JEM : Jool 5 - The Hard Way - Mission Complete!

[Mister Dilsby]

Outstanding work on the Tri-Flyer-- no mean feat to land in an alien atmosphere like that, right on the beach too! Those guys should learn to trust Val more.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

ayup.

[Starhawk]

Pinballing around Jool is so much fun if you're careful.

Absolutely! And care = patience = time.

Outstanding work on the Tri-Flyer-- no mean feat to land in an alien atmosphere like that, right on the beach too! Those guys should learn to trust Val more.

To be fair, I shared Bob's concerns until very close to the shore. In the end the atmo had more lift than I expected and was very easy to glide in. The Tri-Flyer was designed and checked out for wilderness landing, so I was confident that if we could make landfall, we'd be fine.

Then, we ran into one of the stranger glitches I've encountered in KSP. Val was sent up the hill to do a little exploration. It was a fair climb, and she ended up about a click and a half away from the lander (that's about a mile for you imperial holdovers). The view having been appropriately admired, we proceeded to return. With 4x physics acceleration and Val running towards the Tri-Flyer (which was targeted), we ran down the hill. We began to notice something odd. The ship was being pushed away from us a little bit as we ran. By the time we got close, the Tri-Flyer was more than 100 m away from the other crew members and the flag. At that point Val proceeded to only walk toward the ship (with no acceleration) to avoid pushing it right into the ocean!

Whereas we landed and rolled some considerable distance from the shore, the ship was now located only a very few metres from the edge of the ocean. The rest of the crew had to be walked the distance and boarded. It didn't seem to have any effect after that, but it could have been bad.

ayup.

Hey! I hope you take another stab at it soon.

At this point in the mission we were wondering about where we were going to have to go into hibe and wait for the resupply mission. We could wait here, but the JEM mother ship still had a fair amount of delta-v. And, if we got a good solution for the transfer to Tylo, maybe...

As stated before, a resupply mission was planned from the start. The only real question was how far JEM could get before she had to sit and wait. There are a few resources on the ship aside from the liquid fuel that's earmarked for JEM's Nervas. Bill started thinking a bit. After a brief period he said "Hey. I have an idea..."

Happy landings!

Edited October 29, 2015 by Starhawk

[Starhawk]

With the crew back aboard JEM, the Tri-Flyer was released after being emptied and shut down.

Now, KER is confused. It can't correctly calculate the dv because of the configuration of the craft. So we need Bill.

Bill says that we actually have 622 m/s. We can up that to 636 m/s if we drop the (long since empty) module 4 here. We could also get a bit more than that by dropping module 3 as soon as it's empty, but not enough to make a real difference.

The next stop is Tylo and that's just not enough dv to get there, capture, and burn to LTO. So the mission plan calls for us to stop here and wait for resupply from Kerbin.

At this point Bill looked up from where he was whispering with Bob and said "Look. Why not turn a liability (a full orange tank of LFO that is dead weight we have to carry around) into an asset (there's enough LF in there for the Nervas to bring our dv up to 1328 m/s)."

"We're going to have to be resupplied anyway. Why not just have the resupply mission bring enough additional LF to replace what we use out of the lander refuelling module?"

Val immediately began plotting maneuver nodes.

It would work!

We could make the next stop, do the Tylo mission, and then wait there for resupply.

Later today - 'Leaving Laythe', and 'Tylo - Dun Dun DUNNN'.

Happy landings!

[Starhawk]

With the Tri-Flyer released, the crew's living and working space was cut in half. Whereas before they had the luxury of enough space for each kerbal to spend time alone, now they were stuck together in the Mk 1-2 pod for the rest of the trip.

All right, time to head for the scariest stop on the trip.

Val plotted a beautiful maneuver node to eject us from Laythe orbit.

Here's a beauty shot of Laythe and Jool as we headed out.

We arrived at Tylo without incident, although perhaps not quite as efficiently as I had hoped.

We pulled the orbit down to 65 km x 185 km by the time we hit bingo fuel. It would have to do.

Now Val could proceed to run some 'simulations' of the landing.

This part of the mission would be the final serious hurdle to clear. And by far the most difficult. Most of Bob's concerns had been addressed at length during the design process and we were confident of the TWR and delta-v as long as we were fairly efficient. Bob did have to point out one rather emabarrassing design mistake. The photovoltaics on the inner stage of the lander were completely inadequate so once the outer tanks were staged off, we would have to be cautious thrifty downright stingy with our power and shut down SAS whenever it was unneeded.

