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Community Caveman Jool 5 mission


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@dvader and @IncongruousGoat thanks for volunteering!
I've updated the OP to reflect who has volunteered for each of the remaining mission segments.

Quick reminder to all participants to make sure that your KSP version is 1.7.3 when contributing to the mission.
This preserves compatibility amongst participants and prevents newly introduced game bugs or behavior changes affecting the mission.

If you are on Steam and it has auto-updated your version to 1.8.1, you can revert to an older version by following these steps:

  • Right click "Kerbal Space Program" to show context menu
  • Select "Properties" menu item
  • Select the "Betas" tab then choose the version of KSP (in this case 1.7.3 as shown below)

w5y1oqx.png

Thankfully KSP has no copy protection so you keep a 1.7.3 version in addition to the latest version by simply copying the folder out of the default Steam location.
(Some folks do this anyway to prevent Steam clobbering a working setup)

Edited by ManEatingApe
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Mission finished - that was a lot of fun!

8zjWUwR.png

UKfdrqv.png

  • Jeb, TANGO and BRAVO are in a 32km x 32km equatorial orbit of Tylo
    • There is still 284 m/s of extra fuel remaining to help rendezvous with Jeb before and after the Tylo landing.
    • Jeb has 4.85 of 5.00 units of EVA monoprop left
  • MIKE is in a "safe" parking orbit of Jool with PE above Tylo's SOI
    • Inclination is almost perfectly flat (I had no problem getting a nice Tylo intercept)
    • Plenty of fuel left in the Poodle fuel tanks - this could help with KILO and LIMA insertion.

Some notes:

  • @IncongruousGoat Your lander designs worked perfectly. I had no trouble assembling the craft, repeatedly catching Jeb and performing the various maneuvers.
  • Be careful when physics time warping with Jeb on the ladder - he has a tendency to slip off the moment you look away.
  • With all the World's First awards we'll probably make an accidental profit on this mission :)


Some more screenshots in the spoiler and photos added to my Community Caveman album:

Spoiler

Fixing Jool inclination by eye.

mQKvPOW.png

Tylo intercept ocurred after 10 years without any additional maneuvers.

mfywxk6.png

Intercept periapsis was too high for an efficient braking burn so a 250 m/s anti-radial burn brought this down to 15km.

N5u4ucL.png


Changes are merged to Github and tagged as "v20". Everybody please pull the latest changes.
@dvader You have the mission mutex, enjoy!

Edited by ManEatingApe
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VICTOR, KILO and LIMA are in orbit(s).

KILO is in a high elliptic orbit above Laythe and LIMA is in a 60x60 km orbit.

Spoiler

dCkhTp2.png

n8JhW6W.png

Aerobraking gives good photo opportunities.

I left VICTOR in a 42x1100km elliptic Vall orbit just in case. I used MIKEs remaining fuel to intercept and (almost) achieve orbit so VICTOR is almost fully loaded and can be used for some emergencies.

Spoiler

ilFgh95.png

Both the Laythe and Vall encounters were too much spot on and I had to burn quite a bit not to crash.

All probe cores have been turned off and the solar panels are facing the sun.

Full album here.

https://imgur.com/a/btKYyBe

 

EDIT: I'm not sure why but a lot of "old" commits show up when I create the pull request... It looks messy but I hope it works.

 

Edited by dvader
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48 minutes ago, dvader said:

VICTOR, KILO and LIMA are in orbit(s).

KILO is in a high elliptic orbit above Laythe and LIMA is in a 60x60 km orbit.

I left VICTOR in a 42x1100km elliptic Vall orbit just in case. I used MIKEs remaining fuel to intercept and (almost) achieve orbit so VICTOR is almost fully loaded and can be used for some emergencies.

Save file looks great and an impressively quick turnaround!
Changes merged and tagged as "v21". Everybody please pull the latest version.

@IncongruousGoat You have the mutex, have fun!

We could use an intrepid volunteer for the Bop and Pol missions, if someone would like to take a shot at it...
(This could be split into 2 missions, one each for Bop and Pol, if folks feel this is too large a chunk)

Edited by ManEatingApe
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I'll gladly do Bop and Pol. Unless someone who didn't yet fly want a piece of it :)

I'm looking forward to the Tylo landing !

About Jeb sliding : it happens when the ladder is parallel to the radial - antiradial vector IIRC. My guess is that ladders are treated as some kind of high friction surface, and when they are parallel to the acceleration vector (radial), and said acceleration is high enough, the kerbal slides off. I had it happen during Kerbin ejection and Jool insertion near Pe (i.e. when the acceleration is strongest). Turning the craft in an other orientation solves the problem.

 

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One moon down, 4 to go.

WsC2b7d.png

Album is here: https://imgur.com/a/N0b0kz9

Rendezvousing with Jeb was pretty easy - having the ladder on the end of a long swinging boom arm made it pretty easy to line it up. The landing? Not so much. It took me 4 tries and 1 Jeb-death before I managed to get the lander to the surface in one piece. The ascent went much more smoothly, only taking two tries (I took off in the wrong direction the first time).

Jeb has been parked 8.5 meters from BRAVO (which still has the transfer tank docked to it) with a near-zero relative velocity.

