Making an Interplanetary Ship - how?

[Jestersage]

Yes, I know about the SSTOs provided by some fellow forum members (eg: Matt Lowe), but I want to build something of my own; not to mention that SSTO for interplanetery require better flight capability than I have as of now.

I am planning to make something similar to the Von Braun NERVA/Constellation Mars Mission. I am starting with the largest Mk3 LF tank, and put some NERV thrusters on it. So far I am using 7. Tested it with the on-build hyperedit to Mun, and it seems to be okay (using about a minute burn) Is that too much, or is that acceptable?

[Aegolius13]

Are you wondering about thrust to weight ratio, or delta v / range, or both?  In either case, depends heavily on where you're going.  Duna does not take much more to get to than the Mun, provide you hit an ideal launch window.  In contrast, Moho requires huge velocity changes.  That means you need more fuel, and burns take longer.

It sounds like your nuke count might be a bit on the high side, but it really comes down to personal preference.  For really big burns, you can also split up your burn between passes.

[DD_bwest]

well an interplanetary ship isnt much different than any other, cept itll have enough deltaV to get to other planets.  for duna, you dont really need tomuch more than the mun, but i like to have a large reserve just in case.

7 nukes is to much,  yor already in orbit, so a higher twr isnt that important unless you have bad patients lol the engines are heavy so to many will take away from your potential max delta V.

what are you sending to duna?  1 kerbal? 3? lol  a lander or just orbiter?

do you know how to calc delta v?

[Jestersage]

2 hours ago, Aegolius13 said:

Are you wondering about thrust to weight ratio, or delta v / range, or both?  In either case, depends heavily on where you're going.  Duna does not take much more to get to than the Mun, provide you hit an ideal launch window.  In contrast, Moho requires huge velocity changes.  That means you need more fuel, and burns take longer.

It sounds like your nuke count might be a bit on the high side, but it really comes down to personal preference.  For really big burns, you can also split up your burn between passes.

I think the only planets I will bother are Duna, Eve, and MAYBE Dres. Obviously I am concern with TWR and Delta-V, and since I do not use KER, I am literally building by feels.

In a sense the ship I am planning to build is a scaled down Constellation (i.e. less surface-to-orbit launch). I could have just gone with one of Raptor9's design, but since his is focused on looks over functionality, he goes with the SLS-size Fuselage instead of Mk3 LF Fuselage. There are also a few Duna Direct ships, but not sure how much easier/difficult those are.

Being a total noob (actually even less than that for I just reached Minmus), There are a few things I want:

1. Maximize the range of launch window. I expect the ship will be launching from either Mun orbit, Minmus orbit, or one of the high Kerbin orbit.
2. EDIT: Do not require more than 1 minute of burntime per manuveur
3. Ship will be reused. Travel between Kerbin SOI and Duna/Eve SOI
4. Need a lab. The lab doesn't have to land on Duna. {Probably gonna be on the ship.)
5. Minimum need for refueling from Duna for the inteplanetery ship. May do it for the Duna lander. (The interplanetary ship will be attempted to get topped up either from Kerbin or Mun refinery before departure)
6. If doing Eve, it will be an Orbiting mission with Robolander and relays.
7. No Delta V guage (pure stock gaming)

Edited October 27, 2016 by Jestersage

[Aegolius13]

Thanks for the extra info.  A few more random thoughts:

-To keep your ejection burns under 1 minute, you are going to need a lot of thrust.  An ideal transfer to Eve or Duna is going to take around 1,000-1,100 m/s.  To make that in under a minute, you'd need a TWR near 2.  Lets say your payload is around 8-10 tons (science lab, hitchhiker, a couple gigantors, another ton or two of miscellaneous).  Unfortunately, it is going to be impossible to get a TWR of ~2 and adequate delta v with nukes.  Nukes are heavy, and the more you add, the more mass you have dragging your TWR back down - which leads to severely diminishing returns.  

So I think realistically, you have two options.  One is to live with a lower TWR and use nukes.  You could easily do Duna, and maybe Eve, with 5,000 liquid fuel and 6 nukes.  But this would mean around 4 minute ejection burns.  You can get by with fewer nukes, and extend your range by doing so, but obviously at a burn time cost.  

10,000 units of LF and 7 nukes, as you mention, would give you a lot bigger cushion for Duna/Eve, and could probably do Dres, but without much margin for error.    

