Ziv

Norcalplanner: Congratulations, you have finished a JOOL-5 Kethane Expedition! This is nice that you named the ships after Milne's characters. And I love your flag! That was a good idea that you can change the cargo on the lander so it can bring fuel to the main ship, or bring the science module. That was funny that you went back to Tylo and landed once again - I think nobody did that before! And good job with the scanner probes and the remaining orbital bases too. Maybe the only downside of the mission was the need for many refueling trips, wasn't? That was a thorough Kethane Expedition, well done!

can you please share pictures about the plane itself? We can't really see it on those dark pictures...

yeah, counting the right amount of money for building and maintaining (refueling missions), and also for the different ships used and the dropped parts, fuel used, etc. can be really complex. So I understand if you would skip that part and look at only at the fuel used (or parts dropped, maybe). That makes sense. By the way I already designed an SSTO with seats and ion engines too. This is funny because it seems like about 5000-8000 xenon will be used (and 150 fuel for the jet), and xenon is more expensive than normal fuel, so maybe xenon will be a very expensive version. We will see! So, if all the structures are free to deploy then I have some good idea... But PLEASE ban the command seats at least for the interplanetary journeys because otherwise it will be a "who is patient enough to put 50-100 Kerbals into seats which will weight still only 5-10 tons"...

OMG Cmdr.Arn1e... I'm checking your mission but I got lost in the ship variants, launches, refuelings, Tylo lander sending after the main ship (???), etc... and I have the same problem with you as it was with JayKay: I didn't see pictures about the launching/docking of the main ship. But for now the main question: what was that Tylo lander change during the mission? You started with this one and this was on your ship until starting the Tylo landing: then there was that one (on the left) with medium boosters (what? how? when?) and there is this new, more bigger one on the right side from nowhere, and you used this one for the landing:

Awesome, welcome to the JOOL-5 Hall of Fame!

this is the link in your Signature so change it if you want people to start with the first post!

JayKay, Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 2 with landing two Kerbals on all the moons! (it could be a Jebediah's Level if you'd have brought a science module onto Tylo too!) Thanks for the additional pictures, now I need only one important thing: launches. People looking at the missions would know how you launched all the stuff up there and how many launches were used, so please upload pictures about your lifters too! It seems like you wanted to go with a nice big mission with a lot of feature which is not in the requirements or the rules, that's cool! Probes, Cupola, additonal Kerbals and habitat modules, and so... I really liked that you sent many probes around, most of the missions didn't have any probes or rovers. I especially liked the MechJeb probes, and I realized that I have never tried them! Your solution for more science with the double Mk1s is good idea! And the ladder solution is really unique! That's strange that you used those little orange radial engines for your tug because they are not really fuel efficient... but using the lander's engines solved it. And yeah, putting the main RCS fuel tank there was a mistake too. But no worries, I didn't see too much JOOL-5 mission without turning out some problem or planning error. Sending the second transfer stage for the Vall lander after it was short on fuel on Laythe was a nice save! But what I don't understand why most of the people leaves the main ship around one of the moons... Getting back to Laythe (or any other moon) takes much more deltaV than just get back to the mothership in orbit between say Vall and Tylo... I saw Tylo caused some trouble but you managed it. Nice one. By the way this is why I love the Jool-5 mission: it's very-very hard but there's usually a lot of module at the end and replanning is possible during the mission (and there is the possible refueling as a last opportunity:P). The little additional "stages" on the lander's top with the sepratons looks funny! And I really loved that you were bringing Habitat modules to Tylo and Laythe (and I'm sorry that you had to drop the Tylo one). On Laythe it looked very good and with the background it was picturesque. At the end you didn't land the original Lab but I accept the solution that you sent up an other one and packed the science over... and it's not a Jebediah's Level so it's not in the rules for the other levels anyway. At overall, this was a really nice and complex mission with some new or interesting solutions. Thank you for your entry! Please let me know when you uploaded pictures about the launches too and then I will post this mission into the Hall of Fame!

