Ziv

I'm curious how you will get the landing maneuver done with ions, especially in a 20 meters radius! I had some hard time with normal rockets too, so had to do some F9 before hitting the island anyway. I'm done with my mission, it was pretty fun, the Kerbals went really stupid on the surface before they had been evacuated! I will post the pictures soon! ps: I don't know ho to make videos, sorry... :/

Ups, I corrected the 1st, 2st, 3st, thank you. Wow, I see you got rid of most of your engines!

Still nobody? Too hard mission? Let me give you some hints: - One Kethane tank and lot of Kethane Jets... you will be okay up to 35km with that! Most of thickest atmosphere and you will have some initial speed. But I suggest to keep ascending straight up until about 50km... - Command Seats can be used too - Automated vehicle is okay too, you don't have to send Kerbals - Be sure you have a proper ladder from the surface to the can/seat!

700NitroXpress: Cool, welcome aboard and good luck! Wow, I see you love the Asparagus staging! I guess your landers have a tremendous amount of delta-V! Did you check it somehow? And how many is the part count for the ship at the beginning?

Hehe, I see you have problems with launching stuff from Kerbin to space. Do you know how to dock in space? Because that way you could build your main ship in more than one launch... or you might use NovaPunch, there are some really big and strong fuel+engines there. Or you can make this Minmus base and launchpad if you want. I like that how many ideas you come up for this very hard mission! For me this is not a challenge with strict rules to find the optimal solution (you will need the optimization of your ship within your idea anyway!) but to think about different ways to achieve the same thing... but I will add distinctions and more details on the leaderboard soon!

700NitroXpress: Yes, you are absolutely right! I was thinking about this yesterday already... it turned out that not only the Level 1-2-3-Jeb is the difference but the number of launches, refuelings, number of landers / lander modules, etc... and I want to collect the mission informations for the different achieved missions and add them after the names with links to the posts so they would be easily find and see. Maybe I will do that today!

Jebediah's lone JOOL-5 mission continues! -> After the landing on Laythe, the next moon is Vall: this little lander has a tremendous amount of Delta-V (4648 m/s) and a surface TWR from 10 to 23 (on Vall, depending on fuel amount) so landing on Vall was pretty easy. Jebediah was unlucky and landed at a very flat and boring surface: getting back to orbit. Jebediah enjoys the beauty of the icy mountains... (and still has 1800 m/s for getting back to the main ship) Jeb is very excited about Tylo so he quickly progress there: Landing and getting back from Tylo is very hard and from a 50km orbit it needs at least 5500-6000 m/s and that's more what this small (but otherwise remarkable) lander is capable for. So here comes the Tylo additional module with more fuel+engines and wider landing gears...: Three of the additional fuel tank were already emptied and dropped. This way the main lander engines can work too, increasing the TWR and so the fuel efficiency...: (the little lander was not perfectly aligned with the additional module but that wasn't a problem) MAYDAY, MAYDAY, JEBEDIAH IS IN TROUBLE! The fuel in the Tylo module already run out at 10km! The engines stopped and they are now just dead weight! The wide and strong landing gears would be good for the landing but this way this would take much more very precious fuel! Jebediah makes a quick decision and drop them too...: There would be an additional fuel tank for helping the ascending back to orbit but now that's used for the landing... but that one too runs out of fuel at 4km and was dropped too: ...aaand the touchdown! It was sure that this will happen with the smaller lander too (with more than 3.8 TWR) but will the fuel be enough for a return??? Jebediah: What a huge, barren, dead piece of ... rock this planet is. Whose idea was to come here??? Oh, it was me. Anyway, this landing was one of the biggest challenge in my life! Now let's prepare for the next one: getting away from here! The best way to get away from Tylo is to turn immediately to east after launch and keep the direction of moving (the yellow hollow sign on the navigator ball) just slightly above the horizon...: ....aaand back in orbit! 73x33 km but that's a stable orbit so no danger anymore. And the little lander still has 1331 m/s! It was 3826 m/s on the surface so it took 2500 m/s to reach this low orbit. Jebediah is truly glad and cheerful! The main ship stayed in a high eccentric orbit so it can leave Tylo at apoapsis easily. The changing in orbit costs 757 m/s for Jebediah so that's great that he still has a lot of deltaV in the lander... And here he is back after the sucesful Tylo landing! Only some drops of fuel left... that was close! Jebediah is thinking about the next two small moon... they will be pretty easy with this agile little lander. Maybe he will do them in one go...! The full story: http://imgur.com/a/1EWoP#0

