Dusk Mk3 interplanetary SSTO no mining

[Firemetal]

Dusk is an easy to fly mk3 SSTO that was originally designed for Duna and has tons of m/s in LKO I haven't tested it yet but I got it into orbit! Yeah KER broke so it was showing me only the intake air so I have no idea how much DV it had in LKO.  Yeah so I'm basically being lazy and asking more experienced SSTO builders to test it for me. (Yeah I'm an idiot) So this has kind of turned into a mixture of a challenge and a showcase... Anyway try taking it to Laythe! I'm sure it's possible if you add a little more fuel.

Kerbalx download - https://kerbalx.com/Firemetal/Dusk

Edited July 3, 2016 by Firemetal

[Firemetal]

Ok tomorrow I'll try and take it to the Mun. 

[Speed_Kerman]

There's a generalised rule of "No pics, no clicks" on this forum. Some pictures of your craft in action would be nice.

[Firemetal]

4 hours ago, Speed_Kerman said:

There's a generalised rule of "No pics, no clicks" on this forum. Some pictures of your craft in action would be nice.

I was actually thinking of doing that but since I already uploaded a picture on Kerbalx, I didn't need to. Anyway let me do that.

[Speed_Kerman]

Looks alright. I may cut down on the number of nuclear engines myself, use 4 instead of 8 to save on fuel.

[Firemetal]

3 hours ago, Speed_Kerman said:

Looks alright. I may cut down on the number of nuclear engines myself, use 4 instead of 8 to save on fuel.

Good idea

Hopefully it has enough firepower to get into orbit and take off from whatever body though. (This is why I used eight)

[Speed_Kerman]

I took your craft for a spin up to orbit, and here's what I thought

She's a beast!! It has potential as medium weight cargo lifter. Have you tried putting an 18 ton fuel tank in the cargo bay yet on the large "Senior" docking ports, disabling the cross feed, and seeing if your ship can lift it into orbit? Alternatively, you could also try building a small rover, making it into a subassembly, and finding a way to put that into your cargo bay. She has a lot of fuel lines, which is good, because that means that your nukes can hopefully milk every single drop of fuel out of the tanks without having to do any tedious (as I find it) fuel transferring. I got her to orbit with just over 10,000 units of liquid fuel remaining in the tanks. Speaking of, were you aware that those "Big S" delta wings can hold an extra 300 units of liquid fuel? They're pretty much a free fuel tank, I use them and the Big S wing strakes whenever I can. I can see this ship maybe being able to do a return trip to Ike (Duna's moon). I've never personally landing on Duna using a space plane. I typically use some sort of lander when I go there, landing on Duna with a space plane is a pain in the *truck horn*, because the atmosphere is so freaking thin. You left the monopropellant in the cockpit, but didn't give your ship any means to use it? Some RCS Thruster blocks will fix that problem, and considering swapping the nosecone for a shielded docking port. They have a higher heat tolerance. Also, consider giving your ship some Airbrakes. I always make sure that I have them, it makes re-entry that much easier.

All in all, 7 out of 10.

If you want to do a return trip to Laythe and back, you're going to need a whole lot more liquid fuel for something in a Mk. 3 size. Consider giving Matt Lowne's SSTO thread a look. His current "Single Stage to Laythe and Back" is broken as of the current version, but you should be able to get an idea of how much liquid fuel you're going to need.

Happy Exploring!!

[Firemetal]

#Speed_Kerman Thanks for your help. I will build a couple more mk3 SSTOs and see how they compare but this is the most the successful Mk3 SSTO I have built so far. I have currently never landed an SSTO on Duna so I think I'll try and walk before I can run. Going to attempt to build a functioning MK3 Duna SSTO before going to Laythe. I have also heard that Matt Lowne had heating troubles with his Laythe SSTOs and I'm not a big fan of heat myself so Laythe is going to be super fun.

Anyway thanks!

[TheWanderer05]

Little tip for landing spaceplanes on Duna: always bring some parachutes. The thin atmosphere and extremely bumpy terrain make for some painful landing sequences that can be made much easier with using parachutes, but they are still no "free pass." They will slow you down a good bit so that your gear don't overstress, though. If that doesn't work, try making a VTOL type of ship by having engines in a belly cargo bay. Hope this helps.

[Firemetal]

18 hours ago, TheWanderer05 said:

Little tip for landing spaceplanes on Duna: always bring some parachutes. The thin atmosphere and extremely bumpy terrain make for some painful landing sequences that can be made much easier with using parachutes, but they are still no "free pass." They will slow you down a good bit so that your gear don't overstress, though. If that doesn't work, try making a VTOL type of ship by having engines in a belly cargo bay. Hope this helps.

Thanks!