Ziv

I have managed the Bop landing too. On the way back to orbit I noticed something strange in the dark... Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/ZCaAu#96

Yeah, hopefully they will make a big optimalisation so huge interplanetary ships won't be a problem anymore!

I have made it! I LANDED ON TYLO!!! I had to make an other refueling mission sent from Kerbin but there's plenty of fuel on the Mothership now, hopefully for all the remaining misison! Experiences: 1, get to as low orbit as possible (around 45km) with the Moon-orbit Module (using such a thing makes a successful landing more possible) 2, don't brake too big at high altitude and land vertically... you would spend many times more fuel fighting the huge gravity during descent. Just make a little de-orbit burn and brake long on low altitude. Don't worry, there's no atmosphere so you always will follow the path. Always be sure that your "you are going this direction" sign on your navigation ball is slightly above the ground. If your surface speed closes to zero at about 100m altitude then you are good for a landing! 3, use a stage just to deorbit and for braking and low altitude 4, make sure you have some strong rocket for starting back from the ground 5, you don't need to go up high and turn into orbit, in fact, it's better if you start rolling to East (gravity roll) immediately after starting from the surface. Just be sure you are always slightly going up, too. 6, Tiny, light ascent stage with little engines but lot of fuel will do all the way back the orbit here are the pictures: http://imgur.com/a/ZCaAu#66 I think after achieving this key landing, this mission can be a success!

mcirish3: Ahh, I'm sorry to hear you quit now. I hope you will try it again other time! BTW the KSP's code should be optimized because 1000 parts should not be a problem on these computers! Hope to see you again soon!

I have finished my Vall landing too! I added them to my JOOL-5 Grand Tour album:

Nice challenge, I'm in!

Oh. So, let's see... my stats: Mothership + Engines: 163 part, 210t Moon-orbit Module: 26 parts, 12t Lander: 59 parts, 21t All together: 248 parts and 243t! Wohoo, my "lowest number of possible parts optimalization" worked very well, as it turns out! That's why I enjoy full framerate at dockings!

Oh, I see. Yeah, my PC start to lag at about 600+ parts... how do you check the part numbers during the flight?

I have made a scale picture about the SOI of the main moons, because I wanted to see which orbit is safe for the Mothership....

So, I have gone to Jool, and made my first landing on Laythe. Experiences: 1, I put my Mothership into a parking orbit between Laythe and Vall, and used a Moon-orbit Module to bring the Landing Module down to orbit and back to the Mothership. Changing orbit for Laythe intercept is about 300m/s, braking to orbit and getting back to the Mothership is 2 x 500m/s, landing is very cheap (parachutes), getting back works with jets and after 7100m with rockets, but you need a bigger rocket this way too. About +1500-2000m/s back to orbit! And it's better to go straight up with the Jets because the atmosphere will brake you back soon under ~10000 m. My rocket fuel was not enough for orbit so I almost gave up the mission here. The most what I was able to achieve is a long falling-back path with apoapsis at around 56'000m. But after a lot of reloading and learning the right timing, I brought my Moon-orbital Module into a 50'000 m (falling-down) path, I quickly catch the Lander Module and went back into orbit... it was VERY, VERY HARD! Took me a lot of time to save Jebediah and the mission! 2, the Jet engines was a good idea, they gave me +330 m/s until 7100m. But you need to cut them and separate before that or they will spin you at 7300m+! And before launch you have to assign the Jet engines and the main rocket engines to Action Groups and so you can turn on/off them quickly and at the same time. 3, The Moon-orbit Module is very useful and uses Nuclear Engines and an ASAS what gives it a lot of torque, so RCS can be held for dockings only. This way you don't have to move the whole Mothership to orbit and back to other moons and can save you a lot of fuel/weight. 4, Changing the Mothership layout with the little Space Tug is big fun because this main ship doesn't have so much parts (about 300-350) and there's no lag! But docking with huge orange tanks is a slow and painful thing. I realized that I prefer smaller ships and parts... Here are the pictures: (To embed the imgur album, simply grab the ID of it, the following bold text - imgur.com/a/ZCaAu, and put them between an imgur tag, like this [ imgur ] ZCaAu [ /imgur ] but without the spaces!)

Wow mcirish3, 4384 parts??? you're crazy! Show us pictures!! How much lag do you have? I have decided to redesign my whole ship to a more simple one because I want it to run on (about) normal speed... I throw out most of the science units: only one of everything (and two Goo for symmetry), only for surface examinations. And I even don't use RCS for the Landers but four Rockomax Mark 55 radial engine. These gives me enough torque, and much more less part count. But I use a Moon-orbit Module with RCS+atomrockets to separate the lander from the Mothership, bring it to orbit around the moon and after landing and coming back to re-dock to the lander and bring it back to the mothership... I'll show you pictures soon!

Space Viking, thank you for the details and Congratulation, you have done a JOOL-4 mission already! Hm, maybe the surface samples goes with the Kerbal who collected them and this way a lander can have only a seat and that's all. This stuff needs some more experiment (does anybody knows the answer?).

I checked, one command pod is enough for any number of surface samples and EVA reports. But the scientific stuff can hold only one experiment. Anyway, I'm going to recall the crew from orbit because the ship became too complex. I need a better optimized ship!