Vaebn: great job and good comments for the pictures! I love the simplicity of your (universal) ship. That's nice that both of the Kerbals have their own big and comfortable room for the long travels! Yeah, the drawback of this is the hard to achieve and long trans-planetary burns, and to move a huge lander with empty tanks at most of the worlds. It was especially funny to see the landing at Pol with the "almost empty" fuel tanks! Hm, maybe you should consider making the ship in three stages instead of two: lander, lander-additional or moon-orbit module, and the fuel section. This way at bigger bodies you can use the lander+additional module together for landing, and for smaller worlds (like Bop, Pol and maybe Vall) you can left the fuel in Jool orbit and bring the lander to the moon with the (this way) moon-orbit module and back to the fuel section when the lander returned. This way you don't have to move the heavy fuel into orbit around each moon. Flag of happiness. Hehe, that's cool if there is a "Repair leg" option on EVA, I didn't know that! And I really like the small "rescue engines" on the big fuel tanks if the lander get stranded without fuel somewhere close! Your Tylo ascent was exciting too! And that's cool that you didn't need refueling (but given the nukes and 7 orange tanks that's not a big surprise). But I'm sorry, you didn't make the challenge because your Kerbals didn't arrive back to the surface of Kerbin.... just kidding! Pretty cool stuff, thanks for participating! Now you earned the possibility to add the JOOL-5 badge to your pofile signature at the bottom (and this one goes to all other buddies here too who achieved this challenge!): Settings (top right) -> Edit Signature (left menu) -> add this text and delete the spaces after all the '[': [ URL=http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57197-THE-ULTIMATE-JOOL-5-CHALLENGE-land-Kerbals-on-all-moons-and-return-in-one-big-misson][img ]http://i.imgur.com/Z5hSyCv.png

Mesklin: Hm, if I would saw your lander for Tylo in the hangar I would say it's not capable to land there because the high mass (two nuke = 4.5 tons, two mk1 = 1.2 tons, +fuel and science with 120 Thrust only) so, nice job! Now you only need a refueling mission to bring the crew back safely and you accomplished the JOOL-5 mission! mcirish3: oh yeah, the joint reinforcement mod, of course. Yeah, I was thinking at your Laythe landing pictures that you had to need a reasonably flat surface... and don't worry about the need for refuel, I was not even able to get back to orbit in my first mission and the Moon-orbit Module had to catch the lander. You made it back to orbit at least and a very close orbit to the main ship! "I am not to proud of that part since I was not very efficient in my fuel usage on the refueling ship as I should have been. I should have had twice as much fuel as I do." - Or you should lower the mass as it is in Jebediah's lone JOOL-5 mission. Respect for making the mission(s) without MechJeb or any other information giving mod!

mcirish3: Wow, those clouds look beautiful! I should use this mod too! And the aerobraking looks dangerous with this huge ship... wasn't it wobbling too much? Congrats for the first landing! I saw you run out of fuel... so the main ship will go and catch it? Hm, and you don't use MechJeb?? That's much harder that way! Respect!

So, you will de-orbit with an Ion-drive to make a precise landing within 20m to the target!? Wow... My new mission is on the way to Jool now. I used only normal engines (no ion) and it is a rover with Kethane mining/converting ability to fill the tank of the ship stranded there... (I hope it can make it back )

Something like this but it is colorful now: http://i.imgur.com/yN97tLb.jpg but okay, it's too close to a nuke so I won't use it. Nice job with programming MechJeb... I never used that other than Maneuver Planning... rarely I let it do the burning too.

hm, in NovaPunch there is a little engine what would be perfect for me: Power: 75 Isp at sea/space: 220/800 Mass: 2.5 The nukes are like this: Power: 60 Isp: 220/800 Mass: 2.25 So I guess this NovaPunch engine is too close to the nukes...

Rule: You can use mods as long as they are "balanced". Is NovaPunch balanced?

