Jool5 Combined With STS Jool 1 Challenge : 2 Shuttles Mission - lots of beauty shots !

[Kerbolitto]

This post is an improved copy past of my attempt at Jool5 & STS Jool I've added more beauty pics and more details around re-entry, orbital maneuvers, shuttle ascent lifter etc ...

 

 

STS Jool / Jool 5

 

This was a first to me because I've only landed on Vall once (one week ago :o) and I'm quite proud of my Artisan shuttle design which proved itself to be very sturdy and adaptative Jool is an amazing system and there's so many possibilities with all those moons ... I'll be back for sure

I decided to launch 2 shuttles to fly this mission.

STS Artisan ST : almost standard DropCargo (with its bay facing the ground) converted as an SSTO. It's probably one of my best design so far, this thing is easy to fly with or without payload and at all fuel levels <3. It's the whitest and shortest version of the two shuttles

STS Artisan HE : modified Artisan, turned into a rocket machine with Lf/Ox fuel tanks, more dV, 0.7TWR, smaller cargo bay. I tried to keep modifications at the minimum so I re-used the wings arrangement and the back end of the original design. It's the longest version, with dual big elevators and rocketfuel fuselage

STS Jool 1 challenge require an outpost on Laythe with room for 4 people, an ISRU, an exploration plane and docking ports

The ground base was split in half to fit into regular cargo bay and let some room to install the exploration plane (WhishPlorer !). The shuttles also hold a relay network which proved to be ineffective. As there was very little room available, I used a probe with 3 88-88 and 2 Ra-2 but the signal from the 88-88 could not be relayed to the RA-2.... =_="

Total duration of this mission was just short of 40 years.

 

Part 1 : Take off, Docking in LKO, Jool injection

 

STS HE

STS ST

Moving nuke pods on the front of STS HE

 

Spoiler

Jool maneuver : the shuttles were loaded with Lf only to lower weight. Injection was split in 2 burns, the first one (6 minutes) put Ap as high as Mun's orbit.

Second burn :

 

Part 2 : Capturing around Jool, encounter with Pol

 

 

STS ST burning to Pol

 

I made a mistake while refuelling at Bop : every tanks were filled up and an excess of Oxidizer almost put an end to the mission during the later developpement.

Because of this, take off was hard to achieve : 2 Nervas were unusable due to the alignement of the shuttles. TWR dropped to 0.105 and weight balloonned up to 234t. !

Spoiler

After a few deep space maneuvers, I managed to get this : the shuttle will capture inside Jool system by flying above Laythe, to get down on Bop. This is not a perfect encounter but dV was still quite high.

Last seconds before landing on Bop to refuel : both ships were docked on the same plane to avoid touchdown on wings

Artisan HE maneuver to Vall : change of plane is around Ap which greatly helped !

Artisan ST maneuver to Pol : same as the other, I tried to change of plane as far as possible from Jool to avoid wasting fuel.

 

Part 3 : Artisan ST flies to Pol !

 

 

It was very cool to visit a new place, I've only saw those spikes on video and the surface looks great

Spoiler

Landing : quite easy on Pol despite the weight of the ship ! (TWR 0.144)

Getting down on Vall after Tylo flyby :

 

Part 4 : Vall fuel-pump

 

 

Many things happenned around Vall. Both shuttles met in low orbit to transfer fuel, then Artisan HE landed using its Darts combined to Nervas. Once topping its tanks, it encountered STS ST again before landing a second time. At this point, STS ST still had tons of useless Ox inside. Once those maneuvers were completed, the two ships departed to Tylo.

Spoiler

STS HE encounter, some LF was needed before attempting to land :

STS HE a few meters above the surface :

STS HE maneuver to Tylo : this was after the 2 refuelling ops

STS ST maneuver to Tylo : it will act as a tanker in elliptical orbit after one Tylo flyby

 

Part 5 : FEAR TYLO

 

Believe it or not but this low pass occured at 1950 m/s. Absolutely not planned

 

Tylo... Tylo took me some time First step was to dock the shuttles using as less dV as possible. Then the landing was hard because of low TWR (0.73). Then rolling take off was harder, took me lots of trials to find a perfect spot to pitch the ship. Then redocking to STS ST was impossible due to very high inclination. Only option after this landing was to re-unite around Laythe using its atmosphere to circularize both Artisans ! In the end I'm happy how things turned out, this was my very first touchdown on Tylo's surface and I learned a lot ! I built STS HE around Tylo's dV / TWR requirements but I somehow forgot that circularizing both ships would cost me a ton...

Spoiler

Capturing Tylo into highly elliptical orbit : I burned many times 2 minutes at Pe to circularize as far as possible.

Finally getting an encounter with STS ST to refuel ! Things would have been easier if I had dock this two around Vall ....

Deorbiting with low TWR :

Final seconds before touchdow, : I litteraly used all the fuel before bouncing on the engines

FINALLY ON THE GROUND :

Take off : took me dozens of trials to get the perfect ramp. Right after lift I pitched the ship at 80° +/-

Due to the ramp location, the shuttle was very inclined .. ! Encounter with STS ST was impossible : /

STS ST maneuver to Laythe : I later added change of planes node. At this point the ship had 610 m/s left

STS HE maneuver to Laythe : 1060 m/s left, that is more than enough *cough*

 

Part 6 : Laythe, at last !

 

 

Finally touching Laythe ! Aerocapture After slowly aerobraking ~15 times the shuttles were able to reunite in low orbit.

