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Since the dawn of Kerbalkind, the eager green creatures have always looked to the skies, but when they tried to reach the stars, they ended up unsuccessful, with themselves wading (or drowning) in a reflection of the night skies across the surface of glistening water. Some kerbals who managed to swim to the surface after a near-drowning experience realized the beauty that lied right back at home in the murky depths, and eventually invented the submarine. But it wasn't until the best of both worlds were combined that everyone-- both the space program and submarine program kerbals, was/were pleased . In this depiction of the 57th Kerbal Sub Test of the submarine/space program, near dusk in Jool's atmosphere, a brave kerbonaut tried to "walk" on deck with a hose attached, during the start of a fiery reentry towards the hopefully-navigable greenness below. Sadly, those who were aboard or dangling from a cord noticed that the below "liquid" now seemed to resemble clouds... The kerbals inside now started to wonder where else besides Kerbin could they find such beautiful views and the conditions to allow the use of a submarine... This is the result of my urge to make kerbals enter a gas giant with a submarine, after having read this: https://what-if.xkcd.com/139/, giving me inspiration. It might be fun to actually try this in KSP, now after creating this...

So I started a new game appropriately called "Super Epic Game of Awesomness." I decided for my first flights to be my first manned mission to Jool. Here I'll be covering the entire mission from the first launch to recovery of the SC Tyrant mission. Crew Module Launch: Launch of the first module, weighing in at about 7 tons. Second stage and aeroshell deployed, ready for orbital insertion burn. First module in orbit ~450km up.

So, I've been putting together a project over the course of a few days. I decided to head to Laythe, and boy, was it worth it. Did it crash? Almost. Did it work? Yes. Not too bad for iMovie and Quicktime Player... Enjoy!

So, I want one craft to go to Eve on a flyby, but dropping a science atmosphere probe to land there, then I want the main craft to go on a Jool flyby that hits the upper atmosphere and drops a second probe there, but I only have batteries and solar panels. How many solar panels do I need to transmit all data?

I was playing KSP yesterday and flying an probe to Jool (I called it Tekto), but because I can't get probe further out than to Minmus, I used infinite fuel Recent Juno Jupiter approach movie inspired me to do the same thing and take some print screens and then stack them together. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ttNNhgNe04 Then I changed my orbit a lot of times to flyby different moons: First Tylo flyby: http://i.imgur.com/SBJmggz.png First Vall Flyby: http://i.imgur.com/s2eDEtD.png First Laythe Flyby: http://i.imgur.com/QdPIXDR.png Pol Flyby: http://i.imgur.com/88VgNAl.png I didn't do Bop flyby yet, so here is my best image: http://i.imgur.com/UOIHa7D.png I used HullCam mod for photos, Bop was shot at biggest magnification I could get with KerbPro.

This thread is a collection of screenshots taken from my Surveyor 17 probe that orbits Jool. I launched it to Jool to learn more about the moons and orbital mechanics. The first set of flybys (Laythe, Vall, and Laythe again) http://imgur.com/a/GJi8u Can someone tell me how to upload albums without having to leave a link?

