Figure 12-6. Ballistic single stage concept. The stage structure in the base region is similar to that described for the ballistic first stage. The base heat shield is water cooled and is supported on a space frame structure. The materials used are also similar to the first- stage ballistic case. An exception is the forward skirt and payload bay which use a Rene 41 honeycomb skin to enable the fully recoverable payload bay to withstand reentry heating. After 127.4 s of flight time the LOX/RP-1 auxiliary engines are shut down. The 24 LOX/LH2 engines continue to accelerate the vehicle until a 92.6 x 500 km orbit is reached. The vehicle then deploys the payload and a kick stage. The kick stage circularizes the payload orbit at 500 km. The SSTO is deorbited and reenters. As it approaches the landing site, 16 LOX/RP-1 engines are ignited to give a thrust to weight ratio near 3. The SSTO is decelerated to near zero velocity. All but four of the engines are shut down, and the stage settles
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