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

[boolybooly]

@tosha Congratulations on completing the K-Prize mission with an Advanced Pilot Precision Award and an Astrokerbal Distinction for Comet-L's landing on Minmus and eventual safe return to KSC runway, which can be quite tricky to land on especially with a heavy NERVA on the tail. Thanks for your new mission report. Your previous mission is still listed on the front page though the videos have gone as you say. I have listed this mission beneath your previous. Welcome back to the K-Prize roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list.

[fulgur]

I was bored and realised that my Ilion SSTO could grab a few more awards, so I went to Minmus.

Spoiler

Launching on a beautiful morning

Fire!

My favourite skybox

Maouvre executed.

Coming into Minmus orbit. Unless we're leaving.

Landing...

Down and back up again.

LOOK OUT IT'S A MOUNTAIN!

Back over Kerbin, de-orbiting upside down for no good reason. Didn't have enough fuel to correct inclination.

FLAMES!

Landed somewhere north of KSC.

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by fulgur

[boolybooly]

@fulgur thanks for your screenshot mission report, those are some nice graphical mods which are absolutely within the K-Prize rules, I just need to check that the engines and wings and tanks etc are KSP stock regarding their physics, is that the case? 

[fulgur]

Yep, I just use ReStock. I do not believe there are any ReStock+ parts on that thing.

EDIT: KerbalX says that there are not.

Edited March 18, 2020 by fulgur

[boolybooly]

In which case congratulations on completing the sought after Astrokerbal Distinction mission objective and returning to land safely on Kerbin, completing the K-Prize mission successfully with Ilion SSTO. Thankyou for your mission report. Welcome back to the K-Prize roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list.

Incidentally Ilion had two Ls in the last and one L in the first mission, so if one of these was a typo let me know and I can fix whichever one it was.

Edited March 19, 2020 by boolybooly

[fulgur]

10 hours ago, boolybooly said:

In which case congratulations on completing the sought after Astrokerbal Distinction mission objective and returning to land safely on Kerbin, completing the K-Prize mission successfully with Ilion SSTO. Thankyou for your mission report. Welcome back to the K-Prize roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list.

Incidentally Ilion had two Ls in the last and one L in the first mission, so if one of these was a typo let me know and I can fix whichever one it was.

Fixed it. The 1st one was correct.

[Chequers]

I finally got far enough in my career to unlock some more powerful jet engines, so worked on my first SSTO. I'm a new player, so have never tried anything like this before, but I had an absolute blast on this project - I have no quicksaves or reverts, so there was a lot of time figuring out ascent paths and optimisations - but I'm really proud of this low-tech, simple result.

For your consideration for the esteemed K-Prize, presenting the SP-I 'Peregrine'. Built in 1.9. No mods.

Spoiler

 

SP-I 'Peregrine', ready to roll out of the hangar. Powered by dual J-404 "Panther" engines, and a LV-T30 "Reliant" rocket engine, she is by far the most powerful aircraft ever produced by Chequers Aerospace.

"SP-I rolling!" the J-404's roar to life, and pilot, Jebediah wastes no time igniting the afterburners as the Peregrine races down the runway.

Rotation and positive rate of climb, holding steady at 15 degrees; gear up.

10,000m ASL and 800m/s - Jeb pitches up to 40 degree attitude. Holding steady... ready to fire the LV-T30 - a moment of truth.

Jebediah flips the switch at 15,000m ASL. The J-404s shut down, and with a surge of power and acceleration, the LV-T30 ignites, forcing the SP-I through the upper atmosphere.

A moment of reprieve as the SP-I coasts towards an apoapsis of 70,000m. 

And then it's back to work. Circularisation burn, to take the Peregrine into an orbit. 

Ground control confirms! Periapsis of 74,839m / Apoapsis of 75,879m. The SP-I has achieved orbit!

A moment to celebrate, as Jeb goes on EVA in orbit above Kerbin.

Time to come home. De-orbit burn puts the SP-I on a course to land back at KSC.

Heating up! Maintaining a good pitch up attitude to take the brunt of the re-entry heating. Course looks good for landing at KSC.

Home in sight! Gliding in, Jeb uses pitch to control speed, aiming for the runway.

Almost there... Gear come down and A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S activated.

Touchdown! Jebediah stomps on the nose-wheel brake - there's no chutes on the SP-I, but speed is low enough to bring her to a safe stop in plenty of time.

Jebediah is delighted (and we're all relieved) to have landed safely. Drinks all round!

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Chequers

[boolybooly]

Congratulations @Chequers on completing the K-Prize mission in a career game with a photogenic and effective design in the SP-I 'Peregrine', by achieving orbit and returning to land safely on the KSC runway, earning the highly regarded kudos of an Advanced Pilot Precision Award. Well played, thanks for your mission report and welcome to the roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list.

