Landing on Ablate

[lajoswinkler]

As some of you might know, Kragrathea released a plugin called Krag's Planet Factory.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60318-Krags-PlanetFactory-Updated-Dec-3

There is a handful of new places to reach, in fact mostly stuff we wanted to be included in KSP. They aren't easy to reach at all.

Let this be a general purpose thread for help on how to reach Ablate, a small world very close and tidally locked to Kerbol, so scorched its outer shell has been ablated by the solar wind from one side, exposing the insides.

The opposite side is always dark and I don't recall seeing anyone going there with some lights. I saw a report on landing in one of the sunlit craters, that's it.

It takes some massive dV to reach this object, I'd say more than 20 km/s from the point your ship has already left Kerbin's SOI, but maybe even a lot more. Unless you resort to refueling and several ships, this requires some serious thought.

Inclination is more than 5° and you really need to get to NaN, trust me. SOI is so tiny even for 0.0° difference.

It orbits so fast around Kerbol so an encounter is not easy. Getting an encounter and getting in a stable orbit in a single step is extremely intensive. You simply don't have enough time to do it. Even at 1x time, Ablate is moving fast on the screen.

I recommend first circularizing a bit, until your apoapsis is below Moho's orbit. NERVA is obligatory. I use a single large KSPX nuclear engine.

Fiddling with the burns is often needed.

I tried to reach this body few times last night and I failed each time. I don't use MechJeb so it's quite tough to estimate the required dV at launch.

There are some bugs when you come in fast towards the body. Maneuver nodes go a bit wonky so you have to resort to watching the orbit and not the numbers.

I've reduced the mass of the lander to almost a bare minimum (not even tiny landing legs because they're too heavy) and added more fuel to the tug so we'll see.

Any help is appreciated.

Edited January 10, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Is your problem the encounter portion or having enough dv? If it's the former, I would probably approach this by getting into a circular orbit close to ablate an creating a single point of intersect/tangent, and wait it out. If it's the latter, short of just adding more fuel to your rocket, ions are excellent for small stuff and that close to the sun you should have little issue with the electricity

[Kasuha]

The fact is, it's not Ablate who's going fast there. It's your ship. You need to brake a lot to be as slow as Ablate.

If you have enough dv, you just need to gradually bring your apoapsis down and when it is low enough, adjust the orbit to get encounter with Ablate on the last braking burn.

I am assuming Ablate doesn't have too much of gravity to be worth trying for encounter with each pass to make use of Oberth effect. But even that is possible.

[lajoswinkler]

Encounter is tricky, but I'm capable of fine tuning it as I fall towards Kerbol to the point it's possible to change the encounter periapsis.

It's dV that bugs me. I'd really like to do this "blind".

I don't know about ion engines. It would take an awful lot of time.

Here's some data on Ablate.

[brians200]

Here is a large ship I built to go to Joker, on the other side of the solar system. The payload has about 16500 m/s of delta-V to give you an idea of what it takes to get there and back. All together, it has 21,848 m/s of delta-V. The payload is 284 tons, which is the equivalent to 7.9 of those large orange tanks. Here is a picture of the lander, for reference http://i.imgur.com/O1P8obO.png

Yes, I use mechjeb, but you can see what it takes to get a large mass into space in terms of your launcher, which will give you more fuel to work with.

Here are some tips for your launcher.

Use asparagus staging, horizontally and vertically.

As soon as the lower stage is out of the way, fire the engines above it, but continue to use the fuel from the lower stages. You can see this around 48 seconds and 1:30 in my video. You are going to need lots of thrust all the way up.

I have seen lots of ships that start with 5 engines, then go to 3, then go to 1, which isn't even strong enough to lift the weight of the rocket, then back to 5. Following that bad approach, that ship could barely lift 150 tons to orbit.

If you aren't planning on coming back, you can definitely use more of that fuel for traveling to Ablate.

Good luck!

Edited January 11, 2014 by brians200

[lajoswinkler]

Ok, so far I've got this: after you get free from Kerbin's influence, you have to spend 808 m/s for inclination adjustment and 5864 m/s for lowering periapsis down to Ablate's orbit.

I've managed to make a future encounter. Now I need to slow down when I reach it. Report in a short time.

[lajoswinkler]

Wolfram 2 probe is in Ablate's orbit.