Having now done the rendezvous, I'm realizing that @Muetdhiver is going to have to do it all over again before taking BRAVO off to Bop and Pol. One thing that might help is having Jeb grab onto BRAVO and then pointing the whole arrangement normal or anti-normal. That should reduce the drift experienced over whole-orbit intervals (i.e. the relative position of Jeb to the lander will be nearly the same one whole orbit after letting go). For the last fraction of an orbit grabbing the ladder and using physics warp shouldn't be too bad.

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18 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

One moon down, 4 to go.

WsC2b7d.png

Excellent! Congratulations on what is (to the best of my knowledge) both the very first Caveman Tylo landing and the very first Caveman Tylo Kerballed landing :o


@dvader @IncongruousGoat @Jacke @Muetdhiver @Pds314 @Rakaydos
This has truly taken a tremendous team effort to get this far, so please open a celebratory beverage and take a moment to savor your combined success.
Everyone who has contributed so far deserves a share of the kudos, let's keep up the great work!



...now back to business :)
I've merged the changes and tagged them as "v22", everybody please pull the latest version.

@Muetdhiver You have the mutex, enjoy!
One minor suggestion: If you want to have some fun there's still 420 m/s remaining in the drop tank attached to the front of BRAVO.
It may be possible to "push" Jeb using the flat front of the tank and use up that fuel. (BRAVO on its own has over 4,600 m/s of dV so this is only for kicks and not crucial for success)


We need a valiant volunteer for a Vall landing mission. I don't believe that any Caveman has landed on either Vall or Laythe before so this is a chance to make some history.
I'd love if other Caveman clan members would like to help out, however anyone is welcome to volunteer, fresh faces are always appreciated.

Edited by ManEatingApe
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On a different note, I was looking at the remaining steps in the mission, specifically at step 22, and I decided to test the Laythe landing. Mostly because I was worried that VICTOR wouldn't be aerodynamically stable.

The good news is that it is stable. The bad news is that Jeb's perch on the ladder isn't. When I was testing, the Kerbal I had along for the ride started sliding up the ladder, and I needed to keep moving them down the ladder to prevent them from flying off. Which meant I didn't have time to control VICTOR at all for the landing. Which means that the Laythe landing is going to have to be conducted using Jeb's EVA chute.

This is fine (the chute can be repacked), but we should probably update the mission plan to reflect this. And maybe also flesh out the Kerbin landing a little, since the plan currently stops before re-entry.

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16 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

This is fine (the chute can be repacked), but we should probably update the mission plan to reflect this. And maybe also flesh out the Kerbin landing a little, since the plan currently stops before re-entry.

Thanks for testing that out. I've updated the OP with a few notes for guidance. Specifically for Laythe:

  • Only Jeb needs to make it to the surface
  • Jeb should land near the shore as LIMA needs to take off and land from water

Kerbin re-entry has also been updated with an extra step.

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15 minutes ago, dvader said:

I can do both VICTOR and LIMA if no one else wants to do VICTOR. But, there are not that many missions left so if anyone else wants to take part, now is the time.

I'd be happy to do VICTOR. It will be fun to actually land on a moon :)

If you like I can leave Jeb in low Laythe orbit so you can choose the landing spot?

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16 hours ago, ManEatingApe said:

I'd be happy to do VICTOR. It will be fun to actually land on a moon :)

If you like I can leave Jeb in low Laythe orbit so you can choose the landing spot?

Great! Yes, leaving him in orbit might be a good idea. I'm not terribly picky about the landing spot as long as it is in water but it might be safer to save the game before landing just in case some unexpected issues show up (lika a really tall mountain). It is very hard to turn with the craft since the Kerbal slides left or right on the ladder depending on which way you tilt the craft (that's how I keep him centered).

 

 

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I did some tries with pushing Jeb with the tank, but it's beyond my skills. Like, way beyond :)

I have attempted a "regular" transfer to Pol, but I somehow screwed something up. My Ap was way too high, and yet I was quite sure my ejection burn calculation was correct. I will do a second attempt after redoing some maths.

Time at hand was more scarce than expected, so it will take a bit longer than expected.

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8 hours ago, Muetdhiver said:

I will do a second attempt after redoing some maths.

Thanks for the update!
Tylo is tricky to eject from without maneuver nodes. A couple m/s difference in ejection velocity can throw you into a very different orbit than intended.

Once you're finished, I'm thinking of docking TANGO with that spare fuel then taking it on a adventure somewhere... :)

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Bop landing is done. By luck, the insertion inclination was about 10° from the Kraken, so.... :cool:

wfDZDOg.png

I have wasted a tiny bit of RCS fuel to climb on it, but not a lot. :)

Last step is Vall transfer. I'll do that as soon as possible to pass on the mutex.

Edited by Muetdhiver
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1 hour ago, Muetdhiver said:

Trip back from Bop done, Jeb is at 50m from VICTOR in Vall's orbit.

Outstanding work, everything looks great and really nice rendezvous with VICTOR.
I've merged your changes and tagged them as "v23", everybody please pull the latest update.

Congrats on the Caveman Bop and Pol landings - you are not only the first Caveman to land on Bop and Pol, you are also the first to do it TWICE! :confused:

I have the mission mutex and will land on Vall, then leave Jeb in low Laythe orbit for @dvader to take over next. Will fly the mission this weekend.
@Pds314 Would you like to take the final mission segment to bring Jeb home using your KILO design?

 

 

Edited by ManEatingApe
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