Completed: Elcano Challenge: Mun Surface Circumnavigation

[Hotaru]

This is my Elcano Challenge entry. 1.0.2 career-mode, custom difficulty, stock physics and aero, plenty of mods installed including Stock Bug Fixes and MechJeb but no part mods besides Procedural Fairings and RealChute. I use MJ for pretty much everything except rendezvous and docking, which it's terrible at, and Stock Bug Fixes makes rover wheel brakes non-useless.

A bunch of engineers drinking coffee in the R&D building trying to think of a use for the Mark I air-portable rover they had designed and recently tested, came up with the brilliant idea of sending one on a circumnavigation of the Mun. In addition to testing the rover, they supposed, the mission would collect samples and data from various regions of the Munar surface as well as searching for ore deposits for possible future exploitation.

So they came up with an extremely complicated and expensive plan involving a modified Mark I rover deployed by a dedicated dropship, and brought it to the director of operations, who told them the plan was much too expensive and would never fit in the budget. Disappointed, they went back to their coffee.

Then, one of them had an idea. "Why," said he, "does the rover have to go in the middle of the dropship?"

"So as not to upset the center-of-gravity when it's deployed," said another. "Don't you know anything?"

"But why," said the first, "does that matter in space?"

He was right, of course. Excited, the engineers sat down again, poured new cups of coffee, and designed a new mission. This is what they came up with:

The redesigned rover would be launched in a fairing by a standard reusable booster and be carried to the Mun by a standard Aqualung unmanned tanker, where it would be deployed on a suborbital trajectory and land under its own power, then drive around the Mun. Since several boosters were already in stock, and several Aqualungs were already in orbit, the whole mission would cost less than a quarter of the engineers' original plan. Much to the delight of the engineers, the director of operations approved the new plan and the Mark II rover was ordered for production.

A few weeks later, it's ready for launch.

Liftoff. The engineers had worried that the large fairing would upset the rocket's stability, but with added tail fins and a slightly slower-than-normal ascent, it makes orbit with no trouble.

Fairing jettison. This is why I use Procedural Fairings, not stock fairings. Note the lack of confetti.

Booster recovery.

Space!

Rendezvous with Kilgore Station in low Kerbin orbit.

Engineer Shannon Kerman, who will drive the rover, transfers to it by EVA. An engineer is necessary, of course, in order to repair potential wheel damage, and Shannon is the most experienced one available.

Unfortunately the docking with the Aqualung happened at night, so no pictures of that.

To the Mun!

Burning into Munar orbit.

Separation. The Aqualung burns back into orbit to rendezvous with Barbicane Station; Shannon and the rover descend to the surface.

Powered descent.

Touchdown.

Shannon establishes the origin base for the circumnavigation.

I don't expect most updates to be quite so pic-heavy as this one, most will probably just have a couple pics of the rover and maybe a progress shot of the map. First leg is already complete, will post report soon.

[Squiggsy]

Nice start! you got that booster doing what Elon Musk wishes his would

how do you get those technical drawings by the way? seen a few people use them but haven't found the source of them, or did you make them yourself?

[Hotaru]

Thanks! The drawings come from the Kronal Vessel Viewer mod.

[Hotaru]

First things first: now that the rover is safely on the surface, Shannon decides it deserves a better name than "Mark II Rover." Since Phileas Fogg is already taken for a plane under construction back at KSC, we'll call this one the Michael Palin.

Shannon and the rover at Base 0. A brief test drive revealed some issues which were corrected. Palin is now front-wheel-drive, to stop it doing wheelies every time it starts, and the front brakes have been disabled, to stop it flipping every time it stops. The objective for the first day's run will be a base established by a previous landing, some 70km distant.

Underway at 40 km/h. The second marker in the distance is an old landing site and the remains of a tipped-over lander; that will be the last stop when Shannon and Palin come back this way. Hopefully.

Speed increased to 90 km/h and making decent time. Autopilot behaves very well, has no trouble keeping the rover stable through course changes and (for lack of a better word) airtime.

First run complete, Shannon establishes Base 1. Future reference: rover missions should use a different flag than preceding lander missions, to avoid confusion.

70 km down, trying not to think too hard about how much more to go. Still, successful first outing with no serious issues to report.

[windows_x_seven]

Nice work so far. I'm interested in seeing more.

[Hotaru]

The goal for the second stage is the site of the first landing on the Mun, some 205 kilometers distant in the East Crater. This will be a much longer stage than the first, including a tricky descent into the crater, but after the successful first stage, Shannon and mission control are confident.

Shannon boards the rover.

Underway again at 90 km/h.

A few minutes into the stage and Kerbin appears over the horizon. It moves steadily higher as Palin proceeds westwards; by the end of the stage it will be high in the sky.

With 62 kilometers remaining Palin runs out of fuel and Shannon switches over to battery power. Approaching the rim of East Crater, she reduces speed to 30 km/h. Palin completes the 2,000-meter descent without trouble and continues across the crater floor.

After a stop to recharge the batteries on solar power, Shannon and Palin arrive at the destination with no further trouble.

Shannon establishes Base 2. Because Palin's endurance on solar power alone is only about an hour, the next stages will be shorter pending the arrival of refueling hardware on the next SSTO from Kerbin.

[Hotaru]

Palin's next specific destination is a survey site called Eumon's Pitfall, some 370 kilometers from Base 2, but as the refueling hardware has not yet arrived from Kerbin, it will take several stages to get there on solar power alone.

Underway again. If you look very close you can see the Mun arch on the horizon on the left.

The stage of about 90 kilometers was uneventful.

Stopped to recharge Palin's batteries, Shannon gets out to establish Base 3. At this point Palin has covered about 300 kilometers, roughly a quarter of the way around the Mun.

