Tylo Landers

[Warzouz]

11 minutes ago, Terwin said:

My Tylo/Lathe lander has ~3200m/s d-v on kerbin with a TWR close to 2 on Kerbin fully loaded with fuel.(it has ISRU and ore tanks, but I doubt I would be able to get more than a token amount of fuel refined in time to be useful during take-off, it is mostly intended for refueling the transit ship before I realized I could land the whole thing on Pol, Bop, and Val)

Seems like it should be adequate to get to orbit on Tylo, but as the nose is a docking port Sr, I am not sure about getting back to orbit on Lathe.

The issue with refuelling option is that you reverse the problem but you don't solve it. If you have a lander with 3200 range and ISRU capacity, you can land, refuel and orbit back. BUT you can't land again, you don't have enough fuel to do it again. You need another fuel source in orbit (that can be a fuel reserve or another sub-mission to refuel on Pol (with dedicated equipment because you tylo lander will be mostly dry).

If your Tylo lander is big, your secondary refuelling mission can be a hassle, you'll have to deal with efficiency.

Maybe the small ISRU and small drill can do the job if a  engineer is onboard. but again, you won't have a scientist on board which is efficient to collect a lot of science : Hoping with a 3200 selft refueling lander is very nice to strip Tylo from science IF you have a sceintifs on board.

And again, the MK landing can is way too heavy to be used on Tylo.

[Terwin]

My transit stage has substantial liquid fuel and ore storage, as well as quite a lot of ore storage on my lander, so I am actually planning to top-off on a smaller moon(Vall/Bop/Pol), nuke my way to LTO, top off everything using lander ore(then dump any ore left in the lander before descent), land, refuel, ascend, nuke to a smaller moon, refuel as much as needed(possibly using ore to produce oxidizer and use LF form the transit stage), land, then top everything off and do the same on Lathe.

My goals are just being able to return kerbals from every body in the system(using stock engines with tweakscale to manage part counts), so returning ore from Tylo and Lathe would mean my lander is over-powered.

With 2 lander can mk 1's on the lander, I can get my science and do my ISRU in a timely fashion.  (I have a ~300t lander as it is carrying a 2.5M nuke plant, ISRU, 4 ore drills and 4 resource drills(for life support resources) all lifted with 1.5 Mammoths.  The Lab, Habitation (~ 30 seats for he 5 kerbals), and Life support production are on the transit vehicle, so un-docked time is limited to 15 days with USI-LS)

 

Edited January 8, 2016 by Terwin

[AlphaMensae]

Getting back to my regular super-sized Tylo lander, I finally came up with a design that did indeed successfully land on Tylo from a 35km orbit and get back into orbit during a test using HyperEdit. Here are the pictures:

It has chutes since it's also meant to be a Laythe lander as well (now testing there).  Most of the parts are stock execpt the Rhinos and LT-2 struts have been Tweakscaled; the disc tanks are from FTP, and one of them has been changed as well.  Probably didn't need the FL-T800 tanks but I added them for a bit of extra DV. It has Mechjeb as well, since I use it now for missions involving lots of landings, re-orbiting, rendezvous and dockings to cut out the drudgery.

I ended up using MJ on a later landing attempt as my earlier landings doing iy myself wasted too much fuel--didn't have enough to get back into orbit.  MJ proved that the DV numbers were in fact enough to land and reorbit.

The ship that will be taking the baby to Jool (and elsewhere) will be using Porkjet's Nuclear Lightbulb(s) (upsized) and a really huge LF tank from FTP, so I won't be worried about DV in that regard, or TWR either, as I plan on .5 minimum from Kerbin orbit. 

[Kinzerfest]

This may be one year late, but a Terrier on one of the 800 fuel tanks works as a single stage tylo lander. Just add a seat and a reaction wheel.

[magnemoe]

On 2.1.2016 at 2:45 AM, Mastikator said:

The ISRU is your friend in this.

Tylo has an escape velocity of 3km/s. Lets say 3.5km/s because inefficiency. A transfer burn to let's say Vall is another 1.4km/s, plus Vall has an ecape velocity of 1.1km/s. 3.5+1.4+1.1 = 6. So in theory a 6km/s d-v SSTO with an ISRU can take off from Vall, land on Tylo, go back to Vall an arbitrary number of times.

You'll probably want nuclear engines for everything but the last seconds of landing and taking off. A 6km/s d-v with an ISRU plus other stuff would be quite a heavy craft though.

