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SSTOs! Post your pictures here~


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Here's my first successful liquid only SSTO, its made stable by bringing that Nerv and CoM forwards as much as possible. I reckon I could put a small payload on it since it had ~151 spare fuel. I'm not sure if the pre-coolers are necessary. It should work for the K-prize anyway!

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Construction complete.

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An overview of my jouney

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All systems go.

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Always good to test the nuclear rocket before lift off...

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I think I can pull off 1400 m/s on the rapiers alone.

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How it looks in orbit

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Then I engage the nuke

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Then coast when I reach a good AP

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Not that much more to circularise.

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Atmospheric insertion

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I use all of my wing surface to slow down below 900m/s before a precision landing

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After a successful landing!

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Such wonderful designs in this thread, here's mine, the K.S.S.T.O ATHOS for crew ferrying pourpose, it can bring 10 kerbals at 100x100km orbit with 1500 dv spare, it's full stock, if someone is interested i can share the craft file:)

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More screens at http://imgur.com/a/NcLve

Edited by Stocchinet
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I'm in love with 1.04. Deceptively simple, and capable of Munar/Interplanetary flyby missions. Yes, there is a nuke in there. And no, it doesn't break 1:1 in TWR ratio at any point in airbreathing flight, and only briefly when you switch cycle, for a really short chemical kick into suborbital aerodynamic flight.

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Rune. 41 parts, too. I'm proud. :)

Edited by Rune
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Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you my first useful SSTO plane: the XCXx! (named by my one-year-old who managed to reach the keyboard).

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It can be controlled remotely and has a capacity for carrying 2 kerbals. The small cargo bay contains a good supply of monopropellant for RCS maneuvring, a probe core, batteries and some small solar panals. Propulsion consists of 2 turbojets and a poodle rocket. It has about 1k m/s delta-V left in orbit when flown right, which along with the RCS is sufficient for docking and de-orbiting.

Cost: 36,7k, of which about 35k recovered after landing back at KSC.

Mass: 34t.

All in all it works very well for me as an orbital taxi and recovery vehicle in my career game.

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I'm in love with 1.04. Deceptively simple, and capable of Munar/Interplanetary flyby missions. Yes, there is a nuke in there. And no, it doesn't break 1:1 in TWR ratio at any point in airbreathing flight, and only briefly when you switch cycle, for a really short chemical kick into suborbital aerodynamic flight.

Rune. 41 parts, too. I'm proud. :)

Rune, could please you share the craft file ?

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I recently perfected the Phoenix Spaceplane, a career mode SSTO for getting things into LKO. Because I don't have most of the tech unlocked yet, it just uses parts made available from high altitude flight plus some additional low tech stuff. I used it to launch a manned rocket for a Minmus Flyby contract mission.

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The Phoenix Space Plane

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Plane during ascent, just hold the nose at 20 degrees until it exits the atmosphere.

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Phoenix launching its payload.

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Payload is away.

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How the spaceplane gets its name.

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I miscalculated the landing trajectory and ended up in the desert.

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Still landed safely though.

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Payload makes it to Minmus.

This plane is cheap, handles easily and can get reasonable sized payloads to orbit. It does wonders for the career mode budget.

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Watching Frank_G's storable SSTO, I thought that I could add some flair to it, and things worked nice, so for the rest of you, head to his thread if you want the file ;)

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Rune. And thanks to him again!

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After a few month hiatus, i finally installed 1.04 today and went straight to doing what I always do; obsess over SSTOs.

But, boy, things have changed! I have to relearn all the rules again! Anyway here is the first medium sized one ive built that functions. It hasn't carried any cargo yet, but there seems to be dV to spare.

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Am I correct in noticing that drag is paramount now?

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After a few month hiatus, i finally installed 1.04 today and went straight to doing what I always do; obsess over SSTOs.

But, boy, things have changed! I have to relearn all the rules again! Anyway here is the first medium sized one ive built that functions. It hasn't carried any cargo yet, but there seems to be dV to spare.

http://i.imgur.com/l7ewlEJ.png

http://i.imgur.com/OcHcjF4.png

Am I correct in noticing that drag is paramount now?

Hey, welcome back! Yup, drag is the main concern now, and open nodes are something to run away from screaming. Stuff like putting nosecones on the back of RAPIERs helps! In contrast, TWR is much less of a concern now: as long as you can break the Mach barrier at about ~10kms, you can reach within 100m/s of the maximum speed for an engine, which in the case of RAPIERs (the best engine for SSTOs, hands down) is somewhere around 1,400m/s @20kms.

Rune. The awesome thing is how you can fly to orbit now, using lift at every step of the way. Like in RL!

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