Project Indefatigability- another hard-mode Kerbalism Grand Tour attempt

[SovietGamer]

good mission, now time to get and plant a flag in sun

[jimmymcgoochie]

It's time to say goodbye to Eve...

And hello to Jool!

There were some inevitable part failures along the way, but nothing too critical- the main reaction wheel on one of the Ion Space Tugs failed permanently but I have spares that can be attached radially; the motor on one of the graphene radiators failed, but they don't actually move so no biggie; and a few other parts needed repaired or serviced. Connor hit 100% stress and broke that radiator motor, but Phoebe had a breakdown at just 32% stress and dumped about 4 years' worth of food which isn't ideal. Water and oxygen, I could live with as I can recycle both, nitrogen is no biggie and dumping CO2 or ammonia is fine as they're waste products, but food is the one thing I can't make any more of.

During the maintenance EVA I also dumped a load of empty xenon tanks:

The capture burn was completed with the VASIMR engines at 100% efficiency, meaning it took over an hour of game time but the ship was stable even at 8x time warp. The resulting orbit is high- beyond the orbit of Bop for the majority of each orbit- and a bit off-plane with the inner moons, but safely above the furthest reach of Jool's radiation belts a.k.a. The Death Zone^TM and I can easily adjust it if necessary.

There's a nice window to get to Tylo in ten days which will catch that moon when it's right at the very edge of the outer belt, giving plenty of time to do the landing and then get out again without any significant radiation threat. There's also a Pol window in 10 days, and a Bop window in... 62 years!? MechJeb, you and I need to have a conversation about some of the nodes you've been plotting lately 

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/vCmAI29

Flag count so far: 5.

[king of nowhere]

Just out of curiosity, why do you go directly from Eve to Jool instead of stopping at Duna first?

 

P.S. I must hurry up with my own mission, if I don't want you to run 2 grand tours in the time it took me to run half of one

[jimmymcgoochie]

19 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Just out of curiosity, why do you go directly from Eve to Jool instead of stopping at Duna first?

A few reasons- there’s a lot of stuff being carried around just for Jool (Laythe plane, Tylo landing stage and heavily-shielded Vall lander) that I can get rid of to improve range and/or TWR on Indefatigability; transfer windows don’t align very well for Eve>Duna>Jool>Eeloo, I’d arrive at Jool too late to do all the landings and then catch the ideal Jool>Eeloo alignment; Jool has some of the biggest hazards and trickiest landings in the whole system- Laythe and Vall are serious radiation threats and Tylo requires massive delta-V- so I’d rather get that out of the way as soon as possible; and the sooner I get to Jool, the less chance there is for critical parts to break and cause the whole mission to fail.

[jimmymcgoochie]

It's Tylo time!

Except it's also Pol time, so a carefully choreographed ballet of undockings and re-dockings were required to assemble the Tylo lander and send it off to Tylo while the Eve lander was sent off to Pol:

The trip to Tylo was timed to perfection- it's right on the edge of Jool's outer radiation belt and half of the surface and orbit will be radiation-free.

The landing was difficult due to the high orbital velocity and delta-V requirements, but eventually successful.

The ascent was fairly routine, right up until the fuel ran out and Connor had to use RCS to circularise then wait for the Ion Space Tug to do the rendezvous before he docked to it. There was a complication during the escape burn as one of the Hall effect thrusters spontaneously exploded, with no warning and well within its operational limits, but that won't be too much of a problem.

It'll take about 60 days (one single orbit of Jool) to get a burn back to Indefatigability, but the ISTs have nearly a year of supplies each so that won't be an issue even if a stress breakdown happens.

Over at the other IST, Phoebe and the Eve lander were approaching Pol for a much easier landing.

I wanted to do that landing in this report too, but a combination of game glitchiness and my internet connection going out yesterday meant I haven't done that yet.

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/OoCBjua

Flag count so far: 6.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Two landings on two tiny moons. First, Pol:

A quick check of the orbits showed that there was a Pol to Bop transfer window a mere 40 days after the Pol landing, so Phoebe stayed in Pol orbit for 40 days and then made the trip over to the next moon in.