[sevenperforce]

I've flown many spaceplanes but never actually submitted for the K-Prize. I figured this Saturn V SSTO created for Apollo Style Redux 3 and documented below would be a good first entry:

Sneak peek:

[kspnerd122]

I love it

[boolybooly]

Congratulations @sevenperforce on completing the K Prize mission with a remarkable spaceplane cunningly disguised as a Saturn V rocket! Also noteworthy are the intriguing methods used to achieve your moonlanding which the K Prize recognises as a payload to orbit, earning a Utilitarial Commendation as well as a Pilot Proficiency Medal for landing Apollo Style Redux v3 safely on KSC terrain. Thankyou for your mission report and welcome to the roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list. 

 

[RoninFrog]

The title of this post should probably be called, "Beginners Luck".  It was my first time making an airbreathing SSTO, so hardly anything here (such as a runway landing) should be attirbuted to skill.

Craft in the SPH (not the VAB).  Liquid fuel only, not a drop of oxidizer on the craft.  2 kerbals.

Here is what happened...

Spoiler

Just after takeoff, about to hit those plasma effects:

After switching to nuke power only, I didn't have the thrust to keep pushing my Ap out, and passed it for about a minute.  Solution: get up to near orbital velocity and then push it out again.

After burning for a while, I eventually got my first spaceplane SSTO to orbit! 

Then I thought, "Well, what am I gonna do with all that extra fuel?  Let's go to the Mun!!! Yeah!"

1100 m/s of dV later, my trajectory looked like this:

And then I thought,  "If you're gonna go all the way to the Mun, aren't you gonna land there?"  There was still fuel in the tanks...

Boom landed!  Right next to a good crater, too.

Of course, I had to go check the crater out.  The rim was only 250 m away!  Pretty steep, too.  Don't fall, Jeb!

Taking off was hard.  I'd never done a horizontal takeoff before, so after a few fiery failures, I rolled the plane down the hill to where there was a bump in the terrain, and punched the engines, using the bump like a ski jump.  Is that how it's supposed to work?

Back in Munar orbit:

I got no idea what I'm doing here.  I just kinda lined up my Pe with the KSC continent and hoped for the best.

Oooh!  Ooh!  Hot!  I'm not slowing down very much, am I.

Yeah, not gonna happen.  I'm already out of the atmosphere again, and my trajectory is still halfway to the Mun.  So much for trying to land on the runway.

You know what I said about beginner's luck?  Well, it took exactly 1 day to orbit Kerbin, so I got a second chance to land this thing!  Here I am, screaming in over the ocean to the west of the KSC, flailing wildly to try to slow down and not overshoot the runway.

That little peninsula looks familiar.  I might make it!

Landed!  On the runway!  The couple hundred m/s left in the tanks really saved my bacon.

Fully recoverable to the Mun and back.  I might actually use this design in a career game.

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by RoninFrog

[QF9E]

Esteemed members of the K prize admission committee,

We humbly put forward our Shuttle booster for admission into your prestigious club. During a recent test flight we found that with a reduced fuel load Queen Amidala, which in normal operation acts as the booster of Skywalker, the newest in our Gemini class of space shuttles, is able to take off horizontally from a runway and attain orbit by herself. Since she functions as a flyback booster during a shuttle launch, she is also capable of re-entry and landing in one piece.

In the attached video I take her out for a single orbit test flight before landing on the KSC runway. Note the pumping of fuel to retain balance: that is a trick I learnt many years ago while playing the spaceflight sim Orbiter. I did make use of MechJeb, but I only used two of its information displays: to show the landing point and the Center of Mass. I flew the entire mission by hand.

As a spaceplane the Queen is not a particularly subtle machine. Her ordinary job is lifting a 90 ton space shuttle into orbit, so her 12 Vector engines could be seen as overkill by some. Reports that she ripped apart the runway surface during her takeoff run are greatly exaggerated, as is the reported number of broken windows at the KSC, as a result of her breaking the sound barrier while still flying over the runway.

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by QF9E

[boolybooly]

Congratulations to @RoninFrog and @QF9E on completing the K-Prize mission successfully. 

RoninFrog's Pandemonium I, through a benign convergence of serendipity, elegant design and capability landed on the Mün and also returned safely to the KSC runway to win the highly regarded Advanced Pilot Precision Award and the universally respected Astrokerbal Distinction.

QF9E's Queen Amidala demonstrated considerable agility for its size and evident lift capacity in earning the highly regarded kudos of an Advanced Pilot Precision Award for returning from orbit to land safely on KSC runway.

Thanks both for your mission reports and welcome to the K-Prize party guest list aka the roll of honour. See you down the Dog and Booster!

