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

[Batz_10K]

So I'm partway through my 0.90 career game, and I decided to see if it was possible to build and fly an SSTO SpacePlane within the constraints of the tier one KSC buildings....

Basically that means, a maximum of 30 parts, 18t weight, and maximum dimensions of 15x15m by 3.8m high. Most importantly, since the R&D buildings cost so much to upgrade, only parts up to tier 5 can be used. (the maximum allowed by a tier-1 R&D centre). In addition this plane should be able to take-off and land on the very rough tier one runway. (although as we know anybody sane uses the grass with a tier-1 runway...). Also, there are some interesting constraints imposed by the fact that at this tech level, manual fuel transfers don't work and there are no action groups. Ideally we'd want at least 3-400ms of delta-v on-orbit to be able to do rescue missions with this plane, and make sure there's enough fuel left to run the jet on the way back to landing at the KSC.

The most interesting issue is that with the tier 5 parts, there's no turbojet. This means a very different ascent profile than is normal with a spaceplane, and a lot more rocket fuel is needed than usual.

The answer is, with lots of testing and some abuse of the alignment tool it is indeed possible...

Full mission album:

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Edited December 31, 2014 by Batz_10K
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[Signo]

Hi Booly, this is my first submission for 0.90, this time with Ions, I hope you've got enough pictures to judge. It is a common KSC to KSC, nothing fancy even if the plane could go a lot farther (well, Dres being the only real body you can vertically land on and come back).

It is supposed to be a "gadget" of my interplanetary transport, that's why you've got a docking port but no RCS at all, I use tugs on that; moreover that's why I had a target weight (8t) and width, to fit it on the radial pylons.

Hope you like it.

Data following:

Sunbeam 090 - 7.337t - 1 Turbojet, 4 Ions, 1 crew - capable of double Kerbin ascent (and safe landing) and 5300+ d/v @ a lame 0.13 TWR in vacuum. Nevertheless it is a lot of fun to pilot into the atmosphere.

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[Jonboy]

My first post is also my K-Prize entry for KSP .90. The MX-1 is a one-man shuttle designed to deliver a light payload, such as a small lander or satellite, to Minmus orbit before returning to Kerbin.

For this mission, Jebediah delivered a small lander to Minmus orbit, landed it, rendezvoused with the MX-1 and redocked, and returned to Kerbin. Vital stats are below:

Crew: 1

Starting mass (w/ payload): 47.4 tons

Starting mass (w/o payload): 45.8 tons

Payload mass: 1.6 tons

Power: 8 R.A.P.I.E.R. jets, 2 Atomic engines

Orbit achieved: ~46.4 million meters (Minmus orbit)

Not sure what all commendations I achieved because I wasn't sure how landing with a payload complicated things. Thanks!

Money shot:

Imgur album of mission:

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[carlpilot]

I once thought this challenge was impossible;

Here's my entry, the Mercury A

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-Carlpilot

[GeneralMDBK]

My entry, call it the ant due to it being the smallest functional SSTO/Spaceplane I have made to this day.

It weighs in at exactly 6t fully ready to go on the runway and as far as I am concerned is the easiest SSTO to fly out of any.

Here is the orbit:

Transferring all excess fuel to the main engine during decent for reentry:

Reentry:

I like to go fast

Realized how badly I was short of KSC so I did a little sub-orbital hop with the jet engine, due to the lightweight at this point it was very easy:

Notice also I do not have much fuel so if I mess up I'm SOL

More reentry

Not lined up very well :/

Lined up and landing:

[boolybooly]

Congratulations to ...

Starhawk Advanced Pilot Precision Award with Sparrow Mk2.

hoioh Utilitarial Commendation, Advanced Pilot Precision Award with Triple Swallow.

Batz Advanced Pilot Precision Award with Turbo Finch LTSP R.

Signo Advanced Pilot Precision Award with Sunbeam 090.

Jonboy Kosmokerbal Commendation (Minmus) with MX-1 (current maximalist record holder at 47.4t),

carlpilot with Mercury A.

GeneralMDBK Advanced Pilot Precision Award with Ant (current minimalist record holder at 6t).

... on completing the K Prize challenge successfully with an interesting range of ingenious designs. Thanks for your mission reports. Welcome to the K-Prize roll of honour aka party guest list.

Small though the specified weights of Turbo Finch and Sunbeam 090 are they are not as small as GeneralMDBK's Ant which holds the minimalist record for now. The maximalist record is currently held by Jonboy's MX-1.

