I finally pulled off and SSTO!

[chainedlupine]

Hey congrats! I'm working on an SSTO right now, and man, is it difficult to get a design that works at all stages. (Take off, orbital boost, descent, and landing.)

Since we're whipping out our SSTOs here...

Penguin mk6 here. It gets to orbit, but I'm having trouble landing it. The CoM shifts too far and makes it unstable once it burns most of its fuel. It's not very sexy (I mean, it's a penguin, after all), but it works.

[RunningGloves]

Seeing as this is turning into the general SSTO thread, does anyone have any good non-video tutorials on SSTO planes? I can make decent aircraft but I've never got one into orbit. I'm guessing it's something to do with how I'm flying them.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

I'm horrific at making spaceplanes that don't flip/not even lift, so I doubt I can make an actual SSTO in any way.

[Temstar]

Might as well post mine:

Not very useful though. It carries up a lot of fuel to orbit instead of something useful like say passengers. If only we can get some 1.25m, Mk2 and Mk3 fuselage shaped crew tanks.

[RunningGloves]

The tiny engines are really just for orientation seeing as the Aerospike isn't gimballed. Hopefully there's enough dV left to stick on a 'chute otherwise Jeb is in trouble!

[RoboRay]

...instead of something useful like say passengers. If only we can get some 1.25m, Mk2 and Mk3 fuselage shaped crew tanks.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/mk3-crew-cabin-fuselage-c7-style-for-0-18-2/

[Van Disaster]

Indeed, really useful that.

I like spaceplanes.

Small crew shuttle at the bottom - takes four crew, would probably reach Mun if I tried although I'm not sure about getting back without fuelling. Bulk cargo carrier at the top, takes 25t to LKO so far, still refining it. 18 passenger shuttle on the right, there's a couple of related cargo designs which I lacked the FPS to get in the shot

[Asmosdeus]

Give me a second; I'll figure out how to rename it.

[Van Disaster]

Edit: double post was queued.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Van Disaster

[Scotius]

RoboRay's Delta Clipper was what i'm looking for Could you please post it on Spaceport when you finish testing it, Ray? I'd love to get my hands on such fully reuseable design, because i don't like cluttering my orbits with spent upper stages and junk. And i suck at piloting planes , all my attempts at building plane SSTOs ended in spectacular, uncontrolled dives from upper stages of the atmosphere.

[Nao]

That is the strangest SSTO I have ever seen. What is the total delta-v?

Counted 6880m/s (since mechjeb / KER can't do it) but it may be wrong. Unfortunately it barley gets to orbit due to low TWR. But it has really great mass efficiency - almost 36% launch mass to 80x80km orbit. Better than most of my staged rockets

Seeing as this is turning into the general SSTO thread, does anyone have any good non-video tutorials on SSTO planes? I can make decent aircraft but I've never got one into orbit. I'm guessing it's something to do with how I'm flying them.

The trick to successful plane SSTO's is to have a base aircraft capable of high horizontal speeds, like 1500m/s and greater. It's possible of course to have slower SSTO but then the flight profile gets more specific, so i think learning is best done on a plane that can almost reach orbit without rockets.

Try building something small with more ram intakes than engines that can go above 1500m/s just on jet engines. Test at what altitude the jet engines cut off. It may help that one jet engine need around 3,31 units of air (shown in intake's right click menu) so if you have three ram intakes for every jet engine, flameout should occur around the time when intakes give less than 1,1 air.

Ascent at step angle until you are close to max altitude the accelerate the craft on a shallow angle (10-5 deg) - make sure you get near 1500m/s while still climbing before flameout altitude and engage rocket engines. At this point you need only around 1000m/s Dv to get to orbit.

I can't do a tutorial on the matter right now but if you have any more specific questions ask away and maybe we can help

[RoboRay]

RoboRay's Delta Clipper was what i'm looking for Could you please post it on Spaceport when you finish testing it, Ray? I'd love to get my hands on such fully reuseable design, because i don't like cluttering my orbits with spent upper stages and junk. And i suck at piloting planes , all my attempts at building plane SSTOs ended in spectacular, uncontrolled dives from upper stages of the atmosphere.

Sure, I'll make the .craft file available when I'm done. I'll post a thread over at the Spacecraft Exchange forum with it, and mention in here. It's going to require NovaPunch (for the engine and tanks) but I'll limit that to the only mod the Clipper will need.

Progress is coming along nicely. It's now a seven-seat vehicle.

[Scotius]

Seven seater? Awesome! That means it should be possible to swap Hitchhiker for one of smaller Rockomax fuel tanks, and use Clipper as a light tanker or even rescue vessel if someone gets stuck in space without fuel to deorbit. Possibilities...possibilities...

[RoboRay]

Maybe. But the extra fuel mass in that payload tank would require more fuel to get it into orbit. The current version has 250-300m/sec of delta-v remaining when it reaches my station in a 160km orbit.

Any SSTO design is going to be marginal by nature, making them much better suited for passengers than cargo.

Edited April 21, 2013 by RoboRay

[Levelord]

My SSTO that carries 5 Kerbals. I use it to ferry 5 Kerbals at a time to Laythe and stuff, with the hyperspace ring of course.

