SSTOs! Post your pictures here~

[Exothermos]

I've been playing around with little personnel shuttles for Kerbin orbits.  I figured I'd share.

This Wingy-Thingy works really well with as a liquid fuel only shuttle.  

The large lift lets you build speed at medium-high altitude with the whiplashes, then zoom climb the last few kilometers before the Jets die.  Very useful for getting your time-to-apoapsis as high as possible as you slow burn on the Nukes up to the apogee.  Over 1500 dV in orbit.  Reentry and landing is a snap too.  With all that lift and drag, she slows down very well in the upper atmosphere then lazily floats down.

 

But really, the big wing is fun, but not totally necessary.

This more conventional wing design based on the one above ends up with more than 2000 dV in orbit after a similar ascent.  It  saves on weight and drag at the expense of lift.

 

Parring the design down further yields this fugly little guy.

It works like a charm, but the ascent has no room for error.  The speed and angle of the zoom climb is critical, and the nuke is lit all the way to apoapsis.  That single nuke doesn't have much oomph.  Once in orbit, however, 1500 dV remains. 

 

Finally, I really like this little single-rapier runabout.

 It doesn't have much juice left after ascent, but can maneuver to 120 km+ orbits with ease. 

 

Edited February 12, 2017 by Exothermos

[mystik]

21 hours ago, Korsakovski said:

Somewhat finished with Kraken E14, although I haven't figured out a ladder configuration that will work with the largest landing gear, since I've never used them before. Therefore, this prototype has no ladders as of yet. Also figured out how to stuff everything science-related into the main cargo bay, I think. Small ore scanner too and ground scanner to compliment the set. No large scanner though, that thing is just too unwieldy to squeeze in.

Also was too lazy to check CoM/CoL while empty... again.

EDIT:Checked CoM and it was a few millimeters in front of center of lift when empty. So I guess it is on the better side, but I think I'll tweak it anyway.

But here it is, all 658 tons of it.

https://kerbalx.com/Korsakovski/Kraken-E14

http://imgur.com/a/caTYt

Ok, I am customizing it right now, because I saw a few issues.

It has too many RCS. I think 1 or two sets are enough. You are going to use them for very fine adjustments anyways.

The radiators are too far from the heat source. They won't work. Having build a giant asteroid wrangler, that can mine the target, I can tell you that the radiators only work for nearby components. The ISRU would not be cooled if the radiators are so far away. Could be wrong, have you tested the ISRU? I have placed one medium radiator on top for testing. Also added 2x small radiators for each bay with drills.

Removed the radiators from the side cargo bays and installed extra fuel cells.

Don't worry about the stairs. You can always retract the front gears and extend the ladder. Then once everybody is on you can raise the front back up.

I will test more and get back with more feedback.

 

Edit: Found that the 2 sets of 3 vertical engines between the main engine blocks are wobbly when used. Would require a few struts. It's the engines sandwitched between and they're 3 vertical ones on both sides that are attached to the small rocket tanks.

 

New edit: It seems that the current model has less DV than the E4. I used to get into space with 2500m/s with the E4, but with this I can only get 1200-1600m/s. I think that the lab needs to be scrapped. Sometimes extra engines are a bad thing, because they add dead weight, the trick is to have just enough to get you into space and no more. I may be flying it poorly, but I don't seem to get the same perfomance as I got out of the E4. While I did modify some things, I scrapped the crew cabin and replaced the fuel tanks in the side bays with extra control wheels, the model seems to underperform when compared to the original.

 

Sometimes less is more. The trick to get the most perfomance is to keep it light and powerful. Less engines mean less power, but also less weight when in space. I am not sure that Whips are helping too much. I mean, they help on Kerbin and Laythe, but are useless for the rest of the journey and only drain from the total dv.

Edited February 12, 2017 by mystik

[Korsakovski]

3 hours ago, mystik said:

Ok, I am customizing it right now, because I saw a few issues.

It has too many RCS. I think 1 or two sets are enough. You are going to use them for very fine adjustments anyways.

The radiators are too far from the heat source. They won't work. Having build a giant asteroid wrangler, that can mine the target, I can tell you that the radiators only work for nearby components. The ISRU would not be cooled if the radiators are so far away. Could be wrong, have you tested the ISRU? I have placed one medium radiator on top for testing. Also added 2x small radiators for each bay with drills.

Removed the radiators from the side cargo bays and installed extra fuel cells.

Don't worry about the stairs. You can always retract the front gears and extend the ladder. Then once everybody is on you can raise the front back up.

I will test more and get back with more feedback.

