 sens the air entering the jets would be a 1000C and destroy it.

So no "PATCHING" the system that is BROKEN wont fix anything. Making parts heavier or other ideas that dont fix an unrealistic system that still would allow insane speeds with no penalty is just dumb in the end and more intakes then air the engines could consume would still offer difference in engine performance when it comes to altitude and thats not realistic either. Altitude sealing should remain the same more or less.

Intakes might be heavier depending on the type. High speed intakes with variable intake nozzle could be heavier due to there complexity sens craft flying at supersonic speeds still require subsonic air for the jets and thats what the intakes do on those crafts to allow for those high speeds. Turbofan intakes could offer more trust for the same fuel by having a fan with bypass ratio but be limited to subsonic speeds. Then there could be Turbojet intakes for lower supersonic speeds with intermediate fuel consumption. Just some of the possibilitys with a better system. Turbofan part could be bigger in radius then the engine so 1.5 meter part maybe? suitable for planes more then space planes. Radial intakes could be light but limited to lower Mach numbers and have higher drag sens they could not be closed.

Precooler part could be added to cool air for spaceplanes needing speeds past mach 3 and they should be heavy sense they make up most of the tonnage in therms of engine parts.

Also a simple formula there for temperature could be added. Overheating and destruction of engines should start at mach 3 with out precooler. If a precooler is fitted, one to etch engine mach 5.5 should be maximum before overheating sens one precooler should be enough to lower the air to room temperature. If there are half as many precoolers as jets one should have a maximum speed of some where in between, I would think tough that temperature dont rise linearly so some exponential scale might be in order there but still not a problem for a programmer even with low skills.

So no I personally dont like "patching" ideas of the old broken system. Fix the old system by replacing it so its realistic. Sense people complain about everything else in KSP not being realistic why should intake system just be something that is totally fiction in KSP? Recuse as it is now its fiction, do not work at all like reality, not even close with the current bucket system. No amount of increasing part weight, not allowing intakes to be mounted on some parts will fix that. People can still get around that. Only thing that will make people build spaceplanes that even more imitates real world concepts is a system based on reality.

And all those factors can be put in to a simple formula to control flameout, temperature and power output.

Edited August 9, 2013 by pa1983

[Limes]

You've got some good ideas, but I'm not sure they should necessarily be adopted either. Two reasons - firstly I think adding specific precooler parts etc is too complex for your average user. We don't have separate fuel pump or ullage motor parts to go with our liquid rocket fuel tanks, they're assumed to be included in the tank. Similarly, I think precoolers can be assumed to be included in the intake part. I do like your temperature limits idea though - perhaps the intake could overheat at a given speed/density combination, with different intakes having different limits (the ram air intake part can withstand higher speeds, but with a cost of higher weight, for example).

Secondly, the whole point of adding separate "intake" parts is to try to give the user some engineering control over how the engines perform at the "edge of the envelope". If you were designing a jet engine for a planet/moon with a thin atmosphere such as Laythe, one of the things you'd do would be give it large air intake area to allow it to cope with the thin atmosphere, and the current system allows this. Setting hard altitude/density limits is too restrictive, and if you're going to do that it begs the question as to why the air intake is a separate part at all. I do, however, like the idea about keeping track of the maximum air required. If you have too much intake area for your engines, there should perhaps be large drag penalties.

[pa1983]

Yea why did you think I suggested different intakes? Did you even read that? Because they have different uses on different craft if they are subsonic or supersonic. Also how is adding a precooler to complex? The part is already in KSP but no one uses it because its none functional. Probably because theres no way atm a jet overheats unless another engine is aimed at it. The air intake system is from what I read most likley gonna be redone so one could assume that part will be useful one day.

Jet engines are altitude limited so why should that not be realistically modeled like other parts of the game? There are already different engines in the game. No one sees there cant be different engines with different altitude sealing. If you want to alter the sealing your basically saying that we should have intake abuse. Howl point with a new system is to set a practical limit just like we have on earth with jets. In campaine mode better engines could be unlocked with higher sealing.

