The Ultimate Jool 5 Challenge - 1.0 to 1.3

[Thalamask]

I'm about to start my second attempt at this challenge... wish me luck! Linky

[max_creative]

Another question: so... The main ship can land on Pol and Bop, and I'm bringing 5 Kerbals, so one lands on Tylo, one on Vall, one on Laythe, but the main ship can land on Bop and Pol with all five Kerbals in it. And I don't have anyplace to leave the Kerbals during the landing, so they have to come with me. 

What would this qualify as?

[RocketSquid]

Is Kerbal Atomics allowed? Is DSEV?

Would ISRU include manufacturing parts with OSE workshop?

Edited June 20, 2016 by RocketSquid

[GwynJHawke]

Update:

First off, the version 1.0 of my Jool 5 mission plan went out the window. If I had docking ports that could handle more stress, it would likely have worked better in test runs. Linkage failure scrapped the first model. 

The second model, I failed to learn the real lesson from my mistakes and foolishly decided that the issue was not docking port strength, but number of docking port linkages (I swear, it only took me twice to learn not to touch a hot stovetop).  This lead to a number of awkward and ugly multi port docking designs that failed to meet the max part number requirements for the mission (~150). This scrapped versions 2 through 5 or so.

Version 6 was an exercise in wishful thinking where I made the whole ship land on every planet in one single piece minus a detachable heat shield. It somewhat worked in theory, but fuel expenditure was just too high to land the huge craft I ended up designing.

So, my current version of insanity revolves around a simple crew/fuel/engine section connected to an updated model of my version 1 lander. The main drive is 4 poodles and a rhino for a combined thrust of 3,000KN of thrust at an average of ISP of 348. I'm not 100% on that however. Thats an average between the ISP ratings on all of the engines, but when compared to resource outflow, the rhino recieves a little over 2.05 times the fuel flow than all 4 of the poodles combined, and I'm not sure how or if asymmetrical fuel flow from a shared fuel source affects an overall ISP rating for the engines combined. My gut says it does, but I'm not sure how much or to what extent. I know just enough to know how much I don't know.

The basic mission profile calls for a 1953m/s injection burn leaving from Kerbin on Y:3 D:273 and arriving in Jool orbit on Y:6 D:215 and using aerobreaking in Jool's upper atmosphere to bleed off velocity to get captured. The first landing destination is Laythe, making use of the remaining heatshield for aerocapture. Next is Tylo, where the heavy lander is abandoned in orbit after ascent. Next, Bop followed by Pol. Then dive down to Vall and dump the smaller lander after landing and returning to orbit. Then comes the complicated use of Tylo's massive gravity and using it for a nearly free form of escape from Jool SOI and back towards Kerbin. 

If only it was all as simple as writing it down...

[Norcurion]

On 17.6.2016 at 4:21 AM, sdj64 said:

@Norcurion that's crazy big for an ion ship!  Good luck with your grand tour!

The Ion Engine setup works just fine, the ship is pretty stable under thrust and the solar arrays work very well over Kerbin and Eve.

My main Problem is that the rear heat shield set up, which worked fine while testing in various stages just crumbles apart now and i don't know why.

I'm redesigning the rear part of the ship right now, probably switching from a 6-arm ablative Heatshield Concept to a 4-Arm Inflatable Heat shield concept.

That will definitely cost me some of the visual grace of the ship (i just like that 6-arm-minimal-heatshield-design) but it will make the ship lighter,

and due to the increased cross-section i won't have to dip as deep into the atmospheres as with the old design.

Unfortunately with a design change as invasive as this ill have to rewiev and recalculate all maneuvers of the core ship.

That will take some time :-/

Edited June 20, 2016 by Norcurion

[sdj64]

21 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Is Kerbal Atomics allowed? Is DSEV?

Would ISRU include manufacturing parts with OSE workshop?

Unfortunately I think that all of those mods will go on the prohibited list.  The engines in the first two are incredibly strong compared to stock.  The latter is banned because the design of the Jool 5 ship and landers is arguably the hardest part of the challenge, and it takes away a lot of that challenge of planning and testing.  Forgot parachutes? No problem, just print them...

