The Ultimate Jool 5 Challenge - 1.0 to 1.3

[EvermoreAlpaca]

3 hours ago, astrobond said:

Absolutely fabulous mission @EvermoreAlpaca !!!

Congratulations for this nice video and all the explanations 

Btw, I'm touched to be in the closing credits 

Your minimalist modular lander approach is really incredibly good, and your piloting skills too !

I'm speechless... xD

 

Thanks man <3

[DustInTheWind]

@EvermoreAlpaca, that is one of the sweetest missions I have ever seen! I wish I had one third of you talent for rendezvous and planetary transfers. 

[Draradech]

I believe I have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Jebs Level with 16623 science (pending review of course). I have learned a lot and had a lot of fun. This is my first big mission to the Jool system, so it's not particularly efficient, I think I could do it much better a second time around.

- Which game versions did you use?
1.0.5

- What mods did you use, if any?
No part mods. KER, KAC, NavHud, Transfer Window planner, Precise Node.

- How many Kerbals are on the mission?
5, one for each moon

- How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbin?
1

- How much did your mission cost?
1.959.972 for the main launch, 632.665 for the refuel

- Did you needed a refueling mission?
Yes, but only because I wanted the main ship to be reusable (and the mun trolled me on the initial transfer to Jool). It got back to Kerbins SOI on its own and was refueled for capture burn. Rendevouz of a massive refueler with the mothership on escape trajectory is fun!

- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc?
No

- Share the delta-V information too, if you tracked it!
3583 to Kerbin orbit
4820 Kerbin -> Laythe (the mun troll...)
1404 Laythe -> Tylo
1009 Tylo -> Vall
1202 Vall -> Bop
585 Bop -> Pol
2279 Pol -> Kerbin SOI
2342 Kerbin Capture and going equatorial (after refueling)
---------
17224 (13641 from LKO)
not including lander d/v

- Any additional note or description?
Reuseable nuke mothership. One lander for all moons, with additional modules for Laythe and Tylo. The lander is relatively heavy, because I wanted to bring the Materials bay. This of course makes the Laythe and Tylo modules even heavier.

Documentation:

Kerbin to Laythe http://imgur.com/a/CZoYs
Laythe to Tylo http://imgur.com/a/Jy6Lh
Tylo to Vall http://imgur.com/a/a2jpF
Vall to Bop http://imgur.com/a/MyuSS
Bop to Pol http://imgur.com/a/071D6
Pol to Kerbin http://imgur.com/a/iNixt
Kerbin rescue http://imgur.com/a/PlDIT

I have 11h30m of video coverage for the whole mission, but no time or talent to edit it into something usable. I can upload snippets of specific parts on request though.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Draradech

[max_creative]

I am soooo doing this... Right after I get to jool my farthest purposeful craft is in mun orbit. My farthest craft is Jeb in solar orbit.

And I'm doing it all stock!

[Crazy-Engineer]

Draradech ur graphics looks very nice, can u tell me which mod u're using?

[Nathaniel411]

I have to do this tommorow.  I would set up all the recording setup in the morning and build the craft and test it.

After that it might take me 2 irl days... I still don't know much about orbital shinanigans. But I still wanna try.

BTW can we modify the stock crafts? 

[Draradech]

22 hours ago, Crazy-Engineer said:

Draradech ur graphics looks very nice, can u tell me which mod u're using?

If you are talking about the atmospheric effects and water shader, that's Scatterer
 

[Crazy-Engineer]

12 hours ago, Draradech said:

If you are talking about the atmospheric effects and water shader, that's Scatterer
 

hmm  my scatter looks way different maybe i need to update.
 

I've been wondering is tweak-scale allowed. if not im gonna have to come up with a new bunch of landers 
link: 

either ways im definitely going for this challenge  if only first world problems wouldn't keep getting in my way

[Nathaniel411]

I wish the cargo bays were larger  I wanted to fit a plane inside for laythe but ended up the wings going through it. I had to put it outside 

[iLikeRovers]

On 22/03/2016 at 7:34 AM, Nathaniel411 said:

I wish the cargo bays were larger  I wanted to fit a plane inside for laythe but ended up the wings going through it. I had to put it outside 

The Mk4 space plane mod has some BadS cargo bays. It depends if you want to go down the non-stock route.

 

[HoloYolo]

I'm doing it. Might take me some time.