Yeah, unfortunately I already had to disqualify some entries because of cheating (Hyperedit fuel refilling or simple teleporting) or because missing some rules. Maybe I should update the first page to draw attention to include pictures AND data of all the important steps. Thanks for the update, looks perfect, I'm going to write the review!

Sure! Cmrd.Arn1e: I'll check your mission soon, is it here, right?

JayKay, that looks like a nice mission and I already started to write the review of that but I realized that you left your main ship around Laythe in a highly eccentric orbit (and maybe with notable inclination) and to go back there refueling is really hard and needs a lot of DeltaV so I would need pictures about all the going-backs and dockings with deltaV and fuel stats at every important stage of the mission (leaving the main ship, when landed, and when arriving back to the mothership) and so I can track how much dV you used and how much fuel you used from the main ship and so... this is especially important because you started your Tylo landing too from Laythe's orbit! That adds to the already big amount of dV requirements! I'm sorry for asking these but I have to see if the mission was really possible with the given amount of fuel and the deltaV's of th ships, landers, tugs were enough.

One more important question: is the command seat allowed and if yes then where? Kerbin to orbit, interplanetary journeys, from Laythe orbit to surface and/or back, back to Kerbin? I'm also strongly suggesting including the ships/stations price somehow because otherwise this will be only a lowest fuel/Kerbal challenge. Optimizing the ship's prices is more challenging!

Thanks guys!! Yeah, I think it was 370 parts on the launchpad! Thanks for the gush!! Yeah, I think I had some inspiration from your ion lander too (...yeah, it looks similar!). I started to design my Low-mass mission in March with the same idea (one ion lander/drive) and I was at about less than 8 tons already then chicknblender posted his 5.822 tons entry which looked unbeatable to me (except lithobraking instead of parachute at the end, but doing the same without parachute wouldn't be elegant). so I had to find a new goal for myself, so came the idea to make most of the additional landings under 10 tons... and what I really liked about your lander design is that the solar panels are parallel so if you are on an equatorial orbit/landing (as you are 99% of the time) then they can turn to the sun at max efficiency and without blocking each other. So I used the same technique. I decided that 6 panels are enough and a lot of batteries can hold the maximum thrust when the panels are not at 100%. In fact, I had about 300 m/s on the dark side too from the batteries. And my mission plan was to skip Eve and Duna, because I have made some experimental landing attempt at Duna and it seemed impossible. But during the fuel planning I always added 10-20% to the steps, just to be sure. And when I arrived to Duna I have decided that I have enough fuel to get back to the spare fuel at Kerbin after a Duna landing too... so I made about 15-20 landing attempt until I found the best initial fuel amount because too much made the lander too heavy and unable to slow before touchdown, too little made the landing sure but getting back to the ship impossible... I also had to find the best trajectory which use the most of the fine aerobraking in the atmosphere and the best vertical decent speed which can be stopped just at the peak of the mountain. It was big fun and a huge achievement at last when I was able to get back to orbit and also to dock with the main pod again!!! This meant that I can call this mission an almost Grand Tour! And yeah, I enjoyed building the initial pictures for the mission too... there is an "easter egg" in them too Yess, as always! Thanks!

I really love the idea and might give it a go when I'll have enough time. My thoughts were: 1. The cost of building and launching the permanent infrastructures should be displayed. It can help a lot if you can send up a lot of stuff for free. Or this could be the hard version. This also will mean how much money does the company have to borrow to start the service. And how soon will it be profitable. 2. All the Kerbals can be passengers and the ship would be autonomous? I would love to have a "pilot" Kerbal too, for unforeseen happenings... But this would affect the cost too.

I'm sorry but this is CORRUPTION! This is not accepted in the United States of Kebarika. But I suggest this is possible in Krussian Aerospace...

