SSTO Orbital Cargo Transport

[Geometrian]

I present a not-particularly-pretty, but surprisingly functional SSTO cargo plane. It has a large bay for storage, several docking ports, RCS maneuvering, and a bunch of other neat and handy features.

.craft

Here's an album of it returning a 1.25m satellite from a previous program for salvage. Note that at no point does the satellite actually dock with the plane!

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Uses part clipping for the landing gear and rear engines. Entirely stock.

[zxczxczbfg]

So . . . The probe just sort of rattles around in the cargo bay? That doesn't seem very safe . . .

Other than that, a sound design. I still can't figure out how to make reliable SSTOs

Edited October 30, 2014 by zxczxczbfg

[manni01]

So . . . The probe just sort of rattles around in the cargo bay? That doesn't seem very safe . . .

Other than that, a sound design. I still can't figure out how to make reliable SSTOs

Its a bit complicated, but I found a user (sadly he doesn't post any ssto's anymore) who wrote about his ssto's and you can learn a lot from reading his post (Overfloater got his basic ssto knowledge from him),

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50768-SSTO-Spaceplanes-ranging-from-LKO-to-Duna-and-Laythe-nonstop-flights-with-payload

[Roflcopterkklol]

So . . . The probe just sort of rattles around in the cargo bay? That doesn't seem very safe . . .

Other than that, a sound design. I still can't figure out how to make reliable SSTOs

Get planes working at 2400m/s at 35km and SSTO's become easy business.

[Dre4dW0rm]

So . . . The probe just sort of rattles around in the cargo bay? That doesn't seem very safe . . .

Other than that, a sound design. I still can't figure out how to make reliable SSTOs

How is this sound design with so many overlapping elements, especially engines???

[zxczxczbfg]

How is this sound design with so many overlapping elements, especially engines???

Part clipping. Vessels don't have collisions with themselves. While the probe is loose in the bay it's technically considered a separate vessel and thus will remain in the bay, but the engines are on the same vessel and thus can overlap all they want.