Orbit Portal Showroom [Show me your OPT Spaceplanes!]

[gilflo]

Hi Guys

Evolution of my suborbital stratolauncher. Now he is carrying a VTOL Lunar plane.

It's an OPT J VTOL. With more than  10000DV in orbit, he is able for non atmospheric planet (maximum G= Lunar G) and able to join Earth orbit and land like a SSTO.

146T fully loaded,  OPT lab and an empty cargo Hold for the time

Here is the OPT K Stratolauncher, 216T on take off with 80% Liquidfuel in tanks.. 1 central OPT Starwaster J61- 2m50 and 2 side J61 - 1m875.

Here are both planes: Hybrid J 60D from Lunar VTOL will help during atmospheric ascent . They will be fed only by Liquidfuel from Stratolauncher

Test mission

3+2 engines for take off from Kourou

Take off at the end of the runway at 150m/s, but he can leave ground between 100 et 120

climb accélération

Goal is to reach more than mach 6 between 12 and 22000m

looking at critical temperature on the lower right HUD. The pilot play with angle of attack and vertical speed to avoid critical temp while accelerating.

After 26000m, around Mach 7,  Apoapsis, périapsis, temperatures increase very quickly!. You have to increase apoapsis at maximum possible but keep the periapsis negative to stay in suborbital!

Looking the pics, I realize we didn't maximum thrust!

Engines are shut before they get no air, to avoid positive periapsis

Apoapsis397kms, but it's going to decrease during climb. We perform VTOL Check lists

VTOL: -Open solar panel

- Arm VTOL engine in case we need them during decouping

- Open all Liquidfuel tanks that were shut to avoid feeding the engine during climb

- toggle CloseCycle mod for main engines

Then  VTOL is decoupled 2mn before l'apoapsis, and he lights engines to circularize.

Launching in orbit during suborbital flight, you don't need FMRS mod!. It's very easy. Now, stratolauncher has begun its descent to atmosphere

We get enough fuel and as we are a little bit far from Kourou we can another small orbital jump

That's done and we begin to climb again

Now we are on the best trajectory to Kourou

Descending through 54000m north of Central America coasts

in sight of South America coasts

now it's just a piece of cake

Longue final, 50mns after take off

landed

While the VTOL is gliding above earth

 

 

 

 

[AstralWither]

Presenting: the beta: a plane that builds planes. primary purpose: to be strapped to a very unelegant-looking mothership and then to be sent to dres, where it will build a base. secondary purpose: one way trip to the mun/minmus to build a base or a mining rig to fuel the ship. tertiary purpose: LKO/MKO cargo delivery.

here is the picture, unequipped with RCS

The beta is a part of project helios, where each SSTO will be better than the last, hopefully culminating in the perfect SSTO. it is powered by 3 nebula engines, 8 S.C.O.O.P rockets, and witchcraft. the Beta also carries 1.7 thousand units of rocket parts, enough to build a small miner.

ascent profile

the beta usually lifts off at 150 M/s, and at 175 m/s it pitches up to 70 degrees until 6 km. from there, it slowly pitches down to 30 degrees (by 9 km) and will pitch to 10 degrees at 20 KM. the S.C.O.O.P engines are turned off then the nebula engines flame out, and then the beta circularizes.

 

also this is my first OPM ssto that can reasonably get off the runway 

[kraden]

@AstralWither You don't have much in the way of Yaw control (unless I'm missing something).  How is the sideslip?  Nice, practical-looking craft by the way.

[gilflo]

Hi Guys

After the OPT stratolauncher, here is the SSTO ThunderCarrier built like my bestseller models: 593T able to lift my VTOL shuttle of 146T to a 600kms orbit with 6500DV left to carry it far further in the solar system

Inside the Hold is a satellite equipped with all ScanSat and squad stuff to analyse and draw maps of any planet or moon.

The ThunderCarrier is equipped with 4 Atmospheric J-61 Starwaster and 4 Hybrid Screamjet J-60D. 

Design has been thought to avoid any pitch up or pitch down momentum when carrying the Shuttle in the whole flight enveloppe, including space when only Hybid J-60D are running. Thank's to RCSBuildAid

As for the Stratolauncher the Hybrid J-60D engines of the Shuttle are running during launch to help for the stability and the TWR in the whole flight enveloppe that has been tested with CorrectCol

The Shuttle is undock safely  using VTOL

All maneuvers can be executed without RCS but are very long. A lot of big RCS Vernor engines help for that and also to maintain Radial attitude during Re-entry for efficient aerobreaking

Flying to the runway is a piece of cake with Atmospheric Autopilot which is a manual fly-by-wire

The ThunderCarrier is strong and the design seems good. The proof is that during my first flight a mistake happens after having undocked the shuttle. The shuttle hit very quickly the tail of the ThunderCarrier, destroying the left part.

