Who has created the SSTO that has most range ever?

[SpaceastronautX]

Always in Kerbal space program we had created Rockets,Space shuttles and more. But, What about SSTO's? :Space planes and Single stage to orbit rockets? And the most important question, What range of you SSTO has get on? That is a great question!

[Red Iron Crown]

Furthest I've taken one is Laythe and back. That's more a stunt though, SSTOs are best used to just get to orbit and back most of the time.

[Whirligig Girl]

I once took an SSTO spaceplane to orbit and back. I am not good at spaceplanes.

[KerikBalm]

range is meaningless in this context, particularly since ISRU has been introduced.

You mean the most dV left in orbit? The most dV it can have befere refueling? What TWR is required?

You could have a SSTO with a 50% payload fraction, fill the payload with Xenon containers and slap an ion engine on it... and have over 20,000 m/s of delta V...

what is the range on that?

You must define your question better.

For my part, I'm not interested in anything other than an SSTOs ability to get a payload to orbit... why take the wings and airbreathers with you?

[Sharpy]

54 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

You could have a SSTO with a 50% payload fraction, fill the payload with Xenon containers and slap an ion engine on it... and have over 20,000 m/s of delta V...

And you'd still be better off with ISRU instead of all that xenon, because:

- you can't refuel xenon. Once that 20,000 is gone, that's it, SSTO goes to recycle bin.

- there are no destinations in KSP that necessitate this kind of delta-V, You can get anywhere if you have half that much, with stops for refueling.

- to use up that 20km/s in ion propulsion, you'd be spending weeks performing the burn, due to Dawn's lousy thrust. With normal fuel, you get much more reasonable TWR values.

[KerikBalm]

Yea, that's my point... range? between fuelings? with fuelings? If you allow with fuelings, then there are many many SSTOs "tied" for range... you will see people here talking about "infinite range" SSTOs... of course you could just make an SSTO that launches and goes to solar escape velocity... infinite "range", no refeuling.

The Xenon example... its impractical, but its a way to get one stat way up there that may be counted for "range"... but its very impractical and illustrates why the OP really needs to redefine his question.

FWIW, I don't like that Xenon can't be refeuled, but more complex propellants like monoprop can be (and if we consider LF to be aerozine --which fits best for most engines except the LV-N -- its a pretty complex organic molecule too)

I made a little mod that adds an ISRU that can produce Xenon (a separate ISRU, not just an addef functionality to the existing one), it consumes IntakeAtm which a MM config makes all intakes produce... so it can produce xenon whenever an atmosphere is present - Eve, Kerbin, Duna, Laythe, Jool would be the stock worlds to use it... Kerbin Duna and Laythe would be the only practical ones.

 

[Mastikator]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX3PX0MkN8M

This guy made an SSTO that went to Moho and back without refueling. As far as delta velocity goes Moho is the hardest. I think.

[Rory Yammomoto]

16 hours ago, GregroxMun said:

I once took an SSTO spaceplane to orbit and back. I am not good at spaceplanes.

How? please. I had to use Cryogenic fuels to even get a single space-plane into orbit.

 

 

[Pixel of Life]

Depends on whether mods are allowed. A SSTO with KSPI Vacuum Plasma Thrusters has an infinite range if the plane is equipped with the antimatter collector thingies so it can refill the reactor fuel tanks in orbit.

[Archgeek]

On 9/16/2016 at 2:35 AM, Sharpy said:

- you can't refuel xenon. Once that 20,000 is gone, that's it, SSTO goes to recycle bin.

Hehe, no need for that -- If you've gone to that much trouble to make a super long-range space plane, just refuel the silly thing.  If you've used a few big cans, just dock and transfer, and if you've used a lot of little cans and are impatient (if you're impatient why are you carrying all that xenon?), slap a port on the tankage, dump it out the hold, and dock a fresh set of tanks, possibly as an autonomous module with a probe core, rcs ports, and as little mono as you can get away with.

[g00bd0g]

I made a stock SSTO spaceplane that has over 5000DV from LKO
 

 

[Aragosnat]

This can get a 250 k circular orbit around Kerbin and has docking port to allow refueling if need me:

 

The Rapiers are used to give that extra boost to get my speed up to a decent speed so the nuke does not have to work as hard or long. The long static radiator makes a nice heat shield for the mk1 cockpit for re-entry.

[panzer1b]

The best ive gotten with a nuclear rapier SSTO is ~6000dV, enough to do laythe, bop, and pol landings then return to kerbin.  It was 40t on the runway pushed by 1 rapier and 1 nuke (dont even ask how that took off) and that was in 1.0.5 aero.  Btw, it carried 1 ton of weapons as dead weight, without weapons it had a bit over 7000 dV.

With ion rapier, ive managed a 12000dV craft, but the TWR was so bad landing anywhere but laythe, gilly, bop, pol, minmus was out of teh question so while it can be done (didnt test it without the weapons payload so i cant say exactly how far it would have gone maximum).

Both of these were small, as in total length of air intake, mk1-2 adaptor, mk2 bomb bay, mk2-1 adaptor, and rapier long.  Both abused the bomb bays and its ability to disable aerodynamics on as many components as possible so i cant truly call them legit.  Also, the ion one had ALOT of part clipping with the entire ion array being in between a doghnut tank and the smallest 1.2m fuel tank in size (so yeah, clippy and cheaty as can get).  That said, all of these things were functional and looked very good (sci-fi starfighter style) so id say i was quite impressed with the end result (even if that much dV wasnt really useful for anything and i could probably make a infini-range SSTO had i used IRSU...

This is an older version (not the 7000dV one) but the external appearance was very similar so you can get an idea of what they looked like, and yeah, the bomb bay is crammed to the brim in both models with stuff that should never be able to fit inside it.

Edited September 18, 2016 by panzer1b

[theend3r]

Range doesn't matter, as long as you can get some cargo to orbit, refuel and nuke to your destination. Making a passenger only SSTO that can go KSC -> Mun surface -> KSC is quite easy but making SSTOs that can carry space/surface stations and rovers anywhere beyond orbit without refuelling and getting back is close to impossible.

Anyway, to answer your question, I can make an SSTO with infinite range if I use ISRU.

[Combatsmithen]

Yeah, the SSTO in my profile pic used mods to make it easier, and still barely had enough fuel left in orbit to dock with a station.....

I suck at SSTO's

At least it could carry a 3 ton payload or something like that. Its been so long since i made that SSTO. I don't remember lol

Edited September 18, 2016 by Combatsmithen