It is detecting highlands, midlands, lowlands, slopes. It might be because the template was Minmus... I don't know. I'm in sandbox mode so I can't do any science.

It took around 13.4 km/s dV to slow down and additional ~100 m/s to correct the orbit. As I predicted, total dV requirement was close to 20.2 km/s, not accounting for the dV needed to escape Kerbin and go into solar orbit.

Ablate is changing appearance based on distance. Close enough it is no longer irregular, though it still has ablated and serrated hemisphere.

The probe has plenty of fuel for its size. I'm accepting landing site suggestions. I think I'll be able to hop to at least one more place.

Unfortunatelly, I can't explore the dark side. The only source of power is one solar panel, and the only storage is the probe core with 10 units of charge.

There are no lights on the probe. I could explore the terminator, though.

I'm off to bed, so any suggestions are appreciated. I can switch the probe into polar orbit and take a detailed analysis of the poles, etc.

Edited January 11, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[brians200]

There is a large pole sticking out of Ablate. If you want a challenge, you can try landing there

[lajoswinkler]

Pole as in geographical pole (north or south?), or there's a spike in the terrain somewhere on the surface?

I'm off to a polar orbit and then landing on an edge of some crater on a terminator, to catch some nice views.

[lajoswinkler]

I examined both poles from 5 km orbit and found nothing interesting. It's just crumpled terrain and it doesn't even look like there's a pole as it's obvious when you look at certain other planetary bodies in KSP.

Kerbol is shining through the body, so technically, I could land on the dark side, but as I don't have any lights on the probe, I'd probably slam into the surface.

This is how this dwarf planet looks like. It's not so asymmetric as the map mode suggests.

(Terrain details, graphics, shades, everything is all maxed, but the resolution is the lowest possible because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do anything.)

So I went down in one of the more interesting spots which looked like a coarse grade sandpaper surrounded by jagged crater walls.

Kerbol looks overwhelming. If there was ionizing radiation implemented into KSP, this place would be bombarded by it.

Surface temperatures are obviosly

for the poor probe to handle.

[Kragrathea]

Nicely done! Great mission and screens!

Pole as in big spikey bit sticking out. Looks like a snapped off space elevator. Its at 5º 3' 7" N 107º 28' 30" W

Edited January 12, 2014 by Kragrathea

[Ascension Islander]

This thread really makes me excited for the future of KSP. The fact that we have this user generated planet that is fairly unknown to us and are willing to take such difficult measures just to see it up close means that there is still much excitement to be had in this game. The fact that we're doing this all in a relatively realistic manner (e.g. sending a small probe first) is just icing on the cake.

[lajoswinkler]

Nicely done! Great mission and screens!

Pole as in big spikey bit sticking out. Looks like a snapped off space elevator. Its at 5º 3' 7" N 107º 28' 30" W

Thanks.

As I don't have MechJeb installed (and even if I had, the probe doesn't have the part), I can't use these coordinates, so someone else is going to have to find this spike for now.

Ablate is really one of the objects Kerbol system needs, along with a comet and a ringed world. I think I was actually suggesting such reminder of Vulcan on KSP forums. There are lots of planetary bodies people were suggesting and most of them are just dumb, but these few... bingo.

Well done. I hope Squad will learn from this, maybe even include this into stock universe. I'm not fond of mods and I like defined uniformity, but this is really something I don't regret installing.

This thread really makes me excited for the future of KSP. The fact that we have this user generated planet that is fairly unknown to us and are willing to take such difficult measures just to see it up close means that there is still much excitement to be had in this game. The fact that we're doing this all in a relatively realistic manner (e.g. sending a small probe first) is just icing on the cake.

Exactly. Sending Kerbals there first... Not my thing. The feeling of gradual exploration is priceless.

Edited January 12, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[bigdad84]

Nicely done! Great mission and screens!

Pole as in big spikey bit sticking out. Looks like a snapped off space elevator. Its at 5º 3' 7" N 107º 28' 30" W

Would be interesting to see this pole!

[Kragrathea]

Would be interesting to see this pole!

http://imgur.com/a/nmkuO

[lajoswinkler]

That's a fairly thin crashing hazard, no wonder I haven't seen it while orbiting above equator. 5º 3' 7" N 107º 28' 30" W, that's very close. How tall is that thing?