Despite this I managed to fly the ThunderCarrier to re-entry and landing

As you can see the left part of the tail is missing

But the SSTO is still maneuvering quite well

And land on the Runway 09 at Kourou, very short landing with the help of to repackable chutes, stopping before the buildings

Here are my 3 OPT

 

 

Edited July 5, 2019 by gilflo

[AG-cs]

Siren 01 




Abeti Space Station

ALG -2 

Cunitz passenger carrier
https://i.imgur.com/laoGWwt.gifv

 

Edited July 14, 2019 by AG-ch

[The-Doctor]

The KING of SSTO's with VTOL amphibious capabilities and FAR compatibility is here

 

[bombogenesis]

I don't even know where to start with this stuff...I've never had much trouble building SSTOs or anything but the parts seem to be tough to fit together.  It's definitely just me lol

Edited September 8, 2019 by bombogenesis

[Astrodym]

This mod along with procedural wings makes any spaceplane sleek.

[JadeOfMaar]

My one intentional (or it it?) 2.7x SSTO since JNSQ was released. It has no flashy name and is simply called "A Freight," an Avatar class cargo plane with nearly only legacy parts in it, but also Kerbal Foundries wheels.

Its wings hold no fuel and are mounted high (something I normally don't do) enabling some impressive stability during reentry glide, without compromising its handling in every other situation. Its payload rating is 30 tons but its displayed payload may weigh less than that. Those fuel tanks (in 3rd screnshot) do not hold stock fuels.

[kraden]

@JadeOfMaar For some reason I am unable to "like" anything on the forum, so just know that I like that craft .  Why 2.7x scale, by the way?

[JadeOfMaar]

6 hours ago, kraden said:

@JadeOfMaar For some reason I am unable to "like" anything on the forum, so just know that I like that craft .  Why 2.7x scale, by the way?

For some reason...

Why 2.7x scale? Because it's 1/4 real scale (and not merely a multiple of the size of stock scale); Because I've joined in with the many players who are extremely dissatisfied with stock scale; Because I particularly enjoy the challenge and the thrill of building and flying a spaceplane that can go faster than Mach 6 and that there's more atmosphere to run through (and use, whether for acceleration or smoother aerobraking) at those higher velocities-- where scramjet engines become practical in KSP.

And I'm glad you like it.

[kraden]

Yeah, I ended up finding that after my post

I get the dissatisfaction with stock.  I have two versions of ksp, one with GPP at 2.5x for that very reason, and the other is RO with RP-1 because I hate myself and my computer apparently. 

[JadeOfMaar]

33 minutes ago, kraden said:

RO with RP-1 because I hate myself and my computer apparently. 

LOL!

[KIMCHI]

On 9/19/2019 at 10:04 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

 

Can I get the craft file for this please?

[JadeOfMaar]

On 9/23/2019 at 6:34 PM, KIMCHI said:

Can I get the craft file for this please?

Soon™

 

New stock-scale spaceplane. It includes the boarding ramp and features a deployment bay with 15 tons payload. This is a test-bed for full Hydrolox conversion-- the aerospike ran on Hydrolox and the plane parts themselves held that fuel mix. The wings were not allowed to hold fuel, and the plane had assistance from 8 short SRBs on liftoff to spare some dV on ascent so it can't count as an SSTO. It's better off only carrying crew and maybe a life support refill for a low orbiting station as it is.

Some style points sacrificed for ensured yaw stability. There's no RCS thruster on this.

[gilflo]

Hello guys

I am playing KSP 1.7.3 on RSS now

My new challenge is to launch a spaceplane to Orbit when enough DV left to fly to the moon. The cockpit will separate from the core and land itself on the moon.

Next it will take off and dock to the core of the spaceplane and the spaceplane will fly back to Earth.

The spaceplane need to reach 7600m/s to fly on Earth orbit. so it will be release by 2 Stratolaunchers

Here is the Raptor

The cockpit with its descent stage, I hope it will work!

The Raptor a little bit shorter after the cockpit is docked, return from Moon

Both Stratolaunchers attached to the Raptor. 6 Liquid fuel engines by stratolauncher plus 4 Raptor hybrid engines running on Stratolauncher tanks during climb.

Reaching speed more than 4000m/s  under Stratolauncher atmospheric ceiling which is around 49 kms.