Also Jonboy the capsule/rover idea is a neat exercise in its own right and interesting to see, but to explain the awards, for K-Prize purposes the challenge is about how far the entire craft will go so accomplishments are recognised to the point where the craft is entire, which means the accomplishments of a payload or lander do not count to the K-Prize. FYI hope that makes sense.

Thanks all I hope you enjoyed the challenge.

[Batz_10K]

Small though the specified weights of Turbo Finch and Sunbeam 090 are they are not as small as GeneralMDBK's Ant which holds the minimalist record for now. The maximalist record is currently held by Jonboy's MX-1.

Well, in *that* case... Here's an attempt at the 0.90 minimalist record. (flame-retardant spacesuit required)

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[Captain Vlad]

Well, here goes. This is the RO-1 Torpedo. My orbital truck, which turned out to work way better than I expected. I decided to show off her payload capabilities for this flight and put a 4.5 ton fuel tank in the cargo bay. I'd hoped to get it to orbit and then back to Kerbin for that 'land the payload' accolade, but alas, the landing didn't work out like I'd hoped.

Here she is in the hangar, with her vital stats displayed, and the arrangement I used to hopefully keep the tank secure and to keep the center of mass more stable.

Take off is a little hair-raising with the tank, which weighs more than the cargoes I usually haul in her. She's got a vernor thruster under the nose to help lift off earlier, but with a heavy load, it doesn't help so it was actually off for this flight.

This is the Torpedo on her orbital ascent. While I use all three engines in air-breathing mode to get her to around 30,000 meters, the fuel in the wing tanks runs out around the same time I get my apoapsis up where I like it. This works out, as by that point I don't really need them and use the centerline engine to finish off my orbit.

She can make a 150,000 orbit while carrying a payload of this size. The delta-V there seems a bit low...using the RCS thrusters I didn't have any trouble arranging a landing point at KSC, but I did run out of oxidizer well before the LF was gone, so that could be it.

She had jussssst enough fuel to do a fairly soft landing. The problem was I lost the cargo...it clipped through the bottom of the cargo bay on impact and exploded, which frankly scared the hell out of me.

I didn't think to take any screenies of the fuel tank in the cargo bay during the descent, so if I need to establish that I didn't use the gas, I can always take her up again.

Overall results: Took off with 4.5 ton payload. Reached 150,000km orbit with payload. Landed on runway. Any thoughts on how to keep the bay-clip thing from happening would be appreciated...I thought the modular girder sections would do it, but alas, no.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Captain Vlad

[Agifem]

Here is my submission for the challenge :

Single stage, horizontal take off and landing, orbital, docking capable. It is called the "SpacePlane Mk1"; truly unoriginal.

More details here : http://agifem.over-blog.com/defi-k-prize.html

[boolybooly]

Batz_10K congratulations on acquiring the minimalist record holder title. What is the name of the craft? I gave it a placeholder name for now. Anyway it is very small.

Agifem thanks for your screeny and link to the mission report on the flight of SpacePlane Mk1, congratulations on completing the K-Prize successfully with an advanced pilot precision award for docking in orbit. Welcome to the K-Prize party guest list aka the challenge roll of honour.

Captain Vlad thanks for your mission report of a brave attempt, sadly the little known "not exploding" rule has to be invoked (see rule 1) and the mission will duly be linked as a gatecrasher. RO-1 Torpedo is a fine looking and capable craft and I feel sure that once you iron out the teething difficulties she will be capable of completing the K-Prize successfully. Also FYI so you dont waste your efforts in the wrong direction you should know that what appears to be the "payload" apparently cannot be detached so is part of the craft and doesnt qualify as payload as it stands. You also probably need to know that the utilitarial awards require the payload to be delivered ie dropped off and for the distinction the payload has to be delivered to a planet surface other than Kerbin to count. I have amended the rules to make this clearer. As for stabilising your cargo bay fuel tank I recommend struts, also the tank appears to be clipping a girder stack and this may have contributed to the instability and explosion as the game can react strangely to clipping especially when internal collisions are induced by a sudden G force. If you want to make it a payload then you will need to used docking components or decouplers and you can use struts with those until undocked, but for retrieval you may be interested to know you can use more than one docking port on the same craft simultaneously so you can stabilise a payload for retrieval with two docking ports for example (which is the most I have tried) providing they are precisely aligned with counterparts they will both dock at the same time.

Edited January 12, 2015 by boolybooly

[Batz_10K]

Batz_10K congratulations on acquiring the minimalist record holder title. What is the name of the craft? I gave it a placeholder name for now. Anyway it is very small.

