492-ton Payload Capable SSTO

[buzz66boy]

Just messing around with SSTO designs and made this brute. It's not cheap either (~$2.4 mill). Mechjeb has been removed (but is recommended to automate laggy launches).

Lifts 6 full Giant fuel tanks to orbit and lands safely. Of course you can sub in whatever you want as payload. Have fun!

516 parts (w/o payload)

Static Fire test:

Orbit (before I re-did fuel lines hence the different fuel levels):

Landing:

Download Here

Edited July 23, 2014 by buzz66boy
Changed cost

[xoknight]

Wow, I actually wasn't expecting a SSTO, but nice job man.

[dognosh]

I am a noob(only bought game last week) but even I managed to put this in orbit, drop payload, and get back down to earth, though I forgot to fire engines about 50 foot off the ground to slow it down, it splashed in a shallow lake and disintegrated

Well done buzz66boy, I hope to use it in the future once I am past the basics !

[Camaron]

I'll be honest, I've built a MUCH bigger SSTO. But it doesn't land! This is, by far, the largest SSTO i've ever seen to even attempt a landing. You blew me away with that. I saw the chutes and I'm all like: "B-wha?"

I do have a suggestion:

it looks like you have a considerable chunk of fuel left on the return landing. (Considerable given you only need a puff to soften touchdown)

I think you should test a bit to find exactly what throttle gets you around the touchdown speed you like. Then have an action group for toggling the engines. That will let you jump straight to the throttle you want, just a few meters off the ground. That way, you can land safely with the tiniest possible shred of fuel leftover, and possibly get just a bit more payload into the sky.....assuming you didn't do that already.

I'm very interested in how much money you recover when landing this thing? How much of the 2.4 Mil did you actually get back?

Edited July 23, 2014 by Camaron

[buzz66boy]

The specific landing featured was after the static fire test seen in the first video, I landed it before, but needed a screenshot (and was testing new parachute design). Usually it comes down with ~50-60 fuel in each section (12 sections in total) -- relatively not much. Also I build it in sandbox, so I wasn't able to check the return value. I have enough to launch it in career, so stay posted. On flat ground you don't need any throttle to land on near empty (~12m/s touchdown), it's a bit hairy though.

[Doge]

That's pretty awesome, considering I can't even build a cargo rocket SSTO.

Nice job DerpNerd.