Space Viking: I really like as you put the lander on each other, and the design looks nice. But why do you use so much panel and struts? Just for design? And it's awesome how you landed on the engine of the ascent stage at Vall! Nice job! And I love the little engines+fuel tanks on the sides of the Mk1... yeah, Tylo is the hardest part of this mission! Will you try again with an updated design? Hm, I see you dropped the Mk1 cans... did you receive points for the samples this way too?

I see. I will do an experiment mission to Mun/Minmus to see if different samples can be stored in the same pod. I play in Career mode now and I'm curious how much science points can I collect with a huge mission like this... But this Challenge is pretty hard even with only one Kerbal landing and returning from all the moons... so everybody is a winner who can achieve that!

Oh, so only one Capsule is enough for all the samples from all the moons? And one Kerbal's EVA for all?? Sure?

I have put together my ship at last (it was 3 launches: the fuel+engines, the Main Body and the Lander parts). Everything fits perfectly but my computer became so slow that I will give it a shot to Jool/Laythe and if doesn't get better if I undock for a landing then I have to restart with a minimalistic (less science?) design...

Lead Engineer and Space Program Director to the press and the public: Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you our Kerbonauts for the exorbitant JOOL-5 Grand Tour Mission: Bill, Bob, Jack, James ...and the mission commander, Jebediah! In the background, you can see the main Lander body with the Laythe lift-off Jet Engines attached! Chattering in the crowd at the back: - What did you say, what are the odds at the bookmaker? - they pay 100/99 for an unsuccessful mission. - Oh! And for a successful mission? - Hmm! Nobody asked that before...

ttnarg: unbelievable! When I think I'm close to the physically possible biggest launch rocket there's always somebody with a bigger design! Nice Job and Good Luck, I'm curious how this design will work, keep us informed!

mcirish3: Welcome, it's nice to have you here! The navball and clouds mods are okay, of course. Wow, what a launcher you built! And your last picture looks good too! So, all mods are allowed if they doesn't give you too much advantage, like stronger engines, smaller tanks, automatic refuellind, etc. So you guys keep the parts about stock-realistic, that's all.

Lead Engineer: Greetings, Mr. Herrigh Kerman! As our previous test pilots ceased in the last couple of days, now you became our best test pilot! And, well, the last one, too... Let me introduce you our newest Laythe Lander and return ship! The Lander Body would be the same for all the moon landings, and we intend to use Jet Engines on Laythe for slowing the ship during parachute descent, and starting back from the ground. As they are fuel efficient but we need a lot of power in a short period of time, so we put six Jet Engines there, which will be jettisoned after leaving the atmosphere... Herrigh Kerman: Ahamm, Errrmm... my stomach feels bad. I'm sorry but I have to go home... Lead Engineer: Hey, wait! Where are you going!? Herrigh! Herrigh...! Wait!! ... Jebediah Kerman: Hey, what's happening here? Lead Engineer: We are in need of a test pilot! Our latest Laythe Lander prototype is ready for a test flight... by the way this will be the hardest landing so we have chosen you to fly this one on the mission. Jebediah Kerman: WOHOHOO, Really?!?? Let me try it! Lead Engineer: Wait, you should first... in the simulator... noo, stop! Jebediah Kerman: YEAH, it flies! I feel the force of the Jets! Awesome idea! So, are you talking about slowing with the Jets during Parachute descent? Okay, I'm gonna try that one... Jebediah Kerman: hmm, it's hard to be quick and precise with these monsters! Watch out! Jebediah Kerman: Okay, the idea will work well, but we need to refine the balance, strengthen the landing struts and add two more parachute. Lead Engineer: Uhh... erm, okay...!

Okay, here are my first pictures, about my proof of concept mission to Mun and Minmus. Five Lander Module, one Lander Body, one Shuttle (to bring the Module+Body from the Mothership/planet orbit to the moon's orbit and back, may be only an additional fuel tank later and I can use the engines of the lander), and a little space tug for changing the Modules on the Lander Body (at first I didn't want to use RCS for landing because with the little orange engines you can rotate your lander nicely... but maybe I will change this later). The mission was a success, the problem list was like this: - I lost an atomrocket during launch to overheat - Space Tug lost electricity during work and I almost lost a Module+Kerbal ... but the Sun shined on it at last. - The ladder was not long enough to the ground, on Laythe and Tylo it may be a problem (?). - One science unit exploded on the final Kerbin touchdown ...otherwise the design is very strong and works well. Here are the pictures. http://imgur.com/a/vO4sH#0 as you can see I tried to make my design as compact and simple as possible to save weight and so fuel, and part count (I have an i7 processor but it can be slowed down at 500+ parts).

hmm, do you know exactly at what altitude is Near Space and Outer Space? And does it differ from high/low atmosphere? http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Science

Highlad, Welcome Aboard and Good Luck! Yeah, this challenge will worth a big summary post when you have finished it, looking forward to it! I already started to test the Lander Module (Mk1+science) and the Lander Body (fuel+engine) together. First attempt: (everybody survived!)

Oh you're right, science can be done in orbit too! I have to revise my design! I was planning only one of everything for one landing... Yeah, program glitches doesn't count!