Well the name is a lie. I did attempt the Jool V challenge once but that failed. Anyway I plan to take four rockets to the Jool system. Each one has a different purpose. The Mission Plan. I plan to take the Astro Explorer to Bop, (Download in my showcase thread!) The Astro Explorer II to Vall, my new rocket, "Ganymede" to Tylo, (and back ) and The Serpent rescuer to rescue the Serpent's crew. (Surprise, surprise!) These are all standard launches to orbit, transfer to Jool, use Tylo/Laythe gravity assists to get into orbit around Jool and go to their destinations. The Rockets. Ganymede has two modules: A lander and a cruiser. (Named after Jupiter's biggest moon!) Here is the cruiser. It has almost 11000 m/s of DV with the lander. The launch stage is so overpowered that it can use the middle stack to transfer to Jool as well as do some of the correction burns. A little overpowered but then we don't want what happened to Serpent to happen to this! This is the lander. It has been tested via hyper-edit and can land and return to orbit with 1200 m/s left. It weighs 9 tons and has two stages. The first stage has an aerospike and two .625m tanks crossfed into the middle stack. The second is powered by a spark an has a low TWR in exchange for a lot of DV. However it does have enough to maintain altitude and keep ascending! This is the Serpent rescuer. It uses the same lifter as Ganymede and thus can use the middle stack to transfer to Jool. It starts on a probe core but once it has kerbals onboard, it doesn't need the probe core anymore. The Astro Explorer 2. It doesn't have as much DV as the Astro Explorer 1 but it can land on higher gravity planets more easily. The Astro Explorer 1 was originally going to land on both Bop and Pol but once landed on Pol, it didn't have enough DV to go to Bop and return to Kerbin so it just returned to Kerbin instead. It was later planned to go to Bop on a separate mission but I never got around to taking it there so it will go there now. Beginning the mission today and I will post updates as I go along. This will have a story to it as well unlike the Serpent To Laythe mission report I did this week. The beginning will be the Ganymede launch to LKO! Will post more soon!

Should Laythe be closer to Jool? Laythe, in my Opinion is my most favorite Celestial Body in the Kerbol System, Laythe is a moon with a thick Atmosphere, Oxygen, Liquid Water, and a great view of its main Planet, Jool. Infact the only reason why I even landed on Laythe is for the amazing Science and great view of Jool Laythe has to offer, however I alway's thought it wasn't enough. Me, as an Astronomy and Science geek, have always been wondering what it would look like if Celestial Bodies were closer to each other? That is what I would like to see at Laythe, I do understand that Laythe is already close enough to Jool where it's intense radiation belts wouldn't cover all of Laythe in Radiation apart from its protective Atmosphere, but I believe Laythe's atmosphere is thick enough to be moved closer to Jool. Laythe is 1/5 the size of Jool, however moving it closer to Jool will effect Jool's orbit as it will move Jool a bit as Laythe passes over Jool if Laythe was to be moved to Jool (Which I would love) a lot closer.

I know that the Kerbol system isn't the most realistic (1 gas giant, 2 moons for Kerbin) system in the world, but having only 3 main moons seems a bit off for a towering cloud that Jool is. I just want to make the game feel more interesting. There's a wide open space between Tylo and Bop that constantly makes me irritated. I always feel that the potential for a moon to be there is just too high for there not to be one. It doesn't have to be either flat or lumpy like the other moons; real life Callisto is cratered and rigid and interesting! It would be so fun to see the protector of the inner moons watching silently over the Joolian system! That's all that I have to say!

Hi there, I've accepted a contract asking me to enter the atmosphere of Jool. I decided to send a very simple probe in a deadly trip to the Green Planet. (Periapsis 4 km...) I was thinking that "Enter the atmosphere of Jool to achieve this goal" was pretty clear. But my probe exploded a few hundred meters below the surface of Jool, and the contract is still there... https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1cJn_NG58YYSGRSdm1KQXpDSDQ&usp=sharing Do you think I need wings to achieve this contract, or is this just a bug? Thanks for reading

I just finished my longest mission ever. And it's actually the *first* time I've ever came back to Kerbin from another planet's sphere of influence (let alone two planets and four moons). The idea of the mission was to investigate strange anomalies on Vall which turned out to be way more mysterious than the Kerbals ever thought. For this mission KSC decided to refit an already proven SSTO with refueling capabilities so that it could complete the journey and come back. All in all, it took a little over 20 kerbal years.