[maceemiller]

So, my first attempt at this challenge failed big time! I went from Jool intercept to Tylo, got 15k markers came up, went to circularise orbit and it cost me over 4000dv! My presumption is I came in to Tylo the wrong way. It was coming towards me when I tried.

[Claw]

So here's my entry into the Jool-5 bunch. It actually started out as an extension of the Elcano Challenge, but I thought I'd aim for everything and see what happens. This is all done in 1.0.5 (and just in time too!). No mods were used for the mission, it was done all stock. I did use alexmoon's web based transfer window planner.

 

I sent three kerbals on the mission, though one was mostly for show (Marissa). She was the science officer and stayed behind on the Mothership (called the Iron Narcissus) in case the crew needed a safety pilot. The main crew members were Julella (pilot) and Obemy (engineer), who have been my intrepid Elcano crew on all the missions. Julella and Obemy landed on all the moons (2 Kerbals).

The entire mission itself was launched in one giant ship (pictured above). It weighed about 2300 tons at launch, was a bit over 500 parts, and cost about 1.5M Funds (which includes all the Elcano vehicles). I didn't use any refueling for the Jool-5 portions of the mission, but I did use the miniISRU parts for refueling my Laythe circumnavigation vehicle.

Pol, Bop, and Vall all used a small lander tug (named Tin Poppy) to deliver rovers to the surface and return the crew to the Mothership. For Laythe, the crew landed in the boat (which is capable of driving on land) and returned via an ascent vehicle which was delivered later by probe. Tylo was also a special case, where one crew member (Obemy) brought the rover down, and Julella brought down the crew return vehicle. Both vehicles on Tylo unintentionally used some lithobraking to land, but managed to complete their mission otherwise.

Spoiler

Tin Poppy

 

Payload Configuration

I didn't track all the dV, but I did keep the alexmoon plots for the ejections.

Spoiler

 

 

I've posted some of the progress earlier in this thread, but since it's all scattered and I broke the album up into several parts, I figure it's probably easier for me to post an index here, rather than filling up a post with a bunch of separate albums. "Mission Start" is where the actual mission begins. The links before that are some design musings.

Jool System: Combined Elcano and Jool-5 Challenge - Complete

• Initial Analysis
• Boat Redesign
• Mothership Failure
• Mothership Redesign and Shakedown
• Mission Start (Launch to Laythe Orbit)
• Pol - Equatorial
• Bop - Equatorial
• Vall - Polar
• Laythe - Polar
• Tylo - Equatorial
• Return Home

Thanks for the challenge. It was certainly a new depth with the Jool-5 on top of the Elcano missions!

Cheers,
~Claw

[Nathaniel411]

Are we allowed to use TweakScale? Its does not change mass and I think it changes the power.

Since Im here Im gonna explain my plan

When I get on orbit around one of the moons, if it has no atmo then Im gonna use one of my non reusable landers. The first stage is the one for landing second for orbiting, third for final approach. After that the kerbal will transfer over to the passenger module (The ship is a giant space shuttle which isn't reusable)  If it has an atmo, I would use an SSTO Which actually is also a miner of some sort. THe design is pretty unique It uses heat shields combined with airbrakes to slow down. After it lands it would mine a few resources for fuel then leave. After it is approaching the kerbal will get out and go to the passenger module. I have 4 landers and 1 plane, all non reusable. After that when it starts to land it would decouple the ship from the command and passenger module, after that it would land with chutes nice and slowly. 

(I am not good at explaining)

 

[Empyrean]

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I've been KSPing for a couple of years now, and thought it was past time to tip my hat to you lot, who are in my opinion geniuses. I'd also love your input, because I think I may have bitten off rather a lot...

So I've been all over Eve and Duna, but I've never gone to Jool. So, obviously, as soon as I heard about the Jool-5 challenge, I promptly decided to do it. And then, with a bit of arrogance, I decided the top level of difficulty isn't quite enough, and I want to set myself some additional constraints:

 

1. Simultaneity. Instead of visiting the moons in sequence, I have to have one Kerbal on each moon at the same time. So that means 5 landers, and an awful lot of transfer windows.

2. No littering. Everything has to be recovered, except that which can be soft-landed on another planet. I need to work out a way of bringing everything home, or leaving it safely on the surface of the moons.