[Rhomphaia]

Well, its been 5 years since I submitted to the K-Prize.  Should I reclaim my Advanced pilot precision award by showcasing my successful mission rescuing Jeb and Bill from an earlier disastrous test flight, featuring a Docking and runway landing...

...Or should I come crashing through the gates, riding a wave of nostalgia straight to the hall of shame and showcase a more successful test flight of the craft that left Jeb and Bill stranded in orbit in the fist place.  Lets go with option 2

This looks Kind of Familiar

Album, below but if you recognize the wing shape, you probably don't need to look at the staging to see where this is going...

 

Squad didn't need to scrap it, they just needed More Boosters (and wings and control surfaces but never mind that)

Noting to see here...Or here

Orbit Achieved

Umm... I know It was supposed to drop engines, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to drop them all

Landing gear could use some tweaking.  with a very low speed landing (i didn't try to target a landing, just happened to come down right over the big crater, lost most of my speed trying to avoid the mountains) it bounced straight into a tailstrike.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Rhomphaia

[xendelaar]

This is perhaps a bit of an oddball for this challenge, but here's my entry: A helicopterrocket SSTDuna.
I actually made this for another challenge, but I think this vessel is also a valid candidate for this one as well? If not... then well... my bad

Specs
Name: Honey bee
Weight: 127t (wet)/ 37t (dry)
Delta-v: 4900 m/s
TWR rockets: 1.7 fully loaded;  0.15 for interplanetary transfers
ISRU: yes (perhaps a deal breaker for this challenge?) 
Helicopter range of flight: pretty much infinite on Duna and Kerbin

DLC
Braking ground
Making history
KSP Version 1.9.2 (I think)

Mods
Scatterer, texture unlimited, mechjeb 2 (for SAS assist), Kerbalengineering redux, 

If anybody is interested... I made 5 minute movie of the mission. It was an epic challenge to design the craft, which took me over a week to build and test.

 

 

 

On 3/18/2020 at 8:37 AM, fulgur said:

I was bored and realised that my Ilion SSTO could grab a few more awards, so I went to Minmus.

holy crap, that's a nice craft! which mod adds that beautiful background to the game?!  

47 minutes ago, Rhomphaia said:

Well, its been 5 years since I submitted to the K-Prize.  Should I reclaim my Advanced pilot precision award by showcasing my successful mission rescuing Jeb and Bill from an earlier disastrous test flight, featuring a Docking and runway landing...

 

Stunning design mister! 

Edited April 28, 2020 by xendelaar

[boolybooly]

You wait all year for a gatecrasher and then two come along at once...!

Thankyou for your mission reports showcasing interesting designs in their own right though as you are evidently aware, both are gatecrashers because they break rule 1, at least!

On 5/22/2012 at 9:29 AM, boolybooly said:

1. The craft must launch and land intact using only the amount of fuel on board at launch, may not lose stages or parts in flight, no refuelling for thrust, see provisos below.

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

 

@Rhomphaia welcome back to the K-Prize. Drop tanks and drop engines are a dynamic solution to the problem of getting to orbit but (un)fortunately break rule 1, while losing engines on landing would probably break rule 2 if it wasnt already broken by breaking rule 1, all of which means you are entitled to display the gatecrasher's badge (again) and the K-Prize committee (me) will have to make a full report in the hall of infamy.  

@xendelaar  notably the Honey bee helirocket has an innovative launch system for planets where atmospheric flight is possible and can extend its range significantly by using the onboard refinery, which it did to good effect, producing plenty of thrust fuel which, while otherwise laudable, I am sorry to say breaks rule 1. While the vertical take off broke rule 2 of the K-Prize challenge rules so that is a gatecrasher too! (Mods which dont alter physics are fine.)

All gatecrashers are entitled to wear the gatecrasher badge if they so wish and may redeem themselves with a successful mission report, which on completion entitles them to choose whether to keep the gatecrasher listing for posterity or have it removed.

Edited April 28, 2020 by boolybooly

[tosha]

Oh gosh, I made another spaceplane.

It's a very small cargo SSTO to LKO. And it's speedy.

Make of this one what you will.

 

Does this count for Utilitarian commendation, btw?

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by tosha
question

[boolybooly]

36 minutes ago, tosha said:

 

Does this count for Utilitarian commendation, btw?

 

I reckon so @tosha , congratulations and welcome back to the K-Prize. I make that an Advanced Pilot Precision Award by hook or by crook and a Utilitarial Commendation and the craft name was Comet-LP, is that right?

Thanks for your mission report, interesting landing technique! Your achievements have been listed under your previous entry on the K=Prize party guest list aka the roll of honour.

 

 

[Guest]

@boolybooly you have such a great challenge. So it's the first forum one I do!

Here is recording time proof because in the video the processing app cut out some of it for some stupid reason.