hi hi In honor of the Juno spacecraft's upcoming flyby of Jupiter, I thought up the notion of doing a flyby of Jool. Jeb and Valentina were all for it too, but since we were in a bit of a time crunch to get things done before the big day, we weren't going to be able to do things the easy way. Oh no, Jeb and Valentina didn't want to wait, they wanted to go fast, and that means making a giant, oversized, inefficient rocket that could leave right now. And I ain't never heard of this Hohmann fellow. Above you can see the space ship on the launch pad. Everyone is excited and ready to go. Even Bob, who lost a bet to Bill during a game of Go Fish, is strapped in and apparently ready to get things over with. It was a pretty straight forward launch. And by straight forward, I mean straight up, since this monstrosity was way too unwieldy to try pitching prior to SRB separation, which also thankfully happened around 20,000 meters where the atmosphere is thinner. You can see Valentina is eagerly awaiting the fireworks display that is about to happen when all the SRB's hit the rest of the exhaust, and each other. Here you can see the stage 1.5 separation, as stage 2 kicks into high gear. Honestly, getting this beast into orbit without a refueling mission was one of the hardest parts about this mission. Not the hardest part, I'd wager, but certainly in the top three. And finally the main engines kick in for the 3km/s+ orbital ejection burn. It is really hard to get orbital angles correct without any kind of instrumentation. The folks down at the labs have come up with a handy "old envelopes pressed against the monitors," technique of estimating angles, but I think I ended up burning too much propellant anyway. Patching conics... Wow, I really messed up my ejection angle, but nothing a bit a lot more delta V can't solve. And here we see our intrepid dare devils, perhaps only a mote in Jool's Eye. Back at mission control, we were a little bit worried about whether we'd have enough delta V to get back to Kerbin. We didn't have any tools to estimate the departure window for a flyby pass, not that we arrived when we were expecting to anyways. We were all just crossing our fingers and hoping that the engineers had overdone it again. Actually... and this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but we almost sent the ship off into interstellar space, but we realized the mistake and changed the flyby trajectory from being retrograde to prograde, or was it the other way around? Anyway, we just needed a little bit of a kick to put the ship back on an intercept course with Kerbin. So, in the end, it took more than 4 years to get back. I guess that's what happens when you shoot from the hip and fly by the seat of your spacesuit. Everyone looks real excited to finally be coming home so that I can stick them in another rocket and shoot them into space again. Since I wanted to leave the nuclear powered cruiser in orbit (something about nuclear engines exploding in the atmosphere, etc, etc.) just in case I wanted to use it again, I undocked the command module and fired up the de-orbiting rockets. I was a little bit nervous about whether the ablative docking port technology would hold out, but it didn't explode. And in the end, isn't that what really matters? Cheers!

Okay. Here goes. I present to you The 'Belly of the Beast' Challenge! This challenge is for the best of KSP'ers, but all are welcome to try! You've been everywhere in the system? Landed, returned? Done the Jool 5, the grand tour? Pfft. That's cute. But you haven't done THIS! Here's what it entails: 'Easy' Mode: Enter Joolian Atmosphere from an orbit of your choice, descend to 150,000m, return to an orbit that does not enter the atmosphere. HyperEdit enabled to get into orbit in the first place Intermediate: Enter Joolian Atmosphere from a stable orbit of your choice, descend to 100,000m, return to an orbit that does not enter the atmosphere. HyperEdit enabled to get into orbit in the first place, but not as EPIC Watney mode: Enter Joolian Atmosphere from a stable orbit of your choice, descend to 50,000, return to an orbit that does not enter the atmosphere. HyperEdit disabled! KRAKEN mode: Enter Joolian Atmosphere from a stable orbit of your choice, descend to whatever you feel is badass enough or MORE (you insane magician), return to an orbit that does not enter the atmosphere. And impress me, if you feel daring. HyperEdit disabled! (Note: Hyperedit or any other software / file editing may be used to get into a stable orbit to begin the challenge from, but you MUST evidence you have not used cheats in a breach of these rules, through screenshots or a video, and you MUST remove any mods before beginning the challenge) So there you have it! I've challenged you to this feat. I do not doubt that it has been done before, but in THIS version? With re-entry heat, drag and other factors to count for (did I mention crushing gravity?), this is no challenge for the faint of heart. But this challenge is what I think should be the pinnacle of excellence. Record it, screenshot it, just let me know your stories! Whether you fail or you succeed, I want to hear what YOU did. Even if you failed, to take on this task writes you into the legendary history books and earns your name the strength and honour anyone daring enough to attempt this challenge deserves! And even if you don't wish to take part, share this challenge around, or just comment on what you think! I want to see some Youtubers taking on this challenge like the weekly Reddit challenges, so lets let them all know! If people start to do this challenge, I'll make a badge for each challenge mode for you to put on your signature, and your name will be written into the list below! If this challenge has been done before than please tell me, but I have seen NO attempts at anything like this in 1.0+. Please try to use the latest version of the game, the idea is that the latest changes give it the challenge factor. And to all those who dare to venture into the belly of the beast... Good luck... You'll need it. Hall of Fame: -YOUR NAME HERE! Honourable mentions:

