Elcano Challenge: All Planets/Moons Complete

[Claw]

19 hours ago, Starhawk said:

Happy landings!

Thanks! I think I'm going to need it.

18 hours ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

Tylo

Right now that's last in my profile. Hopefully that choice won't come back to haunt me.

15 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Thore are some impressive ships.

Heh. I think this is the most complex mission I've tried to do. It was actually a struggle to keep the MOAR BOOSTERS monster at bay.  

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, Claw said:

Heh. I think this is the most complex mission I've tried to do. It was actually a struggle to keep the MOAR BOOSTERS monster at bay.  

You have been assimilated .  I particularly like your stacked rovers in fairings.  That's one of my favorite tricks and it's sort of an Escher-like puzzle to make them nest properly.

BTW. when are you going to stock bug-fix the low opening of chutes on Duna?

 

[Claw]

8 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

I particularly like your stacked rovers in fairings.

They are actually stacked on their backs, rather than nose-to-nose. It was easier to attach them that way, and I didn't have to build up extra mounting points.

It does, however, leave a decoupler mount head on the bottom of the rover. Turns out it gets scrapped off pretty early when driving. (Pol post incoming!)

[Claw]

 

 

Pol

The scientists would have thought by now, after driving around so many worlds, they would have seen nearly everything. However, Pol has an interesting surprise in store, right at mission end.

 

 

 

     I’ve not actually been to Pol before, so this mission was a “first” for me for multiple reasons. The crew did look up the radius (40km) as a means to compare with Minmus’ radius (66km). Seems close enough, right? RIGHT?! Julella fully expects to have to drive quite a bit slower than top speed in order to not go suborbital in the rover. But, of course, the first step is getting there... The crew climbs aboard the tug, named Tin Poppy, and sets off for Pol.

 

This first album is for Jool-5, showing the crew transferring from Laythe to Pol.

 

 

 

This album shows the Elcano portion of the trip.

 

 

    The most annoying part was that a lot of the drive had to be done at night. The Kerbin return window is about 300 days away, and the crew couldn’t afford to halt the mission for weeks waiting for the sun to come up. In total, it took approximately eight hours of driving to get around Pol.

 

And again for Jool-5...the return flight, where the crew gets to rest for a few days during the return, and for a bit aboard the Iron Narcissus.

 

 

 

 

 

[damerell]

So was that just some horrible discontinuity in the terrain?

[Claw]

@damerell

I'm not entirely sure. It's almost like the terrain height calculation is a bit off. I'm not sure if it has to do with that very steep cliff right there. I actually didn't remember hearing of this problem until I ran into it myself here. But then I saw it mentioned on the forum somewhere else also.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Claw.

 

 

Prepare yourself for Tylo.

 

 

 

 

It will be hard. The Kraken will attack. Heed this warning, you may even need a special anti Kraken rover.

[Claw]

5 minutes ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

anti Kraken rover

I'm not sure such a thing exists.

Dres was actually quite unforgiving. It vaporized my rover countless times without warning, often only leaving the rover's engine core or a wheel behind. Enough that I had to switch from equatorial to a polar route, and I stayed on the highlands as much as possible.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

I was talking about Tylo.

 

 

[Claw]

@SpaceplaneAddict

Sure. I was just commenting that the kraken was eating my rover for a snack on Dres. I suppose I'll see about Tylo when I get there. Thanks for the warning!

[Matuchkin]

On 14/12/2015, 18:09:34, Claw said:

Sure. I was just commenting that the kraken was eating my rover for a snack on Dres.

Hope it tastes good.

[Claw]

Well, between a variety of projects, I've been extremely slow about posting my Elcano stuffs. So here is the JoolCano-5 Bop adventure. As with Pol, I've split the albums. There's only 24 pictures total in these albums, so hopefully that's not too harsh on people's bandwidth.

Jool-5 Travel To Bop

 

Bop Circumnavigation

 

And the Jool-5 Return From Bop To The Mothership

 

Unfortunately there isn't much excitement in this trip, except that Julella wasn't very careful with the fuel consumption, so at the very end of the mission the Tin Poppy coasts in on fumes when rendezvousing with the mothership..