 

Edit: Found that the 2 sets of 3 vertical engines between the main engine blocks are wobbly when used. Would require a few struts. It's the engines sandwitched between and they're 3 vertical ones on both sides that are attached to the small rocket tanks.

 

New edit: It seems that the current model has less DV than the E4. I used to get into space with 2500m/s with the E4, but with this I can only get 1200-1600m/s. I think that the lab needs to be scrapped. Sometimes extra engines are a bad thing, because they add dead weight, the trick is to have just enough to get you into space and no more. I may be flying it poorly, but I don't seem to get the same perfomance as I got out of the E4. While I did modify some things, I scrapped the crew cabin and replaced the fuel tanks in the side bays with extra control wheels, the model seems to underperform when compared to the original.

 

Sometimes less is more. The trick to get the most perfomance is to keep it light and powerful. Less engines mean less power, but also less weight when in space. I am not sure that Whips are helping too much. I mean, they help on Kerbin and Laythe, but are useless for the rest of the journey and only drain from the total dv.

I hear only the static radiators need to be near what they are cooling, apparently the deployaple ones draw heat from the entire craft.

And passengers might mind a bit when captain Jeb retracts the nose wheel to disembark, but I guess it is one way of getting your kerbals back inside. Just seems rather unreal that doing that with something heavier than an Airbus A380 will not result in any damage whatsoever.

As for the deltaV, I got 3.5km/s with the E4 and 3,2km/s with the E14. What kind of ascent profile are you doing? Also, when I flew the E14, the deltaV readout from KER was slightly bugged, I had to pump pretty much all the fuel from the central fuselage into the side tanks to get an accurate reading. As for why the E14 has less dV, it's probably the lab.

Whips are there to help push you through the lower atmo, they seem just slightly better at it than rapiers. And they look cool. Besides, a wall of rapiers isn't exactly pleasing to look at, especially when there are this many.

[mystik]

1 hour ago, Korsakovski said:

I hear only the static radiators need to be near what they are cooling, apparently the deployaple ones draw heat from the entire craft.

And passengers might mind a bit when captain Jeb retracts the nose wheel to disembark, but I guess it is one way of getting your kerbals back inside. Just seems rather unreal that doing that with something heavier than an Airbus A380 will not result in any damage whatsoever.

As for the deltaV, I got 3.5km/s with the E4 and 3,2km/s with the E14. What kind of ascent profile are you doing? Also, when I flew the E14, the deltaV readout from KER was slightly bugged, I had to pump pretty much all the fuel from the central fuselage into the side tanks to get an accurate reading. As for why the E14 has less dV, it's probably the lab.

Whips are there to help push you through the lower atmo, they seem just slightly better at it than rapiers. And they look cool. Besides, a wall of rapiers isn't exactly pleasing to look at, especially when there are this many.

Ok, maybe something is wrong with my ascent profile, how do you manage it?

As for radiators, I am sure, I had my drills overheat because I placed my radiators too far from them. I used the deployable ones. I don't get it.

When in orbit I get 2600 out of rapiers or 1800 if I switch to nukes. That tells me that there is a power to weight ratio issue. Normally nukes should give you lots of dv.

I will have to test with the lab removed. Maybe shorten it a bit too. I do have a high drag item that I attach to the front because I have no other way of carrying it anymore since this model does not have a cargo bay for rovers. I carry my exploration rover. Not excessive drag, but definitely not very aerodynamic either.

I consider removing the passanger cabin too, to save weight. Sorry, I need to go light, because Tylo will prove difficult.

[Korsakovski]

24 minutes ago, mystik said:

Ok, maybe something is wrong with my ascent profile, how do you manage it?

As for radiators, I am sure, I had my drills overheat because I placed my radiators too far from them. I used the deployable ones. I don't get it.

When in orbit I get 2600 out of rapiers or 1800 if I switch to nukes. That tells me that there is a power to weight ratio issue. Normally nukes should give you lots of dv.

I will have to test with the lab removed. Maybe shorten it a bit too. I do have a high drag item that I attach to the front because I have no other way of carrying it anymore since this model does not have a cargo bay for rovers. I carry my exploration rover. Not excessive drag, but definitely not very aerodynamic either.

I consider removing the passanger cabin too, to save weight. Sorry, I need to go light, because Tylo will prove difficult.

Well, the damn thing is too heavy anyway and I have been thinking of making a 4-man SSTO optimized for Tylo.