[Kragrathea]

That's a fairly thin crashing hazard, no wonder I haven't seen it while orbiting above equator. 5º 3' 7" N 107º 28' 30" W, that's very close. How tall is that thing?

5 Kilometers.

[Ghost13]

I really like Ablate from Krag's Planet Factory mod; I want to see it in official game, along with the Ascension. I’m not so sure about Serius and Joker as well as blue gas giant system and inaccessible that Krag's Planet Factory mod introduces, althought this planets offers some interesting game mechanics they lack originality and realism such as planet with strong gravity well but no atmosphere or inaccessible that rotates faster that it's gravity can hold. Also Serius is just planet retextured as a star and Joker is actually minmus clone with a strange color scheme. Maybe another star orbiting Kerbol is a bit too much, but I would surely want to too see more Oort cloud objects in the game at the similar distance as Serius in the mod now.

[FastasGod]

Just though I would post this here. This is a single-launch Kerbal landing and return mission I just completed last night.

https://imgur.com/a/ukOB9

I kept regular back-ups, so I might go exploring around Ablate later. As it was, this ship took 3 real life hours to land on Ablate and about 6 to return, turns out nuclear engines and rocket engines can be a little slow, who knew?

The ship is full stock and no cheats were used at any point, the launcher was my 4th design and it worked on the second try, I am not certain of its reliability.

Kerbal Engineer was used to design most of the ship, although I did hand-calculate the delta-v for the return stage by hand several times.

Notes for others attempting this mission:

--20.2k delta-v from Kerbol orbit to Ablate is a good estimate. I was left with about 100 fuel in the Ablate Drive stage.

--About 15k delta-v is necessary from Ablate orbit back to Kerbin orbit. I got lucky and got an encounter earlier than expected, so I only used abot 13k delta-v.

--In my case, the extra RCS tank was not at all necessary. The 15 units in the lander can would have been enough as I only used 2 units for docking.

--Make the return stage as light as possible. By making my return segment just 500 kg lighter, I was able to lower my to-orbit mass by 50,000 kg

--At Ablate altitude, a single 1x6 solar panel produces about 19.5 electricity/second. The means only about 1 panel per ion engine is required.

--Your to-Ablate mass is absolutely vital. I used lander legs, but you could use lighter structural elements instead. I knew I would need to re-dock, so I used docking ports on the top segments and no decouplers.

-- EVA jets are not strong enough to lift kerbals off of the surface, but it can allow them to jump very high, I added a ladder, but it may not be necessary.

Edited January 25, 2014 by FastasGod

[lajoswinkler]

I really like Ablate from Krag's Planet Factory mod; I want to see it in official game, along with the Ascension. I’m not so sure about Serius and Joker as well as blue gas giant system and inaccessible that Krag's Planet Factory mod introduces, althought this planets offers some interesting game mechanics they lack originality and realism such as planet with strong gravity well but no atmosphere or inaccessible that rotates faster that it's gravity can hold. Also Serius is just planet retextured as a star and Joker is actually minmus clone with a strange color scheme. Maybe another star orbiting Kerbol is a bit too much, but I would surely want to too see more Oort cloud objects in the game at the similar distance as Serius in the mod now.

I agree, except regarding Sentar. We need a ringed giant.

Ringle's ring is not realistic and it doesn't offer anything new besides that.

Skelton has an awesome huge mountain protruding through the atmosphere which is very nice.

I don't like Erin because it's just like Laythe, but the fact it has its own satellite is superb.

Thud, as a body with solid ground and high gravity is a great addon to the experience, but it should have a tiny atmosphere to be more realistic.

Ascension might be even smaller, and Inaccessable would be great if it would rotate enough for the equator to experience almost zero gravity.

Serious and Joker don't look interesting to me. If Serious was a brown dwarf, glowing with dim red light, that would be better.

Just though I would post this here. This is a single-launch Kerbal landing and return mission I just completed last night.

https://imgur.com/a/ukOB9

Yesterday I've tried to land a small rover there. I couldn't even rendezvous with the body. You're the first one I saw actually landing a Kerbal there without cheating. Well done.

I should install something to count delta-v, because blind approach I used for landing a tiny probe won't get me anywhere with anything larger.

Edited February 6, 2014 by lajoswinkler