Grand Jool One - The Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge Entry

[Nik333]

As title says, this is my The Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge attempt. And it was successful attempt!

Here is link to challenge thread for every cause...

Basic mission info

Version: 0.90

Mods: KER and Kerbal Alarm Clock

Kerbals: Jebediah and Bill

Launches: 6

Refueling: No

Other statistical data in part 1 below

PARTS

Part 1 - Assembling (BELOW)

Part 2 - Interplanetary (1st page)

Part 3 - Corrections (1st page)

Part 4 - Laythe (1st page)

Part 5 - Vall (1st page)

Part 6 - Tylo (1st page)

Part 7 - Bop and Pol (1st page)

Part 8 - Return (1st page)

Part 1 - Assembling

As every 2nd KSP player, I build my rockets big. I mean BIG. It took me whole day to get this beauty to orbit, part by part. Sometimes I even felt like I won't did it and I will give up. I am doing it in sandbox, but I have counted total funds needed and more statistical data...

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STATISTICS

Number of launches: 6

Total starting weight: 3,110.858 tons

Orbital assembled weight: 447.254 tons

Cost: 1,611,008 funds

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BASE (Base)

47,784 funds - 77.595 tons

In this module, Jebediah and Bill will spend few years and these modules are as comfortable as possible (which is not actually possible). It is smallest of all parts and it is connected to Main Engine and Tylo Lander.

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LAYTHE LANDER (Laythe)

121,896 funds - 192.198 tons

It has some chutes for landing, 4 jet engines with a little fuel, 2 rocket engines on sides and central fuel tank for these 2. It also includes some luxuries, such as ladder, solar panels and rcs.

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TYLO LANDER (Tylo)

156,056 funds - 307.085 tons

I had some problems designing this. Most alerting fact is, that it has got just enough Delta V to get to surface from 20 km orbit and back. This will be close one...

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TRIAL LANDER (Trial)

97,292 funds - 180.260 tons

As very original name already says, this lander lands on 3 bodies. Yea, Bop, Pol and Vall. I might use it later after return for landing on Mun to make my mission even more... crazy?

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MAIN ENGINE (Engine)

1,031,836 funds - 2,058.340 tons

7 Jumbo tanks, 14 nukes and still very slow acceleration. One of reasons of 17 fps. I have tried ~6 designs for takeoff and then I: have accidentaly removed video OR forget to record OR didn't record because of low fps. I hope it isn't suspicious.

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ADDITIONAL FUEL (Fuel)

156,144 fund - 295.380 tons

Because of different final design of main engine, I have sent this to compensate removed fuel. It also brought necessary rcs refuel. Took me while to do 4 independent dockings...

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MISSION REPORT

Base takeoff

Base parked at Kerbin orbit at 101 km

Laythe takeoff

Laythe and Base successful rendezvous at Kerbin orbit

Tylo takeoff

Tylo and Ship succesful rendezvous and reorganization at Kerbin orbit

Trial takeoff

Trial and Ship successful rendezvous at Kerbin orbit

Engine takeoff

Engine and Ship successful rendezvous at Kerbin orbit

Fuel takeoff

Fuel and Ship rendezvous and docking at Kerbin orbit

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VIDEO

Edited February 27, 2015 by Nik333
Done

[Nik333]

Part 2 - Interplanetary

This part was very bad for me. Doing all those maneuvers for so long times (one for 20 minutes almost without possibility of phys. warp) was even worse for me than docking problems in last part.

WHAT did I actually did? I have left Kerbin SOI and did tranfer to Jool.

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MISSION REPORT

Increasing orbit around Kerbin from 100 km to 300 km

Increasing orbit around Kerbin from 300 km to 520 km

Increasing orbit around Kerbin from 520 km to 860 km

Increasing apoapsis out of Kerbin SOI

Waiting for Jool transfer maneuver node

Doing Jool transfer maneuver

NOTE: Heights of orbits are approximate

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NOTE

I have not done any corrections in this part. They are main part of next part which will be released maybe today.

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VIDEO

[Nik333]

Part 3 - Corrections

Having Jool periapsis don't mean anything. Well it actually does, but there is a lot of things that have to be done. I have done total of 3 corrections to get periapsis to height, which awesome Aerobraking Calc. told me to be best. It turned out pretty well, apoapsis was just a little below Laythe's one. After one more maneuver, I have avoided falling into Jool's atmosphere again and also transfered to Laythe.

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MISSION REPORT

Correcting Jool periapsis to 130,000 km

Staging (3 jumbo tanks remaining now)

Correcting Jool periapsis to 4,557 km

Correcting Jool periapsis to 114 km

Jool aerobraking get our apoapsis to 19,923 km

Increasing Jool periapsis 5,658 km while doing Laythe tranfer

NOTE: Heights of orbits are approximate

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VIDEO

[Nik333]

Part 4 - Laythe

I have heard many things about Laythe. Such as that atmosphere is really less dense than expected. I have to do orbit, land, takeoff, dock and finally do transit do Vall. Sounds easy. Well, with quicksaving...

