Jetski

To answer both your questions, sorry guys no going over 5 parts. That's the design challenge.

I was thinking I would KAS a mini LS pack into the service bays when that happens. Ditto for the Vall lander and the Bop/Pol ion hoppers. Still haven't figured out how to deal with Tylo - working on Tylo and Laythe mining rigs now.

@Enceos nicely done! was wondering when someone would get around to that updated OP, cleared for next module

Part 5 is up, hoovered up all the science from Laythe and Vall, hitting all biomes. 1 plane for science on Laythe, and 1 to find a good base location. Vall NERVA lander got all the biomes on one tank of gas, and now has met back up with the orbiting tanker, ready for future ops. Like many before me, I was unable to locate the mystery "Crescent Bay" biome, consensus on the forums is that it doesn't exist. If anyone finds it, I have enough fuel to go anywhere on Laythe and back...

Actually I did this by accident - I built a Jool-5 with a detachable command pod with Val inside and a docking port, and a variety of landers. I finished the Jool 5, and decided to try Eeloo, and made it easily. Everything was connected with docking ports, and I had a little RCS Klaw tug for moving stuff around, so I reconfigured and made a Duna aerobrake and landing, also hit Ike, and still had enough dV to reach Eve. Then I launched a second ship to Eve with a big transfer stage and a lander that attached to the (well-travelled) command pod, and Val landed on Eve, then Moho by reconfiguring the transfer stage, then on home to Kerbin. Technically the same ship (a single command pod with Val) landed on every body in the system. No ISRU, 2 launches. To the best of my knowledge nobody else has completed it this way, although there are many Grand Tours out there. I think easier with ISRU

Chapter 5 - Vall and Laythe Science! Both planes have safely landed on Laythe - the first one landed at each of the 4 biomes (apparently the Crescent Bay on the Wiki doesn't exist!) and stayed put at the North Pole. The other plane flew down at a good-looking base location. Only the Dunes biome on Laythe has any Ore, so finding a flat spot was a challenge. Finally landed at a spot with 3.53% ore, not amazing but it will do for a base. Next mission was to take the NERVA powered lander and tanker away from Laythe and go explore Vall. This was an easy burn, and the landings went off without a hitch. 4 biomes landed at, and noticed the Poles biome has 8.09% ore! Not bad, too bad it's the Poles. Lander has been reunited with the (nearly empty) tanker in high Vall orbit, still 2257 dV for future missions or rescues. Imgur is acting weird again, but only on one or two of the images. Again, if you open the album in imgur and click, the images are there...

OK, added a little RCS tug with a docking port and a Klaw. I decided the Klaw counts as a docking port Latest savegame Cleared for next launch. And I like the idea of deorbiting debris cleanly without tracking station, lets leave that as an exercise for the more experienced players

Actually I have the save right now Who says the challenge host can't put up a module? Give me a half hour or so, I'll post the save back up here and in the OP when I'm done.

Use it by all means. Someone else can add a Sr. adapter later easily enough.

Ok, we have an overlap right now, so I'm making an executive decision. @Jhawk1099 your mission has been eaten by space kraken sorry. Latest save is @Nich share savegame. I like the well documented shuttle mission, and since you have already contributed a module I feel confident you won't have too much trouble relaunching. Sorry about that. Feel free to send it back up. Cleared for next launch... Also my phone likes to insert random quotes apparently....

In the Grand Tours Contract pack there are a few "Land on Jool" contracts generated...

This ^^ It has gotten me more than once, even with hidden struts

He has it but he's pretty quick

Hmmm... @Mordecai_Ender one of the Gigantors and one of the thermal control systems are broken off in the save you uploaded. Docking mishap or Kraken strike. Challenge rules are that no parts of the space station are broken during the flight. Afraid I can't call that a completely successful mission. Do you want to try again, or let someone else pick it up here?

No worries, @Mordecai_Ender has the save right now, just post when you're ready to roll.

Just keep steering north and you stay in the center as you go down. Ignore the sickening whirling of the planet around your ship and the graphics glitches. That's totally normal.

Looks interesting, but I can't manage 3 hours of video Do you have clips or pics of the highlights? Got lost in the fastforwarding, but if you did what I think you did it's quite an impressive mission.

OK, 3 more attempts FIrst with a rolling mess of landing legs with no SAS or control of any kind. Made it most of the way, then somehow the probe inside the service bay smashed near the bottom. More trash on the heap. Next an ion probe with 1.07 TWR. Turns out not enough. Last, I made it to the bottom intact (and enough xenon and TWR to fly back out) with a modified ion probe.

OK, so that was a lot of fun. I build a heavy rover, cleverly named Droppy McDropFace, and drove it to the edge and dropped my little ball of fun. Then drove the rover off the cliff after it because reasons. Loooong way down, some exciting explosions, and came to rest at the very bottom. And some rover bits came tumbling after. While technically still pilotable, I think it would be safe to say that some bits broke off. I mean, most of the bits broke off. Many of them on purpose.

Updated OP, it's starting to look like a proper Kerbal station now! Next builder clear to launch.

What fun! So far 3 Kraken mission eaters, and one actual crash to desktop just trying to HE something nearby.

This is the hardest challenge I've ever completed.

Part 4 is up, the robotic flotilla has arrived, all orbits made with no casualties. Commsats and science landers in orbit and ready to deploy, all moons scanned for ore, and miners hard at work on Pol and Bop

Chapter 4 - Bouncing among the Moons The flotilla has arrived! All 10 main ships have made orbit around their chosen planets. I'm waiting to deploy my scansats for now, as 40 additional ships will likely melt my poor 1.05 and laptop. I managed to use gravicaptures on a few of the ships, and did standard Pe burns for the rest. My Tylo lander had less dV than the rest, so he ended up doing several Laythe and Tylo slingshots to catch Tylo at a nice place in its orbit. The communications probes I slung into polar orbits for now, to get my ore scanning taken care of. Still a ton of dV on those commsat ships, should be easy to place all the sats in equitorial and polar orbits with proper spacing. I used my new ore maps generated by the scanning to place the two miners on Bop and Pol. Here's an interesting twist: I burned from Kerbin to Jool with about 10 minute spacing from roughly the same orbit to roughly the same intercept with all 10 ships. Even ignoring the ion landers that had a messed up burn and arrived a month early, my spacing on Jool intercept was up to 22 days between some ships! Crazy how much time can shave off with a slight adjustment in LKO. My Bop miner arrived 43 days before my Pol miner, basically identical ships. The Bop miner had already filled its tanks and those of the refueling truck long before the next ship entered the system. Current status: 5 commsat ships in polar orbit around the 5 moons. Miners landed and working hard on Bop and Pol. Laythe planes and Vall NERVA lander in orbit of Laythe waiting to go SCIENCE! Ion landers orbiting Bop and Pol. 6 LFO landers strapped to a fuel tank in an eccentric orbit around Tylo, waiting for the go ahead to drop in on each biome. No additional funds have been spent. This album is 31 pics, kinda long, but there's a lot going on

Go ahead! OP is updated for now