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

[Troma3D]

Hi,

here is my entry to the K prize challenge

with a 2.53t playload

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[Gravaar]

Bugger Just saw Waffles mini space plane now going to have to try

Edited October 2, 2013 by Gravaar

[pa1983]

I've built a new version of my Ventura SSTO.

It gets to orbit with loads of fuel. She's 100% stock, weighs 210t. I think I'm going to try and land it on Eeloo.

351 intake air? that's 1755 stock intakes.

Must be something wrong here because one could easily run 12 torbojets at 100% throttle at 33-34km on 12 intakes per engine and reach speeds off 2000m/s or more at 210 tons and easily climb to 40-44km altitude on jets alone.

With all those intakes reaching orbital speeds and even slingshot in to space would be doable.

This do not make sens, firring rockets at 31km altitude and 1800m/s with so much potential intake air don't make sens. I'm just wondering what's going on here because that intake capacity is odd.

Edited October 3, 2013 by pa1983

[drewscriver]

I'm seeing lot of radial intakes; if there were many more of them hidden, that could explain the /351 figure, as each radial intake adds .5/1

[boolybooly]

Hi the scientist. The short answer is that non stock fuel sources are not eligible for K Prize missions. You wouldn't get an official invite to the K Prize party but you could try your luck as a gatecrasher though if you wanted to demonstrate the technology !

Moar Boosters, a magnificant vehicle, will be interested to see what it can accomplish.

Technical Ben, thanks for your entertaining video, a powerful looking SSTO craft but definitely a vertical takeoff and consequently doomed to be linked as a gate crasher hope you dont mind the honorary quip which is de rigeur for all gate crashers and quite the badge of infamy.

WafflesToo, congratulations on returning to your winning ways with an interesting selection of upbeat music accompanying the video of attempted spaceplanes, some love the singing hamster but I know opinion may be divided on that! In any case without wishing to give away the ending ... VeryTinyPlane wins the coveted Advanced Pilot Precision Award and a place on the guest list.

Troma3D, congratulations to you too for succeeding in winning an Utilitarial Commendation with your payload to orbit and Advanced Pilot Precision Award thanks to a deft landing with an elegant looking craft, which remains nameless until you care to name it

[pinolallo]

FatNose "Rondine"

Specs:

Weight: 9.76 Tons

DryWeight: 7.86 Tons

Cost: 46.92 M$

Crew Capacity: 5

Parts Count: 97

Kerbal/fuel x mission: .384 Tons

Full balanced Rcs

Nose Shielded Docking Port

Full Ladder access (both from the P10 than from the MKII cockpit)

Surface Speed: 2230 m/s (35000 mts)

Mission Profile:

SpacePort->Orbit (122 km)->Orbital Rendezvous->Docking->Deorbit->KSC landing.

Full mechjeb compatible.

Exceptional flying in ANY load condition

Amphibious Version/Stock Version (mechJeb)

I spent some time to create this tool. The main goal of the project was to create a crew Transport SSTO with the lowest Mission/cost profile. This SSTO was created to be VERY easy to fly (extremely balanced in any load condition), with a few part counts and under the 10 tons of weight. I did many SSTO's and this one is probably the ugliest I make, but probably is second to no one in terms of performance, flying quality and mission cost. Just think about the weight and the crew capacity. The data are related to the Amphibious version.

I deeply tested all specs.

K-price mission is related to the Amphibious version.

here some pics (with data so you can make your considerations)

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Edited October 4, 2013 by pinolallo

[WafflesToo]

Wish I could make a STTO plane like yours WafflesToo, especially the mini one.

Aaaaaaah, thanks. Don't be hard on yourself, spaceplanes are hard! I'm still getting schooled on a regular basis.

A few tips that work for me:

1) Balance the plane!

Turn on the CoM and CoL indicators, the blue arrow should be just behind the yellow ball. If it's too far behind you won't be able to pick the nose up. But if it gets in front then the plane will tend to flip, like it did during my second attempt.

2) Have enough wing.

The total lift rating should be at least half the mass of the plane.

3) Put your fuel tanks on the CoM

That will keep your CoM from shifting around too much during flight.

4) Expect to fail, a lot.

But don't let it discourage you. Try to learn from it.

5) Throttle back

Once you get much over 20km you'll want to start easing off the throttle to keep the jet engine from flaming out. You'll want to be al the way down to 1/4 throttle or less by 30km.

Good luck and keep flying!

[VincentS]

Hi there,

Here is my entry for the most convoluted gatecrasher mission...

It comes with a story, so let's start with it !

KSC conference room :

- OK, we cannot fail this mission, sponsor have been wait for this kerbaled Duna landing for ages. So let's review the details one more time...

BBBBOOOOOOMMMM !

- What was that ?

- I think it's the VAB. Jeb said the engine required some heavy tuning...

