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

[kepicness]

I present to you the NISP V.I (nuclear interplanetary space plane). I wanted to design a space plane for space missions on other planets (or moons). But since I wanted to have a spaceplane good for any conditions I designed it to be orbit capable, it was so much harder to make but more rewarding since I can actually use it to get back to kerbin from any planet. As the name suggests it has a nuclear engine on it, allowing for much longer distances to be covered in space. The nuclear engine made it way harder to design because of the weight (I had many failures). I finally came up with a design including all the stuff I would need for space missions and being SSTO as a bonus. The decoupler and parachutes at the front are only in emergencies (the thing spinning out of control at 400m from the ground). Anyways, here it is:

taking off

o

gaining altitude

activating aerospike and nuclear engine

running out off fuel for the aerospikes

orbit! (way over 70k)

gliding back down

landed (I could probably get it to the runway but here is proof it can land)

I also managed to get the plane in orbit around the mun (although it had no fuel left afterwards). I am now going to strap it to a rocket and see if I can get it to another planet (and back hopefully). For those wondering, the nuclear engine can take the fuel from the aerospikes. So it could actually cover quite a long distance.

Edit: for some reason the delta wings on the side are not placed properly, they are supposed to be at an angle. I will redo the pictures and add one of the nisp orbiting the mun

Edited October 1, 2012 by kepicness

[Suzaku]

So I got a 11.2 Ton SSTO into orbit. The thing works, but it barely has enough fuel to enter a decaying orbit lol.

XK-17

Pitch Dark Landing

It definitely works, but would completely useless for transporting crew members to a space station which was one of the primary goals of the k series SSTOs.

[boolybooly]

Archangel Lucifer, thanks for the Maverick mission report. Maverick has avian lines reminiscent of your White Raven craft, though it is a lot smaller and yet has a large 3 Kerbal cockpit integrated which reminds me a little of the tadpole look of the U.F.O. series SHADO moon shuttle craft.

kepicness, thanks for entering your spaceplane into the K Prize challenge and well done on integrating the NERVA engine into it. That is a tricky engine which doubles the dv value of any fuel it can use in space but halves it below about 3000m on Kerbin and weighs 2.25 tons, as much as a full 400L tank, these are the difficulties you overcame. In theory it could be the key to raising the range of spaceplanes in v17. I note with interest that you placed the engine quite far forwards in the craft which must have helped with controlling the ship by shifting the center of mass forwards when the tanks were empty. So thanks for a groundbreaking mission which all can benefit from and congratulations on winning the K-Prize.

Suzaku, they keep getting smaller! You have taken the tanks down to 3x400L, which is the minimum for a no frills aerospike rocket to orbit and lifted an additional pair of turbofan engines and wings, good going! (And food for thought.) What's more you landed it so it qualifies as a K-Prize winner. So the question is ... can bsalis land that 11.1 ton design ... ?

It definitely works, but would completely useless for transporting crew members to a space station which was one of the primary goals of the k series SSTOs.

However if we had docking and off planet fuel economy (as one hopes the campaign might one day include) it would be an economical transfer vehicle to a low orbit rendezvous.

[antiquark]

Great challenge, I've found it quite inspirational for my own designs.

[Klilidiplomus]

I succesfully completed the challenge in version 0.17. The Sky Guardian uses a single aerospike engine to save the hassle of managing multiple types of engines. I even managed to land on the runway despite severely overshooting the KSC.

Flight album: http://imgur.com/a/AIrJ4

I really should've taken a screenshot of the flight log to prove that no parts were destroyed, but I think the pictures are sufficient.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Klilidiplomus
added .craft file

[G Addict]

Why am I such an idiot? Just pulled a perfect orbit and land with an old version of the Bifurcator XN, which lacks the nuclear engine (imaginatively called the Bifurcator X), instead feeding that fuel to the aerospikes. But I failed to take screens of the whole takeoff and orbit stages, only remembering during reentry. Reflexive kicking ensued.

[boolybooly]

Thanks antiquark, I am sure all participants are glad to know that readers like yourself are finding their designs interesting and helpful.

Which brings me to the successful K Prize mission report from Klilidiplomus with the Sky Guardian. Thanks very much for your screenshot record of the mission which clearly shows a successful mission (your word is good enough here... but we can can see the parts list on the left anyway ) including a precise landing on runway 27 (seaward end of runway 9) complete with cockpit screenshots of the unpowered fuel-free land-it-or-lose-it approach. Did you use a joystick? The craft does have impressive gliding ability and seems to have responded well to your direction. Congratulations on winning the K Prize and welcome to the guest list aka the roll of honour.

