K-30 Athena Cargo SSTO

[Exothermos]

K-30 Athena Cargo SSTO.

Typically I only work with stock parts, but i've been growing tired of them so I've picked up some mods to play with. This ship is the culmination of what I've been trying to achieve for a while, but simply couldn't stock. A heavy lift, low orbit SSTO that has a plausible appearance based on approximations of near-future tech.

The Plane is capable of lifting anything that fits in the cargo bay. This includes Jumbo Orange tanks...

...and outsized space station parts. (Earlier version depicted)

Climb is good. (lightly loaded here. )

And reentry is uneventful.

It is easy to load. Pop-off the floor of the bay and attach things to the docking ports with the aircraft oriented thusly. (the root part is that long tapered KAX part). Reattach the floor in snap mode and check the forward struts to make sure they reattached.

It is built with excess space for fuel both forward and aft. This is to ballance plane regardless of load-out. Make sure to tweak your fuel tanks before takoff to keep your CoM infront of your CoL, but not TOO far infront.

It is a cheaty-style airhogger so your acceleration plateau starts at 28k and extends past 35k. How fast you get to that plateau, and at what angle depends on your loadouts. Light loads will allow very steep climbs, heavy loads will require long, shallow climbs. Pump fuel forward for reentry.

To play with it you will need these 4 mods:

B9 Aerospace

Spaceplane Plus

Kerbal Aircraft Expansion

Infernal Robotics

Download!

Edited June 17, 2014 by Exothermos

[O-Doc]

Beautiful lines as per usual Exothermos!

[Cinocal]

So nice! I assume it hasn't been flown with FAR?

[Exothermos]

No, no FAR testing yet. I'll test it tonight. It has a few clipped control surfaces that will have to be exposed to airflow, but that would be a relatively easy fix. Hopefully it is a "looks right, flies right" situation, but it will need modifications. We'll see!

Edit:FAR testing report!

See all that stuff i wrote above? Yeah... NO.

FAR hates a lot about how this bird is built. Specifically the Bay doors being made of wing parts, and wing parts being used as structural members and formers. I could rebuild this with those parts being made of structural Panels, but it would be ugly as sin and heavy. The basic aerodynamic shape is sound and the plane lifts off and accelerates better than stock and flies OK, but the rest is a boondoggle, so chalk this one up as a FAR fail.

I'll build some FAR and DR (maybe) rated designs soon. It seems like a challenge.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Exothermos

[dacamp66]

Just a thought, but it MAY be possible that with deadly reentry and/or FAR you might get excessive heating on the tip of that nosecone during reentry. generally, you want a blunt nose for hypersonic speeds to spread out the aerodynamic and heat loads.

other than that, TOTALLY KEWL SSTO,DUDE!

[Cinocal]

FAR since he added the dynamic pressure is quite the challenge to make things that resist disintegration. Even without DR re-entry angle is a big deal in an SSTO with FAR.