Best solution is to have an LV-N tug putting the tylo lander into position, you want to operate from Pol or Pop because Val has too high gravity. 
Perfect for getting all the science from Tylo as you jump around on planet until done then return to orbit and back. 

Note that if you put up an mining base on Tylo the lander can be made much lighter. 

[Sharpy]

I saw one interesting Tylo lander that dealt with the gravity losses in an interesting way. It landed on a loooong stretch of flat terrain, horizontally, using wheels to lose most of horizontal velocity. It took off horizontally too. Simply, gain a good portion of orbital speed driving over the terrain, and you immensely reduce gravity losses.

I'm not sure if it's viable currently though. It was a video from sometime before 1.0, and I don't know if Tylo still has any stretches of land flat enough.

[Ripper2900]

This baby can land, refuel and takeoff again as a single stage. It's made in two parts, so the top section can be swapped for other modules (or left behind) when landing on other bodies. It has 2 small drill and a small ISRU for refuelling purposes, and it can land 4 kerbals and takeoff from all Kerbol/system bodies *(in ver1.1) except Kerbin and Eve, and it uses an expendable aerodynanic nose-mounted fueltank instead of the bulk tank in the screenshot when doing Laythe.

[problemecium]

It's not that hard if you have some kind of delta-V and TWR readout in the VAB (I use KER) and you quicksave and practice the landing a few times.

I've independently verified that the Vector and the Terrier (in a cluster) work as well, although I recommend either the Poodle or the Dart Aerospike.

Here's one I built that can be stuffed in a Mk3 cargo bay:

[septemberWaves]

Oh it's doable certainly. Making it look nice whilst carrying several crew members and a small rover however, now that's a real challenge.

[magnemoe]

9 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

Oh it's doable certainly. Making it look nice whilst carrying several crew members and a small rover however, now that's a real challenge.

In that setting you use an base on Tylo, anything who can mine and don't drop anything going down is an SSTO, however the base is to large to move around much so it stays on Tylo, 
Use an rover who is fuel tank engine, power and wheels, engine to land and fuel tank to refuel the lander 

[septemberWaves]

1 minute ago, magnemoe said:

In that setting you use an base on Tylo, anything who can mine and don't drop anything going down is an SSTO, however the base is to large to move around much so it stays on Tylo, 
Use an rover who is fuel tank engine, power and wheels, engine to land and fuel tank to refuel the lander 

All good, but the thing that concerns me is looking nice. I didn't say it wasn't doable, but aesthetics can be challenging with Tylo landers.

[Ripper2900]

Well aesthetics are another question, which probably has as many answers as there are kerbals (a couple of 100's maybe ). Perhaps show off a lander which looks nice to you, and then ask Wernher Von Kerman or other members of this forum how to increase its Tylo'ability.

[Xyphos]

bear in mind, you only need 1.2 TWR to get it off the ground, once you're in your gravity turn, you can get away with half that.
having said this, your lander should have an ISRU built in, and a 3-phase asparagus cluster that can give you the 4k dV needed to escape Tylo's SOI
once you're out of the SOI, you can do your Hohman transfer with LV-N or Dawn

[sdj64]

If you want to go with mixed propulsion methods (such as an ISRU-equipped spaceplane with closed-cycle Rapiers and nukes, or a lander equipped with both nukes and chemical rocket engines) your high-thrust propulsion should give you at least 2000 m/s delta V if you are mining on the surface.  If you are not mining, plan for 3500 m/s in high thrust mode.

For the first part of your descent and the end of your ascent you can use your low thrust engines, but when your orbital speed is less than 1500 your TWR should probably be over 1.

 

A lander with ISRU can easily do it in a single stage.  Without ISRU, it is best to do it staged since you save a lot of mass.  A spaceplane with ISRU will probably need to carry a lot more oxidizer than it would for any other destination, since you can't rely on jets or nukes.

[Dfthu]

What about landing with ISRU, then filling up the tanks. When you leave you ditch the ISRU on takeoff. Does that still count as a SSTO?

[Xyphos]

building advice: you only need 1.2 TWR to get it off the ground, once you're in your gravity turn, you can get away with half that, 
having said this, your lander should have an ISRU built in, and a 3-phase asparagus cluster, with your more powerful engines on phase 1. that can give you roughly 8k dV but going beyond that is highly improbably, it's best to have reserve fuel tanks in orbit.

 

5 hours ago, Dfthu said:

What about landing with ISRU, then filling up the tanks. When you leave you ditch the ISRU on takeoff. Does that still count as a SSTO?

