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Duna InSight Challenge


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13 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

Here's my submission! Lowest mass, Rank 1

https://imgur.com/gallery/IXfE40K

That's pretty darn minimalist, indeed. Congrats! :) 

I do suspect that dropping the reaction wheel and replacing the Ant engine with a Spider (which can gimbal) could save even more mass. The only detail I'm not 100% sure about is whether that could be made stable enough in Duna's atmosphere. I may need to test it...

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16 hours ago, vyznev said:

That's pretty darn minimalist, indeed. Congrats! :) 

I do suspect that dropping the reaction wheel and replacing the Ant engine with a Spider (which can gimbal) could save even more mass. The only detail I'm not 100% sure about is whether that could be made stable enough in Duna's atmosphere. I may need to test it...

Aha, you got me ... The problem is that even with RCS Build Aid, I couldn't get Torque down to a non zero value with the Dumpling tank. I was getting a torque of 4 Nm, which made it spin crazily after I detached it from the main booster and burned a bit. I wasn't able to regain control - hence the reaction wheel.

Also, hey shouldn't I get lowest cost category since my lander is so goddamn tiny?

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5 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

Also, hey shouldn't I get lowest cost category since my lander is so goddamn tiny?

Well you did post the cost in your screenshots, so yeah. Honestly I forgot to check, sorry. I'll go through the other submissions too and then update the board.

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1 hour ago, sturmhauke said:

Badges, get your badges!

paMjKum.png WqdCa7k.png img%5D 39PJ9pz.png

Well, no one has earned Rank 4... yet. But it's waiting for you.

I'm working on it, be patient! Did insertion burn for my entire fleet of ships today, tomorrow I'll do mid-course corrections and start thinking about circularizing on Duna. Some time before the fleet lands on Duna I'm supposed to design and launch my third Standard Launch Vehicle, which is the first ship of the second wave, which will be 2.5x bigger than the first wave! I'll probably actually land on Duna some time next week.

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Congratulations to @dire for completing the first Rank 4 entry! Not content to merely send a bunch of probes to Duna, they ran the InSight mission alongside the DOMA mission. You can see all the shenanigans here. There are thrills, chills... and snack shortages?!

Remember kids, If you want to beat dire's Rank 4 score you'll either have to do an awesomer DOMA mission, or do something differently awesome instead. You can also try to steal some points by making it cheaper or lighter, or just get more points by making it sciencier. Good luck!

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3 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

Congratulations to @dire for completing the first Rank 4 entry! Not content to merely send a bunch of probes to Duna, they ran the InSight mission alongside the DOMA mission. You can see all the shenanigans here. There are thrills, chills... and snack shortages?!

Remember kids, If you want to beat dire's Rank 4 score you'll either have to do an awesomer DOMA mission, or do something differently awesome instead. You can also try to steal some points by making it cheaper or lighter, or just get more points by making it sciencier. Good luck!

Tis true, I left a lot of science on the table. If I'd been more careful I could have roughly doubled the amount of science I documented, just from what I actually got. My rover visited Ike, Minmus, and the Mun, but it only hit one or two biomes for each of those, so I could have gotten many, many more science points if I'd been a little more adventurous.

Protip for anyone who actually downloads my Aries rover: When you're roving, put your legs down and your wheels down. Then if you start spinning, "g" will retract the wheels and plop you onto your legs, lowering your center of mass and generally preventing a rollover (if this craft rolls over, it's done). Best done while velocity is less than 45 meters per second. Then once you've slowed down to a sane speed you can pop your wheels out again with 'g' and keep roving.

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Could this qualify somehow? Or may be an adapted version?

 

It's not a rocket but an SSTO, which is also the transfer stage. After the "transfer stage" has brought the payload into a trajectory to duna, it does a short retrograde burn, returning into a highly elliptic orbit, and then using some passes of aerobraking  to return to Kerbin. This way the transfer stage can be recovered for almost free. It's called a Kergarin maneuver, unless someone proves the opposite. :D:D

The lander has the required instruments, but actually is a rover. It does not completely return to kerbin, but it has a backpacked rocket, which sends a little container back to kerbin containig all the science.

The lander comes packed with one relay satellite, which is also used as cruise module for trajectory corrections. It separates from the lander shortly before reaching Duna. At first the relay sat is brought into a precisely timed flyby trajectory, from where it ensures communications while the landers touchdown. Afterwards it brakes down into a stable orbit around Duna. So it is a mixture between the cubesats and the mro.

The relay sat also acts as refuelling station for the science return rocket, to keep it as small as possible. The science return rocket only features short range com, which is sufficient to get into return trajectory and do a little correction when reaching kerbin. It then does a planned disassembly on reentry, leaving only the science container and the preactivated parachute intact for a safe landing.

It's a verry old video from almost two years ago. If it does not exactly fit the challenge, I could change the mission to be more like insight :)

 

A little ot (or not?): Here is also a larger version of the same kind. A single launch using a reusable launch vehicle, featuring a fully equipped manned trip to duna and back with base, rover, lander, orbiter/return module, and 3 relay sats.

https://youtu.be/MHvyZ6Q3M_4

 

Edited by Kergarin
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The first video is a nice little mission. I'll allow it for an InSight Rank 1 entry, but it doesn't quite fit for the higher ranks:

  • InSight's cruise module (which I didn't really define in my rules) is only intended to get the lander to Duna, with enough fuel and power for some minor course corrections. After that it's expendable. Your relay sat combines that with DRO functionality, but it was launched with the rover and science probe as a single craft, and did not separate until arriving in Duna SOI. For the DRO to qualify for Rank 3, it needs to be launched separately and arrive first, and you also need to qualify for Rank 2 (cubesats launched with lander, separate in LKO, arrive at Duna in time to relay with lander).
  • The science probe is certainly cool. Not enough survived to count for any recovery bonus, but if you know how many science points were gained you can get that bonus.