I forgot that Bop has its own strange little radiation belt and bubble, which was a bit of an issue as this lander has zero radiation shielding. I had to change the landing site for the Bop landing to avoid landing inside the radiation belt.

Once Phoebe had returned to orbit and docked to the waiting Ion Space Tug, it was time to head back to Indefatigability.

On the subject of heading back to Indy, Connor arrived back from Tylo and made an awkward docking attempt. Awkward because with no signal the Ion Space Tug was effectively uncontrollable. It was only after I completed the dockings that I realised why I had no signal, maybe you can see it?

I don't know how, but somehow the pair of Communotron 88-88 direct dishes were folded up. As soon as those opened out again the connection to Kerbin was re-established and everything started working a lot better.

A few days later Phoebe also returned; her IST also suffered an engine failure, but this one was fixable.

Both crew are safely back on board Indefatigability and are radiation detoxing for the trips to Laythe and Vall.

Two more moons to go in the Jool system, but they're the two with the highest radiation exposure. Phoebe will be ready first and will head to Laythe, while Connor will make the trip to Vall once he's ready later. Stress will be an issue with the whole 'no connection to Kerbin' thing due to the folded dishes, plus spending a lot of time alone in a tiny tin can isn't particularly good for stress either.

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/JL3UI70

Flag count so far: 8!

[jimmymcgoochie]

Jool's innermost moon is next on the agenda. It's deep into Jool's radiation zone so unsurvivable in orbit, but the atmosphere is very effective at blocking the radiation out- ~12rad/h in low orbit drops to under 0.5rad/h on the surface, which is still high but with maximum radiation shielding it's survivable for a reasonable period of time.

Getting to Laythe is a balance of two contradictory aims- get there as fast as possible to survive the radiation, but get there slowly enough to survive atmospheric entry for a long aerobraking stint. During the Intrepidity mission, I solved this problem by using a Space Tug as ablator, letting it all burn up to save the plane itself from the worst of the heat; this time round I've added a heat shield on the nose, which should be OK as long as I don't come in at 5km/s, as I did in one attempt...

I used the Ion Space Tug with the missing engine to get here, but with the benefit of hindsight I could have stolen an engine off the one with the broken reaction wheel then sent that instead to get rid of a more broken craft. Too late now. At any rate, the IST worked as intended, providing plenty of delta-V to hurl the Laythe Plane at Laythe, then brake to a more sensible speed for atmospheric entry, before being dumped to burn up in the atmosphere; the reactor was full of uranium, but there's so much radiation there already that a bit more won't hurt...

Skimming through the upper atmosphere for half an orbit meant that I landed on the daylight side of Laythe, and a bit of high-speed cornering meant that I landed on land rather than water, on an island near the equator too. From a distance, the island looked promising- steep slopes down to the sea but a relatively flat plateau on top- but the closer I got, the more that 'plateau' revealed itself to be covered in little ridges and hills and other lumps that made landing a real pain. I meant to fix the landing gear on this design to make it less prone to smashing face-first into the ground on landing, but I forgot and a lot of landing attempts ended up smashing face-first into the ground.

Eventually a landing went right and Phoebe was able to plant her flag, gather some science and take a few breaths of fresh air without her helmet on- if -15C and an atmosphere of questionable oxygen content and lots of volcanic gases can be called 'fresh', at least.

The ascent wasn't too difficult: rocket-assisted takeoff, gain speed at low altitude using the jet engine, engage aerospike and then NERV at higher speed and altitude, boost to orbit with just the NERV, dump oxidiser and circularise at apoapsis- then burn like crazy to get out of the Death Zone as fast as possible! Between circularising and burning-like-crazy, Phoebe did a quick EVA to rip all the plane-related parts off the Laythe Plane to save weight- aero surfaces, wheels, air intakes and more were dumped while even the fairing that shrouds the fuselage was popped to lighten the craft even more. The return to Indefatigability was uneventful and soon enough Phoebe had returned:

The "plane" is still docked as I haven't yet decided what to do with it- on one hand it still has plenty of liquid fuel on board and a decent range, but on the other hand it's basically dead weight now so I could drain the resources out of it and dump it, as I did with Intrepidity. Phoebe is currently detoxing from the heavy dose of radiation she received, however she only got 72% exposure compared to the 94% with Intrepidity- better timing, more delta-V or better trajectories must be the cause of this as the design was exactly the same.