The other option is to go with a higher thrust chemical rocket, like the Rhino.  10,000 units of rocket fuel and a Rhino will get you similar delta v to 5,000 LF and 6 nukes - enough for Duna but not Dres.  This would provide more than enough TWR to get those one-minute burns.  

 

-Keep in mind that, while reusable design is good long term, you lose the delta-v benefits of staging.  

 

-A major consideration for interplanetary design is whether you intend to aerobrake.  Obviously this only works for certain planets, but always works for returning to Kerbin. Aerobraking can save a lot of fuel, but the heat can be problematic.  Duna is a pretty safe place, Eve much less so.  If you plan to aerobrake, try to either avoid or shield low heat tolerance parts like science instruments, gigantors, RCS thruster blocks and science instruments.   

 

-As mentioned above, Duna is a little, but not much, more delta-v intensive than the Mun.  If you can aerobrake or use an Ike gravity assist to save at Duna, it's close to a push.  So if you can send your ship to the Mun, orbit, and get back to Kerbin without aerobraking, and still have ~25% of your fuel left, you should be in good shape.  

 

[Magzimum]

Just a few comments and ideas:

• You can land a mothership with nukes on Minmus (easy to do on the flats), making refueling a lot easier if you have lined up a docking port to make surface docking easy. You probably only need 1-3 nukes for a large (10000 unit liquid fuel) tank. So if you have 7, that will be really easy. 
• Put some large reaction wheels on the ship. Turning the large ship can take as long as accelerating it, and you sound like an impatient player . Also, if a ship turns too slow, you may overshoot a maneuver node.
• Start the design with the payload (as always). Realize that the payloads for Duna, Eve and Dres may be drastically different. My advice is to design all the payloads first, and only then look at a capable mothership.
• A large part of the payload will only travel half the distance (one-way to the planet). Your return cargo will probably be significantly smaller, since you're likely to use stages for the lander, and may drop a probe or two onto the planet that will not come home at all.
• Unless you enjoy building 'building by feels', consider getting KER. It is not cheating to just get more information. KER does not do anything other than supply you with information, and you can customize which information is being supplied to you.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

 

17 hours ago, Jestersage said:

1. Maximize the range of launch window. I expect the ship will be launching from either Mun orbit, Minmus orbit, or one of the high Kerbin orbit.
2. EDIT: Do not require more than 1 minute of burntime per manuveur
3. Ship will be reused. Travel between Kerbin SOI and Duna/Eve SOI
4. Need a lab. The lab doesn't have to land on Duna. {Probably gonna be on the ship.)
5. Minimum need for refueling from Duna for the inteplanetery ship. May do it for the Duna lander. (The interplanetary ship will be attempted to get topped up either from Kerbin or Mun refinery before departure)
6. If doing Eve, it will be an Orbiting mission with Robolander and relays.
7. No Delta V guage (pure stock gaming)

Don't take this the wrong way, but being that you say you are a noob... what I say is based on my assumption of what you know or don't.

You my friend, are making your life harder without a point.

1- Don't launch from anywhere that's not Kerbin it self.

2- Forget about the 1 minute burn limit.

3, 4 - Ok

5 - Forget about refueling anything. Bring the fuel you need.

6 - Good, don't try to land there. Not a job for a noob.

7 - erm... Ok, I understand your position. I don't agree, but I understand.

Now as I said, I assume that you are a newbie so i might be saying something you already know. I wouldn't try to create a ship that can go to all three planets. As Magzimum said your landers/payloads are going to be vastly different so the transfer stages will need different capabilities. Making a one size fits all rocket is not a good idea IMO.

I'd takle ONE planet at a time, instead of one type of mission at at time. Do a Duna orbiter probe first, then a Duna lander with Kerbals and all that. Then Dres or Eve and so forth.

Also, of the three, go to Duna first, it's the easier one.

[Plusck]

Absolutely agree with @Rosco P. Coltrane

For the launch window question, ship design doesn't really come into it. You either have relatively generous launch windows (Duna especially for the timing, Jool especially for the ease of getting a capture, other planets generally if you're willing to spend longer getting there) or you don't (Moho).

Trying to go at a bad time is quite simply pointless - either you need to have infinite fuel enabled or you'll be pushing the limits of design and/or burning for a long, long time.

[Jestersage]

1 hour ago, Rosco P. Coltrane said:

Now as I said, I assume that you are a newbie so i might be saying something you already know. I wouldn't try to create a ship that can go to all three planets. As Magzimum said your landers/payloads are going to be vastly different so the transfer stages will need different capabilities. Making a one size fits all rocket is not a good idea IMO.

