Finwen

Mission done. Pictures and briefing later

I added 2 more Mods for this mission. Kerbal attachemnt system and Kethane. To recover my rover i did build a sky crane but i am unsure if the hook can hold the heavy roover (i haven ot researched magnets yet) so i added a steel plattform for the roover to rest on. After some test i had a version that could SSTO to orbit and even go to duna without refueling. Launching Sky Crane 3. Reached LKO and i have jettisoned the extra jet engines. Going to Duna. Leaving core ship and sky crane is breaking for landing on Duna. Close to ground and very low on fuel!!!! Due to limitations for the sky crane i had to land on a low altitude location so the rover had a 35 km trip to make. and going down 3 km in altitude. Me and my son had driven the cars several evenings before for fun so it want close to original landing spot. Filling up Sky crane ship for return flight. To be continued....

I finally started Mission 4. I decided to make a small rover just above 4tons but ended up with a modified version of my Eve rover av 20t I added Kethane mod so i added a drill to the rober. With a steel plate heat shield it gained a few extra tons. MY core ship could take it to duna without problem. and the heat shield worked fine during the aerobraking and i could go into low Duna orbit without problem, but then the problems started.... The heat shield worked fine as heat shield but the designers forgot that it also blocked the rovers rocket engines. Jebediah in the core ship quickly made a plan and i he docked the coreship with the rover. Jebadiah then braked the core ship so it went for orbit insertion at the right spot, undocked the rover and then brought core ship back to stable Duna orbit. The rover was now going down to the surface. The heat shield protected the rover and the heatshield separated without problems after deployment of the parachutes. The landing was hard and all except one tire got a flat Malbree Kerman fixed those easy.... During a "fast" testdrive Malbree made a big jump and all 4 rocked engines on the rover was damaged so now the rover is truly stranded just as the mission says Recovery operation will follow in a future part

On the leaderbord a small correction 4. Finwen __________ 875 (Mission 1, 2) i did mission 3 also. I am slowly preparing for Mission 4 and i think my mission will be a little smaller compared to Senseis

Looks like a nice core ship. Looking forward to see it perform the other missions.

Thanks. And it was a fun and challenging mission for me. Now its time to start and test components for Duna missions....

I made a very long ship for my Moho mission. It was surprisingly stable but was VERY slow to turn...... My core ship has only 2 LV-N engines so i added en engine module with 4 more LV-N motors. After some testburn around Kerbin i realized that transfer burn to Moho would take a very long time so i added one more Engine module with 5 large fuel tanks and 4*LV-T45 engines for more thrust. Total weight at launch 629 tons... Took some tries to launch the seismic actuator into a stable orbit to... I also did build a new lander for Moho with science gear for the mission. Not a very good design. Badly placed RCS thruster so i had to rotate the ship allot during docking.... And it was little back heavy so it was tricky to land... I did a transfer burn to Moho but interrupted it early after my 5 year old son interfered So after leaving Kerbin i tried to match the plane of Moho orbit and after that i did a Homan transfer to Moho. Took some extra traveltime but it worked fine. It was a very long burn to get into Moho orbit. My engines with LV-T45 only had little fuel left. So i used that first. And then dumped the engines/motors. And after that i had a 45 min burn with my 4 LV-N engines (that took 2+ hours of real time) I undocked the seismic actuator after i achieved a low orbit around Moho. I landed it in the big crater and one of the landing engine broke at touchdown.. Jebediah took the first lander (Science team A) and touched down 2.2 km away from the SA. Close for some good reading but a safe distance from the explosion. The second team B landed on opposite side of Moho in the dark. Next lander design will be more balanced and have more lights.... Both team was ready and data coms from the SA was established. The SA worked as advertized and science team A and B got some nice reading. I returned with both landers to the core ship.The plan from the start was that only the core ship should return to Kerbin and the 2 landers should be deorbited down to Moho. But one extra Kerbals had sneaked in onto the core ship. I now had 6 kerbals and only 5 pod seats.... A quick fuel calculation said that the core ship should be able to go home with one lander attached. Trip home was fast and we did go for aerobraking at Kerbal. I had allot of fuel left at my core ship at arrival at the space station. About 1800dV i think. Potential score: Option 1 mission complete: 300 Eat your vegetables + 5 I didnt use asparagus staging on any launch to orbit. Jet engines are for planes +5 Bring the Gang along for the ride +20 2 extra Kerbals for the trip. Littering the system -5*3

I am back at Kerbin now after Moho mission. Here are some images from the mission

Mission 5 will be interesting...... I am at the moment on my way to Moho finally. My VERY long ship turns slowly but is very stable during the long burn. Halfway through a 45 min burn now... Ny goal is to take whole ship without drop anything until Moho orbit....