I must make a confession at this point. I did a terrible job of documenting the next bit and had to go back to a save and run parts of it again so that I could get some of the pictures.

So Val made half a dozen simulated landing runs, hitting the same sudden ridge at the end of the landing zone with about 200 or 300 m/s left to kill. A small adjustment was made to the burn timing and down we went.

There's nothing quite like the feeling of flying 10 klicks off the deck at 2 klicks a second.

Val's practice and expert hand put us down safe and sound.

This was the ultimate moment of the entire journey. The remaining delta-v looked adequate, albeit with a fairly thin margin. But the ascent would be easy compared to the landing.

At this point everybody involved breathed a large sigh of relief and began looking forward to a very unstressful remainder of the trip.

A quick Tylo photo op.

And away we go.

The TWR dropped quite a bit when we staged the outer tanks and we had to adjust the pitch to keep the apo out ahead.

And here's a shot of Joolrise.

The margins were very thin. We ended up in a 30 km x 45 km orbit. And there the lander and crew would be safe until the resupply mission.

Meanwhile, back home, we completed the Gilly rescue, the Ike rescue, and a few Kerbin orbit rescues as well as some Sentinel satellite contracts. The funds were rolling in. Mort was looking much more chipper - smiling and whistling despite the failure of KSC to adopt his G.R.I.N.D. program in favour of a different approach.

F.U.N. - Funds are Unlimited Now.

This new approach allowed the design team to get a bit more creative with the plan for the resupply mission. The concept of the modular craft had more or less proven itself and, to be honest, I didn't want to fly a whole bunch more spaceplane missions to put together another big floppy craft. I enjoyed the original orbital construction process immensely but, at this point, I wanted to get on with the rest of the mission.

Here's a pic of what we came up with.

Next time we'll take a closer look.

Happy landings!

[Starhawk]

At the end of the last post, we got a look at the resupply vessel. Imaginative naming as usual resulted in the moniker 'Jool Refuel'.

Jool Refuel launched mostly empty. The liquid booster did half the job and the ring of Nervas (our engineers aren't that imaginative) acted as the upper stage lifter. The JEM mother ship doesn't have enough capacity for the rest of the trip. So, when the Jool Refuel arrives it will become the new mother ship for the rest of the mission.

Orbital refuelling ensued.

I just wasn't going to refuel this thing using half-full orange tankers from the Minmus mining outpost. Fortunately, the F.U.N. initiative allowed us to be a bit extravagant and design a tanker for the job. It would take three of these 'LF Super Tankers' to fill the Jool Refuel ship.

Two more fuel transfers and we were on our way. The transfer and injection went without incident, and the Jool Refuel was much easier to fly than the JEM mothership.

The next step was to get JEM (the lander) docked with Jool Refuel.

Beautiful! Now, there was only one issue. The orange tank at the front of Jool Refuel only contains the LF for refuelling the lander. The oxidizer is still in the JEM mother ship's tanks.

After rendezvous with the old JEM mother ship, we detached the lander and tried to dock the two behemoths. The old mother ship is bingo RCS and Jool Refuel has no RCS thrusters so the result was unsuccessful after a couple tries. Well, this mission isn't called 'The Hard Way' for nothing. It was decided that we would have to shuttle all the ox over using the lander. It took four trips to empty the ox from the old JEM mother ship.

The old JEM mother ship would now be left here in orbit of Tylo. The hope was that the ship, or at least the orange tank modules, could be useful for future missions.

Next time - onward to Vall. (inward actually).

Happy landings!

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Gewd luck and may the Kraken be ever in your favour.

-SPAddict

I might do this again as a supplement to my Tylo circumnavigation

[Mister Dilsby]

Wow, that's a lot of fuel! Yep, you've convinced me--ISRU all the way when I go to Jool myself

The LF supertanker is truly epic, a real heavy lifter. I don't tend to launch anything quite so tall. Looking forward to Vall!

[Starhawk]

Gewd luck and may the Kraken be ever in your favour.

Thanks. Actually, I think the phases of the mission where I might need good luck have already been completed. It really should be a bit of a pleasure cruise from here on out.