Oh yeah, knew I forgot something... Working title is "KA-1 Suicide Sled". I guess that'll do. Weight is 3.1 tons (including Jeb)

Thanks!

[Captain Vlad]

Captain Vlad thanks for your mission report of a brave attempt, sadly the little known "not exploding" rule has to be invoked (see rule 1) and the mission will duly be linked as a gatecrasher.

She takes 15 minutes to get to orbit with that payload (more than I usually fly with her), and I kept having to remember to take screenshots the entire way. There was no way, no WAY, I wasn't going to post all of them.

If you want to make it a payload then you will need to used docking components or decouplers and you can use struts with those until undocked, but for retrieval you may be interested to know you can use more than one docking port on the same craft simultaneously so you can stabilise a payload for retrieval with two docking ports for example (which is the most I have tried) providing they are precisely aligned with counterparts they will both dock at the same time.

So just for clarity, to get the payload credit, I need to fly it up, decouple, redock it back to the ship, and then fly it back down?

[hoioh]

nah, just fly up and leave the payload in orbit, land back on Kerbin. that's allyou need to get the credit.

[Captain Vlad]

nah, just fly up and leave the payload in orbit, land back on Kerbin. that's allyou need to get the credit.

That's...considerably less of a headache! Thanks. I'll send her up again tonight.

[boolybooly]

What hoioh said, also I added Batz_10K's mission listing... again, sorry my mistake, browser snafu.

[Starwhip]

Ooh, with 0.90.0 out I can do this again!

Time for a brand-new craft!

[Captain Vlad]

All right. Rules misunderstandings and lack of docking ports resolved, and it's time for another flight in the Torpedo.

First up, in the hangar, I eliminated the second portion of girder and replaced it, per suggestion, with struts. I actually never have issues with clipping cargo on ascent, but better safe than sorry. Also added a docking port so the cargo can be released once I reach orbit and turned the fuel feed off. If you're wondering why I use the girders, you can see the batteries and monoprop tanks in the forward part of the bay...wide objects have been known to get stuck on release. I can move them around, of course, but actually prefer weighty cargoes to be right in the center of the bay, if possible.

And we're off!

In the last attempt you saw how steep she can climb right off the runway. So in this flight, I decided to show Kelcott's reaction to that climb angle instead. He's...one of my more panic-prone pilots.

Orbit was reached and actually did it a little better this time...noticeably more fuel left compared to the first attempt, probably do to some slight changes in flight profile. In the end, 4.5 tons to 150,000 meter orbit. So I've now shown she can not only accomplish the feat, but repeat it. Yeah, yeah, I know; other people do that with big orange tanks.

Away goes the cargo. I had a frowning moment when I decoupled the fuel tank and it didn't move, since I used to have rage-inducing issues with accidentally-clipped docking ports. This time I just had to...shake the plane around a little.

On another plane I made for a friend's daughter, the landing lights are teal, so the RO-1 is a little boring in this respect.

And she's down, minus her payload and with considerably more fuel left than on the other flight. The reentry burn took a lot less, thanks to the drop in mass.

So, she took off, flew to and 150K orbit, offloaded her payload and returned to the KSC runway.

[GeneralMDBK]

I enjoyed the title for the brief moment I had it lol. I need to do more of these challenges. That was fun guys.

[Camaron]

Preview of Terranova V

(Which will probably get renamed, since it doesn't fit the VTOL characteristic of my Terranovas)

Already qualifies as LKO SSTO. Has also successfully landed on Minmus. Unfortunately it Kraken-burst on the return trip. In any case I hope to record a mission video of Terranova V's entire trip tomorrow.

Terranova V is loosely based on the wildly successful Terranova III from about a year ago (below). Both crafts feature the double-dock with fuel routing that enables them to automatically prioritize and feed from any fuel docked to the expansion. You could strap on two big reds and pretty much go anywhere in the Solar System. The original Terranova III could drop the Jet and change for anything that fit the space.

I will finish building Terranova V and document what it can do tomorrow.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Camaron

[antihifi]

I've had KSP for a few months now but this is my first post on the forums. Thought I'd go for something big!