But I suppose in theory you could have an afterburner, the jet would shut of and the afterburner would open bypass valves. I think The SR-71 blackbird do something like that. But it cost a lot of fuel. So the penalty would be increase fuel use when the "core" of the engine cant sustain it self. There are lots of possibility with a more realistic system. What we need is people with knowledge in this area lobbying to make the devs pay attention.

Ram air intake make NO sens for jets in my opinion. Sure if you could compress enough air and then having it expand to increase the pressure even more and move at subsonic speeds it might work but I dont know of jets that do that at least not for the air going to the compressor. Compressor can increase pressure up to 40 atmospheres in a modern engine any way.

Also getting of laythe is easy as it is now. Lower gravity and less delta V required and lower atmospheric sealing makes it super easy as is. if your craft can get of kerbin it wont have any problems on laythe. Real problem would be that a engine for kerbin might not work in Laythe due to the low atmospheric pressure if its not started in a higher atmospheric pressure first. But Im not sure how modern gasturband handles that. But its not uncommon for helicopters not to shut there gasturbin when landing at high altitudes due to the problem of restarting sens there is not enough air compressed by the compressor until its gets up to self sustaining RPM to compensate for the low atmosphere.

So no I cant see any need for special intakes for laythe sens I dont think there are any once made for such an application this days. An engine made for that condition makes more sens then.

But any way such small details could be ignored, but sealing could scale with the atmosphere sou you could not fly as high with jets on laythe but it would be proportional to kerbin. But ram air intakes dont make much sens for jets as fare as Im concerned. Its not a scram jet or ram jet. And scram jets and ram jets have no moving parts so the intake is the compressor for a scram jet therefor its called a ram air intake. But jets have compressors so ram air intake should ithere be scraped or only work for ram and scram jets. But scramjets are inefficient. They require high mach numbers to even fire up so they use solid boosters to get the craft up to high enough mach numbers then when the scram is fired up the booster is jettisoned. Ram jets can be started if I recall if it supplied with pressurized air first like the V1 rocket.

This is my idea of a precooler and intake for KSP taken directly from the SKylon.

The Airospike engine is the intake for ilustrative perposes. The nose cone could be animated to close if shut with an actionkey. It could also move forward at high speeds to animate the control of airintake to maintain subsonic speeds of the air for the engine.

The Precooler exist in KSP but has no use atm. Not the best look tough sens it would actually use the liquid hydrogen fuel to cool the air before the fuel is burnt by the jet engine.

I cant see how hard that would be, less intakes and one more part that those that actually tries to build good spaceplanes would use. And if you cant figure out what it dose from the description, most would probably after som playing with the game others would find out tough forum or other means just like they do with other parts in the game.

A precooler also adds the tonnage penalty some want for high speed spaceplanes on jets with out doing it for people that dont want that part to keep the craft light if its just a plane of very small SSTO.

making intakes heavier seems dumb to me. I tough about that concept but concluded that intakes are an integral part of the airframe so theres no reason to assume that if a craft could be designed with out it that it would be significant lighter sens the intake might offer structural stability that would have been added in another way instead. So a small penalty for a simple intake makes sens. For complex once like the skylons or sr-71 blackbirds with adjustable nosecone a heavier one makes sens.

But this are just my armature opinions. People with the education in the subject could probably give good ideas of what would be optimal configurations for the different parts and how equations should look.

But ether way the intake system needs to be redone to something that is better.

But a precooler is a MUST for a realistic SSTO to make sens. That part I want. Adds tonnage as penalty but speed as the bonus, better intake system reduced part count. Its a win for most players as I see it.

Edited August 10, 2013 by pa1983

[jaws909]

My submission, the A-15 "Skyshark"

http://www.filedropper.com/a-15skyshark

Reaching orbit

Deorbit burn using up last bit of oxidizer

Reentry

Back under jet power

The finish line is in sight!

Home sweet home! Note the fuel level...