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Veteran forumites may recall when my thread "Sights of Kidonia" was active. I managed to get a humongous mothership assembled in orbit for the Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge, filled with all manner of fun payloads and equipped with over 9000 m/s of delta-V, and then... I abandoned the project, the challenge left unmet once again. That was actually my third attempt to pull it off, the successor to "Julia" and an unnamed predecessor mothership. Each attempt had been grander than the last, and each attempt had failed (for the first, I was woefully short on delta-V; for the second, a KSP update to make the LV-N nuclear engine not consume oxidizer made the existing design unworkable; and for the third, I simply stopped playing KSP for over a year and didn't feel like trying to pick up where I left off, largely due once again to changes in the game). Only one thing to do: Try a FOURTH TIME! Officially at least. I did an undocumented minimal test run a while ago with an uncrewed ion probe just to reassure myself there was hope. And naturally I must continue the trend of making every new mothership dwarf all the previous ones... Teaser image showing the scale of the hull I designed alongside Kidonia. I'll be updating the thread as important milestones in the mission are reached.

Hello everybody and thank you all for coming to this party to celebrate our upcoming mission. We are proud to announce a new large scale space project, in which we will be sending a crewed mission to land on, and return science from, all the moons of Jool. As this will be a very long multi year mission, the decision has been made that we will be sending a single large ship to the Jool system so that our crew isn’t going to be lonely on the trip out and back. Speaking of out crew, here we are: On the left there is me, Pinky Pie. I am the chief engineer and primary astrodynamics officer, which is a complicated way of saying that my job is to keep the ship working and get it to where it is meant to be. The most important being getting us home at the end. Next to me is Twilight Sparkle who is the chief scientist for the mission and also the mission specialist for Laythe, the innermost moon of Jool. She got to pick that one as long range scrying has shown us that Laythe not only it is warm enough from tidal heating that liquid water is present on the surface, it also has a thick oxygen rich atmosphere which, along with the detection of many other atmospheric chemicals, is a key indicator that there may be life on it. The next two, Fluttershy (left) and Bon Bon (right), round out our scientists. Fluttershy is the chief medical officer and also the mission specialist for Bop, the fourth moon of Jool, which she thought looked lonely. Bon Bon is the mission specialist for Vall, the second moon of Jool, where her speciality in the physical properties of ice under different conditions will be very useful and she also doubles as the backup engineer. The last two of our crew are our pilots, Rarity (left) and Rainbow Dash (right). Both are cross trained for piloting but Rarity will generally be in the pilot seat for docking and delicate manoeuvres and Rainbow Dash specializes in things that need to be flown in a more instinctive manner. Additionally, Rarity is the mission specialist for Pol, the fifth moon, as it looks pretty and Rainbow Dash is the mission specialist for Tylo, the third moon, because it is the biggest. We will come to the details of the ship, the Emerald Star, as we construct it in low orbit and details of the mission as they come up, but we do need to deal with some specifics now. [Pinky raps on the fourth wall with a hoof] Hello out there. Can you hear me? [Pinky fogs up a bit of the fourth wall by breathing on it, polishes it with a fetlock and presses one of her eyes to it to get a good view before retreating] We’re running KSP 1.12.5.3190, both DLCs are present and there are a number of mods running. Most mods are visual / sound, informational or quality of life and do not add parts or change anything major so we believe that this should be valid for a DLC Jool 5. The save game is a Normal level Career mode with the only change being that “require signal for control” has been added. Additionally, the game has been edited to hire the desired crew, grant us all the parts and give us 10 million funds so that once we get back from Jool we should be able to calculate the total cost of the mission and total up the science points returned for a “Jeb” level attempt. We will have a Mobile Processing Lab aboard so we will be transmitting processed data back so we will acquire science points that won’t count for the returned total.