7 hours ago, GwynJHawke said:

Update:

First off, the version 1.0 of my Jool 5 mission plan went out the window. If I had docking ports that could handle more stress, it would likely have worked better in test runs. Linkage failure scrapped the first model. 

The second model, I failed to learn the real lesson from my mistakes and foolishly decided that the issue was not docking port strength, but number of docking port linkages (I swear, it only took me twice to learn not to touch a hot stovetop).  This lead to a number of awkward and ugly multi port docking designs that failed to meet the max part number requirements for the mission (~150). This scrapped versions 2 through 5 or so.

Version 6 was an exercise in wishful thinking where I made the whole ship land on every planet in one single piece minus a detachable heat shield. It somewhat worked in theory, but fuel expenditure was just too high to land the huge craft I ended up designing.

So, my current version of insanity revolves around a simple crew/fuel/engine section connected to an updated model of my version 1 lander. The main drive is 4 poodles and a rhino for a combined thrust of 3,000KN of thrust at an average of ISP of 348. I'm not 100% on that however. Thats an average between the ISP ratings on all of the engines, but when compared to resource outflow, the rhino recieves a little over 2.05 times the fuel flow than all 4 of the poodles combined, and I'm not sure how or if asymmetrical fuel flow from a shared fuel source affects an overall ISP rating for the engines combined. My gut says it does, but I'm not sure how much or to what extent. I know just enough to know how much I don't know.

The basic mission profile calls for a 1953m/s injection burn leaving from Kerbin on Y:3 D:273 and arriving in Jool orbit on Y:6 D:215 and using aerobreaking in Jool's upper atmosphere to bleed off velocity to get captured. The first landing destination is Laythe, making use of the remaining heatshield for aerocapture. Next is Tylo, where the heavy lander is abandoned in orbit after ascent. Next, Bop followed by Pol. Then dive down to Vall and dump the smaller lander after landing and returning to orbit. Then comes the complicated use of Tylo's massive gravity and using it for a nearly free form of escape from Jool SOI and back towards Kerbin. 

If only it was all as simple as writing it down...

If you need to dock, 2 sr. ports on the sides of boosters or drop tanks is a really strong connection.  Even one sr. port would probably be enough for the Poodle boosters.

You would use a weighted average of fuel flows and ISP of each engine to calculate your overall ISP.  The formula is (ISP1 * flow1 + ISP2 * flow2) / (flow1 + flow2).  For your design a bit over 343.

Sounds like a good mission plan.  Keep in mind the fuel cost of moving your ship around the Jool system and bring extra!  Since maneuvers rarely go anywhere near perfectly.

[JacobJHC]

@sdj64Could we bring back the mining badge with the pickaxe for the ISRU level? I suggest taking the original challenge's kethane badge and changing the words to ISRU this would include the stock ISRU and similar mods such as kethane.

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by JacobJHC
expansion

[GwynJHawke]

Does anything ever go perfect in KSP? Besides the snacks and explosions, of course.

[max_creative]

13 minutes ago, GwynJHawke said:

Does anything ever go perfect in KSP? Besides the snacks and explosions, of course.

AFAIK, basically no. You forgot the screaming and the really big rockets from that list.

[GwynJHawke]

Kerbals don't scream. They cheer with odd faces

[Thalamask]

I think I've finally completed the Jool 5 Challenge here. All in all, I took 118 screenies to support my application. I sure hope it gets reviewed quickly so I can claim my first forum badge!

- Which game versions did you use? 1.0.5. I started it under 1.0.5, and 1.1.2 was crash prone so.......
- What mods did you use, if any? Engineer, 'Jeb, Alarm Clock and Joint Reinforcement.
- How many Kerbals are on the mission? 5
- How many launches were needed to start your mission from Kerbin? 9, 1 mothership, 1 refueller and 7 orbital refuelling tankers
- How much did your mission cost? 3.8m Kerbucks
- Did you needed a refueling mission? Yes, I was hoping not to have to use it, but it didn't work out that way.
- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? No. I originally did on my first mission and that's part of what sunk the attempt.

