The Mun to Minmus Switcheroo

[Klapaucius]

Due to impenetrable bureaucracy, current regulations are not allowing ships that have visited the Mun to land on Minmus and vice versa.   Kerbonauts, yes, but not the ships.  The regulation further stipulates that no unapproved ship may even be in orbit around each respective moon, or even enter its SOI.

Valentina, finishing up a rotation on Minmus, wants to visit her mother on the Mun.  Jeb, already on the Mun, is set to take her place.  However getting each one to the other moon is posing a bit of a challenge. There is no room in the budget for either of them to return to Kerbin.

 

So, your mission:

Get Valentina to the Mun.

Get Jeb to Minmus.

Do this by getting Jeb into Val's craft and Val into Jeb's craft so that each lander returns to the moon it came from. In other words, you will need to do some form of rendezvous. Time is of the essence, so the faster you can pull this off, the better.

 

Rules:

1. Stock and DLC only.

2. Build two landers and place one with Val on Minmus and one with Jeb on the Mun.

3. You may not rendezvous while in orbit of either the Mun or Minmus.

4. Take a screenshot of your onscreen clock before your first launch.

5. Upon landing, have both Jeb and Val plant a flag.  Take a screenshot after planting the second flag.  Subtract your start time from that and you have your total mission time.

6. You may start anywhere on the Mun and Minmus that you like.

7. You may take any additional Kerbonauts you wish with you.  They do not need to switch vessels.

8. You may dock the vessels or transfer via spacewalk, whatever suits.

9. You may use time warp to optimize the relative positions of Minmus and the Mun before you start your clock.

10. Keep to the spirit of the mission. Go nuts but don't look for cheap loopholes.  I cannot anticipate everything.  If in doubt, ask.

11. You may not return to Kerbin.

12. You may use Mission Builder or some other way to place Val and her craft on Minmus and Jeb and his craft on the Mun to start. No need to launch a whole mission, since that is not the focus of the challenge. (Of course, you are welcome to do so if you wish).

13. You may stage anyway you wish, but you may only use these two craft.

14. You may not enter the SOI of either moon with the unapproved craft.

Hopefully I am not forgetting something obvious here.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Klapaucius

[QF9E]

Sounds like fun, count me in!

One question about the rules: are EVA jet pack landings allowed? If they are, I think there might be a way to swap Jeb and Val without doing a rendez-vous.

Another question: the rules stipulate that "no unapproved ship may even be in orbit around each respective moon". Does this include flybys? I.e., is the Munar lander allowed to go inside Minmus' SOI without entering orbit, and vice versa?

[Klapaucius]

18 minutes ago, QF9E said:

Sounds like fun, count me in!

One question about the rules: are EVA jet pack landings allowed? If they are, I think there might be a way to swap Jeb and Val without doing a rendez-vous.

Another question: the rules stipulate that "no unapproved ship may even be in orbit around each respective moon". Does this include flybys? I.e., is the Munar lander allowed to go inside Minmus' SOI without entering orbit, and vice versa?

EVA packs yes, though mainly that was a way to not have to do a full docking maneuver.

SOI...I think the idea is no close approaches.  So a flyby would include that.  I'll have to come up with a hard figure for how close you can get.  Suggestions welcome.

[QF9E]

1 hour ago, Klapaucius said:

SOI...I think the idea is no close approaches.  So a flyby would include that.  I'll have to come up with a hard figure for how close you can get.  Suggestions welcome.

My suggestion would be to completely disallow the landers from entering the other moon's SOI. That seems the most consistent ruling to me.

 

[Klapaucius]

9 hours ago, QF9E said:

My suggestion would be to completely disallow the landers from entering the other moon's SOI. That seems the most consistent ruling to me.

 

Done. Added to the rules.