20 minutes later

- Well, as you all know, Jeb just started some VAB improvements work. The bad news is that the Duna rocket cannot be assembled in a timely fashion. Some rumor stated that Jeb has destroyed the VAB by unintentionnaly blowing a rocket. This is obviously kermunist bull**** propaganda, as we all know that Jeb would never detonate something UNINTENTIONALLY...

However, we have a problem : how can we put Jeb on Duna without a rocket ? Has anyone an idea ?

... Silence ... more silence ...

- We could send a plane ?

- We have no such plane, and no time to design one -- if even such a thing it is possible !

- Well, if one can't do it, then we'll have to sent two !

- Yes, that's the spirit! Jeb would be proud of you ! OK everybody, you have two hours to come up with a solution ! Go to your study and come back with every available plane design.

2 hours later

- So we have two planes available for building : one unmanned SSTO refuelling plane, and a manned SSTO designed for Duna landing, but lacking range. What's the plan ?

- Fuel plane drops fuel tank in orbit and return, Jeb uses the other plane to rendez-vous and pickup fuel, flies to Duna, lands and comes back.

- I like your plan ! Let's do it now !

- What about delta V budget ? Will it be enough ?

- Do you have reason to believe it will not be enough ?

- Well, I did no such computation...

- So, that's settled. Let's go to work !

And thus started Jeb Odyssey to Duna (and back. Maybe...)

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Summary of the mission failure :

Jeb's plane : went to Duna and back, with safe landing. But it used an additional fuel tank and had to jettison both the fuel tank and turbojet engine after taking off from Duna (I had not enough dv with them attached to come back on Kerbin)

Fuel plane : the first one "landed", but only a few pieces remains after I messed up lithobraking. The second one is stranded on Orbit.

I believe that it is possible to make it to Duna and back using two planes (or maybe 3) using orbital reassembly, and land everything (no jettison) back on Kerbin after landing on Duna. That would technically make a Duna capable distributed ssto...

Maybe I'll try again sometime later.

PS : I used no mod. I learned a lot about planes planning and doing this mission, including piloting... But I still have lot to learn !

[WafflesToo]

@pinolallo: The 'FatNose' is a fascinating plane, so much so I reconstructed it on my own (don't have the seaplane mod so I had to use regular landing gear which upped the weight a bit). I reworked the wings a little bit so they had some positive dihedral angle and pushed the CoL forward to improve the balance a little bit but I'm not getting anywhere near the advertised performance; my best so far is 1.5 km/s @ 30km before the motor flamed out (and that's with the throttle pulled back three-ticks from being shut down entirely). How are you doing it?

EDIT: also, where are you hiding the RCS tanks?!

Edited October 5, 2013 by WafflesToo

[WafflesToo]

WafflesToo, congratulations on returning to your winning ways with an interesting selection of upbeat music accompanying the video of attempted spaceplanes, some love the singing hamster but I know opinion may be divided on that! In any case without wishing to give away the ending ... VeryTinyPlane wins the coveted Advanced Pilot Precision Award and a place on the guest list.

Thank you for the warm welcome back among the ranks of the clinically insane I didn't realize you reset the list with every version or I would've kept cranking out planes

Honestly... the singing hamster seemed perfect for what it was I was trying to accomplish XD

[boolybooly]

pinolallo thanks for the extraordinary Fatnose Rondine imgur report, logged and linked, I made that an APPA 1st class, is that right? Or are there two missions there?

VincentS thanks for your imgur summary, which I have entered as a gatecrasher. Shame about the exploding!

[ATuinhek]

Made for the Reddit weekly challenge, but also qualifies for this, my 3-man SSTO to the Mun!

http://imgur.com/a/znBjD#0

[VincentS]

I've been working hard in order to improve my designs (and landing skills ), and I have two (hopefully) valid entries to submit.

First one is an improved version of my fuel SSTO plane (let's call it Pelican). It placed a "fuel tank" in LKO and made it safely to Kerbin. The "fuel tank" is almost a small station by itself, and features RCS, remote control, SAS, battery, solar panels and two medium docking ports (and wings, if you want to attach it to some plane for atmospheric fly... it even features landing gear !).

Second one is a scout ship (let's call it Wiwi -- for WIde WIngs). Jeb flied it in up to orbit (573 km), and made a nice Mün flyby before landing on KSC runway.

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PS : both planes are basic designs (stock parts, no mod, no trick). They should be easy to replicate (no hidden part or assembly voodoo) but if you want the craft file, you need but to ask.

[boolybooly]

Congratulations ATuinhek on your Astrokerbal Distinction (Mün) with 3-man SSTO. Welcome to the guest list for the K Prize party. Your aero focussed craft can clearly leave Kerbins atmosphere without using rockets.

VincentS glad to see your persistance finally pay off with a Utilitarial Commendation for SSTO II's fuel drop and an Advanced Pilot Precision Award and a Kosmokerbal Commendation (Mün) with Scout SSTO. Would recommend leaving the #0 off your imgur link code in future so it fits the page and does not create scroll bars or prevent looking at it on the imgur site.

