Nefrums

is the Taurus HCV mod really allowed? The 3.5 m nuke is seriously overpowered, better isp and more than twice the twr of the normal nerv.

Just realized that I forgot to add the second pair of droptanks to my Vall lander. They where supposed to add another 1300 m/s dV that was needed to go from a high elliptic orbit and back again. My mother ship does not have the 1300 extra m/s dV to drop of the lander in low Vall orbit.

The problem with your plane is that it is that all the engines are to far back. In the SPH check your CoL and CoM. I guess you know the basics of that CoL should be behind CoM. Now in the SPH simulate what happens when you spend your fuel by decreasing the LF in all your fuel tanks, and look how that affects CoM vs CoL. I suspect that your CoM moves behind CoL as your fuel drains. And that this is what is causing you plane to suddenly become unstable. Don't use radiators on your plane they add alot of drag, if you overheat try using a steeper acsent profile. Have you tried using the Smart A.S.S from MechJeb? It makes flying space planes much easier. In regards to your computer not being able to handle the ship. This is due to to large part count. Try using fewer and bigger parts. Mods help alot. Try the quad nuke, it is identical in mass/performance with 4 regular nukes but each saves you 4 parts (one engine instead of 4 + 1 adapter).

Unfortunately it is not. But it turns out that that was not a problem, 7x 5m cores in asparagus config followed by 4 of the large 3.5m nukes got the complete ship into orbit. In orbit, the three outer nukes tanks are almost spent but the center one is full and will get the ship to Jool! And it will only take 5266 m/s dV and 6 years...

We'll see, It would not be a problem to put a 1000t ship in orbit on one go on stock Kerbin, but the dV to get to LKO is ~7500 m/s with Kscale64.

Yes, I think that I have to do that. It would be very hard to lift the whole thing in one go, even with the 5m boosters parts from spaceY. Initial plan is to launch landers and return craft in one go and then the transfer engine section. I might even have to launch them unfueled. .

Thanks. It saves a bit of weight and as a Bop lander only requires ~1500 m/s dV it was very easy to do. Every ton counts when you have the insane dV requirements to transport it. The mother-ship alone will need 8500 m/s dV (+7500m/s dV to get to LKO), and that when dragging 60t worth of landers most of the way.

I have done some estimates of dV requirements for the mothership based on my previous jool5 missions. LKO -> Laythe 5000 Laythe -> Tylo 100 Tylo -> Vall 100 Vall -> Pol 900 Pol -> Bop 800 Bop -> Kerbin 1500 This is including extensive use of gravity assists within Jool SoI, but includes a direct Kerbin -> Jool transfer. The dV requirement for LKO -> Laythe can be cut in half if I can figure out a way to fly the K->E->K->K->J route in the scaled up kerbin system

I have now designed a simple small two stage lander for Vall, the upper stage will be reused for Bob and Pol. I went back and did some changes to the tylo lander in order to make it shorter to make mother-ship design easier:

I have created a thread in the mission reports section: Jool 5 on a bigger scale

It was a long time since I posted a mission report here, but this will be my most complex mission to date so I thought that it deserved it's on thread. The Ultimate Jool 5 Challenge with KScale64 KScale64 is a mod that increases the size of the Kerbol system by x6.4. All planets have 6.4 times the radius and ~41 times the mass. So surface gravity remained unchanged. This is closer to our real solar system that is 10 times bigger (100 times the mass) than the default Kerbol system. The main challenge here is the effect this has on dV requirements, they are ~2.5 times larger. For instance geting to LKO is closer to 8000 m/s dV rather than the standard 3000 m/s dV. I will be using any part mod allowed by The Ultimate Jool 5 Challenge. To do list: Design a Tylo lander ~13 000 m/s dV Done Design a Laythe lander Done Design a Vall Lander with a reusable last stage ~ 5000 dV Done Design Kerbal return stage Done Estimate mothership dV requirements. Done Design mothership for transfers within Jool Done Design a LKO escape stage for mothership ~5000 dV Done Figure out how to get the ship to LKO Done Fly the mission Ongoing Album of the ongoing mission: http://imgur.com/a/BiSNM Tylo Lander: Can land and return to orbit with a little help from EVA. Also included is a nuclear stage with 2100 dV to get from high elliptic orbit to low Tylo orbit, and a small return craft with simmilar dV to get back up to the mother ship. Laythe lander: Reentry on Laythe is harder when orbital velocity is close to 6000 m/s. But this is handled by the inflatable heat shield that also acts a flotation device. The last two stages are the same as on the Tylo lander. It has enough dV to get to a high elliptical orbit of Laythe where the mothership will be parked.

@sdj64 I have installed almost all of the part mods on the allowed list. But I don't plan on using ISRU. Laythe lander is done now, the inflatable heatshild is really good.

As I have run out of fun things to do in KSP I have started design on another Jool 5 mission. I will be using KScale64 Planets have 6.4 times bigger radius and ~41 times the mass => surface gravity is the same. This makes things "a bit" harder... dV requirements will be through the roof. (about 2.5 times more than normal) I have successfully tested a ~13km/s dV Tylo lander but Laythe is troublesome, Just surviving reentry is provning very difficult and then I need around 10km/s dV to get from Laythe surface to a mothership in high elliptical orbit.

Any part surface attached to the part in front or behind the cargo bay will not be considered as "inside" the cargo bay by the game. Even if it is surface attached to the side facing the cargo bay, and hence visually inside the cargo bay. Attach the trusters to a part node attached to the node inside the cargo bay.

Well done! I like the modular design. Lots of flexibility in that. It is also nice to see a mission with chemical engins only. You should keep the resource window open in your screen shots of the landings, it makes validating the mission easier. But all your landers look feasible.

Have anyone tried doing this mission with a scaled up Kerbol system? Like KScale2 or the even bigger versions.

so by burning 2H+O that turns it to H2O (water) you get more energy out then the energy you put in to separate the H2O into 2H+O, logical and absolutely not violating any of the most basic physical laws at all....

Looking at the technology involved this looks like most feasible high isp engine suggestion I have seen to date. It requires about the same amount of electric power than is generated on ISS, radiation is negligible, no need for extensive heat radiators. Thrust is low enough that pulsing is not to big of a problem but high enough to get some use of the oberth effect. It is also small enough that it could be launched to orbit on net gen rockets (SLS etc.)

I did a quick try, I did not really test the parts beforehand so the third Kerbin landing was a bit difficult, I had the landing gears to close together and had to quickload like 20 times... I also brought to much fuel, so I did a extra mun landing between the second and third Kerbin ascent. http://imgur.com/a/PmzUr

should not be that hard, 4 kerbin ascents have been done with a SSTO.

Here you go a quick spaceY variant: http://imgur.com/a/L8sDu 661 funds/t

Well this is just taking the biggest engine and tanks and se how much it can lift to orbit. This one had 140 dV left in orbit and still score 15,2 p.

I ran out of flags after the second mun landing, no pod to resuply in. The second aerobrake is all about shielding the kerbal with the tank. As long as your ship has high drag/mass ratio you are safe. I used the command pod as a kerbal in a chair within a fairing will still overheat at ~1.3km/s, for reasons...

this was a fun challenge! not sure how this scores, but I think it is 1,8M points Full album: http://imgur.com/a/j1FzD

It should be possible to do an orbit jool 5, I might try that.