As for the ascent profile, as shallow and as fast as possible. (Any shallower and you would hit the sea) This design is very fat and very weak.. Also it has almost no wings to hold all that weight. All you can rely on is letting your wall of rapiers build up speed. But when you do get up to speed, the lack of wing surface will be a blessing instead. But should you loose that speed you will also loose that lift, leading to significantly worse dV. The E14 is much worse in this aspect than the E4, being 60 tons heavier but with the same wing configuration.

[mystik]

7 hours ago, Korsakovski said:

Well, the damn thing is too heavy anyway and I have been thinking of making a 4-man SSTO optimized for Tylo.

As for the ascent profile, as shallow and as fast as possible. (Any shallower and you would hit the sea) This design is very fat and very weak.. Also it has almost no wings to hold all that weight. All you can rely on is letting your wall of rapiers build up speed. But when you do get up to speed, the lack of wing surface will be a blessing instead. But should you loose that speed you will also loose that lift, leading to significantly worse dV. The E14 is much worse in this aspect than the E4, being 60 tons heavier but with the same wing configuration.

I've been thinking. Can a design based on MK2 parts work? I think the MK2 parts act as wings too, but I am not sure, I remember being able to glide a lot with those. I know they are more draggy, but this may mean less weight and less need for extra engines. I didn't manage to create one out of MK2 parts, is there any technical difficulty?

[Jett_Quasar]

I finally posted my Salvo SSTO

 

Download it on Kerbal-X HERE

- Jett

[Exothermos]

That's a fun video!

[Jett_Quasar]

37 minutes ago, Exothermos said:

That's a fun video!

I was worried about naming it "The Wildest Ride You'll Ever Have in KSP" thinking that somebody will call me out on it at some point...  Hasn't happened yet. LOL!

- Jett

[lukavago]

My first ever SSTO. It flies, it dives, and it lands. I'm super proud of myself for getting it built and learning to fly it, but I have a fair bit of work to do still.

 

[mystik]

@Korsakovski What if you drop the lab, reduce the size of the cargo bay to the 3.0t model and move the ISRU to the back of the plane to balance out the cockpit? That way you keep the placements of the VTOL engines. Also, I found that placing the reaction wheels around the plane makes it more responsive than placing them in one place. You can probably get away with a full RTG setup too, you only need about 36 EC for ISRU 30, 2X drills 3 and 2 X radiators 3 (about 45 pcs). Which means a single 4k battery is enough and that saves space for M700 and stuff. It will cost more but it should be autonomous.

[Korsakovski]

1 hour ago, mystik said:

@Korsakovski What if you drop the lab, reduce the size of the cargo bay to the 3.0t model and move the ISRU to the back of the plane to balance out the cockpit? That way you keep the placements of the VTOL engines. Also, I found that placing the reaction wheels around the plane makes it more responsive than placing them in one place. You can probably get away with a full RTG setup too, you only need about 36 EC for ISRU 30, 2X drills 3 and 2 X radiators 3 (about 45 pcs). Which means a single 4k battery is enough and that saves space for M700 and stuff. It will cost more but it should be autonomous.

Passenger-cabinless version with the radiators inside the main cargo bay. 626 tons total fully fueled. Also upgraded the size of the tailplanes to combat the constant CoM/CoL woes of the previous prototypes.

https://kerbalx.com/Korsakovski/Kraken-E15

http://imgur.com/a/sHoXR

[mystik]

1 hour ago, Korsakovski said:

Passenger-cabinless version with the radiators inside the main cargo bay. 626 tons total fully fueled. Also upgraded the size of the tailplanes to combat the constant CoM/CoL woes of the previous prototypes.

Allright. Like the weight loss. The fix to stability was much needed. I'd say this is your best yet. I will have to make some time and fly it to Tylo. I saw a video on how to land on Tylo with a space plane, which I need to test, then I will share with you.

Edited February 14, 2017 by mystik

[Korsakovski]

8 hours ago, mystik said:

Allright. Like the weight loss. The fix to stability was much needed. I'd say this is your best yet. I will have to make some time and fly it to Tylo. I saw a video on how to land on Tylo with a space plane, which I need to test, then I will share with you.

I think so too. Having to ditch the passenger cabin torments my soul, but it can't be helped I guess. Having big isru with 4 drills and a lab to boot, there's just no way to squeeze in a passenger cabin into this design.

Well, maybe I should make a scienceless version with the passenger cabin. I am making this stuff in sandbox anyway, so the science stuff isn't really necessary. 

[Exothermos]

Here is an ISRU SSTA that carries a big rover; because you haven't really been somewhere unless you've driven a car on it! 