THEOROD KERMAN'S MISSION LOG: Y58D311 - 3H15M This mission may look like a simple tourist run, but the reasons below will explain why this is anything but. Jerdrin Kerman, a board member for Probodobodyne Inc., paid for us to take him to Laythe orbit. Even without getting on and off the surface, flying there and back home is no easy feat. We need to pick up three other kerbalnauts (two scientists and a pilot) who are going to Pol in a ring station. One of five of the same model, which will orbit all of Jool's moons. One in Laythe orbit Two on their way (one to Pol, one to Tylo) Two not yet launched (launch date depending on budget at transfer windows) This is only the beginning of a new series of missions. So far, kerbalkind has set foot on all but one of Jool's moons. If you haven't guessed already, it's Tylo. Mission Control had warned us that it's the size of Kerbin without the atmosphere, so sending a plane to the surface is out of the question. Getting on and off the surface is also a challenge, but that's for later. Right now, Mission Control is focused on an orbital reconnaissance mission around Tylo - as well as rendezvousing with another vessel in that orbit. That is what this mission is for. Below is the current crew roster for the Anubis I, a docking-capable Poseidon SSTO. CURRENT ANUBIS I CREW ROSTER NAME LEVEL (AS OF Y58D311) SPECIALTY THEOROD KERMAN 4 PILOT TED KERMAN 4 SCIENTIST MAURIE KERMAN 4 ENGINEER JERDRIN KERMAN 0 TOURIST Taking off early in the morning from the KSC. Us in Minmus orbit 11 days later. We had to stop to refuel. Our monopropellant tanks are filled to a little less than half capacity, but Maurie's still complaining that we need to lose the weight. Though I myself was skeptical about the levels as well, Wernher Von Kerman told us that we needed to dock with two stations at Jool, and we won't need to make more with the ISRU. We're now in high orbit of Kerbin, awaiting our interplanetary maneuver node. We expect to arrive at Duna's SOI for an Ike refueling in 1 year and 83 days from now. When that's over, we'll fly to Jool and refuel on Pol. By then, Pinky Finger Station - the ring station going to Pol - would already be in Pol orbit with the crew waiting for us. Our plane's head count will then increase to seven before we descend on the surface to refuel. After that, we're kind of stuck on what to do afterwards. Should we: Pol refuel --> Tylo orbit --> Laythe orbit --> Pol refuel --> HOME Pol refuel --> Laythe orbit --> Tylo orbit --> Pol refuel --> HOME Basically, should we orbit Laythe first or Tylo? This is a 26-year-old rover named Apocalypse on the surface of Tylo. Named so because Tylo is like a lifeless Kerbin; an apocalypse, if you may. We're also sending a manned (but empty) rover to Tylo's surface, but that's another story. Ultimately, our end game is a spaceplane that can refuel itself and dispatch a reusable lander down to Tylo's surface. However, that's for much, much later. For now, let's see what we're dealing with from a safe orbit. Just like with the decades-long Neptune missions to Laythe, and the Pluto saga to Eeloo before that, it will take years of research, trial and error, and persistence. Long ago, nobody had any confidence we could get an airplane to Laythe and back safely. Nowadays, spaceplanes have become the standard go-to craft for planets with larger solar orbital radii than Kerbin's. Heck, Lasel, Bill, and Val - the first crew to return from Eeloo (after Bill and Val got stuck) - are going to Duna in a Dirtblood right now. I know we can do this; it's just a matter of time. Any and all help is welcome, and wish us luck.

Hello. I have just joined the forums and am planning to begin my first major mission, a Jool-5 attempt. I have gone interplanetary a few times, but am having problems with designing the ship. My estimations include transfers between all moons for the mothership and 5 landers, one for each moon. Correct my numbers if I am wrong: 18,150 m/s for Energy Mothership (This is for all lunar transfers and interplanetary transfers) 3800 m/s for Gravity Laythe Lander ????? m/s for Gravity Laythe Plane (I am not sure whether to use an SSTO or lander, so if someone could help with the delta-v values, it would be awesome) 1900 m/s for Atom Vall Lander 5000 m/s for Delta Tylo Lander 500 m/s for Alpha Bop Lander 280 m/s for Photon Pol Lander The problems that I have been having are: 1. How to get 18,150 m/s on a ship. I can learn to dock if necessary (still bad at rendezvous), but am clueless due to my inability to design something with more than 12,000. 2. How to design landers. I can easily design one to get down, but what are the best engines to get up? 3. How to transport the landers. I imagine that it will be difficult to fit a bulky lander on the craft (while still looking good, one of my priorities) Hoping you get back to me, (And hope you like my ship names), Signing off: Heron Rocketry