[sdj64]

On 6/19/2016 at 3:02 PM, max_creative said:

Another question: so... The main ship can land on Pol and Bop, and I'm bringing 5 Kerbals, so one lands on Tylo, one on Vall, one on Laythe, but the main ship can land on Bop and Pol with all five Kerbals in it. And I don't have anyplace to leave the Kerbals during the landing, so they have to come with me. 

What would this qualify as?

This would be level 3.  Bringing extra Kerbals on 1 or more landings is fine.

 

On 6/20/2016 at 10:07 PM, JacobJHC said:

@sdj64Could we bring back the mining badge with the pickaxe for the ISRU level? I suggest taking the original challenge's kethane badge and changing the words to ISRU this would include the stock ISRU and similar mods such as kethane.

 

Not sure it really makes sense as ISRU is hardly separate from non-ISRU now even compared to 1.0.X, and the Kethane challenge was very different from the original Jool 5.  You are welcome to photoshop it if you want to.

 

On 6/25/2016 at 5:38 PM, Thalamask said:

I think I've finally completed the Jool 5 Challenge here. All in all, I took 118 screenies to support my application. I sure hope it gets reviewed quickly so I can claim my first forum badge!

- Which game versions did you use? 1.0.5. I started it under 1.0.5, and 1.1.2 was crash prone so.......
- What mods did you use, if any? Engineer, 'Jeb, Alarm Clock and Joint Reinforcement.
- How many Kerbals are on the mission? 5
- How many launches were needed to start your mission from Kerbin? 9, 1 mothership, 1 refueller and 7 orbital refuelling tankers
- How much did your mission cost? 3.8m Kerbucks
- Did you needed a refueling mission? Yes, I was hoping not to have to use it, but it didn't work out that way.
- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? No. I originally did on my first mission and that's part of what sunk the attempt.

Congratulations Thalamask, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 3!  That was a very solid mission and well designed craft.  Your first mission was very ambitious and I can see the immense improvements in efficiency for the second attempt.  One thing was confusing, is there a reason you had to do Laythe first?  It seems like when you delivered the Tylo module you could have finished that moon while you were there.

Edit: I did add your entry to the OP (if you can't find it), because you did it in 1.0.5 it is in the 1.0.X hall of fame.

Edit2: Is the acronym helper context sensitive?  For example "the Vector is OP for a 1.25m engine".  Nope, it's not.

Edited June 27, 2016 by sdj64

[Thalamask]

12 minutes ago, sdj64 said:

One thing was confusing, is there a reason you had to do Laythe first?  It seems like when you delivered the Tylo module you could have finished that moon while you were there.

Thanks for the quick review, @sdj64.

The reason I had to do Laythe first was because of how I built my rocket. I originally planned to split the Tylo segment off once I entered Jool's SOI, send that on to Tylo alone and proceed on to Laythe with my mothership to save on dV. Unfortunately, I forgot to put a probe core on the Tylo stage, so I had no control over it, thus had to use the mothership to drop it off first. Since my Laythe lander was glued on top of my general purpose lander, I couldn't use that as the ascent stage on my Tylo lander, so I had to wait until I'd used up the Laythe stage first.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Thalamask

[GwynJHawke]

I'm a couple of hours away from launching my Jool 5 attempt, but I have two questions of a rule nature. I have a ring of 6 2.5m heat shields as part of my aerobreaking protection. The edges of them clip their neighbors just a little, but only the other heat shields themselves. I've done my best to follow the no clipping of functional parts rule, and I need to know if this violates it. The second question is of a similar nature in that to fit the landing legs of the Laythe VTOL lander into the cargo bay, I had to clip them very slightly into a Mk.1 LF tank. The only part of the legs that are actually clipped in are the dark gray squares that represent where it bolts on. It's not a lot, but again, I want to check.

[sdj64]

3 hours ago, GwynJHawke said:

I'm a couple of hours away from launching my Jool 5 attempt, but I have two questions of a rule nature. I have a ring of 6 2.5m heat shields as part of my aerobreaking protection. The edges of them clip their neighbors just a little, but only the other heat shields themselves. I've done my best to follow the no clipping of functional parts rule, and I need to know if this violates it. The second question is of a similar nature in that to fit the landing legs of the Laythe VTOL lander into the cargo bay, I had to clip them very slightly into a Mk.1 LF tank. The only part of the legs that are actually clipped in are the dark gray squares that represent where it bolts on. It's not a lot, but again, I want to check.