 

The main craft kneels to engage its own drill.  Why the redundancy?  I can't decide which direction to take the craft. A big mining rover with the large Mk3 cockpit on the main craft, or a cockpit-free design where kerbals live aboard a Hitchhiker Can on wheels, and the ship does all the mining and processing?  I like going out and finding richer deposits with the rover and not relying on fiddly piloting to land in a high-ore area, so I'm leaning that direction.

Here, an old salty-dog oil rig operator who was hastily trained for space drills the surface. 

 

Here is an earlier design (one of 15+ iterations) visiting Laythe, just 'cuz the screenshot is cool

 

And just to stick with the silhouette theme, another version of the flying wing nuclear SSTO series I've been tinkering with.

 

 EDIT: Sorry, I know dark screen shots aren't really mobile freindly..  But they're pretty. 

Edited February 15, 2017 by Exothermos

[mystik]

3 hours ago, Korsakovski said:

I think so too. Having to ditch the passenger cabin torments my soul, but it can't be helped I guess. Having big isru with 4 drills and a lab to boot, there's just no way to squeeze in a passenger cabin into this design.

Well, maybe I should make a scienceless version with the passenger cabin. I am making this stuff in sandbox anyway, so the science stuff isn't really necessary. 

There is another way to go about this. If you are looking for extra capacity you can still get away with it pretty easily. You can just install rover seats in the science bay. I mean, I do it all the time, especially when I need to rescue a kerbal from space also. You can drop 2 drills and stick with 2 instead.

The lab is, in my opinion not necessary, as you can get away with a big antenna instead and carrying that big thing in space. Besides, assuming you do go places and gather science, the lab will be full in a matter of minutes, with lots of science remaining that won't fit anymore. This is why I think the lab is not that great to carry around. It should be a better idea to save the space and weight. You can keep the bay for customizable purposes (I am trying to figure out how to place a rover in it that if I turn it upside down and lower the plane while lifting the rover up on landing struts to dock. I have plans for the docking bay, but none with a lab. However, I don't mind seeing the inventiveness that you show so far, which keeps me in front of the editor for hours tweaking your design to somehow fit that rover that I have.

 

3 hours ago, Exothermos said:

Here is an ISRU SSTA that carries a big rover; because you haven't really been somewhere unless you've driven a car on it! 

 

The main craft kneels to engage its own drill.  Why the redundancy?  I can't decide which direction to take the craft. A big mining rover with the large Mk3 cockpit on the main craft, or a cockpit-free design where kerbals live aboard a Hitchhiker Can on wheels, and the ship does all the mining and processing?  I like going out and finding richer deposits with the rover and not relying on fiddly piloting to land in a high-ore area, so I'm leaning that direction.

Here, an old salty-dog oil rig operator who was hastily trained for space drills the surface. 

 

Genius. How much dv does the ship have? Do you need to refuel in LKO or does this thing fly all the way from Kerbin to Minmus in one go? I love the fact that the ship need to be lowered to begin drilling adds a "separate state" of function, excuse my nerdy talk, I mean that it has a different setup when drilling than when it is just sitting there. Do you have the craft file? I am interested in learning things about SSTA for convenience sake because I want a ship that that can take my rover (smaller than yours) to places I want to see. I want to go down craters where the ship would not be safe to go to.

Edited February 15, 2017 by mystik
Corrected spelling so that I don't look like a R-TARD hitting the kbd at random

[Chris_2]

4 hours ago, mystik said:

There is another way to go about this. If you are looking for extra capacity you can still get away with it pretty easily. You can just install rover seats in the science bay. I mean, I do it all the time, especially when I need to rescue a kerbal from space also. You can drop 2 drills and stick with 2 instead.

The lab is, in my opinion not necessary, as you can get away with a big antenna instead and carrying that big thing in space. Besides, assuming you do go places and gather science, the lab will be full in a matter of minutes, with lots of science remaining that won't fit anymore. This is why I think the lab is not that great to carry around. It should be a better idea to save the space and weight. You can keep the bay for customizable purposes (I am trying to figure out how to place a rover in it that if I turn it upside down and lower the plane while lifting the rover up on landing struts to dock. I have plans for the docking bay, but none with a lab. However, I don't mind seeing the inventiveness that you show so far, which keeps me in front of the editor for hours tweaking your design to somehow fit that rover that I have.

 

Genius. How much dv does the ship have? Do you need to refuel in LKO or does this thing fly all the way from Kerbin to Minmus in one go? I love the fact that the ship need to be lowered to begin drilling adds a "separate state" of function, excuse my nerdy talk, I mean that it has a different setup when drilling than when it is just sitting there. Do you have the craft file? I am interested in learning things about SSTA for convenience sake because I want a ship that that can take my rover (smaller than yours) to places I want to see. I want to go down craters where the ship would not be safe to go to.