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MISSION REPORT

Correcting Laythe periapsis to 26.305 km

Laythe aerobraking, getting apoapsis to 181 km

Circularizing to 181 km (179-183 actually)

Undocking Laythe lander, docking Trial lander on top of ship

Decreasing Laythe lander speed for landing

Landing (with chutes)

Planting flag and doing some experiments

Takeoff - increasing mainly horizontal speed using jets

Takeoff - using rocket engines to get 82 km orbit

Lowering Ship to 82 km for rendezvous

Docking Laythe l. to transfer remaining fuel and Jeb

Throwing of Laythe l. and docking Trial. l on top

Escaping Laythe SOI

Vall trasfer burn

NOTE: Heights of orbits are approximate

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VIDEO

[Nik333]

Part 5 - Vall

To be honest, this part of mission is so far my favourite. I did everything pretty well, probably did not quickload and landing was fun for me to do.

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MISSION REPORT

Entering Vall SOI

Circularizating at 32 km

Undocking Trial Lander

Landing and planting flag

Takeoff and circularizating

Rendezvous and docking

Getting out of Vall SOI and doing Tylo transfer at once

Correcting trajectory to Tylo

NOTE: Heights of orbits are approximate

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VIDEO

[Nik333]

Part 6 - Tylo

Nearly made me quit whole this mission because landing there was impossible. Until I came with awesome idea!

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MISSION REPORT

Correcting Tylo transfer

Circularizing at 39 km

- Attempt #1

Lowering to 20 km

Undocking Tylo lander

Unsuccessful landing (BOOM!)

- Attempt #2

Lowering to 34 km

Undocking both Tylo and Trial lander with full fuel tanks

Successful landing

Doing EVA and planting flag

Getting back into lander after few tries

Takeoff - using last fuel

20 km orbit done using rcs after liquid fuel ran out

Rendezvous using Ship

Docking of Trial lander only

NOTE: Heights of orbits are approximate

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ALBUM

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Edited February 24, 2015 by Nik333
Link fix

[Nik333]

Part 7 - Bop and Pol

This was so far easiest part of whole thing. It actually was boring. I have decided to not do more videos, because judges don't have time for them and it's too much work for me.

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ALBUM

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[Nik333]

Part 8 - Return

And this is end of whole mission. It took about 8 years. Bill and Jebediah must be really happy to see their families again. I am not fan of realistic reentries, so I don't care about doing 4000 m/s reentry.

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[Red Iron Crown]

Nice mission! I have reviewed it as part of Ziv's crowdsourced Jool-5 judging program and find no evidence of shenanigans. Looks like a valid Level-1 entry to me.

[Nik333]

Nice mission! I have reviewed it as part of Ziv's crowdsourced Jool-5 judging program and find no evidence of shenanigans. Looks like a valid Level-1 entry to me.

Thank you

[Deutherius]

Alright, let's try out these peer reviews.

Long version with tips'n'tricks, questions and stuff:

1st part - Orbital assembly

Ok, first off - I have a lot of free time on my hands, but someone else might feel a little burdened by 7 minutes of video content. The beauty of a screenshot album is that everyone can go through it at their own pace. I also find it harder to concentrate on a video, but that is just me.

Second, if your fps goes too low for a video recording, but you still want to make a video - record it anyway, speed up the footage and do a voiceover.

As to the design and flying, pretty straightforward and without many complications. I like how your ship looks, especially after bringing in the droptanks. I am not sure about your choice of simple jet engines for the Laythe lander - unless you need the takeoff thrust, turbojets are (imho) better (I am open for discussion).

2nd part - Transfer Burn

If your craft tends to wobble, try controlling it from somewhere closer towards CoM - the SAS will register less wobbling and will not overcorrect as much.

Is there any reason for multiple orbit boosts and circularizations? I mean whatever does the job, but it takes a big chunk of extra deltaV to transfer like this, and it also diminishes any gains from the Oberth effect. Just building your orbit at Pe is much more efficient.

Other than that, I don't have any objections.

3rd part - Course corrections

If you want to establish an orbit around Laythe first, it might be better to just go straight for Laythe from interplanetary space and aerobrake there. It might not always be possible, and if you play with DRE or something like that it would be a suicide... But with a bit of playing around with manuever nodes (and ignoring the G-forces), you can save some (in your case the ~600 m/s to raise Jool Pe and get Laythe encounter) deltaV. Not that it's terribly relevant, as you have tons of fuel left.

4th part - Laythe

Congrats on your first Laythe landing!

I have a question regarding the orbit - why polar? Easier to pick a landing location? Is it worth the extra deltaV needed for inclination corrections before and after?

