Heavy Cargo SSTO and RCS

[jbakes]

Just wanted to share my 180 ton cargo SSTO. It flies fantastic, straight as arrow and it can glide extremely well. I designed it to send fuel to my space station in a 100 km orbit. It contains 163 parts.

The plane weighs 150.4 tons and 179.5 tons with the payload (29.1t). It uses 14 rapier engines.

Accent profile: 0-10km point nose 15-20 degrees, keep prograde 5-10 degrees. 10km-25km keep prograde around 5 degrees and build speed. 25km+ Switch to rockets and build speed then point nose to 20-30 degrees.

It has just enough fuel to make it orbit and then land on the runway.

Not necessary a problem but it takes forever to swing this thing around to the desired vector. It does have RCS but I would like it if it could change direction faster in space. If anyone wants to share any solutions feel free.

Anyways here it is, let me know what you think.

[Xyphos]

Nice ship, good job, but wrong forum. The Spacecraft Exchange

[Tex_NL]

...

Not necessary a problem but it takes forever to swing this thing around to the desired vector. It does have RCS but I would like it if it could change direction faster in space. If anyone wants to share any solutions feel free.

...

Substitute the RCS and monoprop for LFO and Vernor engines. Vernors are less versatile, heavier and cost more but are about 10 times as powerful.

[Evanitis]

I'm envy. I don't even want to look at it because I prefer to figure stuff out instead of copying - even unintentionally. Though a brief glance was enough to see solutions to problems I myself barely identified. And it's full of those.

Though my Jeb would quit if I flown something of this magnitude without him piloting it.

[Vanamonde]

I'm also jealous, as I still struggle with small spaceplanes.

Also, moved to ship exchange.

[jbakes]

Nice ship, good job, but wrong forum. The Spacecraft Exchange

Thank you, sorry about that.

Substitute the RCS and monoprop for LFO and Vernor engines. Vernors are less versatile, heavier and cost more but are about 10 times as powerful.

Ok thanks for the tip, I'll see what that does.

I'm envy. I don't even want to look at it because I prefer to figure stuff out instead of copying - even unintentionally. Though a brief glance was enough to see solutions to problems I myself barely identified. And it's full of those.

Though my Jeb would quit if I flown something of this magnitude without him piloting it.

Ya I'm the same way but building heavy SSTOs can be quite difficult, very tedious job, everything has to be perfect. I actually looked at a few cargo SSTO designs and then got ideas from those. Ya I did away with the crew as they kept dying in the previous designs and there wasn't really a need to have Kerbals.

- - - Updated - - -

Thought I might throw this out there but I missed the runway coming in and then did a beautiful loop and landed facing the other way

Edited July 19, 2015 by jbakes