Kerbals are on a Mission to the Jool System, but because of the newest recession of Kerbin's economy, the Space Program couldn't afford to lose a single tank or engine, so it was decided to use a self reuelling SSTO spaceplane, which made the journey very, very long because the constant need for stops along the way (7 and a half years so far, stopping at Minmus, Duna, and Ike). The first intended landing site atthe Jool System was Vall, but the dwindling fuel reserves made Laythe the only viable because of the possibility of either an unpowered descent or sporadically using the much more efficient air breathing engines on the plane. After a refuelling stop on Laythe's surface, landings on Pol and Bop are planned. Tylo is, of course out of the question as it would mean a permanent residence there for the Kerbals and their ship.

My last challenge (Kerbin Atlantis) didn't go so well but I have another idea. In this one, you have to launch a spaceplane to Jool and circumnavigate its atmosphere with it. (I'm not sure if someone has already made a challenge like this or not. Keep in mind that I am relatively new to the site.) The spaceplane can be launched by a rocket or takeoff from the runway. Refueling is allowed on any difficulty. Easy: launch a spaceplane and enter Jool's atmosphere. Minimum crew: 1 Medium: launch a spaceplane to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 2 Hard: launch a spaceplane to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere, land on Laythe, and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 4 IMPOSSIBLE: launch an SSTO from the runway to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere, land on Laythe, land on Duna to refuel, and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 6 Scoring System The scoring will be based on the mass of the spacecraft. There will be a winner for every difficulty mode. Make sure you show me evidence on doing this by showing me pictures ora video. Make sure to include the mass of the ship in your submission. The only mods banned are the Alcubierre Drive mod and HyperEdit. The due date for submissions is 7:00 pm US Central Time on June 24. Any craft submitted after the due date and time will not be scored and will not be able to win. Good luck and happy travels! -The Raging Sandwich Edit: I am extending the time limit to the end of July. Now that I look back at it, it was really short to begin with. Leaderboards: Easy: N/A Medium: Teilnehmer- 11.962 T Hard: N/A Impossible: N/A

Jool. That great green gas giant we all love. Well, except me, Jool is #3 On my favorite planet list, but you get the idea. Dres is #1. You might remember me as "that guy who has HUUUUUUUGE ships" or as "that guys who really likes Dres," but yeah. So, The Jool 5 challenge. One of the most famous challenges ever. Everything is ready. The main cruiser, called the KSS Creativity, and maybe the lander launch tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow because I didn't have time today. *facepalm* Uh, but yeah. Sorry guys. *facepalm* (And, yes the name is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

OMG! Just got Kerbal Alarm clock and found out I have a Jool window in seven days! Gaaah! Can somebody help me come up with a viable lander system that can get back from Jool? I can get there, just not back. Any and all help tremendously appreciated. Thanks, Mycroft 33 Edit: Sorry! Should have said ‘Jool system’. I haven’t picked a moon yet, but it won’t be Laythe.

