Around the mun in hopefully less than 80 days

[CapPenguin]

This is the story so far of my mun Elcano attempt.

I had tried some long-distance driving in ksp before this point but had never made it more than 20 KM. mostly because on Kerbin and Duna the monotony would make me reckless and everything would explode. so I thought I would try the Mun.

The Mun has two advantages for the easily bored astronaut: It is small so it takes less time to drive around, and it has low gravity so rovers tend to... well... bounce. so with a quick shuttle flight and a bag full of unwarranted optimism I started to drive.

 

 

 

after a quick drive, we stopped for flags and pictures


further updates as events warrant


Mods

 Click thru blocker
Module Manager
Toolbar Controller
Kerbal Engineer
Zero Mini AVC
Better Timewarp
Camera tools
EVE
KAC
Kerbal Engineer With KER for all
and Scatterer

Edited April 26, 2022 by CapPenguin

[CapPenguin]

The Brave Kermin rolled east. Commander Milzer was the primary driver but all crew members were trained to operate the rover.

As Kerbin set the crew discovered an unfortunate tendency in the rover: It liked to bounce.


It REALY liked to bounce.



Unfortunately, this meant that the repair kits that had been stashed in the cargo boxes were destroyed when the rover landed hard.

As Behnken reported without the repair kits there was no way he could repair the damaged wheels

[CapPenguin]

Back at the KSC, a support package was hastily assembled it would consist of a lander that could carry a large number of repair kits and other supplies. 


 

The launch went exactly to plan and the support lander arrived intact.

Unfortunately, the lander was over a kilometer from the rover so the crew would have to drive on five wheels for a while.

but finally, the lander came into sight and repairs could commence 



after brief repairs, the rover was off again. While approaching the one quarter mark I "discovered" a mun arch (Looked up the location on the wiki)


After a few more hours of driving, I reached the halfway mark.

further updates as the attempt continue

[CapPenguin]

Quick Update:

After a resupply and a test of ISRU, I continued to drive.

The final Chapter will include details for now here is a progress screenshot:

[CapPenguin]

Around The Mun in hopefully less than 80 days final Chapter: Problem-solving and happy landings.

At the KSC the engineers wanted to test out In situ mining so a test craft was assembled and sent to a likely crater that the Elcano Rover had found.

The crew needed to replace a docking port that had been destroyed in a crash before they could attach to the miner. But a quick weld from Behnken took care of that and mining began.

After 2 Kerbin days, the miner completely refueled its own tanks and the rover departed for the final run.

As the rover closed in on its destination the return craft was sent via shuttle to the start point.

 

After 36 days (mostly due to driving only in daylight and waiting for resupply ships / return rockets) The finish line came into view

After stopping for some final pictures (And moving the rovers docking port onto the return ship) the crew departed for home

 

When the return craft reached orbit it was clear that a refueler would need to be sent fortunately the ISRU unit had plenty of gas and the rest of the return went without incident

 

 

 

Before departure, we took a shot of the route followed with all the flags

 

THE END

Thanks for reading my first mission report and first challenge attempt feel free to comment and tell me how i can improve  **cough cough something about formatting cough cough**I

 

[18Watt]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:28 PM, CapPenguin said:

Unfortunately, this meant that the repair kits that had been stashed in the cargo boxes were destroyed when the rover landed hard.

Ouch!  That's bad luck, having your repair kits destroyed early in the run.

Nice rover!  Your launch vehicle is interesting.  Does it launch from the runway, or the launch pad?  Also, I'm assuming it can land on the runway?  Either way, that's a very interesting launch vehicle.  Looks like the only parts you lose are a few orange tanks.  

Welcome to the forums, and thanks for your Elcano entry!

[CapPenguin]

The Condor Shuttle is a runway launch but honestly, that's more because it originally had smaller drop tanks and fewer engines but as the design grew the ship got a lot heavier, and it's probably better to do a vertical take-off. I will experiment with this 

And thanks for keeping the Elcano Challenge going, i really enjoyed it

[18Watt]

7 hours ago, CapPenguin said:

The Condor Shuttle is a runway launch

One challenge that has been a recurring theme in KSP is building SSTOs, with an emphasis on not losing anything, making a launch vehicle that is completely reusable.

I personally do enjoy building SSTO planes, but I suspect that partially reuseable vehicles would make a lot more sense in a lot of situations.   I’m wondering why I’ve never put much effort into launch vehicles like yours, where a few minor and inexpensive parts are discarded.   Pretty sure that’s the next thing I’ll be fiddling with in KSP, to see what gains I can get by dropping a few inexpensive parts during a launch.

Again, I thought your launch vehicle was really neat.

[CapPenguin]

29 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

Again, I thought your launch vehicle was really neat.

Thanks, I am really enjoying it, I am going to try to enter it in the STS challenge.  It has a 50+ ton payload to LKO  so it's been immensely useful. I agree that more semi and non-SSTO reusable ships are generally a good thing. If you read the early shuttle stuff it is amazing the breadth of ideas they had back then.