Jetski

This is a problem on Gilly, the grav is so low that ships float off the surface in response to SAS or other slight impulses. Then you go to Tracking station, which sees a ship in an absurdly low suborbital trajectory, puts everything on rails and crashes the ship fatally into Gilly instantly.

This is also long before we settled on "Dragonfly" as the name for the mission, so it's just a Relocatable Lander. Anyway, thought you guys might get a kick out of this! - Jason W. Barnes Deputy Principal Investigator Dragonfly New Frontiers Proposal Yay! An official entry indeed. I'm super excited you posted this here @Jasonden. Cool mission! If you get a chance to look through the entries so far, I would love to hear any suggestions you might have for improving realism, or if you have any links or resources we can use to make this challenge more realistic. Thanks for taking the time to share with us! @zeta function great job on our first RSS entry! I wasn't able to open the imgur album but I watched the video - looks like it stops at the Titan entry sequence. I'll go through the scoring as soon as I can, but for now congrats and get the first non-Laythe badge from the OP!

That is a really cool craft. I admire your ambition

Great job so far everyone, some nice missions up on the board. I've caught up with postings, and we now have Badges! Get yours when you finish the mission, I made a separate one for Laythe vs. Titan using my terrible Paintshop skills. Enjoy!

Great job @foobar, well done bringing 4 dragonflies for less than 100 tons launch mass. I think the Tweakscaled thrust of those engines might be a little overpowered, as the real ones are supposed to stop and recharge between hops, but great mission. I'm on mobile now, but I'll put you on the board are have a badge later today My plan is to use gravity assist to get to Saturn, aerobrake in Titans atmosphere to get captured, and then drop the lander into the atmosphere. Deploy the drouge, then main. Right after main deployment drop the heat shield. When it gets close to the ground, seperate the top part that also has the parachutes and flip over. Then land. This is pretty close to the real mission. https://imgur.com/a/wkiR0 Can't wait to see it. For what it's worth, Titans atmosphere is very thick, and gravity very light, so you may not need too much parachute

Wow! fantastic job @FuzzyHead, I really like the use of the Spiders as lifting engines, and the refuel ability of the base station. Also great use of a folding antenna similar to the one in the mission profile. It's an excellent simulation working within the limits of the game. I'll post you on the board, and I'll try to have a badge up in the next few days. @zeta function I'm really looking forward to the first attempt that actually lands on Titan instead of Laythe. Go for it! Feel free to post in progress and testing pics, even if you aren't finished, to provide us all with inspiration and ideas.

Great job on the Laythe mission. Has anyone managed a NERVA Tylo lander?

Yes absolutely. Any mods are permitted, just note which you used.

I'm going to look into Firespitter and see if there's a way to make their resizable electric rotors close to actual weight. Maybe Firespitter+Tweakscale could work. As the actual craft is RTG powered, it would be closer

Thanks @sevenperforce, as you mentioned this has nothing to do with the SpaceX program or actual dragons. Please read the OP and/or check out the wiki I linked before going after technical details. I WANT you to go after me on technical details, as this is a real mission and we should try to get as close as possible within the game limitations. As i read it NASA is running a series of programs called New Frontiers that includes the OSIRIS-Rex mission (which was also super fun Challenge by @IonStorm). They just accepted 2 new proposals as finalists for further development and study, one of which is Dragonfly. Let's show how well we can do it with Kerbals On a related note, I've reached out to the Dragonfly website contact and see if they can share tech details or anything that we can use to make this challenge more realistic. Maybe an info kit or more specs! Wish me luck

Yes, that's only for realism and will only work with mods like Firespitter electric rotors. Feel free to make an LF powered quadcopter like I did for my Stock attempt. The only reason I mention RTGs is because the real ones will use them instead of solar due to the thick atmosphere on Titan. So better to just say no solar panels

Lol this looks like a fun mod set. I'm bad at planes, so I make no promises on the speed run, but I'll give it a shot. The visuals look nice

Updated main page, completed my mission

Looking good! Clever use of the antennas as landing skids, I may try that. Can't wait to see the mission. I'm playing now with a 4-blade copter using Firespitter, but the copter is going to be BIG.

