Solar Limbo: How Low can you Go?

[LordCorwin]

Oh my God, this changes everything!. Even in Kerbin orbit the solar panels explode if you make a powerful burn and don't radiate!

Edited June 24, 2015 by LordCorwin

[2001kraft]

Will try today. Update in this post.

EDIT: nvm I can't use 1.0.4, will have to wait till tomorrow or Saturday to try

Edited June 25, 2015 by 2001kraft

[LordCorwin]

Good luck with the challenge!

[LordCorwin]

Hello, Solar_Probe25 reached Apogee 299,782,785m without radiator parts (just parts set in 1.0.2).

[2001kraft]

Getting close to the official record of 271mm apoapsis! Good luck!

[LordCorwin]

Although the 271Mm didn't have an operational Thermometer, which is one of the constraints of the challenge. It exploded previously. That's the main reason I cannot go further :-/

[Teilnehmer]

Getting close to the official record of 271mm apoapsis! Good luck!

271 millimetres!?

[2001kraft]

xD

In any case, here's my attempt at this. I did bad. But it's ok, definitely not the last time!

Javascript is disabled. View full album

My rocket was weird. Very. Weird. But it worked, and after countless attempts I'm moving on. I did not bore you with 1,000,000,000,000 more images of modifications and design issues, so I skipped right on to the sun. I periapsis'd to 698,453,227 and began my monitoring session. Apoapsis of 726,300,003. When I began lowering down, it started getting much worse than preferred. Lowering down my periapsis / apoapsis was difficult due to the weird ways the KSP thermodynamics work. I simply flipped upside down, burned, and lowered my periapsis to 625 mil. That was enough. One time warp cycle later, I ended up near my newly established apoapsis of 699,483,965. The craft was heating up violently. Moving on and on and on, I started growing very bored and began rotating to dissipate the heat. Then I forgot that panels can explode and.. KABOOM! One of the panels blew up. Oh well, I said, moving on... I kept moving and moving and moving, rotating my craft violently. I finally came to the realization that I need to keep warping in order to get some progress, and so I did. And then when I heat level 3 of my time warp, the craft foof'd. It was nowhere to be seen. And thus, I record my minimum altitude of 625,090,203. No pic at lowest alt, sorry :/

[LordCorwin]

Solar panels and Thermometer are the most delicate parts. I suggest you to place them in a different orientation, almost paralel to the sun rays. You'll have to take care of not running out of electricity, but you will see an important temperature decrease.

[2001kraft]

Thanks

[Algomeysa]

I wasn't really formally trying to do this challenge, but I did try to get close to the Sun.

Used to be, you could get within 1.3 kilometers of the Sun before exploding, I'm assuming things changed with 1.0.

I've got a Kerbal riding on the outside of the probe like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.

What I found:

under 1.4 million kilometers exterior kerbal explodes

under .6 million kilometers nuke engines & batteries explode

under .216 million kilometers PB150 Xenon Container, IX-6315 "Dawn" Propulsion unit explode

[John FX]

So the OP last posted in this thread on 16th June and their profile shows no recent activity although they logged in today.

Not sure what is going on. This challenge seems unsupported though.

[LordCorwin]

Quite :-(

[Ilovespiders01]

I built a small ion probe and then surrounded it with tons of structual panels and added my lifter. After a long burn it got me to 538K periapsis and 601K Apoapsis. The panels luckily were strong enough so I tried lower. Nope. RIP My Ion Probe. 2015 - 2015

[Weywot8]

Hi, this thread has been on the sticky for a while and looks rather lonely. Would you mind much if I restarted the challenge with a few tweaks in conditions for KSP 1.04?

P.S. Prolonged silence will be taken as consent...

Edited July 15, 2015 by Weywot8

[Vanamonde]

The thread is only 5 weeks old, Weywot8. Bit too early to be replacing it.

[Weywot8]

The thread is only 5 weeks old, Weywot8. Bit too early to be replacing it.

Haha...extreme prolonged silence, like 2 months worth probably.

Hope things are working out in IRL. My contribution for your challenge, an spinoff from trying to master an image editor for texturing planets and stars. Snappier title was really more about shortening things a bit to squeeze everything in

Edited July 16, 2015 by Weywot8

[Xenro66]

Oh man, I could've been on the board if I was allowed to use the B9 Procedural Parts...

Edit: Wait, what's the rules on HyperEdit? I don't really have the time to manually get a low orbit.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Xenro66

[HoloYolo]

Haha...extreme prolonged silence, like 2 months worth probably.

