Burn, Baby, Burn! VSSTO

[Ozzallos]

I've only recently downloaded 113 and have found (again) that many of my previous designs just didn't cut it. One of the casualties was my beloved Vertical Single Stage to Orbit project, The Starscream C. Needless to say, the engineers at Twerkstar have labored to remedy this problem with the VSSTO Starscream D

The Block C Starscream mounted 8 Rapiers, 8 Whiplashes, and a Aerospike to push it into orbit. Unfortunately 113 said no, so we went back to the drawing board. The original configuration was underpowered and could never sustain orbit, so we figured more seed velocity was required during the atmospheric ascent phase.

Block D changed that. After trial and error the designers settled on 22 Rapiers, dropping the Whiplash array and even the single aerospike in favor of raw atmospheric speed. Depending on the angle of ascent, the Starscream D will pump out 1400m/s up to 24,000m before switching out to vacuum mode. Coasting up to Apoapsis usually puts us at 85km, at which point we cut 8 of the engines off and use the remaining 14 to circularize. The remaining fuel is enough for modest orbital operations, such as docking and refueling.

 

 

The original intent was to have a fully reusable VSSTO that could lift off, express to orbit and refuel before continuing to its final destination. The final phase would be to drop back into atmo using chutes for a safe landing 100% whole and intact. Even in a worst case scenario, she's fully capable of emergency command pod separation and re-entry.

[MKellerBR]

Great Craft!

Congratz!