Spoiler

Lowering both orbits using aerobraking (its free !) :

Encounter after multiple aerobrakings :

Shuttles stats : not much fuel left

 

Part 7 : Outpost assembly, landing, refuelling ops

 

 

First landing on Laythe I was surprised at how easy it is to fly and get back into orbit from here. Such a beautifull planet.. I deorbited the outpost before the plane so I could finally refill them ! Because the cargo bay is facing downward, I did not want to deploy the radiator through it, so I docked the shuttle to it using the bay doors as landing gears  

Spoiler

Flare before landing :

 

Part 8 : Take off, deploying WhishPlorer, refuelling again !

 

 

Once STS Artisan ST was available, I took it back into orbit to start the refuelling maneuvers with STS HE 3 successives times. WhishPlorer was deployed during second landing, its not very good at exploring because it will melt if flying for too long, but it's usefull for flyby at mach 4 . I finally managed to get rid of the excessive Oxidizer from Bop after flying 2 times around the base using Rapiers closedcycle, which is very effective.

Spoiler

STS ST ascent profile : absolutely no problem here !

Plane docked to the outpost :

Shuttles docked again after 3rd refuelling : I have many more screenshots on beautifull Laythe but this might be too much ...! This contraption has 2915dV, which is enough.

 

Part 9 : Ending a 40 years mission on Kerbin's surface

 

 

I used a Tylo flyby to eject from Jool, then two Kerbin flyby before finally entering its atmosphere. Getting to Jool and flying all the moons took +/- 4 years. Coming down at Kerbin took 35 !

Spoiler

First maneuver :

Third encounter and aerocapture : final altitude was set at 42 km.

Re-entry speed : as you can see, I'm using STS HE as a tail and throwing it left and right to lower speed. This was so effective that final Ap after aerocapture was at 747km only

STS HE flare : Should have been KSC but the shuttle had an unexpected drag, don't know what happenned oO

STS ST flare next to STS HE :

 

Jool5 flags :

 

I still got a few more pics if needed, but I think everything's here

Questions, remarks, insults (I know this is a lot of pics !) are welcome

Edited October 2, 2018 by Kerbolitto

[Kerbalstar]

Amazing @Kerbolitto! Good job!

[Kerbolitto]

12 minutes ago, kerbalstar said:

Amazing @Kerbolitto! Good job!

Thanks I'm glad you liked it

This was a very interresting challenge, I can say that having 2 very ressourcefull and easy to fly shuttles was really what saved the mission !

Edited October 2, 2018 by Kerbolitto

[Kerbalstar]

1 minute ago, Kerbolitto said:

Thanks I'm glad you liked it

This was a very interresting challenge, I can say that having 2 very ressourcefull and easy to fly shuttles was really what saved the mission !

Yeah, I imagine! It turns out that I can’t build a good shuttle, as much as I’ve tried! You should wear your Jool-5 badge with pride!

[Kerbolitto]

Just now, kerbalstar said:

Yeah, I imagine! It turns out that I can’t build a good shuttle, as much as I’ve tried! You should wear your Jool-5 badge with pride!

Well it's not that hard once you flew some SSTO's, the hardest part might be to align CoM CoL with various payloads / fuel levels. Turns out that I had more fun that expected when packing the cargo bay with various stuff, it's like a workbench you don't have to fit everything lined up at all

I'll wait what Jacob has to say before changing the signature

[Kerbalstar]

Just now, Kerbolitto said:

Well it's not that hard once you flew some SSTO's, the hardest part might be to align CoM CoL with various payloads / fuel levels. Turns out that I had more fun that expected when packing the cargo bay with various stuff, it's like a workbench you don't have to fit everything lined up at all

I'll wait what Jacob has to say before changing the signature

I haven’t flown a successful SSTO, besides the stock Areris 4A, because I’m horrible at designing planes.  Ask @Lucast0909.

Sounds good. You submitted this on the Jool-5 thread, right?

[Kerbolitto]

1 minute ago, kerbalstar said:

I haven’t flown a successful SSTO, besides the stock Areris 4A, because I’m horrible at designing planes.  Ask @Lucast0909.

Sounds good. You submitted this on the Jool-5 thread, right?

Well what's you don't get ? Its really hard to get a first effective design but after that you learn very quickly what's good and what's not , its mostly a matter of time.

And yeah I posted a link to this thread

[Kerbalstar]

1 minute ago, Kerbolitto said:

Well what's you don't get ? Its really hard to get a first effective design but after that you learn very quickly what's good and what's not , its mostly a matter of time.

And yeah I posted a link to this thread

I can design an okay small plane (see my, K-38 talon in Ch. 3 of my mission report), but bigger planes, especially with payload, are harder. Also shuttles are hard, as the always tip after launching.

To give you an example, I recently tried building an SSTO. There were 4 versions. None worked, and one killed two Kerbals.

[Kerbolitto]

7 minutes ago, kerbalstar said:

I can design an okay small plane (see my, K-38 talon in Ch. 3 of my mission report), but bigger planes, especially with payload, are harder. Also shuttles are hard, as the always tip after launching.

Cargo SSTO and Shuttles all started as small planes during their early days :p !

Cool design, I like twin engines !

[Kerbalstar]

1 hour ago, Kerbolitto said:

Cargo SSTO and Shuttles all started as small planes during their early days :p !

Cool design, I like twin engines !

Thanks! It's replica of the real T-38 Talon.