SSTO Rocket

[Uncle Mort]

At last! a successful SSTO rocket able to reach LKO, rendezvous, dock and return without refuelling.

Using the Deep Space Long Pod I'm able to do 5 crew changeovers.

I'm right chuffed!

[magnemoe]

Elegant design, much lighter than my jet ssto. That engines are you using?

[Uncle Mort]

Four basic jet engines and six HOME Radial Aerospikes.

Total mass 62.51 tons.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Uncle Mort

[LiquidKameleon]

How much of a payload can you carry in orbit with this beauty?

[lyndonguitar]

Craft file please?? I'm thinking of it as a kerbal express from land to station(I like to change station crew from time to time)

[Firov]

That's a very elegant, simple design. For my SSTO shuttle (3 kerbal/5 ton cargo capacity) I went with a more conventional space plane design, though I did consider something like you've got here. Nice to see that it can work. I may have to come up with a design like that to supplement my shuttle.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Firov

[RoboRay]

Mine is rocket-only, which makes it somewhat larger for the increased fuel requirements, using the NovaPunch conical tanks and Little Mother engine array:

Crew capacity is seven, but this flight only carried three. I was going for DC-X Delta Clipper-style operations, so no parachutes are installed.

[Uncle Mort]

How much of a payload can you carry in orbit with this beauty?

No payload it's just for crew changeovers. However, I've started to experiment and I got this into orbit:

10 tons, almost fully fuelled. Unfortunately the lifter could quite make orbit but I got it back with a semi-hard landing (9.2m/s)

Back to VAB drawing board!

N.B. How do I upload a craft file?

[magnemoe]

Yes I was thinking delta clipper then I saw it, I always add decopler and chutes as an emergency function if I use to much fuel and is unable to land or other problems.

I was testing the jet design and found that the basic jet engines work better for jet first stages then the turbojet. Probably as your speed is pretty low all the way and your main concern is trust at takeoff.

With two ram intakes I was able to go to 17 km before switching to rockets.

[lyndonguitar]

uncle mort can you upload your craft file for that awesome ssto rocket?