G Addict, do you want me the enter that on the roll or will you get screenies?

Edited October 1, 2012 by boolybooly

[G Addict]

I'll just try get another mission off with a full screenshot roll. I have screens of landing, but no ascent and only late reentry (at 10km, after aerobraking to reasonable speeds). Any chance of getting by with an already semi-proven plane? I'll attach the screens I do have.

Edited October 1, 2012 by G Addict

[Foursh]

It's great to see the K Prize continuing into v0.17 Here are two of my latest designs.

This design design is almost identical to its predecessor, other than 63 tons of extra fuel. In total it weighs 453 tons.

I came in a bit shallow, overshooting the space center. Although this plane is more maneuverable than you might expect, it's still not easy to turn 180 degrees in this thing.

I made it, though.

The Vulcan is a long range spaceplane designed to land on Minmus.

While testing the Vulcan, I was surprised to discover that it can easily reach Duna. In fact, it hardly takes any more fuel than flying to Minmus! I've also flown it to Eve, and it might be possible to reach Jool with a gravity assist from Duna.

[kepicness]

:-O, the vulcan is awesome!!! I had actually been aiming for something quite like this. I guess that the targeted size for my space plane was too small. Seriously, this prooves interplanetary flight IS possible in an ssto. Btw, how did you manage to make it take off with only 2 engines? was it the added wings? Anyways, awesome design and its given me some ideas (it even looks nice).

[Androsynth]

Foursch, excellent work! I'm with kepicness, Vulcan is an awesome craft. Although I see in the screenshots that you're using RCS thrusters to ease your descent to Minmus, and I don't see any thrusters on the craft file I just downloaded. Am I missing something?

[(An Original Name)]

Long time lurker but first time poster here, so HI EBERYONE WUT AM I SUPOST 2 SAIEY 34gt5e4qv34

[Foursh]

Thanks kepicness! You're right, the extra wings give the Vulcan enough lift to take off with such low thrust. Also, I actually built an interstellar SSTO . It has some stability issues, but I'll post it when I get it working properly.

You aren't missing anything Androsynth. That was my first and only time landing the Vulcan on Minmus and I just slapped on some thrusters so it could land horizontally. The balance was a bit off, so I decided not to include them. If you want to add them yourself, the balance point seems to be directly under the rear wheels.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Foursh

[zekes]

Well, our Kerbingineers did a ground-up eyeball of the Vulcan, named the Zokesia Precision Lifter 4 (or ZoPL 4)

THIS IS NOT A RENAME OF THE VULCAN, it's a 100% Zokesia Skunk Works design that I've been trying to fly, and his plane inspired me to finish it.

I get the Interplanetary award, which is more than I could have ever hoped for in this game....

Unlike the Vulcan, the ZoPL 4 has no NERVA engine, and has 6 gear legs in a rear quad formation, and has more control surfaces, and has a ladder, and.......

IE its different.

Landing is awesome, it's a little tail heavy but LIGHT! I landed at 25 m/s

(BTW this is 17.0, only mod was MechJeb and it didn't help much)

Edited October 2, 2012 by zekes

[souza]

So I've been trying to get a SSTO plane into orbit for over a week now, a few days ago I found this thread which really gave me a lot of idea's and insperation. Today I finally managed to get my first plane into orbit, and back on the ground. I literally had had no drup of fuel to spare since I used only 28m/s deltaV to descend xD my orbit was Ap83050 / Pe 70012 (waaaay over the 70k requirement ) while in that orbit I only had 28m/s deltaV left for descend and I actually didn't think I'd make it. Using that deltaV on my Ap got my Pe back to 55km \o/ hooray. After that I drifted out my remaining rotations and with some luck landed on solid ground !

Now some pics, there are no pics acending to orbit since I didn't think this would make it but what I did is take of horizontally, got vertically within 15 seconds from launch, pushed the plane on the 2 jet engines to 10km then fired spike, deactivated jets on 13km. Then flew to 60km Ap and started turning to a 85km Ap and then kinda rounded it out.

imgur album

All parts are stock except for the engineer, but that only shows me data which I do not concider cheating.

[Maxed-Rockets]

Augh, I have an interplanetary SSTO, but I can't seem to get the aerospike engine on the tricoupler. I have been using the non-vectoring engine part model with .cfg edited aerospike engine stats because the dang thing won't attach.

Question then, can I use my frankenrocket if it has the exact same stats as the aerospike, or am I going to have to modify my design to take the less efficient engine?