I'd takle ONE planet at a time, instead of one type of mission at at time. Do a Duna orbiter probe first, then a Duna lander with Kerbals and all that. Then Dres or Eve and so forth.

Also, of the three, go to Duna first, it's the easier one.

What I meant is going from Kerbin to either Duna OR Eve OR Dres, not all three at the same time. A flyby involving Eve and Duna is a different story, and in that case I feel I can do it with good old fashion LF-O rockets

Revision:

1. Launch from Kerbin parking Orbit. May as well as launch or move a spacestation up to the parking orbit, but need to know altitude to put it.
2. 4 is still gonna be minimum NTR. Since I saw a design with 3 tanks together, each with 3 NTR design, was actually debating to go to 9.

I know that even at baseline Constellation (3 NTR) it will have enough delta V, just that the burn time will be bad.

Edited October 27, 2016 by Jestersage

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Yeah, what I meant is as I understand it, you want to design a rocket that you can then launch to Duna, Dres and Eve, three different launches of the same design, and that looks like a bad idea to me.

[septemberWaves]

Much like for ascending from Kerbin, the design of an interplanetary spacecraft is primarily dependent on its intended payload(s) (unless you care about aesthetics, but you need to know the basics of design first). For taking a single kerbal to Duna and back, it's doable with chemical engines only. Same with Eve if you aren't going to land on it. Anywhere else will need nuclear or ion propulsion. Additionally, if you're planning to make a reusable mothership, you should (almost) always nuclear engines. Once you start needing large payloads (base modules, multi-kerbal landers, Eve ascent vehicles, etc) or just large numbers of kerbals, that's when you need nuclear engines for Eve or Duna.

The number of nuclear engines you need depends on the vessel mass. Generally I'll go for about one nuclear engine for every 50 tonnes of total (fully fuelled) mass (including the largest payloads the vehicle may be carrying) but going a little above or below that is fine*. There's no point on having huge numbers of nuclear engines on a relatively small vehicle, because they end up adding so much mass that it becomes less efficient to have them. You don't need a high thrust-to-weight ratio; doing so with nuclear engines only serves to counteract the extra efficiency. Do not be alarmed if interplanetary injection burns take several minutes; I have personally experienced some 20 minute burns with a nuclear-propelled transport (this was going to Sarnus, and I had miscalculated and not added enough engines). The long burns can be a pain if you aren't using a mod to execute them automatically (like MechJeb) but the extra efficiency pays off.

For very small payloads, ion propulsion can be the best way to go. If you only want to take a single kerbal and a minimalistic lander to places, your best option is probably to construct a one-module ion-propelled mothership. These are usually small enough to be sent in a single launch, and the incredible efficiency of ion engines is very helpful for small payloads. The reason I am specifically saying that they should be small is because, for a large payload, you could potentially end up having to fire your ion engines for hours across several burns in order to complete an interplanetary injection. This can be counteracted to some degree by using a large number of ion engines, but it's best to save ion engines for small vessels. This being said, if you are using a mod that either allows for very fast power generation and huge power reserves (like Near Future Electrical) or one that adds in high-thrust electric engines (like Near Future Propulsion (though really you need Near Future Electrical or a similar mod to use the more powerful ion engines)), then ion propulsion can be much more effective for large vehicles in the late-game. I personally like the VASIMR engines that Near Future Propulsion provides, in conjunction with its very powerful reactors.

Once you have an idea of what engines to use (usually nuclear) there's a couple more things you need. You need to know the transfer window (I know of at least one calculator that should help with that) and the required delta-v (for which you can use a delta-v chart, or just guess; to calculate your vessel's delta-v you can use an information providing mod (like MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer Redux) or use the rocket equation (which, like most equations, is much simpler than it initially looks)).

*Do not follow this rule for a grand tour mothership. Such a vehicle will need to land and refuel, and as such it will need a thrust-to-weight ratio high enough to ascend from Moho from being fully fueled on the surface. This is because each planetary system has at least one body with less gravity than Moho, so basing your thrust-to-weight calculations on what's needed for Moho will allow the vehicle to refuel in each system. Interestingly enough, this is also true for most planet mods that I know of.

Edited October 27, 2016 by eloquentJane

[Jestersage]

So the steps (aside from taking a look at real-world designs/studies) is to build the entire in-orbit configuration, take a look at the mass, then readjust the NTR as needed before parcel them into different launches?

