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

[Damaske]

Damaske, I am happy to say you are definitely in receipt of misinformation regarding mechjeb and the K-Prize. The OP states the rules clearly and all mods are allowed except those which alter stock flight physics. Mechjeb is perfectly acceptable. Personally I would encourage anyone playing KSP to experiment with manual control as it is rewarding when you get the knack and you feel like you have learnt something when you begin to understand the relationship between navball and craft flight, though I admit it can be a long and quite explodey learning curve.

Ah ok i just love misinformation, And to clearifly I do not make use of the mechjeb's ascent, or lander auto pilots I only set them up and use em as a guild. I also HATE the ingame way to make maneuver nodes as they are so fekking hard to make so i use the maneuver planer also. The only times i use mechjebs auto pilot is to approach and dock with other craft since I've not found a way to make it show me a guild, yet and docking well last time i tried to do that on my own i destroyed the docking ports somehow.... and no i was not moving fast together.

Will be putting together a few submissions for this once I get a stock install loaded up and ready to go, I currently have restore installed and i don't want to accidentally use a item from there. Even though its just a bunch of scripts to "weld" stock parts into one, or enlargements of squad parts.

Also Since the current minimalistic winner is a probe is there a title for a manned version? I have one in my head that i'ma going to whip up and see how it goes.

Damaske

[immelman]

Hi boolybooly, can I join Mesklin in the making it to Laythe party?

Laythe and back in my "Big Silly Bird 3", the Joolian system is gorgeous, especially using some of the graphics mod textures out there.

With more landing gears and drogues landing on Laythe was a lot more straight forward, this craft has more than 8200 delta v, so when I have time I should have a try at Eeloo.

Thank you for an awesome challenge!

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[numerobis]

Hi boolybooly, can I join Mesklin in the making it to Laythe party?

Laythe and back in my "Big Silly Bird 3", the Joolian system is gorgeous, especially using some of the graphics mod textures out there.

With more landing gears and drogues landing on Laythe was a lot more straight forward, this craft has more than 8200 delta v, so when I have time I should have a try at Eeloo.

Thank you for an awesome challenge!

http://imgur.com/a/RFjYU

OK, now I have to fly my spaceplane if there's a trend.

Just FYI: a transfer directly from Laythe to Kerbin is just over 1 km/s, rather than the nearly 2km/s you used.

[boolybooly]

jmiki8 thanks for your mission report on Puli SAT which has successfully won the K-Prize and earned a very useful Utilitarial Commendation as well as the Advanced Pilot Precision Award for a precise landing on KSC runway. Duly linked on the guest list so I guess that is two tickets.

immelman, looks like you have made it to the Laythe party with fuel to spare and accompanying honours with Big Silly Bird 3. It is a pretty select group so I think there is a snug off the lounge bar where Laythe voyagers can meet up and arm wrestle or play chequers or something glad you are enjoying the challenge, thanks and you are welcome.

Damaske if I start doing that I will end up looking at one minimalist record per capsule type and I have enough trouble keeping track of one (so no) ! But you are allowed to detach a capsule before launch and transfer a Kerbal to use the chair and the capsule wont count as lift off weight. I dont know how "restore" works but it sounds like it alters mechanical properties of stock parts which would be against the rules, but I am willing to be corrected if anyone knows different. With docking it helps to set the target port as target and use "control from here" on the approaching port then setting the camera to chase can also help though the navball should give you all the info you need for RCS control, also btw 0.3m/s max final fyi.

[immelman]

Come and join the party!

Regarding the best way to return from Jool: I'd like to know how you manage 1k/s, when I looked at it I quickly checked out using Tylo for a slingshot, but could not get an intercept. Should I have explored this further?

[numerobis]

Come and join the party!

Regarding the best way to return from Jool: I'd like to know how you manage 1k/s, when I looked at it I quickly checked out using Tylo for a slingshot, but could not get an intercept. Should I have explored this further?

Using a pork chop generator, e.g. http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ type in that you're leaving from Jool at a circular orbit of 27184 km -- you are, because you're leaving from Laythe. That tells you that you need to leave that circular orbit with a roughly 1550 m/s burn. Burn when Kerbin is at -115 degrees phase, and when Laythe is 137 degrees to Jool's retrograde.

But that's assuming you were in orbit there on your own; actually, you're orbiting Laythe. On the one hand you have to fight its gravity, but on the other you already have ~1900 m/s relative to Laythe since you're in orbit. I have a script to do that calculation (based on a thread by Kosmo-not), which tells me that if I'm orbiting at 55km and want to be going 1550 m/s at the border of Laythe's SOI, I need to burn 1024 m/s. I have successfully used this calculation quite a few times.

My calculation doesn't say where you should be to Laythe's prograde. The goal is that you're going 1550 m/s at the border of Laythe's SOI and going parallel to Laythe's orbit, so you probably want to burn a bit before 90 degrees to Laythe's prograde, maybe 120 degrees? I don't know how to calculate this (it's probably easy?)