After 0.90 came out I wanted to build an SSTO Spaceplane as an efficient and low cost means of completing satellite contracts. Submitted for your approval, my Shuttle MK V HV (I'm pragmatic when it comes to naming.) On this particular mission I lifted a ~3 ton satellite (an LV909+FLT200 with SAS/RCS, Power, etc. a basic Satellite I use for most contracts) into LKO. The satellite has about 2600 delta-v which was more than enough to put it into this missions required orbit at Minmus. I then de-orbited my shuttle and landed it back on the runway at the KSC. I usually don't do this since I think flying in this game is harder than real life (I fly in real life). But I wanted to get that sweet Precision Flying and Utilitarian award. Here's the story:

Pretty low cost considering how capable she is. You can see my standard satellite in the bay there. It has RCS too which it really doesn't need for most missions but oh well. Overall designs could be way streamlined. I'm lazy.

Taking off on just the two Turbojets. I don't turn on the Rapiers til much later. Spent a bit of time mucking around and closing the pod bay doors (for Dave). Also sorry for my crappy graphics, I have a weak old macbook.

I forgot to disable the crossfeed in the satellite so just doing that now for posterity.

at 24k meters I kill the turbojets and am running on just the rapiers now.

Orbit circularized and ready to deploy our payload. Normally I would have a TON more fuel left over to do things like lift the satellite to a higher orbit or change inclination or whatever but because I'm not used to taking screen shots I kept forgetting every time i hit command-shift-3 I would turn the engines back on and raise my apoapsis by like 30k meters before realizing it. Whooops!

Bye bye birdie! The probe is off to do it's work (complete contracts for me, or presumably provide satellite TV for the inhabitants of minmus which is, currently, Jeb). As you can see I have flight engineer so you can see how much Delta V the little satellite has. More than enough to get around anywhere it needs to go in the Kerbin area. The only two mods I've ever used are Flight Engineer and Kerbal Alarm Clock. I don't think my computer could even run much more than that.

I spent some time fussing with the satellites orbit and then had to wait a while for the KSC to come back into the light side of the planet. Here I'm setting the de-orbit maneuver node. Honestly I'm always off on this but this time around I got really lucky and she came down on a near perfect trajectory west of the mountains near the KSC. I barely had to touch it coming down aside from the last adjustments to short final. Normally I wouldn't care at all and just land it anywhere near the KSC but for this I wanted to put her on the runway.

Gliding it down. Pretty lucky. At this point I've usually either overshot the KSC by a lot or am under power trying to maintain speed so I'm not bored for ten minutes flying to the KSC since I came in too far before.

Final approach and power is turned back on. If you let the speed drop below 100m/s its very easy to stall and break her up. It happens more often than I would care to admit. Also with my low powered computer the runway is all of 13 stair stepper pixels which is another reason I usually don't even bother with putting it down right on the runway!

Short final. Aim for the numbers. Light on the yoke. Full flaps. Hand on the throttle. Oh wait this isn't a cessna 172. More like wwqqeaaassssswwweeewqq. Take a screenshot. Damnit I hit *shift* again! Ok *control* slow back down you're fine.

Touchdown. Breaks on. I actually put her down just past the numbers but didn't take a screenshot til I was almost to a stop. But there you go. Another successful mission in my simple little fully reusable utilitarian SSTO Spaceplane!!!

Thanks for reading!

[boolybooly]

Thanks very much for you mission reports CaptainVlad and antihifi and congratulations to you both on completing the K-Prize successfully and also earning the much prized Utilitarial Commendation for putting a paylod into orbit and the highly regarded Advanced Pilot Precision Award for landing on the KSC runway. Welcome to the K-Prize party guest list aka roll of honour.

CaptainVlad, since you completed the challenge successfully you now have the option to get your gatecrasher listing removed if you wish, otherwise it can stay where it is if you prefer. Your call.

antihifi you might be interested to know that the default screenshot hotkey for KSP is F1 and this works in game putting the screeny in a folder inside the game installation folder, here - DRIVE:\SteamLibrary#\SteamApps\common\Kerbal Space Program\Screenshots.

Thanks for your screenies Camaron and good luck with completing the challenge.

Edited January 14, 2015 by boolybooly

[megatiger78]

this VTOL might win it with some refits:

[Itsdavyjones]

Looking forward to giving this challenge a shot once I get my SPH upgraded to lvl 2, and some more parts to make it more utilitarian.

[Captain Vlad]

CaptainVlad, since you completed the challenge successfully you now have the option to get your gatecrasher listing removed if you wish, otherwise it can stay where it is if you prefer. Your call.

Please leave it in place. I'll probably link both badges to my sig, too.

[boolybooly]

OK CaptainVlad, I will leave the gatecrasher as it is.

Goodluck megatiger78, I feel I ought to check you know that the take off for a K-Prize mission needs to move horizontally as its first direction of travel.