 

EDIT: The only "mod" that I have installed was the semi-official parts overhaul, which I removed soon to prevent my ship unflyable in pure stock. That being said, a nice thing about that mod is that it's all in one folder.

1. Can KER be uninstalled just as easily, simply by removing a folder?
2. Does KER auto-disable itself upon detecting a new release?

EDIT 2:

1. Is it even possible to launch a ship to Duna SOI in Year 1, Day 19? I am thinking of putting a Duna Direct as a backup

Edited October 28, 2016 by Jestersage

[Sharpy]

A quick&dirty&easy way to SSTO to anywhere.

1) Catch an asteroid. Put a craft with ISRUs on it.

2) Launch any SSTO.

3) Refuel at the asteroid.

4) Go interplanetary.

 

If it can reach LKO from the surface, it can reach Duna from LKO on the same amount of fuel.

[Jestersage]

Another issue is that somehow I cannot create intersect when i am in a 75km LKO, but one of my throwaway probe (to test a TR-XL for contract) managed to create an intercept with maneveur nodes

So the question is: Where do I do my intercept? Should I:

1. Do it in 75km
2. Do it at 120km
3. A Mun Orbit?
4. A Minmus Orbit
5. An orbit between Mun and Kerbin?
6. An orbit between Minmus and Kerbin?
7. A solar orbit (Outside of Kerbin SOI)?

By the Delta-V maps, it implies that I am suppose to do a Solar orbit (escape Kerbin SOI), then do an intercept to Duna. Can someone confirm that?

Edited October 28, 2016 by Jestersage

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

100-120 Km is alright. I use 100 myself.

Technically speaking, the lower the better, because a thing called the Oberth effect. BUT, 75 Km is too low specially with low thrust crafts, because you risk re-entering the atmosphere if your Pe is in front of you (as your burn, no matter how much speed you inject into your orbit, the Pe will tend to go lower and lower and if you're too close to the atmo, then you're in for a bad day).

Anything above 200 is simply wasted fuel getting up there on the first place.

EDIT: wait, or was it the other way around? Your Pe behind you... your ap... Well, never mind, the point still stands, your craft will pass through the atmosphere.

Edited October 28, 2016 by Rosco P. Coltrane

[septemberWaves]

Yes, the best thing to do for an interplanetary mothership is to create a test version of the completed vehicle in the VAB to ensure that you have enough delta-v and thrust-to-weight for your mission.

KER adds a couple of parts but neither are required for the information display (I don't know why it adds any parts at all since they aren't needed). You can use KER with entirely stock parts and yes, you can uninstall it by just deleting the folder. I don't know about automatically disabling if there's a new release, but it might give you a notification when a mod update is available.

I don't know the exact dates of the transfer windows, but there is definitely a Duna window at some point in Year 1 (I think it's a few hundred days in though). If you're willing to install Kerbal Alarm Clock (another utility mod that you don't need modded parts for) one of the things that it can do is give you an indication of when the next transfer window is (and this functionality works for any starting location and any destination, though it can be somewhat inaccurate).

The delta-v map that I linked to does not imply that you should go to solar orbit first. The transfer delta-v to a given location is the minimum delta-v to escape Kerbin from low orbit (which is the most fuel efficient place to transfer from due to the Oberth effect) added to the extra delta-v that's needed for your solar orbit to be raised/lowered to intersect the orbit of your destination planet. It's significantly less efficient to transfer into a solar orbit first and then transfer to your destination; you would be wasting a lot of fuel.

Once in a low Kerbin orbit, you're unlikely to need more than 1700m/s to transfer to Duna and then capture into low Duna orbit once there (it's about 1000m/s for the transfer and 700m/s for circularizing) assuming you don't use aerobraking. Returning to Kerbin will cost about 700m/s to leave Duna's SOI from a low Duna orbit, and then about 1000m/s to circularize back at Kerbin, again assuming you don't use aerobraking. It can be done slightly more efficiently, but a basic mission from Kerbin orbit to Duna orbit and back to Kerbin orbit with no aerobraking takes only about as much delta-v in total as ascending to Kerbin orbit. But in order to get this sort of efficiency, you have to stay in low orbits of each planet, and your transfer burns must be conducted in these low planetary orbits.

Basically, the closer you are to Kerbin when you start your interplanetary transfer burn, the more efficient that burn will be. And it's the same when capturing at Duna if you're not using aerobraking; you want the lowest possible periapsis without actually entering the atmosphere.