NOTE: It looks like it's clipped, but it was the default and I didn't offset it, well I did but I was trying to push the tanks away from the wings and tank as much as possible.

 

[boolybooly]

Thankyou @The Doodling Astronaut for being so kind about the K-Prize, congratulations on successfully completing the K-Prize challenge by landing your craft safely on Kerbin after reaching orbit. Thankyou for your mission reports and out-takes reel! Welcome to the K-Prize party guest list, aka the roll of honour. Hope you had fun

[Dman Revolution]

Hello again everyone, I recently went back and rebuilt my gantry system to be an all in one refueling, integration, and storage facility. I'm thinking about stress testing this system by integrating a simple payload over and over again until it breaks. I will update you all when I have managed to break it (hopefully it surpasses my previous record as posted here last year).

See you all soon.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Dman Revolution

[RoninFrog]

I already submitted something here, but I'm going to submit a new and slightly improved version of the Pandemunium I, the Pandemunium II!

New features:

1. About 400 m/s more dV in orbit.
2. Better kerbal to engine ratio
3. It looks like the space shuttle (kind of) (a little)
4. Docking port on the front for, you know, docking
5. Capable of slightly better ascent profile (although I probably just flew the previous Pandemunium badly)

So here are the stats.  LF only, powered by 3 Whiplashes and Nervs.  It can take four kerbals to the Mun and back.  3147 m/s in LKO, although I haven't tried for better.  Yes, those intakes are clipped, but I couldn't think of a better place to put them.  NO Rapiers.

Flight results:

Spoiler

 

Whiplashes just look so cool.  Oh yeah, I just remembered that the Pandemonium I was level on the runway, and this one is angled slightly up for an easier takeoff.

Destination straight ahead!

Okay, nukes, those whiplashes need some backup!

The magic number for spaceplanes seems to be 44km.  If the Pandemonium II doesn't clear that before falling back down, it won't make it to the Mun.

The dV upon getting suborbital was promisingly higher than the previous version of the plane.

3147 m/s in orbit!  We can make it to the Mun!

The burn was performed above the desert so that the radioactive exhaust would precipitate down onto our competitors at the Desert Launch site.  Many scientists have speculated that the lack of greenery and life in this area of the planet is not due to natural causes.

...or maybe the burn was performed here because it was 90 degrees behind the Mun, and the deserts were created by the game developers.  I dunno.

I have heard varying statements as to the altitude of the Mun's highest terrain.  I know from experience that it is not below 5km.  I got a safer Pe, because let's not have that happen again.

Orbit!  Now to find a good landing spot.

Found a good one.  The kerbals all speculated about what they would find.  Jeb was looking forward to eating all the cheese, Bob was afraid the Kerman in the Mun would sneeze them out of the Kerbin system, Bill was a little scared that a bunch of Mun monsters would crawl out of their craters and gobble them up, and Val was secretly worried they would find the landing stage of the folks at the Desert Launch site.

Everyone was dissapointed, and in most cases slightly relieved.

Flag time!  It's hard to make a cool formation with only four kerbals.

Even if Jeb didn't get to gorge his fat little face on Cheddar and Mozzarella, he did get to see a pretty cool crater.

The crater proved handy on takeoff.  If you can't point up, you can sometimes get the ground to point down!

Ohlookquickit'sathingyfrombreakingground never mind it's gone.

Orbit again!  I'm pretty sure 7km is safe.

I'm not going for a full out landing, just a short aerobrake on this first reentry.

Everybody keep calm, it's only a little warm!

You can panic later when we actually do some serious aerobraking.

I wish my orbit was a little longer, but it's close enough that I think I have a good shot at a KSC landing.

No, little kerbals, it's not time to get scared yet.

Now is the time to PANIC!!!!

Okay, maybe the kerbals are just screaming internally.  'Cause I sure am.

This landing might be doable.  I have my doubts, though.

Finally landed after many quicksaves!

Now it's time to show off the benefits of that docking port!  Here comes Rodun Kerman in his massive refueling rover to recover the Pandemonium II.

Refueling while driving to save time.

The Pandemunium II is recovered, refueled, and ready to do it again!  ...but I'm not.

 

 

[AHHans]

9 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

I already submitted something here, but I'm going to submit a new and slightly improved version of the Pandemunium I, the Pandemunium II!

Nice storytelling! (I even scrolled back and read the story of the Pandemunium I.) And a cute little craft.

[boolybooly]

Congratulations @RoninFrog on completing the K-Prize mission once again, with the new and improved Pandemunium II, earning the kudos of an Advanced Pilot Precision Award and the highly regarded Astrokerbal Distinction for landing on the Mün and returning safely to KSC  runway for refuelling. Thankyou for your mission report and welcome back to the roll of honour aka the K-Prize party guest list