That assumes a circular 55km orbit. On Laythe you can be going much faster off your jets alone. If you set periapsis in the right place (somewhere between 90-120 degrees to prograde), every m/s extra you go is a m/s less you need to burn on that escape burn: conceivably you might be well under 1km/s of interplanetary burn.

I did all of this sometime early last year, except I read the phase angle wrong, and ended up precisely where Kerbin would have been had Kerbin not been 180 degrees away in its orbit.

Edited January 20, 2014 by numerobis

[immelman]

This is very helpful, I have been looking for information like this, the thread by Kosmo-not is what I needed.

Thank you!

Edited January 21, 2014 by immelman

[jmiki8]

Here is my new minmus-capable SSTO, the "Atomic" which has a seat for a pilot and one passenger. KSP didn't save some pictures, while getting into Kerbin orbit (or did I forgot to take them?), so I don't know if it counts as a successful mission.

So except for the Kerbin ascend pictures, here are the screenshots about the maiden mission:

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Edited January 22, 2014 by jmiki8

[boolybooly]

Yes it counts jmiki8, in fact your word is good enough, though your screenies prove that you entered a different (Minmus) SOI which counts as completing the orbital phase of the mission and even if technically the PE on exit would not be outside the atmosphere, its regarded as sufficient as the dV you need to reach another SOI would easily put you in orbit. But in your case you landed on Minmus which means you were definitely orbiting Kerbin outside the atmosphere. Thanks for your report and congratulations on earning the coveted Astrokerbal Distinction and highly regarded Advanced Pilot Precision Award. Interesting coaxial engine mounting!

[numerobis]

Here's a flight to LKO. Just a test flight so far; this plane will go further yet (but with some minor modifications):

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The design has hab modules way out on the wingtips so that it can be spun up for artificial gravity during the long interplanetary transfer. Also, long, thick wings for STOL characteristics -- handy when you're trying to land in the wilderness. Three pilots; all the science equipment except the high-gain antennas; three hab modules. Enough fuel, theoretically, to make it to Laythe and back, but I need some practice piloting to achieve that.

I messed up the bit where you reach orbital speed: I had too much vertical speed, too little horizontal speed (I was going over 100m/s vertical when I ran out of air). That cost me about 1km/s worth of jet fuel, more than I can afford to waste.

I might also practice my landings; Bill had to go out and pump the burst tires after I hit the runway hard and overshot. I won't be flying with those wheels -- all they do is let me get a 17 m/s head start on liftoff, which is fun but not highly pointful. I was thinking of using them to steer on the ground, forgetting that normal landing gear do that too now.

Edited January 23, 2014 by numerobis

[NikkyD]

:thumbs up: for thinking out of the box with the gravity during travel

Quite the monster u built there. Did u use FAR ?

[numerobis]

Stock + mechjeb.

I'm pretty sure you need a much bigger plane for spinning to work. With too small a baseline, a Kerbal standing up in one of the hab modules would feel a lot more gravity at its feet than at its head, and they'd get dizzy looking out the window. Practicable designs I've seen call for a tether between the habitable parts and a counterbalance (eg spent fuel tanks), and then you spin around the mutual center of mass. The tether can be made quite long, which allows for a slow rotation and little difference in apparent gravity from head to toe.

[boolybooly]

numerobis, I am assuming that by LKO you mean orbit with PE > 70km and I also made up a name for your craft. Congratulations on completing the K-Prize challenge with such an unusual design and making it back to the runway, welcome to the party guest list aka roll of honour.

[Sniper-Worms]

So before taking advantage of the new overpowered Rapier engine, I decided to finally succeed at flying an SSTO old style (no Rapier) and it appears that it went way better than I expected :

After docking to my station in orbit at 150km, I realised that I got enough fuel to make a fly-by of Minmus and I also got one of the Mun for the same price. Unfortunately I missed the landing at KSC but for a first launch I think I got pretty lucky.

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And thanks for this awesome challenge that made me crash so many designs before getting the good one.

Edited January 26, 2014 by Rich
Replaced iframe with "imgur" tags

[numerobis]

numerobis, I am assuming that by LKO you mean orbit with PE > 70km and I also made up a name for your craft. Congratulations on completing the K-Prize challenge with such an unusual design and making it back to the runway, welcome to the party guest list aka roll of honour.

Sorry, that was the Laytheill. The Laythewell will make it to Laythe and back, but without the suggestive undercarriage.

I was in an unusually high orbit for me, 85km or so IIRC. Circularized, forgot to take a picture, then retro burn right away for the landing. All the drama is around 12-13km where lift drops off but thrust hasn't picked up yet, and again when the air runs out, so I forgot to take pictures after. I will need to write an automated ascent: I keep getting distracted.