(Now, to get the Vall and Laythe posts up! )

 

 

 

[Claw]

Okay, here's the Vall trip. There's a few more pictures in these albums than in the last, but I'm trying to get caught up on some of this backlog.

Jool-5 Travel to Vall

 

 

Elcano Vall Circumnavigation

 

 

Jool-5 Return from Vall to Laythe

 

Well, so this trip was a bit "different." Right off the bat, the crew experienced some sort of brick wall in the terrain. While coming downhill, the rover spontaneously exploded and threw the crew free, sending them careening downhill. Later, the ground opened up and swallowed the whole rover, then flung it out of Joolian space. Plus some floating rocks and a few other things that seem less interesting after all that fun. heh

Enjoy!

 

[Claw]

How horrible! I realize just how busy I've been. Almost two months since an update...

So I managed to accomplish more on my JoolCano-5 mission, only to realize that I never posted my Laythe portion. So here it is... Kind of thin on storyline, but it was interesting none the less. I went for a polar route this time, since I've already done the equatorial expanse. Plus I don't think this new boat would have made it through the oceanic gap.

 

Jool5 Laythe Landing

 

Elcano Laythe Polar Circumnavigation

 

Jool-5 Laythe Ascent

 

So out of this mission I learned that, quite frankly, the MiniISRU is pretty painful to work with. I carried extra radiators to cool it and what I thought was enough power generation. However, it's less than 10% as efficient as the big ISRU, meaning that it took several months to refuel this vehicle which carried less fuel than my previous Laythe boat (La Cucaracha). Overall the boat did it's job, so I'm not complaining. But I had to abuse the ISRU and EC mechanics to make it happen (by time warping while away).

The hydrofoil type design was fairly effective though. The boat sort of rode up on the control surfaces, which was interesting because they were also reacting to try and stabilize the ship. It was also actually pretty awesome to glide the boat down to a landing on the shore. It wasn't exactly flying, but maybe "falling with style."

More to follow soon!

[Claw]

As promised, soon has already arrived. Here's the Tylo report, fresh off the press. Pretty sure I nearly threw my computer out the window over this one, though I seemed to have blacked out.

 

Jool-5 Tylo Landing

 

Elcano Tylo Circumnavigation

 

Jool-5 Tylo Ascent

 

I didn't include a map on this one, because Julella pretty much drove as straight east as was kerbally possible. Tylo...Besides being Tylo...was by far the least fun to curcumnavigate up to this point. It was about as destructive as Dres, as long as Kerbin, and as boring as...Well, as boring as Tylo. Plus the crashes...Constant, never ending, crashes. The crew even finished by flipping the rover about 500m from the finish, then running over their own landing site flag. There just simply wasn't very much to get excited about on this one, and it takes quite a long time to drive it. So if you're looking for "casual" Elcano fun, I would steer clear of Tylo.

Perhaps Julella and Obemy can explain it best. Here is their faces as they rejoined on the Iron Narcissus...about 24 days after landing on Tylo.

I think Obemy even has some five o'clock shadow there.

 

Absurd...just....absurd...

[Claw]

And not necessarily Elcano, but here's the return from Jool. It took two attempts of leaving the Jool system to get the alignment right for a Kerbin rendezvous...but after that everything was pretty smooth. (No running out of fuel like when coming back from Dres!)

 

 

So here's my dedication of the completion of this JoolCano-5 mission to the Elcano Challenge's birthday. It was one year ago today (23 Mar 2015) that the original Elcano Challenge was posted....And look how far it's come!

[damerell]

4 hours ago, Claw said:

I learned that, quite frankly, the MiniISRU is pretty painful to work with. I carried extra radiators to cool it and what I thought was enough power generation. However, it's less than 10% as efficient as the big ISRU, meaning that it took several months to refuel this vehicle which carried less fuel than my previous Laythe boat (La Cucaracha).

Literally less efficient, as in EC in to Ore out?

