What Defines A Jool 5?

[Kimera Industries]

I am planning a Jool 5 mission on my creative save to prepare for science and career worlds, and I need some help.

EDIT: So it turns out there are official rules for this. I have rewritten the following questions in response.

1.Is refueling (ISRU) recommended? For Tylo, my lander will carry a small surface base with them. This base will have ISRU with the intent to fill up the lander so it has more fuel to rendezvous with the station after it gets into orbit. Refueling makes things easier on fuel but they take up a lot of space-what should I do?

2.Multiple landers? Or just one, all-purpose plane-LEM crossover? The current mission plan has 4 landing craft-1 small lander for Pol, Bop, and Vall; a (very) large lander for Tylo; and 2 planes for Laythe. I've seen both done (one lander vs. multiple) so what should I go with? Which is generally simpler?

3.Where should the mother ship orbit? My plan is to leave it orbiting somewhere while the landers do their stuff, but I'm not sure where. For the smaller moons, (Pol and Bop) the small lander will have enough fuel to rendezvous if the mother ship is orbiting Jool, but the Tylo lander (and probably the Laythe planes) will not. Should I leave it orbiting just one of the moons, (i.e. Laythe because of its decently sized, but not too large gravity well) and have the landers meet up with it? Or should the mother ship orbit whatever moon the lander is currently at?

I hope it's not too much trouble to answer these questions! Hopefully the mission will proceed as planned, becoming a mission report!

Edited May 9, 2023 by chimera industries

[fulgur]

The official challenge definition is above, which includes all of your points I think!

It has to be 1 ship leaving Kerbin SoI. [That ship can subsequently make "detours" so a full Grand Tour/Ultimate Challenge is also a Jool-5.] You can assemble it in low Kerbin orbit, it can split up into multiple landers at Jool, you can take it to orbit whichever moon you want and of course you can do ISRU. It can be more impressive without, but you can do some pretty impressive stuff within those parameters anyway.

[Kimera Industries]

Thanks, I couldn't seem to find that before writing this post! Do you have any specific recommendations/advice that will make it easier?

[Scarecrow71]

3 hours ago, chimera industries said:

Thanks, I couldn't seem to find that before writing this post! Do you have any specific recommendations/advice that will make it easier?

For starters...save early.  And often.  Like, before and after every maneuver and SOI change.

Secondly, use multiple launches to construct in LKO.  It may take longer, but it will be easier on fuel to/from Jool in the long run.

Third, I recommend doing ISRU.  Keep in mind that you CANNOT colonize a planet/moon prior to your Jool 5 launch and then use that colony for refueling.  And according to rule 4, the ship can do its own mining...but it can't separate until it reaches Jool's SOI.  I would ask for clarification here and see if that is meant that you can't do ISRU until you hit Jool.

Finally...have fun!  This is one of those things that I have longed to try but haven't yet.

[Kimera Industries]

Thanks- if you hadn't told me, I probably would've quicksaved much too little, and I might end up with a situation I've had before, where a mission got really far-

And then something went wrong and the closest quicksave I had was the launch.

I'm not super worried about ISRU, it's only really for the Tylo lander because the fuel requirements are *big*, and the station has more than enough fuel to brute force a transfer.

Anyway, thanks!