[Dr.Moo]

So here I have my submission: The Cicada. You can see a video of it in action at my youtube channel here:

[boolybooly]

Congratulations Sniper-Worms for not only completing the K-Prize mission successfully but also docking with a space station and visiting the SOIs of Mün and Minmus before making a safe landing on Kerbin, for which you properly earned the much admired Kosmokerbal Commendation and the highly regarded Advanced Pilot Precision Award with Cydonia. Welcome to the K-Prize party invite list aka the roll of honour.

OK thanks numerobis, name fixed. GL with your Laythe mission.

Dr.Moo thanks for posting your mission video set to music which provided the K-Prize committee with much entertainment, though I am sorry to say it was not possible to grant a K-Prize award for a vertical take off craft because this breaks rule #2 of the longstanding K-Prize rules! cf Cupcake's gatecrash for a precedent.

Rules

1. The craft may not lose any parts in flight, no decoupling allowed.

2. The craft must lift off horizontally, reach orbit (PE > 70,000m) and land intact ready for 'refuelling'.

3. All fuel tanks, wings (lift generators) and engine parts must be stock, for fairness.

So with great respect and hoping you will enjoy the notoriety and or have another go, The Cicada mission has to be linked as a gatecrasher !

[capi3101]

I only recently gathered enough information to build successful spaceplanes - so I figured the time has finally come for me to make an entry in this long-running challenge. I hereby present the maiden operational flight of the Auk-IV Space Transportation System as my entry in this challenge.

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I did do some test runs with the design, obviously; this is the first time I ever had a spaceplane ever actually do something.

All stock parts of course, but from the album it's obvious I used a number of piloting assistance mods - KER, KAC, Precise Node, Enhanced Nav Ball, Crew Manifest and TAC Fuel Balancer. I also used my long-running sandbox game for the flight; I had previously set out a series of ground beacons for the KSC runway (which I set out in 0.21 and were rendered obsolete for runway alignment purposes with 0.22). The Julin Mün space station (my final destination for this flight) was established as an early part of Operation Outland (an effort to put satellites and stations in orbit around every body in the system and rovers on their surfaces).

Should be a good enough flight for a Kosmokerbal Commendation, Pilot Proficiency Medal and Advanced Pilot Precision Award 1stClass - not sure about that last one. I mean, I did pull a docking maneuver, but not in orbit of Kerbin...

[boolybooly]

Looks good to me capi3101, the pilot proficiency medal is included in the Advanced Pilot Precision Award 1stClass by the way. Thanks for your thorough mission report and congratulations on completing the K-Prize mission successfully and with flying colours. Welcome to the K-Prize party guest list aka the roll of honour.

[Rhomphaia]

The second test flight of the Siskin. A small but functional SSTO designed as a single Kerbal transport to stations in LKO. This flight was to test the tweaked fuel loading (could still be tweaked further) and RCS systems.

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[boolybooly]

Thanks for your mission report and congratulations Romphaia for completing the K-Prize challenge at last and earning the highly regarded Advanced Pilot Precision Award 1stClass for docking Siskin in orbit and landing safely on Kerbin at the KSC runway. Welcome to the guest list for the K-Prize party! I can leave the earlier gatecrasher listing in place in the roll of honour / infamy unless you would like to have it removed, as is your right having succeeded in completing the challenge.

[Tarmenius]

I, like many others, have been playing around a bit with the new R.A.P.I.E.R. engine. Although it feels easier to use, it is definitely less effective than other, more traditional configurations. Still, it is fun to play with.

This design, the Distesa, was a hopeful attempt at making a R.A.P.I.E.R. SSTO that could reach higher orbits(~600km) without the need for refueling. But given the performance limitations of the engine, I think it will be better suited to small crew transfers to stations at or below 200km. If I'm going to need to add more complexity to the design to make it work, I may as well use a configuration that's more effective to begin with.

At any rate, here is the Distesa (SSTO-R 3):

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[NASAFanboy]

Would a spaceplane that lands vertically on the KSC launchpad, but take off horizontally be allowed?

That's my design for the XRP-17B

[boolybooly]

Yes NASAFanboy, K-Prize missions can land any way you like as long as it is one piece!

Tarmenius, welcome back to the K-Prize challenge, thanks for your mission report, congratulations on winning an Advanced Pilot Precision Award 1stClass with the Distesa twin rapier based spaceplane for docking in orbit and landing at KSC runway. Nice attention to aesthetics with the wing shape and tailplane design btw.

[Rhomphaia]

Thanks for your mission report and congratulations Romphaia for completing the K-Prize challenge at last and earning the highly regarded Advanced Pilot Precision Award 1stClass for docking Siskin in orbit and landing safely on Kerbin at the KSC runway. Welcome to the guest list for the K-Prize party! I can leave the earlier gatecrasher listing in place in the roll of honour / infamy unless you would like to have it removed, as is your right having succeeded in completing the challenge.

I would like to leave it where it is. The Phoenixhammer line has come along a bit since that prototype though and I have finally tried my hand at an LV-N powered space plane. Presenting the Phoenixhammer MK1-N

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