[Claw]

@damerell

Less efficient as in it consumes 5 times as much ore as the big one and only outputs half the fuel. So it takes 10x the ore to make the same amount of fuel, and consumes the same amount of electricity to do it. It also requires just about as much cooling because of the lower max heat (it looses efficiency faster), and it heats up faster. Also, the mini drill requires a higher concentration of ore to work. Because it generates less fuel, it wasn't putting out enough to feed the fuel cell to provide additional power without breaking even.

It is lighter (1.25t vs. 4.5t) and it's smaller. But considering the size of my mothership (2300t) I probably could have afforded the extra 3t and saved myself nearly two years of timewarping.

[Claw]

The Dirty Snowball

So it was finally time to bite the bullet and do the distant, cold, lonely, bland...Eeloo. (I actually had this one done a while ago, but just now got around to posting it.)

Given it's size, I elected to keep the same rover for Eeloo and give it a try under 1.1.3. It's been a bit since I've done a long term mission with the wheels, let alone with the new wheels. After a little bit of testing, and some additional accessories attached to the basic rover (so the crew could land and take off again), the intrepid threesome set off for Eeloo.

 

 

 

Unfortunately Eeloo isn't too terribly exciting (at least not to me). The mission itself was rather uneventful, and I carried more than enough fuel to make up for lazy interplanetary travel... I think the white terrain does make for some nice pictures, but I didn't post too many of those (I don't think I did, anyway).

I think Eeloo taught me that I actually do like to have a bit of relief to the terrain. I like to have something to plan around and something to actually steer through.

 

[Claw]

A Bright Future

 

After returning from their most recent adventure at the furthest reaches of the solar system, the intrepid threesome gear up for a new excursion to the Sun’s closest companion. The mission director set his sights on Moho, directing the engineers to spin up another launch system capable of delivering the worlds’ renowned Geep.

 

Julella (pilot) salivates at the opportunity to navigate a (potentially) more interesting celestial body. While Eeloo was a novel sight, it didn’t really satisfy Julella’s driving muscles.

 

Obemy (engineer), on the other hand, seemed less enthused about driving backwards around another planet. He did see some wheel repair action on Eeloo, but more importantly, he took some notes on how to improve the Geep after the most recent phase shift in universal physics.

 

Marissa (scientist) is looking forward to more Collins duty aboard the orbiter, despite the relatively cramped quarters as compared to the Iron Narcissus (Jool mothership).

 

-----

 

So this is another one of my missions that’s been done for a little bit now (though not as long as Eeloo). I did learn from the rover on Eeloo, which lived through a couple version updates. The wheels, while not extremely susceptible, would still go inactive when hitting bumps a bit too hard. To help prevent that, I moved a few components inward and pulled the wheels down, back, and out slightly from the chassis.

 

When viewed from most angles, I think the change is imperceptible. If I zoom in close from the front, the slight gaps become apparent. Some quick testing in the western KSC hills shows a marked reduction in wheel-blockage over the previous design. So with that, most of the engineering work for Moho was done. The engineers added a little bit of extra fuel to the rover delivery system, and deemed the ascent craft “good enough” (though the thrust-to-weight ratio was a little suspect).

 

 

 

 

Turns out the crew was already within ten days of the next Moho transfer window, so the rocket was launched without delay. Admittedly, the first trip to Moho was an abject failure and the entire delivery system went zinging past Moho (which might be of little surprise to those who have visited Moho before). The pilots with their bruised egos blamed a lack of fuel, but ultimately there was a bit of poor pilotage as well. (The above is the successful mission vehicle.)

 

 

 

So the second attempt was launched under the guise of “Moar Boosters” and away they went. The ejection was much better planned, and the ship arrived with quite an excess of fuel. While not really an issue, it felt a bit wasteful to essentially jettison a huge amount of fuel in order to extract the rover. Lesson learned: Don’t be impatient.

 

 

The terrain was more entertaining to drive than Eeloo (dare I say, it might have been enjoyable ). Julella insisted on a polar route, since she heard “the Mohole is an absolute must see.” The crew was pleasantly surprised to discover the terrain leading up to the North Pole was not nearly as jagged as a few other places they’ve been (*cough* Duna *cough*). They also took some sight-seeing excursions to several of the craters (which Eeloo has a decided lack of).

