"Seraph" rescue/space-junk-cleanup SSTO

[Wyzard]

This is nothing especially sophisticated, but I just finished designing an SSTO with a claw on the front and lots of dV for cheaply deorbiting space junk, and sometimes rescuing stranded kerbals in the process.  I took a few pictures during its first mission.  (I named it "Seraph" because the wings remind me of a snow angel.)

It's 100% stock, 71 parts, 17.1m long, 55.685 tons wet / 20.655 dry, and gets to 80km orbit with around 3800m/s dV remaining (thanks to a nuke engine).  The oxidizer runs out near the end of the circularization burn, which means switching to the nuke and having uneven thrust throughout the burn, but I'd rather have that happen during circularization than other maneuvers later.

Balancing was a little tricky since the center of mass moves backward a little as fuel drains.  I rearranged the fuel tanks to put a little more of the LF+OX tankage toward the back, to keep the CoM a little closer to the front when oxidizer is empty but fuel is not, and settled for having the CoL a little farther back than I'd like during takeoff in order to prevent the plane from flipping backward during reentry.  While experimenting with different wing placements, I also learned how to use flaps properly (I think).

Anyway, here's an Imgur album (with image descriptions) and craft file.  Comments and criticism are welcome.  Flight profile is in the ship description, but it's basically just 10 degrees the whole time.

(I'm usually not very good at landing on the runway.  I was excited that I actually managed to do it this time — and then I bounced and almost went off the end. )

Edited September 18, 2016 by Wyzard
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