The second video is certainly impressive, but I think it's too far out of spec for InSight. It appears to meet the requirements for Rank 1, but that seems like selling it short.

Would you like me to add you to the leaderboard, or do you want to submit something else? You can enter more than once if you like.

Edited by sturmhauke
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u5SVmw9m.png

Duna InSight 

Thanks to @sturmhauke for putting this fun challenge together!

This is a 'Rank 3' attempt and earned some additional mission value by doing flybys of Ike, Jool/Tylo and Dres and even a high altitude flyby of the Mun on the way out for one of the cubesats. Other than graphics, no other part mods used (although USI-LS is installed). CommNet is enabled and was able to transmit data on the Dres flyby but the Tylo flyby was in 'cruise mode', but made for good pics at less than 10km altitude.

ZFaZQCYm.png

The InSight and cubesat launch was first in order to time their arrivals at Duna after the Recon Orbiter was in place. Both cubesats left Kerbin on their own power, using ion propulsion followed shortly by the InSight lander. 

Fb0atDTm.png

I think the best part of the challenge (maybe second, after the powered landing which is always fun) was lining up the arrival times for the two cubesats and the lander itself. While entering Duna's atmosphere, the lander's communication is going to the DRO > Sat 1 > Sat 2 > Kerbin for that triple redundancy goodness (image above).

yJpnG66m.png

Powered landing had loads of extra dV on board and excellent controllability thanks to the four gimballing 'Spider' engines. Was able to do suborbital 'hop' about 40km from the original landing site but still not much of a view from Duna's Highlands.

  • +10 points for Primary Objective
  • +20 points for Secondary Objective
  • +30 points for DRO objective
  • +1 point for Ike
  • +9 points for Dres
  • +14 points for Jool
  • +5 points per each Joolian moon (Tylo)
    • 89 Points

Full pics here, or click images for original size.

Both probes are pretty much out of fuel so they're mission is at an end, but it might be fun to fly Jeb out to Duna to pick up the lander and bring it home ..to be continued..?

kPBxozHm.png  Dres                uKvtX4Im.png   Tylo

V0EUhtmm.png DRO Scan       M7TWp0Xm.png  Leaving Jool

Edited by Death Engineering
korrect skoring
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Cool stuff! A couple of questions first though - one for you, and one for all contestants. I didn't see your Mun flyby in any of the screenshots; do you have a screenshot of that?

And for everyone: I put in the rules that additional cubesat flybys only count for bonus points after arriving at Duna and completing the primary mission. This would mean that Mun, Minmus, or Ike flybys en route to Duna wouldn't count. But maybe that's not fair. I don't believe this affects any current entries' scoring, but it would prevent Death Engineering's outbound Munar flyby from counting. If there are no objections, I will change the rule to allow bonus flybys at any time, contingent on still fulfilling the primary mission. That is, if your cubesats do a grand tour but explode before reaching Duna, they aren't worth any points.

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34 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

I didn't see your Mun flyby in any of the screenshots; do you have a screenshot of that?

Nah and in fact it wasn't intentional.. it kinda got in the way, really. As a result, one of the sats had its dV compromised, but still made it out to Dres. I'll defer to your judgement.  :)

 

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2 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

Cool stuff! A couple of questions first though - one for you, and one for all contestants. I didn't see your Mun flyby in any of the screenshots; do you have a screenshot of that?

And for everyone: I put in the rules that additional cubesat flybys only count for bonus points after arriving at Duna and completing the primary mission. This would mean that Mun, Minmus, or Ike flybys en route to Duna wouldn't count. But maybe that's not fair. I don't believe this affects any current entries' scoring, but it would prevent Death Engineering's outbound Munar flyby from counting. If there are no objections, I will change the rule to allow bonus flybys at any time, contingent on still fulfilling the primary mission. That is, if your cubesats do a grand tour but explode before reaching Duna, they aren't worth any points.

I don't have a problem with that, and it wouldn't affect my score at all.

Am surprised more people aren't fighting over the low mass / low cost bonuses for ranks 2 and 3. Too much paperwork I guess?

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1 hour ago, Death Engineering said:

Nah and in fact it wasn't intentional.. it kinda got in the way, really. As a result, one of the sats had its dV compromised, but still made it out to Dres. I'll defer to your judgement.  :)

 

Well, pics or it didn't happen, as they say on the intertubes. But hey, you got a nice new Rank 3 badge! Congratulations!

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Finished Rank 3.

This was a fun challenge. Took 2 launch campaigns and everything went nominally.

https://imgur.com/a/dcoUVqv
https://imgur.com/a/Jud4kTz

+10 points for InSight landing
+20 points for smallsat relays
+30 points for DRO satellite

Falcon 9 launch vehicle used. Stage 1 recovered and reused for second launch in expendable configuration.

Will have to make sure of Ike fly-by; trajectory of the Polo smallsats suggested an Ike fly-by, but I will have to verify.

I also unfortunately used the draft badge for the fairing. Please ignore this mistake.

Edited by Kerbiter
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7 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

Do you have any screenshots of the mini-sats? I need to see what they look like, how they're mounted in the payload, how they're deployed in LKO, and how they get to Duna.

https://imgur.com/a/qd5qm6m

For some reason they are really reflective. In vacuum of space, means that they are almost invisible.

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