Well, I decided to make an absurd challenge: beat my personal record in sending Kerbals to the Mun in one flight. If you can shove more than 36 Kerbals in one spacecraft, and SAFELY land them on the Mun (without docking or refueling on the way there.), then you win the challenge. A vehicle can qualify for multiple challenges. Re-entry heating must exist, and the craft must have flown in 1.0.5 or later. Any inappropriately shaped (offensive or mature symbols) vehicles are disqualified. Only mods such as Mechjeb, Kerbal Alarm Clock, and similar "utility" mods may be used. For extra insane points, do this for any of the Jool Five. --- MUNAR LEADERBOARDS: 1:Jebisdead: 201 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 10: MINIMUM: 36 --- SSTO LEADERBOARDS: 1: Evermore Alpaca (Laythe/Jool): 564! 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 10: --- JOOL LEADERBOARDS: 1: Evermore Alpaca (SSTO): 564 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 10:

So, I've been playing KSP for a while now, and I've put a flag on Duna, Ike, Dres, and Gilly, and put a bunch of probes and stuff on Eve, and now I'm shooting for Jool. I've landed a probe on Laythe that was nearly vaporized, but managed to land. (BTW, I'm in sandbox but I still bring along things like a thermometer because it's just fun to see) but anything else is basically impossible. I tried to make a bigger probe to land on Tylo or something, but my transfer ships just don't have enough Delta-V. Even when I do my burns from Kerbin orbit, where they are the most efficient, it still doesn't work. Forget about coming back. My transfer ships have plenty of fuel, and they use efficient engines, like nukes or LVNs. I have Kerbal Engineer,(The mod) but I can't get my ships' Delta-V above 5000. So here is my real question: can anyone show me some examples of their Jool ships, or at least tell me what I'm doing wrong? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Easy: Get to Jool with the least amount of delta-v. Medium: Get to Jool with the least amount of delta-v and come back. Hard: Get to Jool with the least amount of delta-v, go into the upper atmosphere, release a spaceplane, fly that spaceplane for 90 seconds while your craft is descending, then achieve orbit and come back. Ultra Hard: Get to Jool with the least amount of delta-v, go into the upper atmosphere, release a spaceplane, fly that spaceplane to space while your craft is descending, then achieve orbit, transfer to Vall orbit, escape, and then come back. No Alt-F12 or HyperEdit. Rules: "Upper Atmosphere" is designated as 100-200km. You must release your spaceplane between 125-150km. Only stock parts, Engineer, MechJeb, and KW Rocketry parts are allowed. (KW Rocketry for the big fuel tanks/powerful engines for hard/ultrahard) "Vall orbit" is designated as a orbit within Vall's SOI and not going within 10km. "come back" is designated as hitting, or landing Kerbin, or having a orbit with a periapsis of 70km or lower. "least amount of delta-v" is designated as total dv. You may not use a stock spaceplane. People who have tried: Easy: PLAD [V0.90] - Vall capture. See post 7 for link. 1,017m/s. PLAD, Attempt 3 [V1.1.1] - 916m/s. Medium: PLAD (again) - 1,012m/s back, Hard: Ultra Hard: Gatecrashers: PLAD, Attempt 1 [V0.23.5] - Thought that aerobraking-to-orbit was allowed.

How much Delta-V is needed in Keribn orbit (100km) in order to arrive at the Jool system with a reasonable amount of delta-v for navigation? Every time I send a craft to Jool, I get there and either shoot right out of the system, crash into Jool or a moon, or end up stranded in a ridiculously useless orbit. At the moment I have some frogs stranded on/around Pol and it seems like getting there was a fluke. Appreciate any assistance! (PS- It doesn't help that once you enter the Jool system, Jool itself becomes untargetable)

Hi, I play KSP for 3 years now, but I have only had 4 missions beyond Minmus: - a duna colony never to return - an unmanned eve lander - an unmanned Laythe plane - a probe to escape the solar system but I finally decided to do a BIG mission, with the 1.1 release. This is project JUPITER (Jool utter planetary investigation and thorough environmental research). It is the biggest vessel I have ever assembled, took over 15 launches altogether (more than 20 if you count the too-small-and-therefore-destroyed transferstage) . Sent 6 crew on a 7 year journey to Jool. And they actually made it back alive. Here is it's story: can't get the titles to show up - view on IMGUR instead It took me over a week to fly all of the launches and do all of the slingshots. I am so relieved now, that this mission is successful. I also feel like an accomplished KSP player now thanks for reading Kamik423

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

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.

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