[pinolallo]

Booly, in the report of the rondine there are reported 2 single missions, one with the stock (non amphibious) and one with the amphibious version (the amphibious weight 0,5 tons more but is more balanced). As you probably knows, I think that this thread deserve the merit to be place where you can find new SSTO concepts not just a report for a successful mission.

[pinolallo]

@pinolallo: The 'FatNose' is a fascinating plane, so much so I reconstructed it on my own (don't have the seaplane mod so I had to use regular landing gear which upped the weight a bit). I reworked the wings a little bit so they had some positive dihedral angle and pushed the CoL forward to improve the balance a little bit but I'm not getting anywhere near the advertised performance; my best so far is 1.5 km/s @ 30km before the motor flamed out (and that's with the throttle pulled back three-ticks from being shut down entirely). How are you doing it?

EDIT: also, where are you hiding the RCS tanks?!

Many thanks:

Here you can find the .craft file

I sets the airIntake manage and prevent flameout on MechJeb

I sets the Ascent Autopilot with a 50° curve, 122km orbit.

The launch profile is to keep the SMARTASS to 70° until 22kms of altitude then turn it to 0° until vertical speed drops under 26mt/s. At this moment you just level and keep the altitude around the 33km (over this altitude turbjet start to slow down throttle) and let plane accelerate until the apoapsis reach 160km. Engage the Ascent autopilot and wait until the atmosphere limit (70km), disengage the turbojet (key 1) and engage rockets (key 2), the autopilot will drive you in a 122km circularized orbit (this orbit let you maneuver with lower orbit targets that are in lower orbit than you and warp faster) . To land you can use the Landing guidance, sets the target to 0,6,10 S and 76,56,32 W, engage and wait until the plan reach atmosphere then use SMARTass set Prograde, level wings and wait until 10km of altitud, engage SpacePlane guidance and land.

Hummm, remember to set the MKII cocpit as control

Edited October 7, 2013 by pinolallo

[boolybooly]

Booly, in the report of the rondine there are reported 2 single missions, one with the stock (non amphibious) and one with the amphibious version (the amphibious weight 0,5 tons more but is more balanced). As you probably knows, I think that this thread deserve the merit to be place where you can find new SSTO concepts not just a report for a successful mission.

Well in your mission post pinolallo you said...

K-price mission is related to the Amphibious version.

so I took you at your word. What else could I do ?

Edited October 8, 2013 by boolybooly

[pinolallo]

No Matter Booly, Amphibious version is fine.

[Javster]

An idea: you have to make a refueling truck with docking ports or KAS and actually refuel the plane. AND GET TO ORBIT AND BACK AGAIN!!!

[WafflesToo]

An idea: you have to make a refueling truck with docking ports or KAS and actually refuel the plane. AND GET TO ORBIT AND BACK AGAIN!!!

/grin

That has been a plan of mine for a while now, but I was gonna go a step farther using docking nodes and quantum struts to attach the mission package to the aircraft. The planes would never be despawned, but fly mission after mission

[MineAheadTV]

I can't seem to find this in the first post, but what is the current record for the heaviest ssto on here. I just finished one weighing ~75 tons. Am I anywhere close to the record (Ill post the flight screenshots and proof soon)

[tavert]

I can't seem to find this in the first post, but what is the current record for the heaviest ssto on here. I just finished one weighing ~75 tons. Am I anywhere close to the record (Ill post the flight screenshots and proof soon)

Search the first post for "Maximalist." Apparently it's currently held by Rosarium at 220 tons, and pa1983 has a whole series of huge SSTO's in the over-hundred-ton category.

Still, 75 tons is an impressive accomplishment, people always like to see new designs.

[Stochasty]

My Eve Plane sits at 258 tons on the runway. I don't really think it should be in the running for Maximalist, though, since it is inefficient as hell for Kerbin ascent and carries no payload (I feel Maximalist should have more to do with payload to orbit rather than who can slap wings onto the most fuel).

I thought pa1983 or someone had a craft that was up around 400 tons? (Or, I might be thinking of an older version or a post that got eaten by the Kraken.)

[WafflesToo]

Name: Minisistilikio

Mass: 1.14 tons

Parts: 13

∆V: 4538 m/s

The difficulty is not in finding enough ∆V, although that has its fair amount. The true difficulty is landing it despite the infiniglider effect. If you look at my final approach trajectory you'll see it's perfectly aligned to not require any extra boost from this effect. I attempted to minimize the effects as much as possible by putting the control surfaces as close to the CG as possible, but I'm not sure if this actually does anything. It seemed to be somewhat less flighty.

Hey, wait a minute... I'm calling shenanigans. Your landing gear mass 1.5 tons alone. I think MechJeb needs to go back to school.

[tavert]

Landing gear are massless in flight.