I think i have all parts in orbit for my Moho ship now. Will launch it tonight i hope.

Score: Mission complete option 1: 250 points 3. Littering the system - You left space junk floating around in space = -5 points per whole part (a fuel tank with other stuff on it is one whole part) I have 1 stage used for refueling station/core ship still orbiting so i guess -5 points. 8. Eat your vegetables - Launch a craft or attachment into orbit without asparagus staging = +5 points 3 Launches. Gilly lander, Eve Rover and Transfer/fuel stage. All used my standard Vega launcher. It has support for asparagus staging but all 3 launches i configured staging without asparagus staging. 3*5 = 15 points. 12. Jet engines are for planes - Don't use jet engines to lift anything into space unless that jet engine is on an aircraft = +5 points No jet engines used. 5 points: 13. Bring the Gang along for the ride - For each additional Kerbal brought on a mission and returned to Kerban Orbit after the mission is complete (All Kerbals must be in a pod, external command seats not allowed) = +10 points I had 4 kerbals with me. Not use how that is scored for this mission. Possible 2*10 points? My Eve rover was little to light at touchdown. Only 14.5t after using more fuel than expected. Some -points?

Challenge 2 done! Was a fun trip and i learned allot from it. My first manned trip to another planet and after trying to build some hing for a manned landing on Eve i scrapped that part end did build a unmanned rover instead. I assembled all parts at my space station. The trip to Eve was easy but i ended up in a very inclined orbit and wasted lots of deltaV to correct that. Something to plan better on next mission.... Eve Rover with science gear with a mass of 15.5t undocked from core ship and i did manage to land on the island. I used more fuel than planned to rover was down to 14.5t weight after landing it. Getting close to Gilly was a challenge but close to Gilly i dropped the gilly lander and landed without problem. Gilly lander returned to core ship and then Core ship returned to low Eve orbit. Dropped Gilly lander into Eve ocean to avoid debris. Transfer stage was also dumped into Eve Core ship parked in low Eve orbit to collect data from Eve rover. After 135 days of wait for transfer window to Kerbin we were ready to go home finally. During my burn for orbit to Kerbin a human error occurred We did have lots of fuel left so after circulating orbit at a high altitude we did a new transfer burn to Kerbin without problem.

Almost done with mission 2 now. 130 days waiting for transfer window and i am ready to go home.

Fun video. I am almost ready to launch mission 2. After some construction tries i scrapped the maned Eve landing option and i did create a rover for Eve today.

Just a little update. One of my debris touched the upper atmosphere so after watching it for a few hundreds of orbits it deorbited itself. Littering the system 1*-5 points = -5 points

I finnished mission 1 just before the release of 0.23 Littering the system 2*-5 points = -10 points Jet engines are for planes +5 Mission Complete with 2 satellites deployed and one landing per moon = + 150 Polar and equatorial orbit on mun + 10 Polar and equatorial orbit on Minimus + 10 It was a fun trip and i learned allot on what to do and not. Having satellites on one side and lander on other side made it very unbalanced so orbital maneuvers was challenging Could only use about 50% throttle. Above that and it would turn to left to much.... I left my non working rover at Kerbin. Test av bilder

Thanks. I forgot to mention the mods i use. Right now Only MechJeb and Kerbal Alarm Clock. I am slowly working on Mission 1. 4 satellites docked to core module. Hopefully i get time to get up the other parts to the core ship tonight.

I was very interesting to read about this challenge so i got tempted to join. This series will be a big challenge for me, but i will learn allot. Ship name: Nome I1 47t and place for 5 kerbals. Total 8 docking ports. Engine: 2 * LV-N With 7000+ dV the qualification trip to mun was easy. Nome I1 is back now at my small space station and refueled. Pictures from my test trip: Arrived at Mun Back at Kerbin Refueld and attached to my small space station.