<fanboy>

The reason why it was so hard is probably the simple jet engines. Looking at your lander, you would have had enough takeoff TWR with just two turbojet engines... Leave the four shock intakes on and you can ride those beauties all the way to space! They would probably have enough oomph to get your Ap all the way up to randezvous altitude just on liquid fuel, with circularization and randezvous taking less than 500 m/s rocket deltaV.

</fanboy>

Anyway, interesting approach and situation well handled.

5th part - Vall

Wow... So much deltaV on that lander. Maybe even excessive (Vall shouldn't take more than 3k from low orbit), I think you could easily do with less. Nevertheless, very nice design and flying. You seem to fly without SAS a lot - do you use keyboard or a joystick?

6th part - The Destroyer of Landers Tylo

Judging from THIS picture, your Tylo lander stage must've had over 6k deltaV and surface TWR of about 3.0 on it's own. That seems reasonable and landable enough to me - what went wrong with it? I can't figure it out from provided screenshots.

I also think that using the Trial lander as ascent stage only would have provided you with more deltaV to work with (it would make the landing harder though).

Also, why did you tug the empty Tylo lander stage all the way to the randezvous? You were leaving it behind anyway.

Landing on Tylo (and living to tell the tale) is no joke though, so congrats, nice work.

Also, I think there's a mistake in the description of the third picture - either that or Vall has put on a few kilograms

7th part - Bop and Pol

This part was pretty straightforward. You could've probably saved some fuel by not filling the lander so much, but that's about it.

I have one question though, as Bill doesn't know how to SAS, you gotta have a probe core on the Trial lander. I cannot seem to locate it just by looking at pictures/videos (and I'm too lazy I don't have enough time to test your craft), mind helping me out?

8th part - Return

Again, you could've probably made a more efficient return burn by using Tylo or Jool for a slingshot, but with 3k3 m/s deltaV remaining... Who cares

I have no real questions or objections regarding the return.

TL;DR version:

I have reviewed this mission as part of the experimental peer review judging program and found NO traces of cheating or suspicious stuff. The report itself is well made and clear in most parts. I give it a POSITIVE review and nominate it for completing the Jool 5 challenge on 1st level

[Nik333]

Deutherius:

Thank you for review. You have got many questions so let's start...

Part 1

I wanted to make video, but it is not only about result, which may be okay after speeding up, but recording software also drops your fps a bit (if you don't have GPU with integrated recording).

Part 2

Multiple burns were done because it would take (I am not sure now) about half hour to do. I would start 15 minutes before peri and end 15 minutes after peri.

Part 4 - Laythe

Why polar? I did that accidentaly... Also (as you know) it was my first landing so I didn't know what engine to use.

Part 5 - Vall

I don't use SAS, because it cause wobble with larger ships. And I use keyboard.

Part 6 - Tylo

It was landable, but when I set throttle to full on orbit, it ended crashing 80 m/s into surface. Ouch.

I am now also wondering, why I did not threw of Tylo. For takeoff, because of additional thrust and then... I just not thought of it.

Part 7 - Bob and Pol

When you are in sandbox, you can use all features of SAS everytime, even with probe cores which only support stability assist and non-pilot Kerbals.

[Deutherius]

Part 2

Multiple burns were done because it would take (I am not sure now) about half hour to do. I would start 15 minutes before peri and end 15 minutes after peri.

Yes, I get that. I understand why you would do more smaller burns at Periapse. But you always burned at Pe, circularized at Ap, burned at Pe, circularized again... You can just burn at Pe mutiple times and keep the orbit eccentric, there's no need to circularize after every burn

Part 7 - Bob and Pol

When you are in sandbox, you can use all features of SAS everytime, even with probe cores which only support stability assist and non-pilot Kerbals.

And so you can! I learn new stuff everyday. I was under the impression that you can't, for some reason (probably because of career habits).

[Nik333]

Yes, I get that. I understand why you would do more smaller burns at Periapse. But you always burned at Pe, circularized at Ap, burned at Pe, circularized again... You can just burn at Pe mutiple times and keep the orbit eccentric, there's no need to circularize after every burn

Oh, now I understand

[Sqwazare]

Having looked through your videos and albums I believe you have completed the challenge, everything looks to be as it should. I also almost gave up with trying to land on Tylo, it certainly is not the easiest place to land, though you seemed to have judged your second landing much better than your first.

I give this a positive review and nominate it to qualify for the Jool-5 challenge

[Nik333]

Having looked through your videos and albums I believe you have completed the challenge, everything looks to be as it should. I also almost gave up with trying to land on Tylo, it certainly is not the easiest place to land, though you seemed to have judged your second landing much better than your first.

I give this a positive review and nominate it to qualify for the Jool-5 challenge

Thank you, it seems like I am first one to be approved by 3 judges on new Jool-5 rating system!

[Mister Dilsby]

Well done Nik! I am taking notes, and will attempt the Jool-5 myself in V1.