Duna Ion SSTOs?

[KerikBalm]

I remember when the Ion buff came out, ion SSTO planes were tested for their ability to make it to LKO, and IIRC - they can, just barely, but unintentional infiniglide effects are also at work.

They are mentioned when discussing Eve SSTOs (as the only thing not easily disproven with simple math), and IIRC, ion planes have been used as a first stage for the lightest eve ascent vehicles yet made (somewhere on the order of 15 tons).

Laythe - well I haven't heard much, I presume its possible if Kerbin is borderline - the oxygenated atmosphere makes such a design fairly pointless though (combined with the 15x too high jet engine effective ISP)

But Duna... I haven't heard any talk of duna ion SSTOs.

I want to make my next reusable duna lander a plane, as so far they've all been rockets - but designing a workable plane for duna is hard enough using rocket engines

I don't know what to do with ion engines.

So far my Duna plane designs are nuke powered, but I still feel like there's no point in adding wings, as I could make a better conventional parachute landing, vertical launch LV-N powered rocket

But Ions... they would only work with wings, their TWR is 3x that on Kerbin, so it should be relatively easy to construct, no?

Can anyone give me tips for Ion powred planes on Duna?

Ideally ones that can carry 2 kerbonauts in lander cans

[bsalis]

Why not just build something and try it out?

Only issue I could see is the atmosphere breaking the solar panels. It's thin, but still.

[CptRichardson]

Why not just build something and try it out?

Only issue I could see is the atmosphere breaking the solar panels. It's thin, but still.

Fixed panels covering the wings. Works just fine in Kerbin's atmosphere.

Back on topic, theoretically they should work, but the thin atmosphere means you would have to speed up significantly with them over a period of time in order to actually get into orbit.

[metaphor]

It might be easier to do it without a spaceplane. Duna's atmosphere doesn't provide much lift, so you need bigger wings and higher speeds than on Kerbin.

But ion engines have a TWR of 0.8 now, so they can be used to directly take off from any planet smaller than Laythe. Duna only has a gravity of 0.3, so it's certainly possible, you just have to make sure the ion engines are at least half the mass of your craft (so you get a TWR of ~0.4). Something similar to this SSTO I made for Moho, which has the same gravity. If you want a cockpit, you'll just need more engines as well (and slightly more fuel but that shouldn't be a problem).

If you really want a plane though, it shouldn't be too hard with ions, definitely easier than on Kerbin.