Project Callisto: A Jool-Sarnus 10 mission (completed)

IncongruousGoat · March 21, 2017

Hello, all. This is a report of my attempt at the Jool-Sarnus 10 challenge. For those who don't know, the Jool-Sarnus 10 challenge is to, in one launch, land on and return from all 5 moons of Jool (like Jool 5) and all 5 moons of Sarnus from OPM. Additionally, you have to do it in a ship that costs less than 250,000 funds. So, without further ado, let's get this thing started.

Mod list:

Better Time Warp Continued

Distant Object Enchancement

Engine Lighting

EVE

KER

Kopernicus

PlanetShine

RealPlume-Stock configs

Scatterer-SVE sunflare

Transfer Window Planner

Ven's Stock Revamp

The mission profile:

Working under a 250,000 fund restriction makes things... interesting. Lots and lots of gravity assists are used to capture into low Vall orbit for barely 2 km/s delta-V. From there, the core of the transfer stage (mostly emptied of fuel) and the Laythe lander detach. They dock together, head to Laythe, land, and return. The everything-else lander/fuel conglomerate then detaches from the mothership and docks to the transfer stage. Vall is landed on, then the ship heads for Tylo, then Bop, then Pol, and then back. The transfer stage then reattaches to the mothership and heads for Sarnus. Gravity assists are used to capture into a low Eeloo orbit at Sarnus, and similar things happen, with a dedicated lander for Tekto (which happens to be an exact copy of the Laythe lander), and a lander/fuel thingy for the rest of the moons (also a copy). Once everything has been visited, the ship flies back to Kerbin and into a direct re-entry (or, if that proves too kaplodey, gravity assists).

Wait... that was really confusing. Eh. It'll become clearer as the mission progresses.

The ship:

Those things on top are the lander modules, the ones on the right being for Laythe and Tekto and the ones on the left for all the other moons. Beneath that is the transfer conglomeration, and below that the booster.

Progress so far:

Arrived at Jool: Yes

Landed on Laythe: No

Landed on Vall: No

Landed on Tylo: No

Landed on Bop: No

Landed on Pol: No

Arrived at Sarnus: No

Landed on Hale: No

Landed on Ovok: No

Landed on Eeloo: No

Landed on Slate: No

Landed on Tekto: No

Returned to Kerbin: No

Mission album:

OP/thread will be updated with progress as mission progresses.

Progress update #1:

Woo, gravity assists. Launch to LKO went without a hitch, issues with flimsy fairing joints notwithstanding. From there, the ship took the Eve-Kerbin-Kerbin-Laythe gravity assist path, ending up on an orbit intersecting Vall's. A Vall encounter was set up, and the ship inserted into an equatorial 22x22 km parking orbit. From there, the transfer engine/tug, with 2 of its three tanks empty, detached from the mothership, along with the Laythe lander. The tug docked to the Laythe lander and headed off for Laythe, aerocapturing neatly into a 55x55 km orbit around Laythe.

Edited April 1, 2017 by IncongruousGoat
Imgur albums!

IncongruousGoat · March 22, 2017

Progress update #2:

Laythe is complete! And thank goodness, I don't like it as a destination that much. Comes from not building SSTOs or aircraft, I guess. It's just so hard on rockets at times. We've made a couple of additional discoveries-our transfer vehicle can tolerate 2500 m/s aerobraking fairly well... and that it's surprisingly difficult to dock the transfer thingy to the mothership, due to having to thread the needle between the drop tanks. Problems are exacerbated when the mothership's reaction wheels get stuck on while the ship is uncontrollable. I'm starting to wish I had a reaction wheel toggle action group.

IncongruousGoat · March 24, 2017

Progress update #3:

Vall and Tylo are complete! So far, delta-V levels look promising, seeing as I won't have burned half my delta-V going through the Jool system. We nearly had a mission critical event coming up from Tylo-the lander nearly ran out of fuel rendezvousing with the tug. But, in the end, everything was fine. Spirits and fuel levels are high, and Bop and Pol beckon.

IncongruousGoat · March 26, 2017

Progress update #4:

Bop and Pol are complete! What should have been two unenterprising, boring stops on this long trip turned out to be unusually interesting, in the "may you live in interesting times" sense. Bop made itself unusually hard to get to, causing me to waste around 800 m/s in over-burning and corrections. Once I landed, my lander started sliding, and I had to hop over to a nearby valley to get the thing to sit still. And then I managed to accidentally put the lander on an escape trajectory by not paying attention to my orbit while trying to rendezvous with the tug. Pol, not to be outdone, blew me up on the way in via time warp collision glitch (an event corrected via tactical alt-F9). Then Jeb kicked the lander while getting out, sending it tumbling away. And, of course, coming back from Pol cost around 500 m/s more than it reasonably should have. Hopefully Ovok and Hale aren't nearly so problematic.

The album should update at some point with images.

IncongruousGoat · April 1, 2017

Progress update #5: The Sarnus system is complete and the mission is over! Yeah, I should have split this up more. I got a bit distracted by other things, and then ran into some... difficulties... in the Sarnus system that made me lose motivation. Transfer to the Sarnus system was uneventful, landing us in a 24x24 km orbit of Slate. The tug and Tekto lander departed for Tekto, completing that moon with only a few difficulties regarding me forgetting to feather the throttle on ascent from Tekto. Upon Jeb's return to Slate, he jumped in the Slate lander and polished that moon off. It was at this point that things began getting a bit more complicated. I realized that I would burn an egregious amount of fuel pushing the tug around the Sarnus system like the original plan had called for. So, I took the tug, the lander, and the lander's fuel reserve to Eeloo, with the plan to use the lander alone to deal with Ovok and Hale. The Eeloo landing went fine, and I sent the lander 1/3 full off to Ovok. Capture, landing, and orbit went fine. It was at this point that things got problematic. Ovok's strange shape, coupled with its low gravity, meant that the lowest stable orbit had a non-negligible period, when compared to that of Ovok itself. This and a strange orbital drift I began experiencing when close to Sarnus, made the return transfer hairier than I would like. To make matters worse, the lander burned every scrap of fuel it had inserting itself into a circular orbit. Jeb had to EVA rendezvous with the tug and then rendezvous the tug with the lander. It was this rendezvous that was the apex of my problems. I couldn't use the tug's RCS in any quantity since I needed it to dock with the mothership, which meant an engine-only landing-no mean feat in a vessel as clumsy as the tug. Furthermore, I had to ferry Jeb between the tug and the lander in the middle of the docking to line up the ports. Once the rendezvous was complete, I refueled the lander with all the reserves I had left and sent it off to Hale-a much more pleasant place than Ovok. It's almost surreal to be in a sphere of influence where point-and-burn navigation is an effective way of getting from point a to point b. The lander returned to Eeloo, Jeb returned to the tug, the tug returned to the mothership, and the mothership returned to Kerbin. One interplanetary re-entry later, our intrepid Kerbal was home, safe and sound.