Hehe, it was only at the beginning, when getting to Laythe. There I dumped the Laythe lander, and next time I got rid of the Tylo lander too. Then the ship became less than 2 tons which was fast enough. With 4x time warp (ALT+timewarp button) all the burning was very quick. The Moho injection was about 2000 m/s which was maybe 20 minutes, 5 minutes with 4x warp. So it was not bad at all. Only problem was that I had to stay on the sunny side of a planet to make the bigger burns and the landings (my batteries were enough for a 300 m/s burn).

I have made a JOOL-5 Low-mass entry with an additional grand tour with landing on all the bodies except Eve. The ship was under 10 tons on the launch pad and less than 6 tons in space. It had only one ion engine as the lander's engine and the main drive too. Click on the picture for the mission details:

I have made a little cartoon-like intro for my Low-mass JOOL-5 Challenge entry. I have landed with a less than 10 tons vehicle on all the planets and moons, except Eve. With ion drive on most of them! Click on the picture for the full story:

. I have finished my JOOL-5 Low Mass Challenge entry with a less than 10 tons ship (9.983 tons) with an Ion Lander and landed on every body except Eve, so this is almost a Grand Tour. The TWR of the ship was 1.03 at Moho and 0.97 at Duna. Yes, it is possible to land with a lower-than-one TWR, at the highest peak! here is the link to the mission

MiniMatt: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 on Jebediah's Level! Wow, that's a really odd looking lander! The sole solar panel on top of the plane looks funny! And using that part for all the landing is really ... unique. I liked as you checked the ladder alignement, nice foreseeing one! Yeah, I thought the ion tug will be a bad idea for the large Tylo lander... it was just enough for the Laythe one too. I experimented a lot with ion before my big Low-mass almost Grand Tour mission so I knew this will coming. I warned you! And that was a nice solution after Tylo as you redocked the lander in parts... That was a funny (and drunken) mission and a well written mission log, well done! Thank you for participating!

Ziv: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Low-mass Challenge with 9.983 tons and with landing on Eeloo, Dres, Duna, Ike, Mun, Gilly, Moho and Minmus too, and with collecting 26213.8 science points! Well done! Yeah, Ziv, thanks a lot! This challenge was awesome!

Okay, here is my Low-mass entry with a 9.983 tons ship which also made an almost Grand Tour with landing on all the other bodies too, except Eve. Yes, on Duna and on Moho too! With an ion lander which had only 0.97 TWR at Duna! Here's the full story...: --- all the images of the mission: (http://imgur.com/a/Oevfg#6)

1. putting an RTG laying half into a tank or something is okay. What is absolutely against the rule is to clip tanks, engines and pods into each other. So the main thing that the ship should have the same volume as the parts all together. So minor clipping for aesthetics is okay. 2. good question! I have added points for remaining in orbit, which is less than if landed. 3. hmm, it's not against the rule but I think it's not elegant. And too dangerous! 4. hehe, no... the low-mass challenge is about optimizing the ship at the extremes for low mass. People scanning that section will look for low-mass solutions. But I think an Expedition Style entry is absolutely a really nice shiny glory already!

DeepSpaceDutch: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 2! Hahh, that's an odd-looking and really simple lander! I actually like it. And I see you went on the simplicity way everywhere: mothership+lander, and getting into orbit everywhere. Good idea with the staging on Tylo. I liked the funny comments too, I hope you finish commenting all the pictures!

I'm happy to hear that, that was my intention with this Challenge! Welcome on board! Maybe I suggest you to change your tug from ion to nuke otherwise it will be VERY slow. If you want to use it for Tylo too then it will almost don't move the ship at all. Did you test it with the landers on it?

5thHorseman: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge! Yeah, changing the main ship disqualified you from the main levels, but I will link this mission to the Mixed Solutions. I liked your Laythe lander, looked chaotic. Hm, but I think the high eccentric orbit for the main ship is not a good idea, it's just not safe. Also, you had to spend more dV to get from the moons back to the ship. And wow, you had a lot of parts and a lot of docking! Nice job, thank you for participating!