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/c8Tn4M0

Flag count so far: 9!

 

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

What's the most dangerous place to land in the Kerbol system?

Eve? Tylo? Laythe?

Nope, the answer is Vall.

It's not the size, the gravity, the delta-V or the terrain that gives it this title- in fact, it's not related to Vall as a planetary body at all. No, Vall is the most dangerous place to land wholly and solely because of Jool and its mighty radiation belts, which Vall is stuck right in the middle of and so gets fried by enough radiation to  kill a Kerbal in 24 hours even with maximum shielding on their craft. Laythe gets a bit more radiation in orbit, but the atmosphere there blocks most of it out; Vall has no atmosphere so the surface gets maximum radiation at all times, in any location.

And now Connor has to go there. Sorry, Connor...

The new planet revamps mean Vall looks amazing from orbit, but sadly there's no time to admire the view- every second spent here adds to the radiation exposure so this is going to be the shortest possible visit.

The landing itself was pretty easy- Vall isn't a difficult moon to land on after all- and afforded a great view as Connor planted his flag and gathered the precious surface sample:

As soon as the Ion Space Tug came back overhead Connor was out of there, docked and burning to escape both Vall's gravity and Jool's radiation belts as fast as possible. With a huge delta-V reserve from those Hall effect thrusters there was plenty of fuel to just keep burning up and out, which also allowed a fairly easy intercept of Indefatigability afterwards.

I think the relay dishes on Indefatigability are broken, or else the probe cores don't have an antenna in them- even right next to the ship with a solid connection to the DSN there's limited control over any uncrewed vessels, making docking very difficult as the translation controls don't work. Rather than faff around trying to connect everything up 'properly' I just docked the whole thing to the front of Indy and sent Connor to radiation detox. Only 72% exposure this time, compared to 87% for Intrepidity- the much greater delta-V in the IST must be the reason for this.

Now there's nothing left to do but let the crew recover from the radiation damage and wait for the Eeloo window; or just brute force the intercept now with some of the 40km/s of delta-V remaining on Indefatigability.

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/GY6w1R3

Flag count so far: 10!

[jimmymcgoochie]

Two posts in one day!

A quick check of the transfers to Eeloo turned up something interesting- instead of waiting 3 years for the "efficient" window which takes 3 years, I could leave immediately and get a 2 year transfer instead at a relatively small cost in delta-V. There's oodles of delta-V on Indefatigability and there's nothing to be gained by sitting in Jool orbit for 3 years- nothing but damaged parts and lost resources due to stress breakdowns that is- so it's off to Eeloo we go!

The Laythe plane and Tylo lander were discarded during the trip to Eeloo; after stealing all their useful spare parts of course! Both have served their primary purposes and there's nothing more to be gained from dragging them around, so they were cast off to float forever in interplanetary space.

A quick servicing just inside Eeloo's SOI had very few parts to fix- the Gigantors all failed, but they're low quality and were all fixable anyway, a couple of spare reaction wheels and that's it- and one little RCS block failed completely and was thrown away. So far all the main reaction wheels are working perfectly, which is a surprise to me as Intrepidity had many failures in the same type of reaction wheel.

Spoiler

We interrupt this message for an urgent PSA:

Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to reattach a Kerbalism gas canister to your craft if you remove it. EVER.

Or this happens:

Capturing at Eeloo was easy:

The landing was utterly routine... (well, apart from KER deciding that the best time to do a suicide burn was under the ground; good thing I was paying attention!)

And just like that, it was time to leave the lonely little ice world behind and strike out for Duna; a convenient fast transfer window was available right away so I left Eeloo within half an hour of arriving in real time.

Not a great intercept of Duna, the inclination will be high but orbital velocity is low enough that aligning with Ike won't be too costly. Only Duna, Ike and Dres remain to be landed on before it's time to head back to Kerbin and bring the dynamic duo, Phoebe and Connor, back home in record time.