[Hotaru]

The trip remains uneventful through the fourth and fifth stages of this weird interplanetary Paris-Dakar, each stage roughly brining Palin roughly 100 kilometers closer to the Eumon's Pitfall survey site (and the approximate halfway mark of the circumnavigation) before it has to stop and recharge its batteries.

The engineers at KSC are pleased with how well Palin's autopilot handles the terrain.

Shannon establishes Base 4.

View from the cockpit during the fifth stage.

Shannon at Base 5. At this point about 60 kilometers remains to Eumon's Pitfall, although the terrain appears slightly rougher ahead.

[Hotaru]

Reports getting briefer and less frequent because--let's face it--this is turning out to be a kind of boring trip!

Mission half-done, Shannon admires the view at Eumon's Pitfall, where Base 6 is established.

Survey completed, Palin continues westward. Kerbin slowly recedes below the horizon.

Finally, during the seventh stage, something interesting happens! Going over a particularly large hill, Palin lands harder than usual and blows both its rear tires. Fortunately MechJeb manages to keep the rover upright as it bounces to a stop, and none of the delicate science equipment is damaged. That was exciting!

Shannon repairs the wheels and Palin continues on its way, establishing Base 7...

...Base 8...

...and Base 9. The next stop is another old landing site in the East Farside Crater, at this point about 150 kilometers distant.

All this time, the SSTO Starlet Beatrix--carrying the refueling hardware--has been doing a complicated rendezvous dance in high Munar orbit to rescue a stranded Kerbal. At this point, with Palin nearly three-quarters of the way through the trip and making good headway on solar power, it seems pointless to waste fuel sending the surface shuttle down so near the end of the trip, so the refueling landing is canceled. Beatrix will wait at Barbicane Station in Munar orbit to take Shannon home once the circumnavigation is complete.

[Hotaru]

Palin continues from Base 9 through increasingly rugged terrain around the East Farside Crater.

Shannon plants the flag at Base 10 on the rim of the "Death Star Trench" canyon.

The descent into the crater is completed without trouble, and Shannon establishes Base 11 at the old landing site.

Palin climbs out of the crater and heads for the next and last objective, another 140 kilometers away: the crash site of Auk XII, an old lander that tipped over due to an autopilot error (some idiot put "02" instead of "20" into the Altitude field of the Ascent Guidance computer, causing the ship--which was already above 2,000 meters elevation--to topple over instead of blasting off).

Stopping to recharge on the way, Shannon establishes Base 12.

Finally, Palin arrives at the Auk XII site and Shannon plants the flag at Base 13.

Shannon strips the wreckage of any recoverable equipment, including some science instruments and batteries; anything too big to fit in the cockpit is bolted to the outside of Palin for the final 100-kilometer stage of the circumnavigation.

[Geschosskopf]

Nice! I'm glad to see somebody else likes the "ruggedized wheels", and that they've been holding up reasonably well for you. Good luck on the last leg!

[Hotaru]

Circumnavigation complete.

Palin finally arrives back at Base 0, the starting point of the circumnavigation. The landing craft from Barbicane Station is already waiting to pick up Shannon, along with the science data and hardware from Palin.

Shannon gets out of the cockpit for the last time. Palin has completed a trip of about 1400 kilometers in roughly [edit] seven (Kerbin) days' time, collected an enormous amount of scientific data, and successfully demonstrated the capabilities of the Mark II air-portable rover (this last making the engineers at KSC especially happy). Now, its task accomplished, it will be stripped of useful equipment and left on the Munar surface along with the two flags marking the start and end points of its journey.

All that remains now is for Shannon and the science data to be returned safely to Kerbin; the landing craft will take them to Barbicane Station in Munar orbit, where the SSTO Starlet Beatrix is waiting to take them home.

Edit:

Nice! I'm glad to see somebody else likes the "ruggedized wheels", and that they've been holding up reasonably well for you. Good luck on the last leg!

Thanks! I have never had any trouble with the ruggedized wheels, on this trip I only had one burst tire (well, two but on the same incident) and that was when I basically drove the thing off a cliff. Apart from that they held up extremely well.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Hotaru
correction

[Hotaru]

So that's it: mission accomplished.

Shannon Kerman and the Mark II rover Michael Palin completed a circumnavigation of the Mun in seven days and fourteen stages, revisiting the sites of every previous Munar landing and collecting 2662.2 points' worth of scientific data along the way.

Shannon, the science data, and the valuable equipment recovered from Auk XII and Palin returned safely to Kerbin on the SSTO Starlet Beatrix a few days later.

As no plans were made to recover Palin itself, the rover, powered down and stripped of its science equipment, remains where Shannon left it on the midland plains of the Munar far side.

Good grief, that was boring! But oddly satisfying. It's a good thing I did it during summer break and was able to blast through the trip in a few long days. If I'd had to squeeze it in around classes or work over the course of weeks, I don't think I'd have had the patience.

I was surprised how easy it turned out to be with MechJeb driving, I've never had much luck with the rover autopilot before but it worked very smoothly on this expedition. The key was the stability control, I could probably have handled throttle and steering manually (if I'd had the patience, which I didn't by a long shot!) but having the rover automatically keep itself oriented during its frequent hops and jumps was fantastic. It even managed a full 360 at least once, but always righted itself in the end. All I had to do was keep it clear of craters.

I doubt I'll be doing another land circumnavigation any time soon (having said that, watch me start one tomorrow), but in the end, I'm glad I did it once.

[Geschosskopf]

So that's it: mission accomplished....

I doubt I'll be doing another land circumnavigation any time soon (having said that, watch me start one tomorrow), but in the end, I'm glad I did it once.

Congratulations! Very well done.

And I had about the same thoughts .