A few days ago i had this excellent idea... to do a Jool-5 mission. Again. But this time a bit different. On a larger scale. Maybe 6.4x times larger? Why not? So here it is, my attempt to do a Jool-5 in a slightly bigger system. No ISRU, only stock parts. Let´s see what happens. These are the delta-V requirements: (https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/87284-kscale64-v122-16th-april-2017/) Not sure if its is a good idea to post this before i even started the mission. Updates will be added to this post as the mission progresses! Update 1: I now (finally) have designs for all the landers, transfer stages and all that stuff, and i hope they work. Took me quite some time to do. The hardest one was probably the Tylo lander: Not only does it require a lot of deltaV (13,000 m/s bare minimum, 6,500 per trip), it also needs that deltaV in engines capable of landing in Tylo´s high gravity! So no nuclear propulsion or ion engines for this one. My current design is about 110 tons and the fourth design iteration. The first design was something like a thousand tons, so i´d call that good. The next heavy (but not quite as heavy) lander is the Laythe one. Its about 20 tons and has somewhere between 6,500 and 7,000 m/s of deltaV, just enough to get to Laythe orbit. The map says 7,600, i guess it means 6,600. The plan for landing is to splashdown under parachutes, and for aerodynamic stability during reentry i found the best solution to be putting it in a fairing. The other landers are just small. The lander for Vall is about 3 tons, the landers for Bop and Pol are half a ton each (and still have way to much deltaV, even for a 6.4x Bop or Pol). All the landers (including the ones for Tylo and Laythe) are Command Seat landers, so they have actually a bit less deltaV, if a kerbal is in there. https://imgur.com/a/JoFkO (Imgur embedding broken? I don´t know) Update 2: The ship is now in orbit (around Kerbin)! Just took about a dozen+1 launches. 4 for the actual ship, 8 to fill it up and one for the crew. Expect some big rockets https://imgur.com/a/Mn7V2 (Unordered, because imgur mixed them and removed the feature to order by name. Does anyone know a better host than imgur? Not going to reorder the album by hand)

The Jool-5 Chronicles [Failed] Welcome to the chronicles of my attempt at the Jool-5 challenge. I hope you enjoy it. Feedback and comments always appreciated! The Plan I'm aiming for a Jebediah-level completion (i.e. collect the most science possible) of the Jool-5 challenge. To that end, I've decided that my best approach is going to be dropping rovers onto those moons that will reasonably support them (Laythe, Tylo, Vall) and going with a high-dV lander for those that won't (Pol, Bop). Hopefully, this approach should let me hit multiple biomes on each moon and collect all tha science! To ensure that I've got the best chance possible, I've put the mission into the hands of the ever-capably Valentina Kerman, who will be my pilot throughout the mission. I've also got an engineer along (to fix stuff), and five scientists who will be doing the actual landings... well... not the actual landings. Those will be remotely piloted by Val. But somebody has to be around to scrub the goo containers between biomes so... The Mothership The mothership consists of four primary sections - engines, fuel, crew and modules: The engines for this mission are eight NERV nuclear engines. Not much in the way of TWR, but I'm hoping that the ISP will be worth it. The fuel section contains five Mk 3 liquid fuel containers which (again, hopefully) should provide enough delta-V to get to Jool and back. The crew section consists of six Hitchhiker Containers, a Command Pod and four cupola's to admire the view from. That should provide plenty of space and supplies for the crew of seven to complete their long journey. The modules section has the five landers and the three rovers (along with the rovers' skycranes). The landers for Laythe, Vall and Tylo are simply down-up vessels, as most of the work is going to be done on the surface, using the rover. As rovers don't work so well on Bop and Pol, I've designed high-dV ion-powered landers which should each be able to visit multiple biomes. The mothership clocks in at 370 parts, 274 tons and vF800,000. With the mothership loaded and onscreen, time dilation is around x3-x4. The Assembly The assembly of the mothership took a total of 16 launches and cost just over vF2 million. The Journey Next up, we cover the journey to Jool, and the unfortunate discovery that we didn't pack nearly enough fuel for this trip. After mucking about with it for a while, I decided that even with a refuelling mission, it was unlikely that we could complete the challenge and scrapped this attempt. I'll have to look at lightening the payloads and packing more fuel for my next attempt. More to come not-so-soon! I'll have to have a rethink and replan before anything else happens here.

This is my mission report thread for my Jool-5 challenge attempt. Here's the launch album:

Alright, so I'm too lazy to find the other thread, but I'm starting fresh for the sake of 1.0.5 Kerbin to Minmus: Such Edit, much bad, very nominal launch