Then the goal is to launch the Raptor at the maximum speed and right angle to complete the climb to orbit via the Primer Vector climb method which is a single burn to orbit, the best one in RSS/RO

The touchy thing is after the launch, because the stratolaunchers are very near from each other over their ceiling and a little bit out of control

Edited September 28, 2019 by gilflo

[JadeOfMaar]

On 9/23/2019 at 6:34 PM, KIMCHI said:

Can I get the craft file for this please?

Here you go: Avatar Revival Shutlle. I had to edit it a bit, I replaced the forward fuel tank with more cargo bay. I don't have use for the extra space but I'm sure you and others will. The extra fuel mounted in there is only needed for 2.5x and 2.7x scaled system. The craft's handling shouldn't change a lot without that.

 

Looking pretty good there @gilflo. I guess the cryo stuff is working out for you now.

[gilflo]

I reworked the Stratolauncher and the Raptor after some flying test we have 1 Stratoraptor with 2 cockpits like the real Stratolaunch.

The reworked Raptor is docked on it

Here is the inside of the Raptor Lander, the cockpit with the descent stage

I tested the docking in the space and it is very interesting, because you have to perform it to haver the cockpit exactly align with the fuselage to get a new shorter Raptor for the re-entry...The descent stage has gone

Here is the launch at the Stratoraptor ceiling which is the ceiling of the J61 OPT engine, between 48 and 49 kms in RSS. And nearly mach 15 is reached before launch

Then the most difficult part after the launch is to fly back to base with Raptor. Atmospheric autopilot is needed to pilot such a big plane and landing on the runway  is not easy at all! You also have to care not to launch too far if you don't want to land in the sea....

[JadeOfMaar]

Hey @gilflo I got blown away by what you're doing here. This is what peak performance looks like! And it's something I've wanted to see for a long, long time: OPT Spaceplanes (using OPT engines) in real scale. I'm curious to how you met the J-81 engines' EC demands since you removed the RTG cluster from the spaceplane's back? Is there a "Tidal Force" power sphere in the service bay? I also notice you have very little LH2 now. Care to explain?

[qwe9000]

OPT Showroom:

AU-203-200 "Andromeda" Atmospheric SST

 

Imgur gallery link (Some more pics): https://imgur.com/gallery/uZ9topa

Description

The AU-203-200 "Andromeda" Supersonic Transport Aircraft is a project by Aurora Aerospace, utilizing many advanced aerospace technology from previous SSTOs and Space Cruisers. The craft is used to transport large rocket parts, fuel, and exotic resources retrieved from space. It efficiently transports cargo at mach 1.5 to other space centers to support the growing Gaelean space industry.

Technical Specs

Engine: x6 J-60D, x2 Dark Drives

Power Plant: x2 Dark Energy Reactors

Capacity: 32 Passengers

Cruise Speed: Mach 1.5, 450 m/s

Range: 8000km

Height Ceiling: 20000m

Additional Attachments: x2 J-92 "Nebula" Turbojets.

Edited October 9, 2019 by qwe9000

[docthaspok]

6 hours ago, qwe9000 said:

OPT Showroom:

AU-203-200 "Andromeda" Atmospheric SST

 

Imgur gallery link (Some more pics): https://imgur.com/gallery/uZ9topa

Description

The AU-203-200 "Andromeda" Supersonic Transport Aircraft is a project by Aurora Aerospace, utilizing many advanced aerospace technology from previous SSTOs and Space Cruisers. The craft is used to transport large rocket parts, fuel, and exotic resources retrieved from space. It efficiently transports cargo at mach 1.5 to other space centers to support the growing Gaelean space industry.

Technical Specs

Engine: x6 J-60D, x2 Dark Drives

Power Plant: x2 Dark Energy Reactors

Capacity: 32 Passengers

Cruise Speed: Mach 1.5, 450 m/s

Range: 8000km

Height Ceiling: 20000m

Additional Attachments: x2 J-92 "Nebula" Turbojets.

How did you manage your COM and COL

[gilflo]

@JadeOfMaar

Here is my trip to Moon in RSS with The Stratolauncher, renamed StratoRaptor and the Spaceplane Raptor whose cockpit will undock and descent on the moon.