[Suzaku]

Augh, I have an interplanetary SSTO, but I can't seem to get the aerospike engine on the tricoupler. I have been using the non-vectoring engine part model with .cfg edited aerospike engine stats because the dang thing won't attach.

Question then, can I use my frankenrocket if it has the exact same stats as the aerospike, or am I going to have to modify my design to take the less efficient engine?

You have to use stock unmodified parts to qualify for the K-prize.

[Archangel Lucifer]

Wow! well done on actually getting somewhere other than Kerbin orbit with those SSTO's - especially the Vulcan traveling to other planets. I'll have to totally rethink my strategy and take the new nervas into account.

Maxed Rockets - regarding the trouble getting aerospike rockets to attach to tri-couplers. It can be done but it's not straightforward and there seems to be a thrust issue when they are all finally on because depending on which way you angle the tri-coupler a mysterious force seems to push the ship off course when the rocket is activated. It's hard to explain how to do it but basically you have to be placing individual pieces (not in duplicate mode) and I find that if you attach an aerospike rocket somewhere on your craft and then quickly click it again (in order to place it again) it's often able to then be put on the tri-coupler. Also if it doesn't go first time just keep clicking and it should eventually attach.

Not sure if that made sense but I can upload a picture tutorial of how I did it if anyone is interested.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Why don't things ever fly as well as they look? Can't seem to find enough of a fuel/engine balance to lift this thing out of the atmosphere efficiently enough. And yes, it features some semi-gratuitous use of clipping to make it slimmer.

[RadiationKing]

Here is my entry. Although I think I'm a little behind seen as though some of you getting to other planets. Anyway, the Orbiter Mk III (there are no prizes for original names) is the most stable/largest craft I've built and easily the best looking in my fleet so far. Has a slight list to the left when flying (cause unknown) and has a tendency to lose two of it engines on takeoff (a very shallow take-off angle required). It also isn't perfectly balanced so when using the aerospikes in orbit the nose drifts up a little. I put it in an orbit of around 95km and 77km although it can go higher with around a quarter of fuel left for each engine. Did several orbits waiting for s solar eclipse to occur. I re-entered a tad early on this flight and was left with 70km to go to the runway at 7000m with no fuel, which it happily made with a little to spare. No idea if that's a good glide ratio for KSP but I was pleased (even if it did take something like 20 minutes).

Orbit

This game is beautiful

Solar Eclipse

Re-entry to KSC

Landed

Publicity Shot

Sorry not sure how to hide the images like others have done.

Edited October 3, 2012 by RadiationKing

[Moltove]

Are u allowed to rotate parts so the plane takes off vertically?

[bsalis]

Are u allowed to rotate parts so the plane takes off vertically?

Yes you can

[Suzaku]

I tried to land my spaceplane on Jool, but failed miserably...

[EndlessWaves]

Are u allowed to rotate parts so the plane takes off vertically?

The thrust can be vertical but the plane does need to show/be capable of some horizontal motion during takeoff. Something like a VTOL thrust vectoring aeroplane that could take off while rolling as well as stationary has been allowed and you can angle the landing gear to make your wings point upwards on the runway but I don't think a pure rocket-style launch that only works when stationary would be allowed.

[boolybooly]

The take off has to start with horizontal movement, any distance, after that you go where you want.

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.

Thanks for your latest v17 contribution Foursch. Delta Wing IV took the v17 maximalist record and your precise landing on the runway deserves an advanced pilot precision award. Vulcan took the v17 altitudinalist record and both won the K Prize fair and square. Very robust looking craft and clearly effective. Welcome back to the guest list aka the roll of honour.

zekes, thanks for your mission report and well done on getting Zokesia Precision Lifter 4 off the ground and into Mün orbit. This earned you the worthy kosmokerbal commendation and a return to the roll of honour.

souza thanks for your challenge mission records well done on getting Nexus SSTO 2 into orbit and the engineer is fine, see rules above. You have won the prestigious K Prize and earned yourself a place on the guest list to the party at the Dog and Booster, aka the roll of honour.

RadiationKing, thanks for your mission description and screenshot log. The tags you are looking for are...

[spoiler="mission"] close with [/spoiler]

10:1 is an impressive glide for a spaceplane and your dogged determination and precise landing have earned you an advanced pilot precision award. I hope you know that you can use 4x timewarp in atmosphere now! (Also in space under thrust with [ALT] + [.] but beware the shakes.) Congratulations on making an SSTO craft and flying the K Prize mission successfully.

Edited October 3, 2012 by boolybooly