SSTOs! Post your pictures here~

[erasmusguy]

Looks amazing and is 100% guaranteed to kill up to three lucky Kerbals. Performance is worlds apart from other SSTO's. Fly up to  1000m using the ships conventional engines and then activate the ships patented RasTech self-destruction and Kraken drive unit. Will leave the kerbin system from launch. 

*Please note. Current version will not leave Eve's surface in one piece. In fact none of the pieces will leave. 

https://kerbalx.com/erasmusguy/Prototype-Kraken-Drive-SSTO for the craft file. 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/243407076 to see the SSTO in action.

[Andetch]

SSTO Like a Caveman - The Video!

Celebrating the first Kerbal to succeed in piloting a true SSTO Spaceplane to LKO and back!

 

[fourfa]

16 hours ago, fourfa said:

Who is this dummy?  Obviously if you test side-by-side RAPIERs, one with a reversed clipped shock cone and the other without, the total drag with the cone is indeed much less.  Duh.

OK I got curious to fully nail this dead horse into the ground:

https://kerbalx.com/fourfa/Rapier-tailcone-test

I found that a reversed, clipped plain ol' Aerodynamic Nose Cone currently has the lowest combined drag, in addition to being lightweight and high temp.  I threw the craft and screenshots of the data on kerbalx to share, in case anyone gets curious.  At Mach 5.2 at 6650m (right before exploding) the combined drag is as follows: 

1. none =13.61
2. Advanced Nose Cone A = 4.72
3. Small nose cone = 4.36
4. Shock cone = 4.31
5. Circular intake: 4.31
6. Aerodynamic nose cone: 3.58

For what it's worth, on a test SSTO with 8 RAPIERs it gets to space with:

• no tailcones, top speed on jets = 1560.3m/s, 428m/s dV in orbit
• with ANC tailcones, top speed on jets = 1563.0m/s, 462m/s in orbit

Small potatoes perhaps, but it does seem that the benefit of lower drag does indeed outweigh the extra mass, at least in this case.

[evader]

I made a challenge for myself to see if I could create a SSTO that can carry a 4x4 XL3 wheeled rover in an internal cargo bay.  Had to look like a plane and be able to load/unload the rover using some door mechanism (and no fairings allowed!).

In trying to make a door mechanism, it ended up having 3 rovers inside, beyond what I was trying to achieve.

KerbalX download link

Edited March 29, 2018 by evader
Imgur album not working

[Andetch]

Cave Tech Reusable Rocket SSTO Launcher Thing

https://kerbalx.com/Andetch/Caveman-SSTO-Lifter

 

[TheWanderer05]

Work in progress.

Last test flight showed 4.6 km/s in 75x75 orbit.

[Luc1fer]

[snipped for brevity]

What mods you use for such cool aestetics?

Edited April 3, 2018 by Vanamonde

[Thor Wotansen]

This is a small Mk 2 SSTO family I've had kicking around for a while and I've never got around to posting them anywhere.  They are affordable and easy to operate, perfect for crew rotations, resupply missions, or launching small satellites.  Left to right, they are the Pup P, the Pup XC and the Pup C.  The Pup P and Pup C are equipped with RCS and docking systems for getting freaky with stations, a feature which the Pup XC has eschewed for greater payload volume and mass.

I will upload them all to KerbalX tomorrow and provide links.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Thor Wotansen

[Vanamonde]

11 hours ago, Juanlu16 said:

[snipped for brevity]

What mods you use for such cool aestetics?

Sadly, the person you asked seems to have moved on and no longer visits the forum.  

And guys, scolding people for necroing old posts causes just as much forum clutter as the necro in the first place, so please don't do that. 

[AeroGav]

I prefer making interplanetary/mining spaceplanes,   but I understand there is a demand for mk3 cargo SSTOs,   and had another go at making one.

Anyone made a smaller CRG-100 SSTO ?  5 nervs, 2 panthers and 2 rapiers .    Due to the liquid fuel only philosophy, there are no massive propellant tanks, although part count is not so impressive (77).    Test payload here was 18.3 tons.       Fuelled but empty, she weighs in at 63 tons  (probably heavy for its size, but still light for a CRG-100 carrier!)

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Andromeda

[Triop]

Still waiting for it to come back.

[Thor Wotansen]

As promised, here are the links to the Pup family of SSTOs.

The Pup P

The Pup C

And The Pup XC

[TheWanderer05]

Here's another one meant to be flown with FAR. It's very unforgiving and unstable, but if flown right, it will get into orbit with 3.3 km/s of dV. It was designed to rescue small ships in orbit around local bodies, perfect for rescue contracts that require salvaging crew modules.

[9t3ndo]

A short, one hour attempt, after the MH DLC:

Album didnt work embedded...

img Album

Edited April 7, 2018 by 9t3ndo

[Mignear]

Accidentally made an SSTO when I was messing with Rapier engines.

[Pixtle]

I enjoyed this build, used it in my career to land tourists on Mun and Minmus. Maybe it is on the part heavy side at 233 parts , but its the most efficient ssto i have built. for obvious reasons.

hope you guys like it

 

 

[Vlos]

This is my first 2 orange tanks to space (and biggest ssto)

 

KerbalX download

 

[Andetch]

On 10/04/2018 at 10:21 AM, Pixtle said:

hope you guys like it

I LOVE it!!! That is a concept that is right up my street. 

If you refuelled it in LKO instead of undock the components, could it go further say eve or duna? 

Will you release it on KerbalX? 

[Pixtle]

11 hours ago, Andetch said:

I LOVE it!!! That is a concept that is right up my street. 

If you refuelled it in LKO instead of undock the components, could it go further say eve or duna? 

Will you release it on KerbalX? 

https://kerbalx.com/Pixtle/stock-Pym-Mk-VI

[TAL]

 

[pinolallo]

 

This is probably the best SSTO I ever made from 2012: is cheap, can boost your game (if you are playing a career game) becoming the lifter for anything before the 1k science wall. I know is not beautiful but is very, very effective.

27 tons on 100 km orbit with wide load cargo (is not a joke)

Perfect flying capabilities and reentry (no rolling flapping)

Hyper tested.

Craft Link

Edited April 13, 2018 by pinolallo
added craft link

[The Minmus Derp]

I've made one that can get to minmus and back. I can't post pictures tho

[TheWanderer05]

"Swallow"
Still undergoing some tests but (with a few hundred kilos of excess oxidizer) it has 4.2 km/s delta V in an 80x80 orbit.

[ErikHall]

On 6/3/2013 at 2:31 AM, rtscaptain said:

Dumb question..... but what does SSTO stand for? I get that it is about space planes, but whats the acronym.

SSTO = Singel Stage To Orbit
A Plane / Spacecraft that can reach Orbit without separating Fuel Tanks. 

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Over the last month I’ve been forcing myself to learn ssto Engineering the hard way. Build, crash, build again, damnit didn’t mirror that part, smash, rethink, lithobreak etc etc. Slowly but steadily I’m improving.

 

Stage one was to make a cargo shuttle. Not ssto, simply reusable Shuttle with disposable boosters. Had 10k dv max even with an orange tank in its bay. This thing was perfect and taught me Shuttle re-entry aerodynamics (using FAR). Got Gud and started consistently landing on the runway.

 

Stage two was studying lightweight ssto crew shuttles. No cargo capacity. Simply to put kerbals in space. Worked out the kinks (my planes no longer like feet), landed them safely without losing hardware.

 

Stage three is to combine the previous two. Heavy cargo SSTO with 6k+ dv budget after achieving lko. Not going well. But I’m getting closer