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

[boolybooly]

I dont know Spartwo, you tell me, last I heard your ship was on a decaying orbit!?

Do SSTO rockets count?EDITnevermind submitting now.

It's on a decaying orbit at the moment(after burning retrograde to land).

Did it land safely? Had it made a non decaying orbit (PE>70km) prior to this, did it take off horizontally?

Rockets only craft are perfectly fine btw as long as the initial take off is horizontal.

[Spartwo]

I dont know Spartwo, you tell me, last I heard your ship was on a decaying orbit!?

Did it land safely? Had it made a non decaying orbit (PE>70km) prior to this, did it take off horizontally?

Rockets only craft are perfectly fine btw as long as the initial take off is horizontal.

Yes but not ksc.75X75 and ran out of oxidizer before full retroburn.takeoff was horizontal.Extremley inefficient craft.

EDIT:Almost have a replacement working ommit my submission for now.

Edited August 28, 2013 by Spartwo

[Pirke]

Pirke I agree that a shotgun chair is fun, but seriously I have thought about it and decided that dropping a pod is permissable because it is like dropping payload and the rule which said that crew transfer should not alter flight characteristics was redundant and in this case obstructive so I deleted it.

It seems reasonable that you can crew craft with Kerbals from dropped pods. So congratulations on your successful K Prize mission.

pa1983, thanks for your mission screenies for another awesome STOL Duna drop.

Thanks

Do I also get credit for landing on Mun (can be verified in the screenshots)? Or am I asking too much of you?

[boolybooly]

Oops my bad, quite right and an "Astrokerbal Distinction (Mün)" is absolutely legitimately yours!

[pa1983]

The Falcon XIIIC Galaxy STOL going on its first mission to Laythe to deliver a new Modular Base.

Basically its the B version with two jets for STOL instead.

Payload was 22.76 tons total. Was one of the hardest missions so fare. Game bugged out a few times and running on fumes had a howl new meaning

Landed safe and sound back at KSC after a few attempts. Was hard but perfectly doable. I even made an S turn when aerobraking

Video as prof.

EDIT: sorry seems I linked the wrong video. Corrected now I hope.

http://youtu.be/ZlEzl5s7ndw

Edited August 29, 2013 by pa1983

[HueHue]

Could you release an unpowered lander that has a parachute for the utilitarian distinction or does the SSTO have to actually land for it to count?

[boolybooly]

Getting down to a planet surface and back up is a lot more expensive to do in terms of fuel than shifting orbit PE temporarily. I like the idea of dropping a payload by leaving it on an aerobraking trajectory and have it chute itself down, but I think the focus of the K-Prize is on the delivery craft and the intention for the distinction is the utilitarial version of the Astrokerbal Distinction, so I would have to say you do have to land the craft. But I think it would be an elegant method and would be an Utilitarial Commendation despite not placing the payload in a sustainable orbit providing the collision trajectory was intentional ie providing the payload lands intact! Does that sound fair?

PS I am currently unable to edit the roll of honour in Chrome (can in Explorer) because the formatting control on the forum has gone all to hell and it is ignoring carriage return etc when it displays a newly formatted post. I cannot break this post into paragraphs for example.

Edited September 1, 2013 by boolybooly

[pa1983]

For some reason I dont have the video and other icons for adding video. Seems that when I edited an old youtube video link with the new video it still linked to the old one. So I have fixed that now and seems to work. Its A NEW video where I go to Laythe not Duna Dont know what they have done to the forums but nothing works so I have to write all the code my self if I want to pass and image etc. Not that I dont know how to do some of that just not yutube clips

[sploden]

Name: Minisistilikio

Mass: 1.14 tons

Parts: 13

∆V: 4538 m/s

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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.

Edited September 3, 2013 by sploden

[Technical Ben]

Wait... how? What? Lol!

If you upload the craft to that (or give a small explanation) I'll make a video of it for you.

I'm currently working on the heaviest lifter I can imagine. I'm so close to getting it right it hurts. I've had 1 or 2 "almost" successful landings so far, but they usually end up with at least 1 leg falling off or the fuel running out at 25m from landing.

PS, it would appear that the "infiniglider" effect is giving it a boost, as I doubt it's configuration outputs 4500m/s-dv. :/

Edited September 1, 2013 by Technical Ben

[boolybooly]

That fuel config looks about right for minimal orbit IMHO having experimented with that small rocket engine myself though infiniglide might help with the landing, if its in the stock game its in the K-Prize. So we have a new minimalist record holder for this version, congratulations to sploden.

Also thanks again pa1983 for your last report, I have managed to add your Laythe mission to the honour roll using explorer.

[tavert]

With a vertical launch it's possible to replace one of the round-8 tanks with an oscar-B and still get to orbit. Horizontal launch probably rules that out though.

Hard to quantify how much is infiniglide with tiny craft like this. If you're permitting infinigliders, I had a 0.31-ton version several pages back, wasn't submitting it for serious consideration though. And I don't think it was in the current version of KSP, should still work the same though.

[pinolallo]

Here my new SSTO,

Is not a spaceplane but a VTOL rocket.

Can reach twice (and dock also on spacestation ) orbit, safe landing on KSC.

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[boolybooly]

Thanks Pinolallo, nice to see your craft in action , I am guessing you know that vertical take off is outside the K-Prize rules, so it is linked as a gatecrasher entry with a suitable jest.

[pinolallo]

I knew it, BoolyBooly: but I did almost anything with ssto's and I would like to submit an test another type of SSTO: VTLO, 3 crew member, and full double shuttle mission capable in 24tons is a an achievement that deserve a post.

[zekes]

ok, ZoPL Debulist is landed. I decided not do do anything fun this mission, just up and down.

