SSTO to laythe and beyond

[ManEatingApe]

Was trying panzer1b's even stricter challenge here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130380-Is-it-even-possible-to-make-a/

Submitted a couple of attempts that also meet this challenge.

12.4t was the lightest craft I could manage for a return journey to Laythe and back again,

Album: http://imgur.com/a/3LnRe

and just for fun flew Kerbin -> Eeloo -> Laythe. (Tried to get back to Kerbin but ran out of fuel, drat!)

Album Part 1: http://imgur.com/a/CXTqz

Album Part 2: http://imgur.com/a/oMTD8

[herbal space program]

So I finally got my fleet back to Kerbin safely:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Please see my earlier posts on this thread from August 19^th and September 8^th for more details and pictures about the trip out. I had a fleet of four SSTO12 ships, with 3 RAPIER and 2 nuke engines, 55t wet, 21.2t dry. They made LK with around 4700 dV. They all went out via the PLAD e-k-k-j route, for around 1300 m/s all told to a Jool encounter. Using a tangential inbound encounter with Tylo, they dropped to a capturable Laythe encounter for very little dV, but they required significant fuel usage to land because of a high stall speed. After landing (first picture of this album), they all made orbit again quite easily, with no requirement for oxidizer burning. Outbound, I had to burn for around 690 m/s to get to the best retrograde Tylo assist I could devise. This was actually enough dV to put me very close to a Hohman transfer back to Kerbin orbit, but from my earlier experience of instantly burning up on contact with Laythe’s atmosphere and reading the accounts of others, I gathered that I would be coming in too fast that way. So I added another 200 m/s or so to my ejection velocity from Tylo and dropped down more steeply to an earlier Kerbin encounter. This was also way too fast, but it allowed me to set up a gravity assist to a lower 2:1 Kerbin resonant orbit. Even that orbit was not good enugh, because it intersected Kerbin’s at too much of an angle, so at apoapsis I had to do another ~250 m/s correction to get to a more tangential Kerbin re-encounter. From there it was pretty smooth sailing to get back home, although I’ll admit it took a few mulligans for me to get all the planes on the ground back at KSC together! MY best plane landed with about 600 m/s of nuke burn left, so I think I probably could have managed a Minmus landingif I had been willing to futz around enough. Anyway by my reckoning, that gets me on the board with 1050 points, for making it out and back and also for having under 100 parts…

I learned a lot from playing with these ships, and my improved SSTO14 (also posted on this thread) is both much easier to fly and makes LKO with around 6km/s dV in nuke burn. I’ve actually got a version now that can do that with LT-2 struts mounted on the back, so depending on how full the fuel tank is, I should be able to land on airless bodies up to Mun size. I don’t think I can get to the insane ion powered point total this way, but I think I might be able to manage some bodies like Mun or Duna, that require more TWR. We’ll see…

Edited November 5, 2015 by herbal space program

[zolotiyeruki]

So I finally got my fleet back to Kerbin safely:

http://imgur.com/a/4hWPc

Please see my earlier posts on this thread from August 19^th and September 8^th for more details and pictures about the trip out. I had a fleet of four SSTO12 ships, with 3 RAPIER and 2 nuke engines, 55t wet, 21.2t dry. They made LK with around 4700 dV. They all went out via the PLAD e-k-k-j route, for around 1300 m/s all told to a Jool encounter. Using a tangential inbound encounter with Tylo, they dropped to a capturable Laythe encounter for very little dV, but they required significant fuel usage to land because of a high stall speed. After landing (first picture of this album), they all made orbit again quite easily, with no requirement for oxidizer burning. Outbound, I had to burn for around 690 m/s to get to the best retrograde Tylo assist I could devise. This was actually enough dV to put me very close to a Hohman transfer back to Kerbin orbit, but from my earlier experience of instantly burning up on contact with Laythe’s atmosphere and reading the accounts of others, I gathered that I would be coming in too fast that way. So I added another 200 m/s or so to my ejection velocity from Tylo and dropped down more steeply to an earlier Kerbin encounter. This was also way too fast, but it allowed me to set up a gravity assist to a lower 2:1 Kerbin resonant orbit. Even that orbit was not good enugh, because it intersected Kerbin’s at too much of an angle, so at apoapsis I had to do another ~250 m/s correction to get to a more tangential Kerbin re-encounter. From there it was pretty smooth sailing to get back home, although I’ll admit it took a few mulligans for me to get all the planes on the ground back at KSC together! MY best plane landed with about 600 m/s of nuke burn left, so I think I probably could have managed a Minmus landingif I had been willing to futz around enough. Anyway by my reckoning, that gets me on the board with 1050 points, for making it out and back and also for having under 100 parts…