Yeah, cool! I'm working on my normal entry too with Kethane mining. Wow codepoet, going to Laythe with only an Ion driven ship will take some time! And do you have a liquid fuel attached to the converter to convert Kethane into Fuel/Oxidizer? And what if you land very far from them? And where is your winch to connect to the ship?

Hi, I have made an experimental ship and sent it to Laythe as testing but it turned out to be enough for Rescuing the Crew! The ship was 299 tons on the Launch Pad, I used only stock parts and MechJeb (half way because it was on the lander and I dropped them on Laythe ). The return was a typical aerobrake because it was before your message about the need to land back to KSC... maybe next time. And there was a guy called Doodvan Kerman who was sleeping in one of the MK1s when the automated ship launched so he accidentaly went on the trip. There was not enough space for him at the return so he stayed in Laythe orbit (until an other rescue mission brings him back to Kerbin...) The ship on the LaunchPad: the ship which went to Laythe: at Laythe I refueled first because I already used some fuel from the lander too. Backway the ship used less fuel because the lander was dropped. Landing in the Island: Saving the Crew: Liftoff and dropping the used tanks with the wheels and parachutes (fuel was used while deorbiting) Crew transfer to the Rescue Ship Doodvan Kerman jumps into space and stays in Laythe Orbit Leaving Jool (without MechJeb already): Arriving back at Kerbin: And... splash down! They are rescued! the full story: http://imgur.com/a/sK5C4

Mesklin: so it turned out that your lander is not enough for Tylo? Or if it's only the fuel then you can send a refueling ship, no?

Wow Blue, what an impressive huge plan! And your Tylo-Laythe Lander is the bigger lander I've ever seen! And the Tylo rover lander makes me curious too! Will these ships go separately to the system?

SSSputnik: Wow, those are huge landers! Nice looking ship, I'm curious how it will work! Keep us updated! Mesklin: Oops! Did you use lithobraking on purpose? Because that's not a bad idea if you left behind unnecessary weight and have engine for going back to the Expedition Ship... (which looks pretty cool! Compact and compex at the same time!) ...which moons have you landed yet?

WOW, I like this inflatable living section, WITH the darts! And all the other parts look great! I'm planning an interplanetary Kethane mission and will definitely use this one! Awesome work, keep it up, I will check this topic regularly!

My thoughts and questions: 1, are there Kethane under the Kerbals at Laythe? 2, "Leaving operational kethane refinery on surface of Laythe: 2t bonus" - an operational refinery would be (at least!) 2-3t but the scores are for launchpad weight, and to send 2-3 tons to Laythe may cost about 30-60t of lifting rockets from Kerbin and fuel... no? 3, "To qualify as an entry, get Bill, Bob and Jeb back to the KSP launch pad - a picture of them standing on the top of it will suffice along with pictures / video and description of how you did it." - Is it okay if I land close to the KSP launch pad and a rover goes out for them?

Nice, I like this Challenge and I started to think about the solution! Did you see my Eve Rescue Mission? Give it a try if you like it.

Hi Tyrador, Thank you for the feedback, I'm going to clarify the challenge more! You have to build your own Rescue Ship. The ship on the base is just a weak Kethane "jet-rocket", maybe for trying the Kethane engine on the spot... or bringing Jebediah to the rescue ship with that. It's up to you. If it's hard or not that depends on one's experiences. But returning from Eve is never easy!

Did you try to load it or you just say? Because I designed the base by trying to keep the parts count down... My computer doesn't have any problem with the base. And by the way you will "use" the base only when you save out Jebediah... I checked the part counts for the Base: - Main Mining Tower: 56 parts - Main Living Building: 31 parts - Rover: 19 parts - Weak Rescue Rocket: 17 parts - Science Unit: 14 parts - Small Mining Towers: 3 x 11 parts --------------------------------- ALL TOGETHER: 170 parts Maybe that's not so much...!

I see there's not too much contender yet. I have made this mission by one launch, without refueling (not even at Eve), pointed the whole ship at the Mining Base on a very steep curve (so it's easier to land close), and came back without docking back to any kind of ship or engines. I used only the last stage of the Rescue Vehicle for returning to Kerbin. Yes, this is definitely possible! I used MechJeb (for informations and maneuver planning only), NovaPunch and KAS beside the Kethane mod.