[crackerbal]

hi there i worked on this few days ago, and i'm a beginner too

all i can to say about Duna ssto :

12k lf and 2k8 oxi is what am i has once in LKO on my SSTO to duna the payload was a Mk3 cockpit + lab + isru + drill + 2100 ore tank ( mission :p) + all science modules + small satelite + radiators, gigantors, batterries ... in all about 20t, the amount of fuel was far to big if i didn't occur some issues with my mission once landed on duna...

i landed on Duna, get to Ike, land on Ike and finally get back to Kerbin to land all my 6 kerbals and finaly went to sleep dreaming about the same kind of eve mission ( dreams... )

my mission was to bring 2k ore from duna to ike; what am i didn't realise was that 2000 ore = 20tons !!! witch basicly doubles my payload at this point , without refuel some oxidiser to push up my rapiers i wasn't able to get higter then 42km ( close han ? not enought ).. so yeah i had to reafuel on duna  for take off to orbit but finaly arrival into the Ike low orbit i realise that transforming the 2k ore into LF gives me enought deltaV to land on ike, witch i did....

assuming u will dont carry the 20tons of ore, i belive u can to easliy make kerbin-duna-kerbin with around 8000 LF and 1k5 oxi ( depending of how many rapiers are u using, if u take the venor rcs or the monprop rcs etc... )

i made my ship around 4 NERV ( witch is enought, trust me ), i made several 1min45, 2 min burns at periapsis to make them more optimal, the only ones i pushes farder was the final ones where i was leaving the courent buddy orbit, landed on ksc properly with some fuel left

all i can to say about Eve ssto :

i made it more litgher based on the Mk2 cockpit, crew cabins etc in all 10t payload 8000 LF1800 Oxi, 2 nervs, mission : land outpost on minmus, put outpost on eve orbit + fly by gilly (tourist mission), i landed on Ksc with 6.2 or 2.6 ( let's say nothing) fuel left

i didn't made a dres ssto i build one for Jool with a huge 16 Kerbal cabin, i count to expolre all the moons orbiting there, or at least as much as i can, it's actually on his way i will send some feed backs later this night or tomorow

finaly for conlusion what am i undersdand from point 5 and 6 of this :

On 27/10/2016 at 3:36 AM, Jestersage said:

1. Maximize the range of launch window. I expect the ship will be launching from either Mun orbit, Minmus orbit, or one of the high Kerbin orbit.
2. EDIT: Do not require more than 1 minute of burntime per manuveur
3. Ship will be reused. Travel between Kerbin SOI and Duna/Eve SOI
4. Need a lab. The lab doesn't have to land on Duna. {Probably gonna be on the ship.)
5. Minimum need for refueling from Duna for the inteplanetery ship. May do it for the Duna lander. (The interplanetary ship will be attempted to get topped up either from Kerbin or Mun refinery before departure)
6. If doing Eve, it will be an Orbiting mission with Robolander and relays.
7. No Delta V guage (pure stock gaming)

is u dont realy mind about an SSTO but a simple propulsion system that carries u from kerbin to duna /eve low orbit, release the lander, and when the lander is docked back, bring this to kerbin ?

why dont u better plan to build a ssto rocket then ?

1. u build your lander and the other payload

2. u put the interplanetary orbiter ( tug ) under this

3. add a loucher with some prob capable to get back on ksc once the orbiter and his lander are on LKO

doing this, will save u lot of time, nerves and stress resulting from multiple calculations, Btw assuming u will land a small lander on duna mean u need wa less fuel to return on duna orit and randez vous with your tug. Once back to kerbin u can to let the orbiter on Lko for refuel it on when u would lounch your eve / dres mission. With my experience 1 or 2 big kerbodyne fuel tanks and a "rhino"  engine u have a great mothership ( tug ) that can to brings the mid-heavy payloads almost everywhere and back

and as said above do not lounch from mun or minmus keep your periapsis under 300km and forget the less 1min burn

hope it will helps u ! gl

Edited October 29, 2016 by crackerbal
language issues

[crackerbal]

i'm using the forum sine few days so i dont make as many shoots as i should to well illustrate my missions but here are some of the duna ssto

everythink begin here

landed on ike ( by night to show it's not mun but ike )

and by day

back to kerbin

and the 266 deltaV left before the aerobreaking on kerbin

sry if this is spamming your thread i will delate this if u ask

[Jestersage]

@crackerbel I will have to re-read this a few times, so when you can, please edit it so I can understand a bit better. Thank you for the advice anyway.

