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SIGHTS OF KIDONIA The tale of Kidonia, its Brave Kerbal Crew, and Their Mission to Jool Herein is the epic tale of Kidonia, the mothership I have constructed to fulfill the Jool-5 Challenge (for those new here, the basic premise is to visit all of Jool's moons in a single mission). My previous attempt, Julia, was never able to go to Jool before the KSP 1.0 patch came out and introduced major changes that made me have to restart the mission (notably, LV-N engines no longer consume Oxidizer). So to make up for it, I resolved to make a new ship so mighty that it would make Julia look like a sepratron by comparison. Mission Log Slideshow (via Imgur): Screenshots, captions, and other details such as ship schematics shall be added as the mission progresses.

In the beginning, there were the Midgets: simple, single-stage rockets capable of setting your eyebrows spectacularly on fire, and also of sending Kerbals high into the atmosphere. And the Midgets begat the Widgets, multi-stage rockets capable of setting your balance sheets spectacularly on fire, and also of sending Kerbals even higher into the atmosphere and even a ways out of it. The Widgets begat the Idgits (simple unmanned satellites) and the Digits (advanced unmanned probes to other worlds), along with the Gidgets (landers) and Fidgets (vessels with grappling arms, good for retrieval of space junk and hilarious jokes on the assembly floor). But it was time for something more ambitious, something truly epic in scope: a mission to colonize another world. It was time for Big Bridget. * * * Missions to Jool were fun. Missions to Jool were also expensive and time-consuming. Wouldn't it make more sense to make just one trip and do all the things you wanted to do there at the same time? And so the Kerbal Space Program engineers decided to build a single large ship that would carry all the things needed for a grand science and colonization mission: six probes, one for Jool and each of its muns, that would detach from the main vessel and all go their separate ways once Jool orbit had been achieved. A fueling station with a mining rover. A science plane for visits to other islands. A cutting-edge base package that would explode apart in the atmosphere of Laythe, waft gently to the ground on parachutes and reassemble upon landing: The engineers presented their plans to the administrators, and everyone shouted in gleeful celebration. Then the engineers presented their budgets to the administrators, and the administrators chased them out of the office. In the end, the engineers had to abandon the mining station and science plane and settle for just the Laythe base and the probes. Even that was the most epically epic endeavor the KSP had ever attempted. Big Bridget was 76.2 meters long, weighed 3,748.3 metric tons, comprised 457 parts and cost $1.6 million kerbucks. The KSP paid for construction of the massive vessel by accepting every single contract that had anything to do with Jool, figuring that they could all be completed at the other end of the journey . . . and if not, the bill collectors would have to travel a really long way to repossess the ship. Nobody knew whether such a massive vessel, even one powered by a dozen Mammoth engines, could even get off the ground. The engineers said they were pretty sure it would, although their eyes shifted nervously as they said it. Amazingly, the launch was a success . . . an agonizingly slow success, but a success nonetheless. Orbital altitude was achieved . . . . . . as was orbit! High-fives all around. However, despite having included no fewer than six jumbo reaction wheels, the engineers had to admit, when pressed, that Big Bridget handled like a pig. There was no way the ship could easily pivot to eject its spent booster tanks off the front of the ship without accidentally knocking off the base package in the process -- not while trying to maintain an interplanetary trajectory. Also, the engineers were belatedly discovering that spending all that fuel moved Big Bridget's center of gravity back far enough that it could no longer maintain a stable trajectory at anything more than 20 percent thrust. Lead pilot Valentina Kerman made the decision to rise to a higher orbit and eject the tanks before departing for Jool. What a beauty, huh? It was finally time to leave for the three-year journey to Jool. The crew performed the 2,000 m/s burn (at 20 percent throttle, which took a long, long time), and Bill Kerman got out the Dominion set. With all the expansions. "We've arrived! And to prove it, we're here!" But there was still a long way to go. To make the most of their limited fuel, Big Bridget had to brake just enough to close orbit around Jool, then travel all the way to the apoapsis of its highly eccentric orbit before opening its cargo bay and launching its probes. Finally, it was time: Valentina gave the order to launch the probes. But there was an unexpected problem: For some reason, both the Jool and Laythe probes' fuel tanks were almost empty! What had happened? Bill Kerman, red-faced (which for a Kerbal signifies a degree of embarrassment that you and I can hardly comprehend), speculated that perhaps the probes' decouplers had been erroneously set to allow fuel crossfeed, and Big Bridget had slurped up their fuel during the braking burn. For the Jool probe, it didn't matter as much -- there was still enough fuel left to deorbit directly into the gas giant, albeit at a terrifyingly high velocity. But the Laythe probe couldn't even circularize, and certainly couldn't survive a plunge directly into the planet's atmosphere. It had to be written off. The other probes, however, circularized their orbits and completed their missions with spunk and verve. Meanwhile, it was also time for the Laythe base package to detach from Big Bridget, whose work was done. The four legendary kerbonauts -- Valentina, Jebediah, Bob and Bill -- left Big Bridget's cockpit behind and resituated themselves in the control hub of the base package. Valentina gave the order to detach. And the Laythe base package was on its way. Au revoir, Big Bridget. This was an exciting moment for Bob. First to reach its destination was the probe destined for the insanely high-pressure atmosphere of Jool, which was basically just a bunch of scientific instruments bolted to a plate bolted to a heat shield. Turns out you can survive anything with a good enough heat shield! Even an 8,000 m/s reentry into the thick atmosphere of a gas giant! Once its excess velocity was burned off, that probe wafted gently down through the atmosphere of Jool, transmitting scientific data the whole way, until at an altitude of negative 250 meters (befuddled KSP scientists scratched their heads and debated how such a thing was even possible), the probe abruptly ceased transmitting. Next up was the Pol probe . . . . . . followed by the Bop probe. Administrators back at KSP sighed with relief and checked off two boxes on their contract checklists. Meanwhile, the base package was on its way to Laythe. However, upon arriving at Laythe, Valentina reported that the base package was unable to commence landing procedures at its desired target, a nice flat landmass dubbed "Wine-Bottle Island," because, as she put it, it was "dark" there. Back at KSP mission control, a grumbling Gene Kerman asked for an update on the Tylo probe. The probe had reached its target, and landed successfully, but with only fumes left in its fuel tank. Unlike the Pol and Bop probes, which had each hopped through several biomes to gather and transmit several batches of data, the Tylo probe could transmit only from its initial landing site before shutting down. Finally, having computed that landing at Wine-Bottle Island was a no-go, fuel-wise, owing to an overly profligate plane change maneuver, Valentina sighed wistfully, abandoned her fantasy of drinking a glass of wine on Wine-Bottle Island, and accepted Jebediah's recommendation of another site closer to the equator. The view during reentry was, to put it mildly, spectacular. At 5,000 meters altitude, Valentina ejected the no longer necessary fuel–engine assembly; at 2,000 meters, she activated the dispersal mechanism, and the various parts of Laythe base floated independently to the sands below. One by one, the base components' AIs extended their "rolly wheels" (the recondite technical term employed by KSP engineers) and steered toward the hub to link up with it. Despite complications created by a sticky decoupler that hadn't detached completely, the linkup was successful. As always, Valentina was granted the privilege of being first on the new world. Meanwhile, there was one last probe that still had to complete its mission. With the landing of the final probe on Vall, Big Bridget's mission to Jool was finally complete. KSP administrators checked off the last contract on the checklist and beamed with satisfaction at their P/L report: despite its staggering initial cost and total duration of nearly eight years, the completion of contracts and transmission of more than 5,000 units of scientific data had brought the KSP a profit of $3.2 million kerbucks, a 200 percent return on investment. When they reported this to the staff at mission control, the engineers and scientists leapt for joy, thinking of all the missions they now had the money to conduct. Their mood was dampened somewhat when the administrators informed them that they'd be using the money to buy themselves additional homes on Kerbin, one in each biome.

