Ziv

Hi Guys, As the original creator of the JOOL-5 Challenge, I'm so happy to see it is still up and running!! Thank you @JacobJHC for doing a great job keeping it alive, you are awesome! I saw @Alchemist's question about the ISRU refuelings and I like that approach too! I would like to give a different categories for these different approaches. A little background on the JOOL-5 Challenge: Back in 2013 the orange tank and the Mainsail were the biggest stuff and there was no ISRU. It was similar to nowadays real-life Space Exploration, so it was not possible to have fuel from anywhere outside of our own rockets. So the real challenge was to do it, in any way! It was really pretty hard back then. ISRU makes it much easier on terms of successfulness. But it also adds other engineering challenges, of course! And it deserves it's place in the challenge. One more thing: I saw Kerbals are allowed to travel deep space in their space suit only. I don't like this because the original JOOL-5 wanted to be a real-life approach of the hardness of space exploration... but, of course, I was also experimenting with low-weight solutions, without a pod. But I was able to do a JOOL-5 plus An (almost) Grand Tour with a less-than 10 tons ion-driven spacecraft, even with a pod for Jebediah for the long deep space journeys! https://imgur.com/a/Oevfg

@EvermoreAlpaca If I would manage the challenge then it would be okay for me if you add more custom difficulty than what you ignore. It's all about fun, anyway! What I would be strict about is to avoid accepting missions which was likely to be cheated, only for the badge... actually I rejected 2 or 3 missions where the dV/TWR were obviously not realistic. It's okay if we cheat on our own sometimes but don't cheat the community! I see @JacobJHC deleted the capsule rule for the interplanetary travel. I'm not a fan of it but he's in charge for the challenge now...

Hi, this is Ziv, originally I created the JOOL-5 back in 2013. 1. Flying separate ships to Jool: the basic challenge idea was to fly one mission to the Jool system and explore all the moons in one go, and go home safely. This means the crew would travel together until Jool SOI. But you can undock all the landers at once when arriving, of course. You don't have to get into orbit for it. Jool's SOI is so huge that you can easily catch all the moons with the landers. I'm just not sure if it is better than using Jool's gravity to slow down everything at once and then go for the moons (Oberth-effect). But it's up to you! What I also wanted to avoid is unlimited support and fuel missions. I wanted to make Jool-5 a very hard and "clean" mission where you can succeed or fail. But soon I included the possibility for one refueling mission, thinking about those who spent a lot of time on their mission and they just lack a little fuel for success... Also, please note that in 2013 the orange tanks and the mainsail were the largest ones, and the rockets exploded above 2-300 parts. So it was way more harder back then. 2. The Kerbin-Jool interplanetary travel have to be in a pod/capsule: this is for making it more life-like. Sitting in a chair in a space suit for months is not good for the health of the Kerbals. And also, this adds to the difficulty. But once in Jool's SOI, you can use seats for landers to the moons. ...and you can do the mission in any way you like. When I managed the challenge I had a "Mixed solutions (they just wanted to go on their way)" category for folks like you.

Wow, since 5 years!! It's awesome, I'm so happy to see my original challange idea is still up and running! Thank you @JacobJHC and @sdj64 for your hard work on keeping it alive! Great job!! ...I started to play with the idea to do the JOOL-5 again! Hmm, what style should I do it? 1. Minimal stock? 2. Lightweight and small? 3. Huge expedition-style? 4. Mining and refueling? 5. Colonizating the moons in the same run? 6. ...or any other idea?!

Hello Everyone, I'm so happy to see that this challenge is still up and running! And congratulations for everyone how have accomplished it! Or at least tried it! Back then when I created the first variant of this challenge then I was not sure if a JOOL-5 mission was possible at all: there was no refueling option at that time, the orange tank was the biggest fuel tank and the mainsail the biggest engine, and the ship shook and exploded if it had more than 4-500 parts. It took me weeks to plan, test and fly my first successful JOOL-5 mission and it was a lot of fun! With the bigger parts, the more stable part physics and especially the stock refueling made it somewhat easier. But it's still a very-very challenging and complex mission, so good luck for everybody who dare to go for it! ...maybe I'll try it again with 1.4 stock (with MechJeb, I have to see at least my deltaV's ). And a big respect to @JacobJHC for keeping it alive! Cheers Mate!

Hey everyone, I'm so happy to see the JOOL-5 still up and running!!

Wow, awesome solutions everywhere, but you maxed out that landing-on-rocket-engines things well! Those landers are pretty compact! Nice grand tour, well done!

I like this idea, I always like to build small. Maybe I'll give it a try! Check out my very old JOOL-5 low mass mission with ion drives: it was able to do an almost grand-tour, landing everywhere except Eve and the whole ship was less than 10 tons: http://imgur.com/a/Oevfg#0

I built a mini space shuttle with science instruments. It's easy to fly and can land back KSC runway. It has a first stage to get into orbit. All the pictures: http://imgur.com/a/Ay41c

Hey! I'm happy to see that the JOOL-5 is still up and running! Congratulations sdj64, you are making a great job on running the JOOL-5 Challenge at the highest level! And I took a glance at some of the missions, awesome! Great to see that there are always new ideas!

Hey! I really liked this idea so I built a cool looking mini shuttle! It has a "first stage" part which helps getting to orbit. It has a scientific bay with a communication antenna. Here are all the pictures: http://imgur.com/a/Ay41c

Nice Laythe landing, I really like your general "X-wing lander", the Tylo rover solution with the rescue is AWESOME, and nice-looking ion-driven home-going capsule at the end with that stylish aerobrake solution. I didn't check all your fuel consumption in-depth but I think this is an absolutely valid mission for JOOL-5 and you deserve the badge!

Oh come on, on the first picture your pod is full of fuel, and on the bottom there are also a lot of fuel clipping. The nukes could be close but you can move them more out so they don't clip at all. On the third you also have the pods to be full of fuel. I'm sure the fist and last are way too much! In real life you can't push fuel tanks into each other neither.

parzr: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Jebediah's Level! Wow, that's a real station/outpost going around JOOL and landing on the moons, even with a rover! Outstanding, I really love it! I can imagine that you had some hard time landing on Tylo and Vall with such a big lander and with such a low TWR! Pretty nice mission, thank you for participating, and sorry that reviewing/posting it into the Hall of Fame it took so long! Cheers! ShadowZone: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 on Jebediah's level! That's an other HUGE ship! I really like that how the "Joolishka" looks similar to the Russian rockets! And that cargo bay is just awesome! Really nice and elegant solution! The lander is a cool design too and I liked how you get the Science lab and the crew back to the surface of Kerbin at the end. And I saw you put a hell of a work into those description and videos so big respect for that! Awesome mission, thank you for participating! You were the last one who achieved the now "historical" JOOL-5 Challenge.