Single Stage To Orbit - yes, if you stage once and make it to full orbit, it counts, regardless of how many stages you've used while on the ground. it's a technicality.

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, Dfthu said:

What about landing with ISRU, then filling up the tanks. When you leave you ditch the ISRU on takeoff. Does that still count as a SSTO?

Technically as Xyphos says, however why do it? the reason for an single stage lander is that you can reuse it. 
Also on Tylo if you can land without dropping stuff you can also take of then refueled. 
Now dropping ISRU might work as an emergency system like some of my smaller science landers can drop legs and side tanks in an emergency. 

[Xyphos]

25 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

why do it? the reason for an single stage lander is that you can reuse it

no point in reusing if the mission was for Tylo only. once you've landed and refueled, the ISRU becomes 5T of useless weight.
building a lander with an ISRU as part of the landing gear and staging it all off to get back to orbit is a more sensible idea, in that particular case. 

[Dfthu]

31 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Technically as Xyphos says, however why do it? the reason for an single stage lander is that you can reuse it. 
Also on Tylo if you can land without dropping stuff you can also take of then refueled. 
Now dropping ISRU might work as an emergency system like some of my smaller science landers can drop legs and side tanks in an emergency. 

How about this? Let's say it's a SSTO landing at base, with a docking port. Attach a ISRU/ fuel module to fill up and then undock. Basically just a ground refueler. Or keep it docked for the launch and refuel something in orbit.

[magnemoe]

Just now, Xyphos said:

no point in reusing if the mission was for Tylo only. once you've landed and refueled, the ISRU becomes 5T of useless weight.
building a lander with an ISRU as part of the landing gear and staging it all off to get back to orbit is a more sensible idea, in that particular case. 

If mission was single Tylo landing yes, however unless you planned to land an lot of kerbals just bringing fuel would be lighter and less complex, 
 

Just now, Dfthu said:

How about this? Let's say it's a SSTO landing at base, with a docking port. Attach a ISRU/ fuel module to fill up and then undock. Basically just a ground refueler. Or keep it docked for the launch and refuel something in orbit.

An ground refueler makes sense, this will cut the size of the lander to an fraction. 
I planned to do this on a Tylo base but got bored and 1.2 came. 
It it would be an sizable base it would use crasher stage to land, the passanger lander would just have to do an 3 km/s landing. 
Good tips here is to use the claw or KAS, have either the refuel or lander on wheels. 

[panzer1b]

Its a piece of crap, but this is my recent attempt at a single-stage Tylo dropship that has room for 1 kerbin inside it.  While i havent seen anything before, i bet im not the first to invent the concept of cramming a command seat inside a service bay for looks (while i have nothing against sending kerbins to their doom in external command seats, i dont exactly like exposed kerbins either).  Pretty basic craft that uses dual 48-7s engines to push 12 doughnut tanks and the most basic parts for the craft, 2 solars, 1 battery, 1 reaction wheel, 1 decoupler.  Ofc with under 5000dV and not stellar TWR, landing this thing is a nightmare even under ideal conditions.  Under good runs i end up with ~5-10 LFO left after returning to orbit.  More often then not it ends up: Dooooooooom!

4.58t full

1t empty

Planning to use this thing in my new goal, performing a 100% stock grand tour since its so bloody lightweight, 5t is absolutely nothing, that and this thing can land on every single airless body in KSP, and ive also tested it in Duna, draggy but its got so much dV that i could care less about Duna's drag.  Going to see if i can get it to do laythe and if so i can pretty much do a gran-tour with like 2 different landers total (cant QUITE get a functional Eve SSTO at under 5t, prolly will end up using my old staged craft for Eve, maybee if i can figure out how ill make something lighter weight).

 

Also, while i am very happy with this thing, im wondering if anyone else has managed to create a working Tylo single stage lander that weighs less then 4.5t and can carry 1 kerbin inside some sort of enclosure (ext command seats are fine but not exposed)...

[Xyphos]

I only make ground refuel stations for the inner planets where solar panel efficiency is better.
Anything outside of Duna's orbit is best to have a big refueling station that swings past your target without an orbital insertion burn.
Just undock and let it fly past, you can later alter it's return course when needed using MonoPropellant, 1/3 or 1/2 of the way past PE.
Orbital Mechanics is great for that, and once you've learned how to capture asteroids outside of Kerbin's SOI, re-docking with the tanker should be a piece of cake.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Xyphos