I also have a SSTO re-usable lander that carries 4 Kerbals. It uses parachutes to save on fuel so that it can take off again. It ferries 4 Kerbals back and fourth from my Laythe space station, refueling each time on the station. It also constantly ferries Kerbals from Kerbin to the space station.

[RoboRay]

I think the Clipper is about good enough, now. Reentry is interesting. Aerodynamically, it wants to turn tail-first. ASAS and the aero control surfaces can keep it nose-first right up until parachute deployment, if you prefer flying it that way, but any significant steering deviation off the velocity vector will result in the thing flipping around backwards on you. I suggest just going ahead and reentering tail-first, unless you are using MechJeb's SmartASS for ASAS and setting it to "hold prograde."

How's this for a precision manual landing?

Dead-on the centerline!

(OK, there was a little luck involved.)

If you want, take it for test-ride and give me some feedback before I post it elsewhere: Clipper .craft

Action Group #1 will toggle the engines on and off. Action Group #7 will toggle the ladders.

It's hard to see, but there is a pancake 2.5m fuel tank directly above the engine, in the recess. If you're completely refueling the craft, don't forget that one. You may have to zoom until your view is inside the craft to click on it. The craft could manage without that one, but it provides another 150m/sec or so and makes the craft a little more capable. There's also a pair of RTGs tucked away down there, with the RCS bottles. The ASAS is in a similar hollow at the top of the upper fuel tank.

Watch your speed on the ascent... this is a powerful engine and acceleration becomes extreme as the fuel load burns off. You will easily exceed terminal velocity if you don't throttle back a little, and your Ap will climb rapidly if you don't make a somewhat aggressive turn toward horizontal as the air thins.

NovaPunch is required.

Edited April 21, 2013 by RoboRay

[The Jedi Master]

I wish I had an SSTO...

[Scotius]

Thank you very much RR I will take her for a spin as soon as i get on my gaming rig and download NovaPunch.

@The Jedi Master: You can use RoboRay's ship, or use two other kindly shared by Brotoro (which are fully stock)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25030-Single-Stage-Stuff-pic-heavy/page2

Here's the link to the page with .craft files.

SSTO's are incredibly cool (and difficult to handle sometimes), but they require some serious tech-fu to properly assemble - more than i currently possess Fortunately we can rely on more talented community members.

[M5000]

I just pulled off my first SSTO space plane. I am absolutely ecstatic right now. My palms are basically their own little ocean and there is a huge smile on my face despite having really low blood sugar. This is the same feeling I got from landing on the Mun the first time.

I'm just super happy because not only did I pull it off, but I pulled it off with an actually awesome looking craft that has all the systems I want it to have on it. (RCS, docking, electricity, EVA-on-ground). I was so afraid my first SSTO was going to look like absolute horridness. It goes by the name X-10 Jolly Rancher Light SSTO. A bit of a mouthful, but we can just call it the Jolly Rancher.

I'm sure my ascent profile wasn't the greatest and there could be many improvements, but IT WORKS.

And you know what else? It's ALL stock except for two parts, which are KSPX, and probably could be replaced with stock parts.. Gorgeous..

Ahh it ain't the most useful, the most awesome, the biggest or the baddest. But it's mine. And it will always be my first.

Here's some pictures:

When I first broke orbit and got all sorted out emotionally:

Look how ugly it isn't:

Underside with docking port:

It feels so freaking weird to have something that isn't basically a cylinder facing retrograde. Also, gear down for comedy:

I still have no idea how I did this. Anyone care for a .craft file of a basically useless-but-working SSTO? Don't expect me to tell you how to fly it, because even I don't know.

[Kosmo-not]

Here's a pic of a ssto I quickly put together:

[Camelotking524]

Everybody's SSTO is so much prettier then mine..

[CalculusWarrior]

Wow! You guys have definitely inspired me to build an SSTO once more after I gave up in frustration.

@M5000: That ship is absolutely beautiful, amazing work!

My spaceplanes so far have simply been planes with extra air intakes and a rocket engine too. I never thought of using the NERVA, but it makes sense, especially if you want to go interplanetary.

Has anyone ever made a successful MK3 cockpit SSTO? I'm sure there are a few out there, but I'm hard-pressed to find any.

[RoboRay]

Has anyone ever made a successful MK3 cockpit SSTO? I'm sure there are a few out there, but I'm hard-pressed to find any.

I made a cargo-hauler Mk3 SSTO, a few months ago...

This mission deployed two unmanned probes.

Edited April 22, 2013 by RoboRay

[M5000]

I made a cargo-hauler Mk3 SSTO, a few months ago...

/snips/

This mission deployed two unmanned probes.

DAMN that thing is cool. WOW...

[Van Disaster]

Yeah, I have a whole family of Mk3s ( there's some a couple of pages back in this thread ); only really come into their own if you use fuselage mods though. Aside from the B9 kit I just installed & haven't had a decent look at, the Mk3 is where I usually start for *any* aircraft that actually has a proper function other than just being an aircraft.