Read about Big Bridget's mission to Jool at the link below.

Hello! I'm trying to get a gravity assist to get into Jool orbit. I've never done this before, and I'd be happy to hear any tips! Here's what it looks like: These are my primary questions: How can I see whether I will be in orbit after I've exited Tylo's SOI, before I've entered it? How can I figure out where I need to enter Tylo's SOI, and at what angle, to be captured into orbit? I can easily provide more info if it's needed. Thanks a lot!

The Jool Space Station Challenge: About: The J.S.S is a challenge where you need to make a space station to orbit Jool. Make sure you've got enough fuel though, otherwise you'll be stranded in space. This challenge came from the space station in space now, but there had to be a twist, Jool perfect. Specifications: You need to at least have four solar panels, 3 kerbals and a lander for science on Jool which will have to float because Jool is a gas giant, you may want to have a science jr. on the station for orbit science that you might want. You are allowed mods that help with orbiting, add more parts or makes it more realistic {Harder flying etc.} My Pics Not uploaded to Imgur yet

Hey everyone, this is about some ship suggestions. It's my first window to Jool in a new save, and I don't care about realism (I'm doing this for "Taking on Tylo", an Upcoming story I am writing). I've been to Jool multiple times before, but I feel like there is nothing left to send. I'm sending the Crewed Expedition Ship (C.E.S), the Tylo Lander, and the massive Probe Stack. Pics: Tylo Lander (Sorry no better shot). Probe Stack (lots of probes here). Crewed Expedition Ship (again no better shot, sorry). I'm thinking of packing a light Vall lander in last minute (The C.E.S and Tylo Lander have already finished their ejection burns and are heading to Jool) and maybe some other ships. A small Laythe Colony? Does anyone have any ideas about what else to bring? Thanks!

My Tylo lander just reached Jool, but something's eating its electric charge at a rate of 0.03 per second. I tried turning off all systems on the ship, but it won't stop even when I'm angled toward the sun. I know those panels don't provide much power that far out, but I can't see why my power is going down even when I'm not doing anything. I've turned literally everything off.

This is my mission report thread for my Jool-5 challenge attempt. Here's the launch album:

Well, almost a Jool-5. A 4 1/2. Stupid Tylo.

The Challenge: 1: Launch a spacecraft 2: Do science when passing through Jool's atmosphere like you are aerobraking. 3: Get the science back to KSC You can do that any way. Points: Total science gathered in Jool atmosphere Multipliers: x1 transmitted science x2 transmitted science from space station x3 got science back to Kerbin x3 over 10 kerbals onboard These are just because why not? So, go and kill kerbals Have fun! ( and kill kerbals, just not for this challenge.)

This is my First Cinematic Guys Hope You Liked it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iiwjeO0RqE

I tried to land in Jool and... well... this happened

Alright, so I'm too lazy to find the other thread, but I'm starting fresh for the sake of 1.0.5 Kerbin to Minmus: Such Edit, much bad, very nominal launch

Your goal is to put your self from Kerbin orbit to Jool and back. RULES: 1) No mods 2) No cfg edits 3) You can use mecjeb and protractor mods but can only use mecjeb for altitude readouts, orbit altiudes and such you must be controling your spacecraft at all times. 4) You must set your trajectory from Kerbin Orbit once you leave kerbin influence you can no longer fire your engines. 5) You CAN change the Draw limit in the settings file 6) You must survive rentry on Kerbin. 7) Post a video Or Pictures of you attempting this challenge. (Optional) by the way i dont know if this is possable or not but the KSP community has proven me wrong on other things.