Anyone manage to get this working in 1.3? For me the rotors don't spin or create lift

Dragonfly mission to the ocean moon Titan Your mission is to create as realistically as possible the upcoming proposed Dragonfly mission to Titan, the ocean moon of Saturn. You can read about it here, its really cool. Basically, you have to fly to Titan (Laythe if playing stock), and set up a self sustaining base with explorer quadcopters that can go out and take samples and readings, then return to the main base. Categories are full Stock (visual and info mods only, nothing that modifies parts or physics in any way) or Modded ( I recommend Firespitter for excellent rotors, although your quadcopters will be large) as much as you like. Basically your job is to recreate the mission as close to real life as possible, either in Stock or Modded. I'll accept pretty much any entry, but if you need rules, then the rules are as follows: You must fly the mission, no cheats of any kind, although quicksave/quickload may be used as needed. Be careful loading/saving too much in atmo, parts can do strange things especially offsets You must leave Earth/Kerbin, fly to Saturn/Jool. Next you must make an entry with a heat shield and parachutes to Titan/Laythe, land and set up your base. Your base must be self-sustaining - if playing stock this will require an ISRU to allow multiple quadcopter missions. Your exploration vehicles must be VTOL, preferably as close to a quadcopter as you can make it. You may use jets or rockets since there aren't working electrical props in stock. They must be powered by RTG (like in real life). They must be able to fly 10-100km, take a sample, and return with it. There should be at least a conceptual way to refuel them, although I won't require a demo if the piloting is insane (landing on a docking port, etc). Lots of pictures! We are recreating a real mission, make it look cool!!! Scoring may evolve as new entries come in, since I likely haven't thought of everything, but for now it's as follows: Quadcopter points: Real Weight: 100 points if close to 450kg, subtract points for anything over (10 points/ton) Honest Quad: 25 points if 4 engines VTOL Real Science: 25 points if you recreate sample collection and analysis, seismological studies, meteorological monitoring, and local microscopic imaging using LED illuminators Reusable: 50 points if you show a full round trip copter sampling mission, and are prepped for another More Copters!: 25 points for each additional quadcopter up to total of 4 Mission points: Low Mass: 100 points if launch mass is under 100 tons, subtract 10 points for each 50 tons over weight. Orbital Genius: 25 points for each clever maneuver - aerobraking, gravity slingshots, anything that lowers dV and looks cool. Phone Home: 10 points per relay set up in system for a max of 30 points, it's nice to be able to call home. I will also award an arbitrary number of points for general realism, including but not limited to: Using Real Solar System Accurate models of rockets Making the spacecraft look and function as realistically as possible Finding something cool about the mission that I don't know about, and including it. Have fun! If you are ready to get technical, Here is more detail in a pdf

This mod doesn't appear to work with a Linux install running Galileo's Planet Pack. Everything loads fine, but when I hit Activate Engine the bubble is black and the ship doesn't move. Plenty of electricity, Exotic Matter, and well outside of gravity wells. Both AM and Vel modes. screenshot

Got a graphics weirdness, when I get knocked out of warp by a gravity well the ship remains weird and stretched out graphically. Running Linux, and playing with this and Galileo's Planet Pack.

Nice to see this one back. It's a fun challenge, and it was neat to see what everyone came up with

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/news-articles/riding-the-slingshot-to-bennu-news Earth flyby! Bennu probe in the news!

Team: US Mission: Orbital Satellite Mission pics Just a quick rocket, probe core with a battery clipped in, no staging (big $$$ saver) Initial funds: 250,000 Funds used: 1375 Funds remaining: 248625 In other news, I've played through mission 8 (not going to post here because teams) and I don't think the funds are going to be an issue. Even with no reusing any ships (e.g. not using my Orbital Probe to visit the Mun - new mission every time) I've spent less than 30k total. The same probe design can fly by, impact, and orbit the Mun - I've got one that can do it for 2301 funds/launch. Docking was a really fun project for minimum funds, my margins were razor thin.

Sorry guys got hung up on IRL stuff, and download of 1.31 took too long. I can't get to US Mission today, somebody else can go, and I'll catch a later mission.

Beginning Mission #1, team US

That is a seriously cool recovery vehicle, nice job @Cunjo Carl

Made it to The Atlas (old Kerbin) and drove a rover to the nearest lake for some extra science. I have an EPL base going but haven't researched Ore mining yet so the crew is trapped on the surface until I can make fuel. But I can build labs and rovers!