KerbalX

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: spaceplane
• Part Count: 37
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.12.3

Gazelle SSTO

A stock spaceplane built with 37 of the finest parts; its root part is Mark2Cockpit.
Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.12.3.

This is my first SSTO, a simple spaceplane for crew transfers in low Kerbin orbit.
I don’t pretend to be doing anything spectacular or original with this craft. But it’s fun, it’s forgiving, and it took me a while to get to this point in career mode.

Comments very welcome, especially if you have a go at flying it!

Manual

Lock elevons and engine gimbal (0), activate SAS, stage, and deactivate the NERV (2). Then give it full throttle on the ramjets and nose up - it’ll take off at about 160m/s, at which point you can reactivate elevons and thrust vectoring (0).
Climb at 30° to about 10,000m then reduce the angle of climb slightly. Activate the NERV (2) once the ramjet thrust starts to dip, and when the ramjets are about to flame out deactivate them and close the intakes (1). Angle up gradually to between 30° and 45° and continue at full thrust until you’re out of the atmosphere, then circularise. Deploy the docking port and solar panel (3) when you feel safe to do so.

The NERV should have well over 1200m/s ΔV once you reach orbit and there’s no shortage of monopropellant; you can probably get away without using the RCS tank if you’re confident with docking. However I recommend leaving 500m/s or more for your re-entry burn and to give you some extra ramjet range on the descent.

Hold outward radial attitude as you enter the atmosphere, or you’ll accelerate to a ridiculous speed and burn up! Once the worst of re-entry is over you can glide to land, with a little power from the ramjets as necessary.

The fuel tanks are balanced around the centre of mass so it remains controllable at all stages of flight. However it is a bit nose-heavy if you turn off SAS.

Have fun flying!