Wow, that's a lot of fuel! Yep, you've convinced me--ISRU all the way when I go to Jool myself

Yup. I did expect that I would have a bit of surplus as a margin, but I knew it wouldn't be huge. And... well, you'll see.

I got a lot of pics at Vall. Overcompensating for the lack at Tylo, I guess. Plus Vall is more visually interesting. May get those up later today.

Happy landings!

Edited October 31, 2015 by Starhawk

[Starhawk]

With Tylo and the resupply behind us everyone was feeling relaxed and celebratory. We ejected from Tylo orbit and prepared to tweak for an encounter with our next destination.

A couple more maneuvers and we were set up in low Vall orbit.

We undocked and burned for deorbit and were into our descent. The crew was glued to the windows watching and taking snapshots like tourists.

Now, my recommendation after the fact is that one should always remember that landing on a distant moon is no pleasure cruise! We had one of those "Seems like we might be coming in a little fast, who's flying this thing? Oh, right, that would be me." moments. A little panic led to a slightly less than optimal descent, but a nice gentle landing.

Val looked over to where Bob was moaning and said "We didn't come in that rough. You obviously have some sort of 'concern'."

Bob responded by pointing to the fuel gauge. "We passed the halfway mark during the descent. We might not have enough to make orbit."

Val was slightly rueful about her piloting, but promised that she would fly a picture perfect ascent.

The fuel load was at about 44%. We would definitely require some good piloting - and maybe a bit of 'gewd luck' as well.

In any case, it was time to do the standard surface EVA dance and plant flags, pose for photos, and have Bob grab a pocketful of blue dirt.

No time was wasted returning the crew to the ship. Everyone wanted to know how this would come out. Val flew a beautiful ascent, but the dv looked like it was going to be short. We made orbit and tried for the rendezvous. It looked like we might have enough, but the pictures can tell the next bit. Pay attention to the fuel gauge and the KER delta-v readout, as well as the velocity.

Okay then. May I reiterate about remembering that it's not a pleasure cruise?

Of course we docked safe and sound and proceeded to plan the next leg of our journey.

Here we are ready for our ejection burn from Vall.

Next time - off to Bop.

Happy landings!

Edited November 1, 2015 by Starhawk

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Lookin fine n smooth.

-SPAddict

[Mister Dilsby]

Ah, there's no rendezvous like a bingo rendezvous. Well done!

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Ah, there's no rendezvous like a bingo rendezvous. Well done!

I agree.

-SPAddict

[Starhawk]

Ah, there's no rendezvous like a bingo rendezvous. Well done!

Thanks! That was a particularly satisfying moment.

---

OK, so our Tylo ejection burn left us with the orbit shown here. The apoapsis is nice and close to Bop's descending node.

And here we are arriving in Bop's SOI.

The capture/insertion burn is very small and will leave is in a polar orbit. That should work out nicely.

The landing was pretty routine, but we missed the nice level spot we were trying for and ended up here.

This shot should give you an idea of just how tilted the lander was.

The ascent and rendezvous proceeded very smoothly.

As did the docking process.

We had one more crooked thing to deal with. Our ejection maneuver. The polar orbit worked perfectly.

And would leave us in this orbit.

Next time - we visit our final Joolian moon.

Happy landings!

[Mister Dilsby]

Only one to go! That pile o' Kerbals reminds me a bit of some Gilly landings. Can you discuss the choice of a polar orbit a bit more? Is the basic idea just that you insert/eject without changing your Joolian orbital velocity significantly?

[Starhawk]

Since I wasn't quite at Bop's DN, I ended up coming in above (or was it below?) so the polar orbit was convenient.

If I'd ejected from an equatorial orbit, I would have made the plane change as a separate maneuver after leaving Bop's SOI. By doing it the way I did, I combined the ejection with the needed plane change and the burn was purely prograde. My assumption was that that would be more efficient.

Thinking about it more, I'm less and less sure of that.

Happy landings!

edit: Of course, it only worked at all because we were still close to Bop's DN.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Starhawk

[Starhawk]

Well, it's been a long journey. At this point, it became very clear that mission planning was not optimal.

Although the mission plan was somewhat open-ended after the refueling, I had expected to leave the mother ship in Jool orbit between Vall and Tylo or between Tylo and Bop after the Vall landing phase. The lander has enough delta-v to go to Bop or Pol on it's own from there. But the Jool Refuel ship had ridiculous overkill a bit of contingency reserve and so I ended up bringing it down to low Bop orbit before the Bop landing.