I learned a lot from playing with these ships, and my improved SSTO14 (also posted on this thread) is both much easier to fly and makes LKO with around 6km/s dV in nuke burn. I’ve actually got a version now that can do that with LT-2 struts mounted on the back, so depending on how full the fuel tank is, I should be able to land on airless bodies up to Mun size. I don’t think I can get to the insane ion powered point total this way, but I think I might be able to manage some bodies like Mun or Duna, that require more TWR. We’ll see…

Ok, I'm at the "getting back to Kerbin" stage, and could use a bit of advice. I have an orbit with an Ap above Duna and a Pe below Eve, but my encounters with Kerbin have me entering Kerbin's SOI at something like 3400m/s, WAY too high to perform an aerobrake. I *think* a more tangential orbit will help, i.e. if my Ap or Pe just touches Kerbin's orbit. Is that right? How do I attain such an orbit? I can get into a resonant orbit with Kerbin, but not a tangential one.

Do I need to get an assist off Eve to get my Ap even with Kerbin's orbit?

[herbal space program]

Ok, I'm at the "getting back to Kerbin" stage, and could use a bit of advice. I have an orbit with an Ap above Duna and a Pe below Eve, but my encounters with Kerbin have me entering Kerbin's SOI at something like 3400m/s, WAY too high to perform an aerobrake. I *think* a more tangential orbit will help, i.e. if my Ap or Pe just touches Kerbin's orbit. Is that right? How do I attain such an orbit? I can get into a resonant orbit with Kerbin, but not a tangential one.

Do I need to get an assist off Eve to get my Ap even with Kerbin's orbit?

If you can assist off of Kerbin to a 2:1 resonant orbit, preferably with a higher PE than the one you have now, you should be able to make that orbit more tangential by boosting prograde and (I think) anti-radial at the Ap of that orbit. If you mess around with the maneuver node at Ap, you should be able to raise your PE to Kerbin’s orbit and push your Kerbin re-encounter towards your PE for a few hundred m/s. It took around 250 for me to go from a lethal angled encounter at ~8 o'clock to a very survivable tangential one near 6. Good luck!

[zolotiyeruki]

I'm in a 1:1 right now, so I can adjust the resonance whenever/however I want

[ManEatingApe]

So I finally got my fleet back to Kerbin safely:

http://imgur.com/a/4hWPc

Nice formation flying! It's the KSP equivalent of the Blue Angels

Any tips on achieving resonant orbits? Right now I wing it and hope for the best, but a more systematic approach would be better.

[herbal space program]

Nice formation flying! It's the KSP equivalent of the Blue Angels

Any tips on achieving resonant orbits? Right now I wing it and hope for the best, but a more systematic approach would be better.

I did it mostly because I didn’t want to start over if one of my ships somehow got irretrievably corrupted, and also to get a sense of how much wiggle room there was in the E-K-K-J route. As to how to get to a 2:1 resonant Kerbin orbit from Jool, I don’t know if this is the best strategy, but here’s what I did: If Jool is at 12 o’ clock and the Kerbolar system is spinning counterclockwise, you want to have Kerbin at a little past 7 o’ clock. I ejected retrograde off of tylo into an orbit with a PE close to Kerbin’s, then boosted about another 200 m/s to encounter Kerbin at around 8 o’ clock, just under 2 years after ejecting from Jool. By tweaking this encounter, you can easily get to a 2:1 resonant orbit. Just keep twiddling the maneuver node from around your plane correction until until your Kerbin PE is like 137km coming from the outside. Note that this orbit still re-encounters Kerbin at excessively high speed, but from its Ap, you only need to burn around 250 more m/s to correct to a survivable tangential encounter. Hope that helps!

[EvermoreAlpaca]

Taking a break from my make-it-work-whatever-it-looks-like approach to make a mission focused on looking swag! Not going to submit officially yet, since I am working on a video for my youtube channel showing the mission. Here is the landing on laythe!

[URL]https://i.gyazo.com/b5f074aad7da143bc015be65f006698d.png[/URL]
[IMG]https://i.gyazo.com/b5f074aad7da143bc015be65f006698d.png[/IMG]

[EvermoreAlpaca]

The video is finished!  The mission fared better than anticipated, and I was able to land on Pol, Bop, Laythe, and Minmus before returning to Kerbin.  A very challenging and rewarding mission, I got a lot of practice at gravity assists.  

