Orbital plane program

[gilflo]

I have been playing KSP for more than 1 year and it's my first try in the SPH. I design an atmospheric plane easy to fly, big range, the idea being to launch it with a rocket and with its fuel station so that i can land on an atmospheric planet and refuel from the ground after flight. The fuel station contains 14 tanks and should allowed 5 refueling.

Launch tries were done on Kerbin, here is the launcher for the refueling station and the Mirage

Flying and refueling were satisfactory

Here is the Mirage

Refueling station

That was quite easy.

Next step was to design an orbital plane that would be able:

-To take of and set up in orbit 70Km

-De-orbit and land everywhere on Kerbin, so landing would be at the lowest weight.

-Be flyable and land at the maximum weight, the idea being to launch it with a rocket, send it to another planet with a refueling station, make different flights and take off to join an orbit to be transferred on a rocket.

So it must be flyable at all weight, whatever is the consumption and balancing. That was the biggest challenge.

I tried a lot of designs and when it was flyable at the maximum weight it was not at the lowest, because with consumption the CG is going backward.

Then I tried to add winlglet or canard to a movable rail using utilities of the add-on from Magic smoke industry. That was not satisfactory.

Eventually I add a swept wings on moving rails and the space plane is flyable up to the lowest weight by moving backward the swept wings!

Here is the orbital plane,

- for atmospheric flights: 4 turbojet engines with a 150L tank each and 6 radial air intakes each for the upper engines and 5 for the lower ones

-for space flights 3 rockets Vesta VR1 with 3 FLT 800 fuel tanks (360L - 4,5T)

I made a take off, followed by a landing at the maximum weight and it is very stable, but you need to make a smooth touch and to brake smoothly.

on take off 31T for a trial orbit around Kerbin, followed by deorbiting and a landing on an island

in the air

4600M: you can see the 2 outer swept wings in advanced position

Between 25000m and 30000m I change on rockets

view of the moving swept wings

Swept wings are now in back position, weight is down to 21T

Deorbiting calculation, we have not enough DV to reach the island, but we will do it by flying

Atmosphere entry

in sight of the island, turbojet engines have been restarted.

on approach

we have just fly over the field and we are turning downwind

turning final

60m over field

landing

on ground