3. SSTO mothership. However I launch anything else, the mothership has to reach orbit as an SSTO spaceplane. No pressure.

 

I've been deep in design and planning for a while, and I think I'm nearly there. I have a mothership, which I managed to get to orbit once or twice without flipping...

 

And the completed ship that will leave LKO is going to look something like this:

Clearly, the additional constraints I'm applying mean I have a huge payload to take to Jool, and the tyranny of the rocket equation has already led me to add two huge nuclear boosters, each weighing over 80T. And, because I need to be able to recover them, I've created a little ion tug that can bring them back under escape velocity while the rest of the craft goes interplanetary. At the massive TWR of 0.01...

 

  I was a little surprised at how hard it was to design a Tylo lander, but I've settled on this modular design, with an engine plate, four pillars and an upper support section, all of which should fall away undamaged after descent to reveal the ascent stage. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, I reckon I should head first to Tylo, which is the heaviest payload, whereupon I can dispatch my two ion landers outwards to Bop and Pol, before going for a Vall intercept - throwing out my Vall lander on the way past - direct to Laythe to orbit and drop my Laythe lander. I'll then definitely need a refuel, for which I'll probably use my big nuclear booster and a million ion engines to get it there, before reversing route. What do you think? Anything that I haven't considered that might trip me up?

 

Thanks for your time, and fly safe.

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2016 by Empyrean
<edit to fix an image link>

[Nathaniel411]

Change of plan. I decided to use a lander specially designed for laythe. The plane had too much problems. (I'm not good at building planes)

5 hours ago, Empyrean said:

-snip-

 

 

Glad I'm not the only one not looking for the looks.

[Crazy-Engineer]

9 minutes ago, Nathaniel411 said:

Change of plan. I decided to use a lander specially designed for laythe. The plane had too much problems. (I'm not good at building planes)

Glad I'm not the only one not looking for the looks.

Im also designing with aesthetics in mind 

[Empyrean]

Dunno what you mean, my craft is elegant and beautiful (and about four times bigger than I expected). But my Tylo lander is a monstrosity. 

[Nathaniel411]

29 minutes ago, Empyrean said:

Dunno what you mean, my craft is elegant and beautiful (and about four times bigger than I expected). But my Tylo lander is a monstrosity. 

 

Yup I meant the tylo lander

 

(Same here, my craft was much bigger than I thought)

Edited March 25, 2016 by Nathaniel411
Added stuff

[Crazy-Engineer]

http://i.imgur.com/NbvYVeb.png

My tylo lander for jool 5 so far (note the name of the lander above), it can land from 30x30km orbit and ascent to 10x10km orbit from a 5km ASL landing site  

Edited March 25, 2016 by Crazy-Engineer

[Nathaniel411]

32 minutes ago, Crazy-Engineer said:

Im also designing with aesthetics in mind 

I thought about the aesthetics too, though turns out It does not look good at all having gigantic cones on the sides for the landers

5 hours ago, Empyrean said:

million ion engines

 

 

 

#ionenginesFTW

I just realized that fixing my staging is a nightmare. I have 5 landers in total one with a diff kind of modification. So yeah...

[Empyrean]

30 minutes ago, Crazy-Engineer said:

http://i.imgur.com/NbvYVeb.png

My tylo lander for jool 5 so far (note the name of the lander above), it can land from 30x30km orbit and ascent to 10x10km orbit from a 5km ASL landing site  

Is that a stock engine? Looks like a much better twr than I've managed for that much dv. 

[Crazy-Engineer]

all stock parts except for tac life support and tweakscale

[sdj64]

Okay so it's been a little while since I posted, sorry.  Lots of good entries to review.  

Hmm I guess that Tweakscale isn't actually on the mod list.  I remember banning it a while ago for some reason.  Can you tweak the size of engines?  If you can, I think that was the reason.  If all you're changing the size of is fuel tanks, go ahead and use it.

[Crazy-Engineer]

43 minutes ago, sdj64 said:

Okay so it's been a little while since I posted, sorry.  Lots of good entries to review.  

Hmm I guess that Tweakscale isn't actually on the mod list.  I remember banning it a while ago for some reason.  Can you tweak the size of engines?  If you can, I think that was the reason.  If all you're changing the size of is fuel tanks, go ahead and use it.

wat about the size of everything else other than the engines?