Clipping heat shields to make a bigger one is okay.  I've added a note to the clipping rule.  If the leg cylinder is not clipped, you're probably fine.  Just be warned that the legs themselves might be picky about being clipped!

 

Also, I'm going through the posts and liking all of the completed entries.  Should have done this a long time ago!

And a very belated congratulations to @vasco, whose Science Grinder mission in 1.0.4 was never reviewed and deserves a place in the hall of fame on ISRU level with an incredibly impressive 59661 Science!

[JacobJHC]

I am going to attempt a grand tour but what must I do for it to qualify? I saw something you put a while back about it needing to be one ship but I am confused.

[GwynJHawke]

All of the beta tests are complete and the mothership Discovery with the Niña and Santa María engine blocks have been launched into orbit. I've a little less than 200 days to launch and dock the Odyssey command module with the attached Pinta engine block inside the main cargo hold, launch refueling tankers to top off the mothership, and then launch the much larger refueling tanker, refill it, and deliver the crews to the mothership. 

Let the fun begin!

[Thalamask]

12 hours ago, JacobJHC said:

I am going to attempt a grand tour but what must I do for it to qualify? I saw something you put a while back about it needing to be one ship but I am confused.

Here's a quote from the challenge guru @sdj64 himself that may help you out. It's in relation to a ship at Dres, but basically applies to a grand tour as well.

On 6/17/2016 at 3:21 AM, sdj64 said:

As long as the whole Jool 5 ship leaves Kerbin in one piece.  You should bring your landers with you and also make sure that no ships already at Dres give your ship fuel or parts.  You can even drop off stuff at Dres if you want but you can't pick anything up.  Your ship can mine at Dres or the asteroids if it has its own equipment.

 

[sdj64]

@JacobJHC @Thalamask Added a clarification to the grand tour award in the OP.  

Quote

If you go above and beyond the Jool system and land a Kerbal on every planet with a solid surface before returning to Kerbin, you will get a GRAND TOUR note on your entry.  To be eligible, your ship needs to be in one piece when you leave Kerbin SOI, and all of the Kerbals on the mission must return together.  Otherwise, the ship may separate or deploy smaller craft at any time.

Everything I said in the post Thalamask quoted applies as well, that is, other ships that might exist in your save can't provide any parts, resources, or Kerbals to your mission.  Resource scanning is no problem, it's fine to attempt if you have already scanned some or all planets.

[sdj64]

Happy Fourth of Jool-y from the Jool 5 Challenge!

[Bev7787]

Can we send a refuelling ship in tandem with the main expedition ship?

 

EDIT: Also, what are the d/v requirements for each Joolian moon? Also when it is said by "assembly launches," can we send up unlimited refuellers as long as we are in Kerbin orbit?

Edited July 6, 2016 by Bev7787

[Ourworldalpha1]

I will be entering with this SHIP,

[Sirius628]

How about a 4th level, Jool-6? Land on Jool itself as well.

[sdj64]

On 7/5/2016 at 10:38 PM, Bev7787 said:

Can we send a refuelling ship in tandem with the main expedition ship?

 

EDIT: Also, what are the d/v requirements for each Joolian moon? Also when it is said by "assembly launches," can we send up unlimited refuellers as long as we are in Kerbin orbit?

The refueling ship is meant to be a rescue, not a planned thing.  But you can send it in the same window if you think you'll need it.  Refueling the mothership in Kerbin orbit before you leave is covered, yes.

On 7/6/2016 at 6:02 PM, Ourworldalpha1 said:

I will be entering with this SHIP,

Might want to check your image.  Good luck though!

3 hours ago, Sirius628 said:

How about a 4th level, Jool-6? Land on Jool itself as well.

If you want to land on Jool, look here instead.

[Montag]

On 6/20/2016 at 10:54 AM, GwynJHawke said:

... that failed to meet the max part number requirements for the mission (~150)...

Is this a self imposed limitation?  I do not see the max part number requirement in the rules.