We need to reach 25, around 7500m/s to leave Earth, which is impossible with an SSTO, even with OPT engines

That's why I create the Startoraptor launching the Raptor Spaceplane. Weight of the raptor in charge is around 153T

The 4 hybrid engines of the Raptor leaves 13000DV range in vacuum  provided you give them 50 electric units/s during engines run

The cockpit with its descent and climbing stages decoupling from the Raptor core are the Moon lander. Here is the service bay with 20 NearFututreElectrical RTGs to help the Hybrid engines in close cycle mod

Here is the Stratoraptor 995T bicockpit plane with 80% fuel. 12 OPT J61 engines giving a TWR >3 at the engine ceiling around 48500m. That allows More than Mach 15 at launch

Take off and heading 117° to be on lunar plan

Climbing 70°, acceleration around 15000m and mach 2.5

Leaving 37000m under acceleration, we try to stay a near as possible from apogee: see the MechJeb PrimerVector concept in RSS/RO in the RSS RO wiki (very interesting)

 

43500m; Mach 13.5 less than 5s from apogee, great acceleration, we should launch at more than M 15

Launch at more than mach 15  StratoRaptor being in sub orbital flight with engines shut

that 's an awesome optimal climb for the Raptor reaching 5000m/s a 52000m

Approaching orbit with more than 10000DV

Lunar transfert calculation

Meanwhile with FMRS,we come back to the StratoRaptor which is 1200kms far from base. The best return flight to spare fuel is the following: vertical dive engines shut, then engines relight under 30000m, inverse Immelmann to climb to orbit

we begin climb on the back around 13000m

Then half barrel roll

and climb to suborbital

A second suborbital climb is necessary to avoid fuel shortage

the shortest possible approach

we try the runway which is very hard with such a big aircraft. Use of Atmospheric autopilot is a great help

On the ground

Here in lunar orbit, undocking the lander

Lander retrobreaking

Gear down

fine landing

Crew goes out to plan a flag

Climbing back to cockpit for departure

The descent stage stays on the Moon

climbing to a 45kms orbit

Back view from tanks and climb engines

Calculation of docking point

approach and angular alignment on the fuselage

Cockpit docked and well aligned, Raptor is now shorter as we left the descent stage on the moon

7000 DV left for earth return

 

2mn HD vid for cockpit separation and landing

https://youtu.be/Oub2VP7PagM 

2mn HD vid Cockpit docking after moon climb

https://youtu.be/K45A36cMzak

 

815 DV for earth injection

Then 1800 Dv to get  8000kms apogee with 160 perigee

Then still 1500Dv to circularize at 160kms  break enough for re entry

South burn aligng with the launch base, it's 1300 DV more

due to overheat speed brakes are destroyed

lighting engines in air breathing mode

long final on Kourou runway Kourou which is an island like all other bases in RSS (I think it's a bug from the mod which is not updated for KSP 1.7)

Mais landing fascing East, pull up and landing facing west

long landing and stop at the very end of the runway

Conclusion

I am happy with Stratolauncher to launch spaceplane. It works very well with OPT engines. Maybe it could be a good idea to gat a back inflatable shield on the spaceplane to spare aerobraking fuel

 

I am planing a bigger Stratolauncher to launch a bigger spaceplane including hold with rover and more DV

 

 

Edited October 9, 2019 by gilflo

[qwe9000]

@docthaspok It was pretty easy, I just emptied out some of the fuel tanks acting as engine supports. The plane can be a bit unstable when the CoM is changed. the CoL was quite easy since I used 2 Type-C Main wings and some smaller wings on the end. These heavy aircraft actually take a lot of work to make sure the CoM/CoL is aligned. In fact, this is my first successful attempt at building such a heavy craft.

16 hours ago, docthaspok said:

How did you manage your COM and COL

Besides look at that other guy with the stratolauncher, it must be quite heavy too, despite the smaller fuselage. Usually to manage the CoM I just put some tanks near the wing that blends into the body. The CoL is easier. If your CoL is in front of the CoM, you can always move it back and add a wing pylon. Good luck on making a heavy aircraft!

 

P.S: Try to download Kerbal Konstructs and make a larger runway/base yourself for optimal landing results

Edited October 10, 2019 by qwe9000
More explaining

[qwe9000]

@gilflo that's one of the most skilled SSTO missions I have ever seen. Great job!

[gilflo]

On 10/7/2019 at 6:49 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

Hey @gilflo I got blown away by what you're doing here. This is what peak performance looks like! And it's something I've wanted to see for a long, long time: OPT Spaceplanes (using OPT engines) in real scale. I'm curious to how you met the J-81 engines' EC demands since you removed the RTG cluster from the spaceplane's back? Is there a "Tidal Force" power sphere in the service bay? I also notice you have very little LH2 now. Care to explain?

The RTGs are in the service bay, behind the cockpit, very simple in fact