From low Bop orbit to land and return used very little fuel. So, rather than 1/4 orange tank remaining we had almost half. As well as some delta-v in the new mother ship. We decided to enter a high Pol orbit with the mother ship.

Pol is extremely small and low-gravity. It's not Gilly, but it's close. Our orbit was about 449 km x 369 km. The insertion took very little delta-v.

Pol is definitely interesting-looking. Very bumpy, but on a smaller scale than Bop.

We undocked and got into low orbit for a closer look.

And we began our descent. You can see how irregular the surface is quite well in this shot.

Interesting terrain scatter became evident once we were very close to the surface.

And we landed on yet another slope. Close to 30 degrees this time. Good thing reaction wheels are so OP.

The crew were quite pleased to be at their final stop. Now we just had to be careful getting back in.

With no further ado, we were on our way.

After reorbit a quick check of the Transfer Window Planner showed that we had more than enough dv to get home. Even without refueling the lander!

So we didn't even have to do the final planned docking. Jool Refuel would be left in high Pol orbit awaiting the pleasure of future kerbonauts who would one day return to this distant place.

Here's a shot of the trajectory out of Jool's SOI. Still plenty of fuel.

Okay. Confession time again. I returned the crew to Kerbin and had a beautiful and nominal reentry. I went in to the Astronaut Complex and was aghast to see that I had forgotten to have Val plant her flag on Pol. Well, at least it was Pol. I loaded up my save from the surface of Pol and flew the rest of the mission again.

For reasons unknown the crew chose a slightly higher periapsis on the second go-round. This resulted in much more ablator being consumed by the time the flames abated.

We managed to complete a few contracts as well as bring back a bit of science.

Well that completes this mission report. Thank you for reading and a special thanks to those who took the time to comment on the mission.

Happy landings!

Edited November 5, 2015 by Starhawk
sp

[lajoswinkler]

Congrats! What are your reentry settings? 100%?

[Starhawk]

Yup. All default settings.

Happy landings!

[astrobond]

Congrat's Starhawk !

Remember's me my first Jool 5 mission (not in a challenge, just for "fun" in 0.24 version), big ship, big landers, and at least two refuel missions xD

Your's was short on Tylo, really short on Val... but you made it with only one refuel !

(more fun when this is short )

Fly safe with Val

[Mister Dilsby]

What a great report! I certainly learned a lot from it and will use that in my own attempt, post 1.0.5. Wasn't clear from the pictures, but I assume you re-docked to the mothership and used it to return to Kerbin, then undocked the lander for re-entry?

[Starhawk]

What a great report! I certainly learned a lot from it and will use that in my own attempt, post 1.0.5. Wasn't clear from the pictures, but I assume you re-docked to the mothership and used it to return to Kerbin, then undocked the lander for re-entry?

Thanks Kuzzter!

Sorry about the sloppy documentation. No. The mother ship (aka Jool Refuel) remained in high Pol orbit where some future crew may make use of it. The lander was always intended to be the return craft as well. It had something like 2500 m/s when fully fueled, so lots to get home even after landing on Pol and reorbiting.

And the mother ship not only has about 800 m/s (actually, that was with the lander attached), it also has about 35-40% of an orange tank of LFO. I'm sure I'll make use of that eventually.

Happy landings!

Edited November 5, 2015 by Starhawk

[Starhawk]

Mk3 Cargo 104 845 (This was an Air Service 'Good Landing')
Mk3 Cargo 2c 102 658 (This was also an Air Service 'Good Landing')
Mk3 Cargo 2e 102 086 - 83 321 = 18 765
Unicorn 2 100 775 - 84 219 = 16 556
Unicorn 3 98 733 - 82 867 = 15 866
Unicorn 3 98 733 - 82 867 = 15 866
Unicorn 3 98 733 - 82 867 = 15 866
Mk3 Cargo Drone 83 040 - 66 471 = 16 569

Tri-Flyer 24 490


JEM 223 760
Jool Refuel 222 175
LF Super Tanker 180 059 x 3

Total Mission Cost 1 317 593

Happy landings!

[Ace76inDC]

This is just great my jool 5 mission planning was heavily influenced by this