Hello

[Kasterfin]

I've been playing KSP for some time, but this is my first forum post - I'd like to introduce a spaceplane I've been working on;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e83cg2vi6fj7lbw/AEropig%209.craft

This is the 'Aeropig 9', a suborbital spaceplane equipped with four ion engines which are capable of raising it's perehelion to LKO (if operated from the moment the aircraft leaves the atmosphere), transferring it to Mimmus (if you're prepared to wait 20 minutes), and actually landing on Mimmus if done carefully. It is capable of landing and returning from ANY airless moon small enough that it's T/W ratio is greater than 1, and performing an unpowered glide landing on Kerbin (it has parachutes for emergency braking). I imagine it will come in handy for interplanetary missions when .17 comes out.

The vehicle uses four stock jet engines combined with X 7/9 scramjets for operation up to about 12,000 meters, and then three Aerospike engines for operation up to around 30,000 meters, after that it coasts to a sub-orbital altitude of around 120km and uses whatever fuel remains and all it's ion engines to achieve orbit.

Unfortunately, it makes use of a lot of mods;

Mechjeb

Electrical Energy

Powertech

-DynaThrust Ion engine

Kosmos Space station parts

Deep space mission

Floodlights

Bigtrak

Novapunch

.5 scale stock parts

X 7/9 Scramjet

C7 Aerospace

[Kasterfin]

The images don't seem to have loaded properly, but if you right click on the question marks you can open them in a new window or tab

[nibula]

Images dont seem to work and welcome

[Meritania]

I'd like to say 'wow' to the concept. I've been designed an ion-powered craft that as far as they go, is quite nippy. It's acceleration is about 1 m/s^2 and recharge its batteries fairly quickly and can go from low kerbin orbit to Minmus in one charge!

It's still nowhere near capable of landing on anything or gliding. I'm tempted to wait for docking and build some kind of 'throw away' landing pod, that once it brings the astronauts to and from a moon or planet, can be thrown away. New ones can be picked up from a kerbin space station, that themselves have been brought there from the Kerbin surface. It means that 'Ion Prince', will never need to 'end it's mission' and always has ample power, fuel and oxygen supplies.

Oh and welcome to the forums.

[Capt'n Skunky]

Happy Launching!

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager