SSTOs! Post your pictures here~

[Captain Sierra]

Laythe capable SSTO with slight unusual engines configuration 3 RAPIERs + 1 LV-N. Delta V on orbit 5+ km/s (5010 m/s ), start mass - 44.5 t, crew - 2 brave mans or/and womans.

http://i.imgur.com/FcWYWnjh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vEc0yVOh.jpg

Sound barrier was crashed in a short dive

http://i.imgur.com/YMCmOK1.jpg

It is really hot today... Almost melted craft

http://i.imgur.com/BnJ6OIm.jpg

Maximum speed in atmospheric mode of RAPIERs was reached - 1426 m/s

http://i.imgur.com/O4a7uk5.jpg

Anyone else getting a viper vibe here?

[Mikki]

Just enough Space to...

"Hey Bill, whats in the Fairing??"

"Its just for You, in case of a Snack Emergency..."

"WHAT??"

"Holy... Cow..."

[Mesklin]

Big and elegant SSTO, for really heavy payloads. You should have moderate piloting skills for delivering maximum payload to orbit, but for 80t of your baggage in cargo bay this task is really easy .

Start mass: 276t

Parts without payload: 132

Payload ratio: 32.6%

KerbalX download link (flight instruction included)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited May 16, 2015 by Mesklin

[Chris_2]

Big and elegant SSTO, for really heavy payloads. You should have moderate piloting skills for delivering maximum payload to orbit, but for 80t of your baggage in cargo bay this task is really easy .

Start mass: 276t

Parts without payload: 132

Payload ratio: 32.6%

http://i.imgur.com/PNDBJgqh.jpg

http://imgur.com/a/ZJJrY

Wow! The first 'large' mk3 SSTO I've seen that also looks nice! Download?

[Mikki]

Big and elegant SSTO, for really heavy payloads. You should have moderate piloting skills for delivering maximum payload to orbit, but for 80t of your baggage in cargo bay this task is really easy .

Start mass: 276t

Parts without payload: 132

Payload ratio: 32.6%

Hi MESKLIN

I wanna fly this Plane, can i have the craftfile please? I want to discover the secrets of Koviet engineering arts .

Greetings from your neighbour, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away in the northwest, MIKKI

(BTW, have you seen the Meteor? Crazy thing...)

Edited May 15, 2015 by Mikki
Meteor issue

[Goomblah]

It used to, as intakes open generated more drag than a standard part, while intakes closed had no difference. As of 1.0.x this is apparently no longer the case. (to be fair it was not that significant before either)

The game definitely says the drag values are changing; do the stats visible when right-clicking on the intake not actually apply?

[Mesklin]

Chris_2, Mikki - I added download link to post, enjoy .

[Mikki]

H.O.L.Y.C.O.W. 3 Plus RESCUEPOD

At least 60tons (Picture tanks plus pod about 57tons) Payload to 100x100km orbit, here with Rescuepod, no canards, 16 whiplashs, 2 mainsails, after release of the cargo lots of dv left.

Stockparts 1.0.2, KJR + Eredux, No Clipping

(Sometimes i really wonder if Jebediah seriously has a Pilotlicense... when i see his crazy laugh and the situation he is actually in... i dunno. Is there proof of any education in his

Kerbonautcareer? Who is Jeb really? There is sure a secret... any suggestions??)

"Hey Bill, with the rescuepod really nothing can go wrong anymore..."

"Yes Jeb, you never know..."

And the Craftfile is here, have fun

(dont launch the rescuepod while the small baydoor is closed, or you may need then a

rescuepod..., its ejected with sepratrons, so be aware of the spacebar while flying...)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf86xh2icf5o3z4/H_O_L_Y_C_O_W_%203%20PLUS.craft?dl=0

Edited May 16, 2015 by Mikki
Typos, comment to pod, corrected payload, pic

[eddiew]

Don't judge me, I just wanted to make something sparkly that worked with nuFAR

[Hotaru]

Technically this is an SSTO, everything but the payload fairings (and the actual payload, of course) is recovered and reused. It carries about 2 tons to LKO, not enough for manned ships or fuel tankers (although it can use expendable boosters to improve its payload (I might install Stage Recovery to make them reusable boosters, in fact)) but it has substantially reduced my career-mode cost-to-orbit for medium cargo like space station modules. The airbrakes keep it stable through tail-first reentry. Only downside is Mechjeb's reentry guidance doesn't quite know what to make of the airbrakes, so the landings aren't very precise; I've yet to get one closer than about 15 km from KSC. Planning to make a bigger version with a KS-25 instead of a Mainsail once I've got the appropriate parts unlocked.

This one is called Starlet, it's an improved version of one of the models I posted a few pages back. Nowhere near as impressive as a lot of the designs elsewhere in this thread but it's my first career-mode passenger SSTO and I'm maybe a little too proud of it. 4 passengers, 37,000 spacebucks, no end-game tech, makes it to LKO with about 250 m/s to spare. Once refueled on-orbit it has about 1800 m/s to work with for flights to Mun or Minmus orbit. I've built three of them so far (Alice, Beatrix, Constance) in career mode + KCT, where I've got them operating a regular passenger run between my three space stations at Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus. Admittedly, Alice did need some on-orbit repairs after it lost its nosecone during aerobraking, but other than that they've worked very smoothly. I've even figured out how to get Mechjeb to do most of the work getting them to orbit and back, so I only have to hand-fly the takeoff, final approach, and landing, which helps relieve the tedium of repetitive launches and also makes their performance more consistent.

I am having fun.

[O-Doc]

Here's what I've been working on. It's the lawn dart style SSTO which I'll use for all my refueling needs. It's not a station builder, that will be the next project.

The standard orbital silo gives a payload fraction of 25%. It's a great flyer, ultra low drag and very hard to heat up. Re-entry is dead easy, point directly into the prograde marker and turn on the brakes.

Edited May 17, 2015 by O-Doc

[eddiew]

Sparkles, good handling, and orbital capacity... I did not expect to mix those under nuFAR

[Chris_2]

Nice things being posted. I like all of the above!

[Ape_Descendant]

Yeeeeehaaaaaa. My first ever SSTO....i am so chuffed with myself.

I had an odd fuel balancing thing going on and actually had a lot more dv than KER said. Once i pumped the fuel from the front tanks to the back ones the dv remaining went up from 300m/s to 540m/s, not sure what thats all about? But....it worked.....yay me. I am so happy. And, clearly, easily pleased

[eddiew]

I had an odd fuel balancing thing going on and actually had a lot more dv than KER said.

KER does not currently seem to understand that fuel flows to adjacent (as opposed to node-attached) tanks, and through wings. Add some fuel lines (could be inside the wings) and it'll figure it out properly

[Ape_Descendant]

KER does not currently seem to understand that fuel flows to adjacent (as opposed to node-attached) tanks, and through wings. Add some fuel lines (could be inside the wings) and it'll figure it out properly

Indeed, when in doubt just attach some bits to some other bits...tis the Kerbal way.

[Captain Sierra]

KER does not currently seem to understand that fuel flows to adjacent (as opposed to node-attached) tanks, and through wings. Add some fuel lines (could be inside the wings) and it'll figure it out properly

Its not a bad practice to add those fuel lines anyways. (yeah, I totally trust KSP fuel flow logic)

[Squiggsy]

Here is my latest SSTO, uses parts from the MKII Stockalike Expansion as well as some of my own prototype radial engines (they are not finished yet I was just testing them for balancing purposes, though I don't think I'll change much)

Pretty please with this thing! threw it together quick to test the engines and got it into orbit and landed back on the runway first time, carries 4 crew, might add a drone core and use it as a space station crew ferry. at the moment it's only really good for an alternative way to put my MicroSats up since it only has the smallest MkII cargo bay, but dispite that it runs better than any of the other space planes I've made since 1.0.2

[Goomblah]

All of my workable SSTOs to this point have been essentially just a Mk2 fuselage with control surfaces and RAPIERS slapped on; so, naturally, I took this to the extreme and kerballed it way up:

Presenting the Flying Slab, proof that with enough RAPIERS, intakes, and body lift you can get even the ugliest, most un-aerodynamic contraptions into space.

Returning to atmo, on the other hand...

Having a massive, highly draggy and lightweight (when empty of fuel) body does not do so well against air drag.

[eddiew]

All of my workable SSTOs to this point have been essentially just a Mk2 fuselage with control surfaces and RAPIERS slapped on; so, naturally, I took this to the extreme and kerballed it way up:

Lol, it's a neat experiment, but did it actually let you lift any more cargo, or did it end up being more engines pushing more fuel with a lower payload fraction?

[Goomblah]

Lol, it's a neat experiment, but did it actually let you lift any more cargo, or did it end up being more engines pushing more fuel with a lower payload fraction?

The payload was intended to be a few kerbals (in the passenger module) and fuel; I realized that shipping a separate orange tank in a Mk3 cargo bay didn't make any sense when I could just dock and transfer fuel straight from the plane's tanks to my station. In this case the fuel balance was way off; as you can see in the top screenshot, I reached orbit with tons of liquid fuel and almost no remaining oxidizer, and I barely touched the MP until re-entry, and there was far more than enough for docking anyways.

Having this much wing surface generates a ton of drag (with a TWR of 1.68 it's still really slow to accelerate in denser air), and gives really poor control (except for roll, which is hyper-sensitive). The whole design was horribly overbuilt and draggy; I would not recommend building spaceplanes out of only lifting-body fuselage parts, as it makes it difficult to keep your CoM ahead of your CoL, particularly when the tanks are drained. I usually have some lifting body surface, but also have some regular non-lifting fuselage to help pull the CoM forwards without moving the CoL too.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Goomblah

[Captain Sierra]

Finished the first flight of my new satellite lifter (still need to proof the payload capacity).

The ascent profile is unique since you make most of the climb on turbojets before kicking on the RAPIERs. Once you do, you are GONE! Thing goes from Mach 1 to over Mach 4 in about 30 seconds.

[mellojoe]

Highly impractical, totally working, Single-Stage-to-Orbit passenger vessel:

http://imgur.com/a/cVvd5

Edited May 21, 2015 by mellojoe

[Captain Sierra]

Highly impractical, totally working, Single-Stage-to-Orbit passenger vessel:

http://imgur.com/a/cVvd5

http://i.imgur.com/0PqGIY2.jpg

Yo dawg, I heard you like parachutes.

Also, I embedded your album for you:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Captain Sierra]

Hey SSTO gurus . . .

Considering I can now SSTO pretty reliably in 1.0.2, what advice can I get in terms of a Mk3 SSTO?

A) How different from a typical Mk2 SSTO is it to fly/build?

I'm struggling with TWR to throw 1 jumbo in space. How many RAPIERs is enough RAPIERs? ALso would a turbo-rapier combo work for better jet TWR?