suborbital tug

[imcute]

would adding a plane module to every atmosphered celestial body to tug passing rockets save fuel and pardon the nervae?(james kerman did not like nervae due to not working in atmosphere or with intakes)

[king of nowhere]

so, you are thinking that a passing rocket would pass into the atmosphere, and there you would meet it with a plane and give it a push?

good luck trying. rendez-vous inside an atmosphere with an object on an escape trajectory. maybe someone could pull off that challenge, but i don't want to even try.

[imcute]

Just now, king of nowhere said:

so, you are thinking that a passing rocket would pass into the atmosphere, and there you would meet it with a plane and give it a push?

no

i mean that a plane should be on the ground and a rocket should land and dock onto it and the plane should push the rocket into suborbital trajectory and land safetly

[king of nowhere]

then I still say it's horribly inefficient.

do that rocket need to land? then it's landed, done.

do that rocket need to move to another planet? then do an orbital refueling, no need to land the rocket.

I just can't see any scenario where landing a rocket from orbit on a plane that will send it to orbit again would be useful.

[imcute]

oh

 

[imcute]

34 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

do that rocket need to land? then it's landed, done.

oh wait i meant that it is landed and it needs a plane to take off and refuel

not using the plane to make it land

[Zacspace]

On 7/4/2022 at 2:26 AM, king of nowhere said:

I just can't see any scenario where landing a rocket from orbit on a plane that will send it to orbit again would be useful.

I think they're going for a reusable flyback booster type thing, just with the booster being on another planet.

On 7/4/2022 at 3:03 AM, imcute said:

oh wait i meant that it is landed and it needs a plane to take off and refuel

It's doable. I've seen it done from Kerbin at least. It's hard to make it work without KSP deleting one craft or the other though, since you can only fly one at a time.

Probably the more KSP friendly version of this would be to use a conventional heavy-lift SSTO to bring a nerv or ion powered spacecraft to low orbit and then then release it, landing the SSTO after.

[imcute]

48 minutes ago, Zacspace said:

think they're going for a reusable flyback booster type thing,

yes

48 minutes ago, Zacspace said:

, just with the booster being on another planet.

its also okay on kerbin

(yes i would really like something like that on tylo)

49 minutes ago, Zacspace said:

to low orbit

go to a place like 70km ap and 0km pe(low aoa ssto)

release nerv payload

a small push by nerv(to orbit!)

quickly [ and fly that booster/sstso back and to isru

[Zacspace]

1 hour ago, imcute said:

go to a place like 70km ap and 0km pe(low aoa ssto)

release nerv payload

a small push by nerv(to orbit!)

quickly [ and fly that booster/sstso back and to isru

The problem with that is that you need to be in control of your plane as it lands or KSP will just delete it and say it crashed, meanwhile you also need to be in control of your spacecraft as it burns to orbit, or else it'll just fall back into the atmosphere and suffer the same fate as your plane. There are ways to do it, of course, but it's more trouble than it's worth if you're just looking to improve efficiency.

[imcute]

18 minutes ago, Zacspace said:

that you need to be in control of your plane as it lands or KSP will just delete it and say it crashed, meanwhile you also need to be in control of your spacecraft as it burns to orbit,

if u just need ten seconds to release payload and accelerate to orbit ull catch on the plane and avoid boooooooom