Skurj Spaceplane

[Silverchain]

Since getting back into KSP I've been working on my spaceplanes, because I never really mastered them before and because I have my sights set on the cliffs of Laythe.

This is the current iteration of the Skurj series spaceplane; it can easily reach LKO, flies tolerably well (don't yoik it around the sky too much, keep the nose reasonably close to the velocity vector!) and is fairly tolerant of bad landings. On the ground it has a full set of rugged rover wheels and can go for a fair distance before needing to recharge its on-board batteries. In space it has a docking port and effective RCS with a small supply of monoprop; the Aerospike engine gives it fair delta-v.

Propulsion is via a single Aerospike rocket and two Turbojet engines. Start the jets (staging or hotkey 1 for subsequent launches) and ascend with a steady ~45 degree climb to 15,000 metres, then slowly taper down to level flight, reducing the throttle slowly as air intake drops below 0.20; ceiling is roughly 30,000 metres doing about 1400-1500 ms-1 depending on fuel load and whether there's an 'R' in the month. On reaching the ceiling, switch to the rocket engine (staging or hotkey 2), whack the throttle to full and point at ~30 degrees; get your desired orbit height plus a little for air resistance, throttle down then circularise. Simples.

To switch to rover operation, raise the landing gear and the plane will drop down onto its rover wheels.

Hotkey 1: Toggle jet engines and air intakes.

Hotkey 2: Toggle rocket engine.

Hotkey 3: Toggle wheel motors.

Hotkey 4: Toggle ladder.

Hotkey 5: Toggle science package.

Hotkey 6: Raise rear centre landing gear only.

Skurj I Model U Sandy Don in LKO. (The Ub linked differs only in that it has an additional pair of outboard wheels.)

Sandy Don refueling in orbit.

The craft is stock and uses no deliberate part clipping. I'm not entirely sure it needs all those intakes, they may be slightly redundant, but what the heck.

I will work on a good transfer NERVA rocket to shift it to Laythe - I took an earlier model spaceplane there and the wobble was ridiculous.

Craft File:

Skurj I Model Ub Spaceplane/Rover

[Jeb Cubed]

Nice, and yes those intakes are important. They allow you to go higher which means less atmosphere drag which means more speed.