You might like mine with a similar concept too

 

[mystik]

1 hour ago, Chris_2 said:

You might like mine with a similar concept too

 

What a good looking mini space plane. I will have to download it and test it later. I have some ideas of dropping some weight and increase the DV. As for Tylo, no worries, I will have to dispatch a mining tug to mine and wait in low orbit to pickup the ship once it reaches orbit.

[Chris_2]

1 hour ago, mystik said:

What a good looking mini space plane. I will have to download it and test it later. I have some ideas of dropping some weight and increase the DV. As for Tylo, no worries, I will have to dispatch a mining tug to mine and wait in low orbit to pickup the ship once it reaches orbit.

Let me know what you come up with! Yeah it has a lot of dry weight but also has a lot of functionality.

[Korsakovski]

Before I forget to post this again, 32 kerbal rocket SSTO

https://kerbalx.com/Korsakovski/Hawk-H3

https://imgur.com/a/fwEry

[mystik]

6 hours ago, Chris_2 said:

Let me know what you come up with! Yeah it has a lot of dry weight but also has a lot of functionality.

I like the minimal design. But I don't get much dv. I did make some changes. Because my rover is tall, I removed the internal structure. Replaced all the tanks with one small MK3 liquid fuel tank.

I also converted the rover to carry the ISRU and 4 small drills. I use a full RTG setup and it runs on 30 of them.

Problem: how do you land on Tylo with just one nuclear engine? The gravity is too high for a single engine to slow you down. You'd need about 12 nuclear engines to slow you down.

Edited February 16, 2017 by mystik

[Chris_2]

1 hour ago, mystik said:

I like the minimal design. But I don't get much dv. I did make some changes. Because my rover is tall, I removed the internal structure. Replaced all the tanks with one small MK3 liquid fuel tank.

So, you basically removed all the fuel and now you don't have any dV? How unexpected

 

1 hour ago, mystik said:

Problem: how do you land on Tylo with just one nuclear engine?

You don't... You can get anywhere and return from anywhere except for Tylo and Eve...

 

 

[Exothermos]

18 hours ago, mystik said:

How much dv does the ship have? Do you need to refuel in LKO or does this thing fly all the way from Kerbin to Minmus in one go? 

Oh, no orbital refueling allowed, it goes straight to Minmus in any phase.  Delta V depends on how you are refueling it, and where you are leaving from.  Leaving from itty-bitty Minmus with a pure nuclear (liquid fuel) load, it is more than 5300 dV.  Obviously if you need to use the rapiers for any reason (and therefore need oxidizer) that number decreases.  Leaving from Laythe with it's atmosphere requires a pitstop at one of the smaller Joolian moons to gas up before brute-forcing a big planetary transfer.  Returning from Eve is obviously not at option.

14 hours ago, Chris_2 said:

You might like mine with a similar concept too

 

Oh nice.  Interesting rover / tender idea.  I always forget about asteroids; now how am I going to shoehorn in a claw?  Hmm...

[mystik]

5 hours ago, Chris_2 said:

So, you basically removed all the fuel and now you don't have any dV? How unexpected

 

You don't... You can get anywhere and return from anywhere except for Tylo and Eve...

 

 

I didn't remove the fuel. I did some math and replaced all the internal tanks with one MK3 tank of the same capacity. The dv increased from 5500ish to 6800ish. I am having trouble with positioning the nuclear engine so that it all fits. I was wondering how to transform this into a mini shuttle for local use. My 8 ton rover is killing it.

1 hour ago, Exothermos said:

Oh, no orbital refueling allowed, it goes straight to Minmus in any phase.  Delta V depends on how you are refueling it, and where you are leaving from.  Leaving from itty-bitty Minmus with a pure nuclear (liquid fuel) load, it is more than 5300 dV.  Obviously if you need to use the rapiers for any reason (and therefore need oxidizer) that number decreases.  Leaving from Laythe with it's atmosphere requires a pitstop at one of the smaller Joolian moons to gas up before brute-forcing a big planetary transfer.  Returning from Eve is obviously not at option.

Oh nice.  Interesting rover / tender idea.  I always forget about asteroids; now how am I going to shoehorn in a claw?  Hmm...

Does it do Tylo? What powers this? Would you be able to post the craft file?

[Jett_Quasar]

An old design updated for the latest version of the game.  Still works as an SSTO

Download on Kerbal-X.

- Jett