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SSTOs! Post your pictures here~


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Well all these Space Planes are putting me to shame but here's my first SSTO. It's actually the top section of a gigantic flying fortress that was intended to make a return trip to Laythe. It probably wouldn't work and the entire ship itself is now redundant due to the size and part count. However the lander still seems to do ok!

Unfortunately one of the asparagus stages partially fails and stays temporarily attached which tucks into my DeltaV. Still it makes it to a 70KM stable orbit with just over 3000 DeltaV to spare, Could probably squeeze in a Minmus trip!

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Edited by Kerbonautical
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Here is last SSTO ship that I've made. This one uses jets and rockets to obtain orbit. Usually has enough fuel in orbit to get to a refueling station too. The purpose for this ship is for a future Lathe return Kerbals home mission.

Oh, the screenies...

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My very first SSTO was somewhat similar to this one. It was also a turbojet-rocket hybrid, but it was much shorter and had 16 jet engines in addition to 2 skippers and 3 T30's. The jets got me up to about 20km and 500m/s and then I switched over to the rockets. Just barely made it to orbit with fuel to deorbit. However as it was designed to be a reusable Laythe SSTO in support of a base I'm planning, it needed to have RCS to dock, which the development version didn't have. Adding even modest amounts of RCS gas and thruster made it unable to get to orbit on Kerbin (though probably wouldn't have been an issue on Laythe).

But at the time my criteria for a 'successful' design was that it had to be able to SSTO off Kerbin and since it couldn't do that (and was hard to fly), I ditched the design. Yours looks much more capable however - I think I overdid it with my design - it was much bigger than it probably needed to be.

Well, since we're doing vertical launch/landing SSTOs too, now... This craft was inspired by the McDonnell Douglas DC-X Delta Clipper:

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Now this one is eerily similar to the new SSTO design I've developed. In fact, if you lopped off the top tank and swapped the little mother engine out for something smaller and you would basically have my design. My lander is designed for Laythe SSTO, so it doesn't need the extra fuel or big engine (I'm now using Kerbal Engineer so I can prove it's capable of Laythe SSTO without having to do Kerbin SSTO first).

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Well all these Space Planes are putting me to shame but here's my first SSTO. It's actually the top section of a gigantic flying fortress that was intended to make a return trip to Laythe. It probably wouldn't work and the entire ship itself is now redundant due to the size and part count. However the lander still seems to do ok!

Unfortunately one of the asparagus stages partially fails and stays temporarily attached which tucks into my DeltaV. Still it makes it to a 70KM stable orbit with just over 3000 DeltaV to spare, Could probably squeeze in a Minmus trip!

IlqrVWjh.jpg

hNm2szoh.jpg

a0TaXcWh.jpg

Is that a Single Stage To Orbit? If it's an asparagus launch I don't think that qualifies.

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Is that a Single Stage To Orbit? If it's an asparagus launch I don't think that qualifies.

Oh yeah, I just realised that I forgot to disable the staging :S Sorry about that. I'll do a relaunch soon and update it with the accurate remaining Delta V

Edit: Disabled the staging and it seems this isn't the SSTO I built as it can't make it, it must be the top end of another ship (I have too many) I'll keep digging and see if I can find it somewhere

Edited by Kerbonautical
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Here is my jet-rocket hybrid SSTO that I talked about before. It can get to orbit so long as I don't have any RCS tanks. Putting RCS tanks on it lowers the deltaV enough that I can't get to orbit, lol.

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Here's a detailed write-up of the testing program and first successful flight from my primary forum (CFC):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12829002&postcount=1242

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SVO-9A "Goat" after some minor tweaking for stability reasons and crew comfort it finally is in its finalized version. Unfortunately due to the added crew space it lost some VTOL ability. It currently can still take off vertically on Kerbin but at a very slow 1:1 thrust to weight ratio. I am sure if I went back and did some more tweaking I could get it back to where it was but at this point I can't be bothered.

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Made it to space in 6 minutes 37 seconds.

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Made a Replica of the HOTOL, the first concept to use a SABER engine but was cancelled due to CoM and CoL problems and problems with the SABER engines. So its the predecessor to the Skylon.