Landed:

(of course i forgot to put the brakes on and so it rolled away from Mr. Kerman)

First part of flight:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/11214-The-K-Prize-100-reusable-spaceplane-to-orbit-and-back?p=557198&viewfull=1#post557198

[Hejnfelt]

Built my very first SSTO and heard the largest issue as air intakes vs engines...

Behold AirWalker. She flies rock steady up to 27000 meters and handles like a knife through butter in atmo.

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[boolybooly]

OK Pinolallo, I am sure people will be interested to see your report.

Well played zekes, are you saying it rolled off the runway? If it came to a stop on the runway you deserve an APPA, as it is I linked both posts in the roll of honour and removed the temporary listing on the gatecrashers list.

Hejnfelt, congratulations on winning the K Prize and Advanced Pilot Precision Award with your carefully balanced twin aero engine design AirWalker.

[RogueMason]

It's been a while since I've posted in this thread, but then again, it's been a while since I've had an SSTO spaceplane

Introducing the Space Soarer 1 on its maiden flight (under the name 'Heavy SSTO Test 2' in these pictures, but it's name is Space Soarer 1).

I found out about an ascent profile, tried it out, and it works incredibly well, so I may have more to show off in the future.

The most remarkable aspect about this mission is the fact that I pulled off a Mun flyby with no refuelling, and there was enough fuel to de-orbit afterwards

Obligatory (almost) sunrise shot, of course.

Safely on the ground. Unfortunately, I overshot the runway by a considerable margin and had nowhere near enough fuel to turn the plane around, so the next continent had to do for the landing. Because of the large wings, it has great gliding ability and thus it is very easy to land. Franklin Kerman enjoyed the flight very much, even if the plane decided to spin wildly out of control at one point. He kept his cool and recovered from the spin about 1500m above sea level

So, that's it for now. I may have more soon, depending on whether or not I can get my smaller plane to stop rapidly disassembling in an unplanned manner on touchdown...

[zekes]

yes, booly, i landed it on runway Its actually a cute little devil to land, with the jet engine you can easily correct re entry mistakes and it glides at like 40 m/s.

[boolybooly]

Cool, will fix.

RogueMason, welcome back and congratulations on another K Prize, this time with a Kosmokerbal Commendation for passing through the Münar SOI. Well done on recovering control of the craft, and landing safely.

Here is one I threw together today making use of the stock clipping behaviour to place an array of intakes inside the craft body, you can see the edges projecting, supplemented by 4 radial scoops. Milligan Jet (as opposed to Lear...!) Wing tip pods provide enough rocket propulsion to round off orbits up to about 180km. I am currently testing out its multi launch attributes, it will do at least two, maybe three if I start again and go easy on the throttle. The RCS is a little superfluous as it doesn't need to dock and the nose cones are essential for looks only as they weigh a lot for what they are. Has a nuclear generator tucked inside a fuel tank to keep the reaction wheels viable in space.

Edited September 10, 2013 by boolybooly

[RogueMason]

Awesome.

Now, you're probably wondering why I'm back so soon. Well, that other SSTO I mentioned? It no longer rapidly disassembles in an unplanned manner, so it is now eligible

I present the Hyper Dart:

Without a doubt, my most minimalist SSTO yet, but it functions brilliantly.

It easily reaches a 250 x 250km orbit with enough fuel to safely de-orbit.

This time, I didn't overshoot the KSC, unlike the Space Soarer 1. Then again, I wasn't coming in from an eccentric orbit with the Hyper Dart.

A safe touchdown on the KSC runway. James Kerman seemed content. At least he made it home while Franklin was still being recovered. However, credit where credit is due; I was inspired by the spaceplane found here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/48375-SSI-Aeon-Class-Shuttlecraft

There are similarities, but I tried to make mine as different as possible while retaining the same basic look and feel, and I think I succeeded in doing so. Will I have any more SSTOs? We shall see...

[pinolallo]

This week I worked to a lightSSTO:

• Fast: surface speed reached of 2.281 m/s will eventually qualify this ship into the fastest 10 turbojet airplanes see on this game (see http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/27296-The-MachingBird-Challenge)
  
• Light: less than 6 tons of weight (5.78 full 4 tons empty)
  
• Efficient: 91.9% efficiency (61.5 fuel and 17.82 oxidizer for a 141 km orbit)
  
• Full optional Calibrated RCS, Ladder Access, Front Docking Port: the main reason for this project was to make a cheap, full operative and transportable SSTO (this the reason for the size and weight of this craft).
  

In this album I submit a double run with a docking.

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Edited September 10, 2013 by pinolallo

[boolybooly]

Back so soon RogueMason, that is a compact and powerful looking craft, which has clearly evolved a few steps from the one which inspired it but it is interesting to see the similarity in tank distribution. Well done on solving the disassembly issue and winning another prestigious K Prize award!

Pinolallo, that is an interesting shuttle shape, innovative use of the Mk1 lander can with its nice IVA and your docking and precise landing won you an Advanced Pilot Precision Award 1st class, the first of v0.21 in fact. Congratulations.

Thanks for your reports, logged and linked.

[zekes]

Well, i made a little efficient SSTO. Might make it to double orbits.

Should be able to do waaay more ascents if refueled. (but that isnt part of K prize i know ).

It's called the ZoPL Pip Mk I.

(keep in mind it did launch horizontally, but i climbed straight up after takeoff).

The plane is unique in that the entire bottom is ram air intake. 4.3 tons full.

Ive also noticed it looks eerily like one of my prototype jet/rocket ballistic missiles... ill have to go rummaging through data to see who was on both that project and the "Pip"

Edited September 10, 2013 by zekes