Hope things are working out in IRL. My contribution for your challenge, an spinoff from trying to master an image editor for texturing planets and stars. Snappier title was really more about shortening things a bit to squeeze everything in

http://i.imgur.com/TlR6dsk.png

Is that the Badge for the challenge or...

[Weywot8]

Yup, badge for the challenge if supported by the person who started it

or for the relaunch if it comes to that

[Gustavo6046]

I built a small ion probe and then surrounded it with tons of structual panels and added my lifter. After a long burn it got me to 538K periapsis and 601K Apoapsis. The panels luckily were strong enough so I tried lower. Nope. RIP My Ion Probe. 2015 - 2015

lol funny, 2015-2015

[Speeding Mullet]

Hi, this thread has been on the sticky for a while and looks rather lonely. Would you mind much if I restarted the challenge with a few tweaks in conditions for KSP 1.04?

P.S. Prolonged silence will be taken as consent...

Given the OP's update on the front page it looks like you are free to re-boot the challenge. I for one cannot wait!

SM

[More Boosters]

Hey guys, since you're actually trying to get close to that big ball of doom, can you tell me if a Kerbal on EVA will survive at 2.3 Gm? That's where one of my contractors somehow got themselves stuck... Thanks.

[Weywot8]

Hey guys, since you're actually trying to get close to that big ball of doom, can you tell me if a Kerbal on EVA will survive at 2.3 Gm? That's where one of my contractors somehow got themselves stuck... Thanks.

They should survive. There was a nice post a page or so back listing the distances when things went POOF in a ball of smoke/explosion.

Relaunch coming soon. Self-testing ongoing to figure out "how low can you go" and thinking though a scoring system that rewards Crazy Kerbal Dare-Do, Close Shaves and Precision/Kerbal'esque Engineering.

Current Limbo Limit: 150,000 km Kerbol Orbital Radius. Is this challenging enough?

Apart from KSP1.03/1.04 as a requirement, details so far:

• HyperEditing one ship from anywhere in KSC to a starting point of up to 150x150km orbit around any planet, limited to stock Moho orbital radius will be allowed and noted on the results leaderboard. Bragging rights to those who don't Hyperedit , (maybe a nicer badge that says so, we'll see)
  

• Pure stock parts will be a category of it's own
  
  • Informational and piloting assist mods MechJeb, Kerbal Engineer allowed and encouraged to allow ease of review, considered 'stock' for purposes of this challenge
    
  • Asteroid Day parts considered stock for purposes of this challenge
    
  • Alt-F12 Thermal Info display allowed and a few pics with this mode on will be part of review
    

• Allowed mods, modded category (suggestions welcome but no other modded engines)
  
  • Karbonite and K+(Karborundum) resources and associated parts, including engines
    
  • in keeping with the the Solar theme, Solar Sail part from KSPI-Extended
    
    • SolarSailsNavigator recommended, http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119579-WIP-1-0-4-SolarSailNavigator-v1-0-3-alpha
      
    • and probably a fair amount of patience
      

    [*]Tweakscale of structural parts only, allowed up to 3.75m, down to as small as you want

    [*]Lifesupport(LS) mods allowed but excessive use of parts not directly providing LS gets the entry bumped to gatecrasher category (OKS/MKS...)

    [*]NFT Construction, NFT Solar allowed (but will probably blow up pretty early anyhows:D)

    [*]Structural part mods that aren't OP will be considered

    • thermal issues means no procedural fairings, no B9/procedural parts
      
    • thermal physics of unlisted mods should follow http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117930-Guide-New-temperature-rules-for-parts-in-1-0-%281-0-2-updates%29
      
    • listed mods may not follow the above but its a balance of extra fun vs limiting exploits to a common pool among challengers
      

• Gatecrasher (other mods entries) welcome, will be grouped separately (you'll get a nice badge too though but I'd expect to see spectacularly low distances) - if enough entries with same mod, will start a specific leaderboard. Please don't deliberately 'mod' parts to high heat tolerances as it defeats the purpose of the Challenge
  

• Hyperbolic trajectories, asteroids, sacrificial exploding parts allowed in all categories as long as the probe core/Kerbal survives the entire physical journey (no warp drives/teleports/jumps) of one of the following:
  
  • crosses Moho orbital radius on the way into and out from Kerbol
    
  • survives one full, stable orbit of Kerbol
    
  • bonus points for returning from a suitably low Kerbol Orbit, altitude TBD - surprise me!
    

• Modded planetary systems with stock Kerbol (size, gravity, temperature) welcome but note hyperediting restrictions
  
  • Kerbol location can vary in case of weird and wonderful star systems - fly between two super-close, realistically set-up binary Kerbol-like stars and I'll make a specific badge just for you!
    

Edited August 7, 2015 by Weywot8