Nothing fancy just waned to do something different. makes for a good crew replacement craft for space stations. Gets in to orbit in just a few minutes.

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Presenting the Type 26 Ares Mk1 ~

Believe it or not, this was the very first flight… Got into orbit, de-orbit and landed… it is almost perfectly balanced.

Basically this aircraft is a culmination of a lot of things I’ve learned from previous SSTO designs.

Type 26 Ares will fly to nearly 40 thousand using only Jet Engines with throttle set at quarter, and it will get into orbit with more than half of it’s fuel.

Honestly I reckon this could get back up into orbit again with the amount of fuel it has left after landing.

Keep in mind this is Mk1, and this was it’s very first flight so there might be some things I've missed.. But.. as it is I feel it’s good enough to share..

Craft File » http://www./view/lb29qxn4xlchzby/SSTO_Type_26_Ares_Mk1.craft

Action Groups.

1. Air Intakes + Jet Engines

2. Nuclear Rockets

3. Forward Lights + Communotron

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Edited by KissSh0t
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Type 26 Ares Mk2 ~

I've stripped the Mk1 and rebuilt a few parts of it... It can now fly too and land on the Mun and Minmus under it's own power!!!

It now has 2 small rocket engines pointing down allowing it to land on low gravity planets. The vertical Rockets are Action Group (3)

Look how much fuel I have left after landing on Minmus!!!!!!! That is a first for me *___*

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Another pure rocket SSTO, the Symphony-10k (maximum payload of 10000 kg into low Kerbin orbit)

(fairing is the only thing that is jettisoned - this launcher carried a ~7000 kg payload inside the fairing)

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Lands with MechJeb's autopilot

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Edited by Pipcard
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I present the least impressive SSTO ever.

This thing can reliably orbit, de-orbit and land on Kirbin, and it weights 10 tons.

That is just crazy xD

You had juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust enough fuel to land!!!!

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@ Dakitess

The one thing I can say is that AeroSpikes aren't the most efficient engines for SSTO.... they are also very very heavy.

Another thing would be to have fuel coming outwards from the center of mass instead of just having fuel going along the aircraft's body... This will help with weight shift as fuel drains.

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That is just crazy xD

You had juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust enough fuel to land!!!!

Rockets like this that are using the 48-7S are a bit deceptive when it comes to how much fuel you have left, cuz the vast majority of your delta V comes from the last bit of fuel.

I've run this quite a few times now. I always have about 30 units for the landing.

I didn't show it in the video, but I had 18 units of fuel left after touch down, so I only used a little more than one third of the fuel. That's well within safety margins :)

Edited by maccollo
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@ Dakitess

The one thing I can say is that AeroSpikes aren't the most efficient engines for SSTO.... they are also very very heavy.

Another thing would be to have fuel coming outwards from the center of mass instead of just having fuel going along the aircraft's body... This will help with weight shift as fuel drains.

Really ? Cause this is the good amount of power for this configuration, with the best ISP (except Nuke of course...), ans this is not that heavy... Regarding fuel consumption, this plane is balanced during all steps.

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Really ? Cause this is the good amount of power for this configuration, with the best ISP (except Nuke of course...), ans this is not that heavy... Regarding fuel consumption, this plane is balanced during all steps.

Yeah.. the AeroSpike is quite heavy in comparison to other rocket engines that have better thrust and less weight... The one thing that is good about the AeroSpike is it's length.

I was not criticizing your design...

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@ Shadowscyther

It should be something like [ imgur ] youralbumcode [/ imgur ] But without the spaces...

: >

Edited by KissSh0t
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Really ? Cause this is the good amount of power for this configuration, with the best ISP (except Nuke of course...), ans this is not that heavy... Regarding fuel consumption, this plane is balanced during all steps.

I like aerospikes for one thing and one thing only, VTOL engines, past that they are to heavy at 1.5 tons each, and honestly don't put out that great of thrust to weight ratio of the LV-1Ns. If use anything other than LV-1Ns for engines it's usually the 45 or the 30t. As they are only about 1.25 and 1.5 tons and have decent ISP, 370s and great power 200-215.

But again it depends on the application. If it is for a HEAVY SSTO i may use the aerospikes, but if it is for a lighter one I may use something else.

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