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/VaWMUFP

Flag count so far: 11!

[jimmymcgoochie]

I seem to have turned this into a speed run, both in real time and game time...

First, we arrive at Duna:

A quick pit stop back at Indefatigability and then it's off to Ike:

And then it was off to Dres:

And from there it was back to Kerbin:

The transport craft that took Phoebe and Connor into space was left in LKO for them to return; thirteen years later and most of its components have failed; one of the parachutes is now useless, which is a bit of a problem as I only put two on and have no idea if one parachute will be enough.

Another problem revealed itself- the sample box containing all the surface samples didn't like being moved over to the other craft, even when they were docked together. Fortunately the transport craft's Mk1-2 pod has twelve sample slots; unfortunately, there are fourteen samples; fortunately, the pod on the Eve lander can hold two samples, so I'll just take that with me too.

As expected, the fuel tank on the end exploded when it hit the ground but it also absorbed the impact so the rest of the craft was fine. The final flag was planted in Kerbin's desert and at long last Connor and Phoebe were back home.

Finished on Y13, D282- a whopping fifteen years faster than Intrepidity despite leaving at the same time and actually landing everywhere this time.

With the exception of the Kerbin>Eve and Eve>Moho transfers, just about every interplanetary transfer I got was a fast yet fairly efficient transfer that left right away- Moho to Eve, Eve to Jool, Jool to Eeloo, Eeloo to Duna, Duna to Dres and Dres to Kerbin all left immediately after the landings were done, in every case but one within an orbit of docking the lander, and the one that didn't was because I was 5 minutes too late to start the burn so had to go round again

Having a huge delta-V budget was definitely a factor, allowing me to take the faster but less efficient windows instead of trying to shave every last millimetre per second from every burn due to a lack of fuel, however most of the interplanetary burns were done with the VASIMR engines set to 0% efficiency to maximise thrust and yet I still had 15km/s left when I parked the ship in a 100km circular Kerbin orbit afterwards. I only used the ion RCS on Indefatigability a few times for some precise course corrections, and never used the heavy monopropellant RCS at all; likewise the Space Tug (and backup Tylo descent stage) never went anywhere and spent much of the trip with its tanks drained for balance.

The hydrazine production system was a bit of a disappointment as it made barely any monopropellant at all, however it did make a whole lot of oxygen and a decent quantity of water too. The solid oxide electrolysis system did its job adequately, turning waste CO2 back into useful oxygen; likewise the water recyclers kept the water tanks topped up and produced a little ammonia to feed the hydrazine production (though the lack of ammonia was a bit bottleneck on that process, since it took years to fill those ammonia tanks yet minutes to drain them). The Ion Space Tugs worked well enough, but the patch to turn the Hall effect thrusters to xenon broke their Kerbalism configs so they had limited burn times which they shouldn't have and I had a number of failures because of that.

I'm really surprised how few reaction wheel failures I had; yes, the whole mission took half as long as Intrepidity and many of the failures on that mission happened a bit later on, but just one critical failure out of twenty RWs and none of the big 2.5m wheels on Indefatigability failed at all. In fact, there were hardly any failures at all- one of the landers' Terrier engines failed once, the troublesome HETs failed a few times, a radiator motor failed (and I accidentally fixed it in the save file while trying to fix the stupid HETs, oops) and despite many stress breakdowns all the damage was fixable and I only lost food a couple of times, which made no difference as there was enough there for well over forty years of flight but I finished in under fourteen. The single most worrying failure was when a stress breakdown damaged the nuclear reactor on one of the ISTs, however it was fixable and no rescue was necessary; they had a year of supplies each so it wouldn't have been too bad, but it would most likely have delayed the Jool landings so I'd have missed all those flukey transfer windows...

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/OmdNicF

Flag count so far: 15 and done!

Farewell, Phoebe and Connor. Enjoy the long munths of gruelling physiotherapy to recover from 13 years of microgravity, punctuated only by minutes-long stays on various planets and moons, and the years of psychiatric therapy to get over the massive stress issues and the whole "almost dying of radiation poisoning half way to Dres because I forgot to point the ship away from the sun and the solar flares were hitting the crew modules" thing...