The reason that I didn't choose SSTO is that the most luck I have with SSTO flying are those that use Mk2 Parts (and those are not even my designs), and only barely. My requirement is a lab in Duna Orbit or Landed on Duna, requiring Mk3 parts. I may take a look at Matt Lowe's design and craft files.

Another thing that make it so difficult is that I am running multiple contracts at the same time, and trying to pipeline between the multiple ship is just starting to get difficult. I have to save scrum a few times already, and that's just Mun and Minmus contracts.

But I will try to build one based on Rhino or 2x Vector+Adapter (I find it funny that it's lighter to go with Vector and Bi-Adaptor, and it's only two extra parts.)

EDIT: Your pictures are not spam. It may give me some ideas.

Edited October 28, 2016 by Jestersage

[Tyko]

KER comes with two parts. There's a settings options for "partless" which eliminates the need to add these parts to your ship.

If you want to make sure you can delete KER and not impact your save, choose "partless"

[Jestersage]

25 minutes ago, tjt said:

KER comes with two parts. There's a settings options for "partless" which eliminates the need to add these parts to your ship.

If you want to make sure you can delete KER and not impact your save, choose "partless"

This one? 

 

[Tyko]

1 minute ago, Jestersage said:

This one? 

 

Correct. There are two parts included and the default settings require that one of those parts be added to your ship to get telemetry. If you switch the setting to "partless", you receive telemetry without the need to attach the part.

[Jestersage]

Do I use the one from the Curseforge, or the github? I recall one version is actually updated for 1.2.

 

EDIT: Found that teh one on github is the right one. Should I install the version from curseforge, and overwrite files from github? Or shall I just use the one from github? O know it's gonna be from the output folder.

Edited October 28, 2016 by Jestersage

[Draalo]

Just the Github Version

[crackerbal]

9 hours ago, Jestersage said:

@crackerbel I will have to re-read this a few times, so when you can, please edit it so I can understand a bit better. Thank you for the advice anyway.

The reason that I didn't choose SSTO is that the most luck I have with SSTO flying are those that use Mk2 Parts (and those are not even my designs), and only barely. My requirement is a lab in Duna Orbit or Landed on Duna, requiring Mk3 parts. I may take a look at Matt Lowe's design and craft files.

Another thing that make it so difficult is that I am running multiple contracts at the same time, and trying to pipeline between the multiple ship is just starting to get difficult. I have to save scrum a few times already, and that's just Mun and Minmus contracts.

But I will try to build one based on Rhino or 2x Vector+Adapter (I find it funny that it's lighter to go with Vector and Bi-Adaptor, and it's only two extra parts.)

EDIT: Your pictures are not spam. It may give me some ideas.

firstble : i dont know what to edit sry for my english, i can't do better ( edit : the last part of my post ? i will try... edit of the edit i did change the end of my first post hopes it's clear now)

secondly : u actually can to build your ssto around mk1, mk2 or MK3 it doesn't drasticly change a lot, u can to build your lab around a mk2 design ssto link by the Mk2 to 2.5m adapter fuel tanks. Btw i find the bigger ssto easier to plane and put in Lko then the small ones, All u need to learn is how the velocity is working on spaceplanes, flying prograde arnoud 10° mark (above or below depending of how fast u want to gain altitude /speed), aiming for a 1250m/s between 14km-18km is a good way to put the kerbals in space all i've learned about ssto was from mark thrimm youtube channel and this 2 threads, it's more complicated then the classic rockets but way more rewarding

doing multiple contracts was the reason i turned on ssto ( spaceplane, not rocket), but before doing that i made one with a rocket :

there is also a rover based on MK2 LanderCan but i havn't a screenshoot of this, once the rover did his job on duna i recover him with the " drone" to kerbin, release the rover for a landing sequence on kerbin and left the drone in orbit for some other futur missions, i belive u should to do this kind of stuff. notice i did change a bit the first stage of this rocket to make it able for recover.

ps an other exemple of an interplanetary tug, i made this screenshoot to compare the efficiency of gravity turn done by a mod and mine... finaly i delate the mod, but if u are a real begginer it can to helps u understand how is GT working :

this tug carried the 18 tons rover to duna, and back with no problem and a large excess of fuel

hope it helps u !

Edited October 29, 2016 by crackerbal
synthaxe errors