Video:https://youtu.be/VdVaTrrgWKY

Album:http://imgur.com/a/zbGPC

Craft File:http://kerbalx.com/EvermoreAlpaca/Sothoryos

Edited November 30, 2015 by EvermoreAlpaca

[ManEatingApe]

17 hours ago, EvermoreAlpaca said:

The video is finished!  The mission fared better than anticipated, and I was able to land on Pol, Bop, Laythe, and Minmus before returning to Kerbin.  A very challenging and rewarding mission, I got a lot of practice at gravity assists.  

Video:https://youtu.be/VdVaTrrgWKY

Album:http://imgur.com/a/zbGPC

Craft File:http://kerbalx.com/EvermoreAlpaca/Sothoryos

Very sleek design and the re-dockable rover was a neat idea. Also nice use of the new aero model (in 1.0.4 side by side Mk2 fuselages were very draggy and bundles of Mk1 tanks was the way to go).

Next time hope you can make it to the Mun as well!

Edited November 30, 2015 by ManEatingApe

[Val]

21 hours ago, EvermoreAlpaca said:

The video is finished!  The mission fared better than anticipated, and I was able to land on Pol, Bop, Laythe, and Minmus before returning to Kerbin.  A very challenging and rewarding mission, I got a lot of practice at gravity assists.  

Video:https://youtu.be/VdVaTrrgWKY

Album:http://imgur.com/a/zbGPC

Craft File:http://kerbalx.com/EvermoreAlpaca/Sothoryos

Great mission and video. The commentary was quite good. 

Did it really take 104 years? That's what I see on the MET, right?

And I thought the 14 years I took was long... 

[EvermoreAlpaca]

Somewhere around 85-90 of that was because I mucked up the Jool rendesvous, had to wait for many decades =0  I wasn't able to get my apoapsis high enough from the 2nd kerbin fly by like I should of, and improvising the duna fly only got me an intersection.

 

P.S.  You and nefrums in particular inspired this mission.  =0

Edited December 1, 2015 by EvermoreAlpaca

[Guz]

On 2.11.2015 at 6:25 PM, zolotiyeruki said:

 I think he at least deserves an Honorable Mention, if for nothing else than the idea of sticking heat shields on the nose of a space plane. That's just brilliant!

hehe - it was for aesthetic reasons. i disliked all the other nosecone-variants i went through. especially the black/white one doesnt seem to fit very well i think.

[EvermoreAlpaca]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qa9aWBvw0k

The biggest Laythe SSTO yet!  564 kerbals, submarines/jets/assorted other toys.  A bit on the long side but I think y'all will enjoy it.

Edited February 15, 2016 by EvermoreAlpaca

[SpaceplaneAddict]

5 minutes ago, EvermoreAlpaca said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qa9aWBvw0k

The biggest Laythe SSTO yet!  564 kerbals, submarines/jets/assorted other toys.  A bit on the long side but I think y'all will enjoy it.

Uhm,..... you kinda deserve being in the Grand Group, which @Endersmens maintains. Yeah, you need a (REDACTED) thousand replike for this.

 

[EvermoreAlpaca]

22 minutes ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

Uhm,..... you kinda deserve being in the Grand Group, which @Endersmens maintains. Yeah, you need a (REDACTED) thousand replike for this.

 

Pretty sure that refers to having one thousand Rep, which I am not particularly close to

[SpaceplaneAddict]

I will replike every post of yours I find.

[Evanitis]

38 minutes ago, EvermoreAlpaca said:

The biggest Laythe SSTO yet!  564 kerbals, submarines/jets/assorted other toys.  A bit on the long side but I think y'all will enjoy it.

I believe you won KSP.

[Kacper Rutkowski]

It's my first SSTO to Laythe without gravity assist - I thing, I could do it without 8 tonnes with gravity assists and in KSP 1.4 (instead of 1.3) - 1100 points.
 

 

[Teilnehmer]

Cool!

Could you please share the craft file? Your dropbox link at the youtube page doesn’t work (access denied).

[Kacper Rutkowski]

Thank you for letting me know. New link should work: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9uljx793u1nfgom/Laythe SSTO.craft?dl=0

Edited May 8, 2018 by Kacper Rutkowski