 

Here are the mission pictures. Not too much crazy to show during the drive itself...

 

 

All-in-all, the northern hemisphere was a bit rough to travel on, providing enough variety to be challenging but not so much that it was utterly destructive. The southern hemisphere was much smoother and the Geep made quite good time. Marissa also noted that in several places the crew had to be careful where they stopped. Sometimes the rover would spontaneously launch into the air, usually when one of the crew was EVA and looking around. It’s unclear if this was related to the terrain or some other magical force.

[damerell]

Nice work, Claw. If I ever go to Moho I may have to abandon my policy of always driving around the equator.

[Geschosskopf]

8 hours ago, Claw said:

So the second attempt was launched under the guise of “Moar Boosters” and away they went. The ejection was much better planned, and the ship arrived with quite an excess of fuel. While not really an issue, it felt a bit wasteful to essentially jettison a huge amount of fuel in order to extract the rover. Lesson learned: Don’t be impatient.

Moho is just inconveniently picky about the precision of your transfer.  Doing it manually, I can't get get the accuracy needed to get there direct on a conventional transfer.  So instead I use the round-about method of leaving Kerbin on one of Moho's nodes and orbiting the sun 1 or more times until I sync up with Moho at a node.

Nice drive and congrats on completing yet another circumnavigation.  But is Moho now tide-locked?  It wasn't the last time I was there, so there was no perpetual twilight at any point.  However, a Moho day was 56 Kerbin days so if you weren't there very long, you wouldn't notice anything.

[Claw]

3 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Moho is just inconveniently picky about the precision of your transfer.  Doing it manually, I can't get get the accuracy needed to get there direct on a conventional transfer.

...

 However, a Moho day was 56 Kerbin days so if you weren't there very long, you wouldn't notice anything.

Yeah, my first transfer I actually left a little late, and it took a lot to correct. The second transfer was much better timed and I hit it at its descending node.

The whole drive took a little over four game days, so yeah, the sun didn't have much time to move. I think I meant "perpetual twilight" in that I was running on the terminator, so the sun never set (rather than tidally locked). The polar route was really driven by the desire to drive by the Mohole, plus I wanted to visit a few more of the craters. I thought a terminator drive would be interesting, since it doesn't move very fast.

 

4 hours ago, damerell said:

Nice work, Claw. If I ever go to Moho I may have to abandon my policy of always driving around the equator.

Thanks! This was one of the planets where the polar terrain isn't a mess, although there was still some weird physics when stopping there.

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, Claw said:

The whole drive took a little over four game days, so yeah, the sun didn't have much time to move. I think I meant "perpetual twilight" in that I was running on the terminator, so the sun never set (rather than tidally locked). The polar route was really driven by the desire to drive by the Mohole, plus I wanted to visit a few more of the craters. I thought a terminator drive would be interesting, since it doesn't move very fast.

Ah, OK.  I was afraid all my hard-won data from Project Mo-Henge was now obsolete

 

[Claw]

No Time for a Breather

So...with the prospect of being so close (yet so far away), and fresh off of the successful Moho expedition, the Mission Director ordered the immediate assembly of an Eve system mission. The engineers used the same basic booster system from the Eeloo trip, but heavily modified the payload.

This post will be mostly about the testing and runup to an Eve system trip, and I’ll put the actual Elcano mission report in the next post.

The engineers went for a practical “get there” mentality, striping the ship down to its bear necessities. To start with, two rovers are required (one for Gilly, and one for Eve). The rovers were slightly modified to lower the suspension a bit more (to account for the extra gravity on Eve), but for the most part, the rovers were pretty much unmodified from the Moho variant. The engineers decided that the Geep has proven itself time and time again, so it’s obviously a fully robust design...Right!? (Hint: This will turn out to be a poor decision later in the mission.)

 

To deliver the rovers, the engineers had been using an inline rocket delivery system. After looking at intra-Eve transfer requirements for Gilly, they went with a semi-brute force method to get to Gilly and back (rather than trying to optimize the Eve arrival). So the engineers stripped off the Eeloo/Moho rover landing system and, instead, elected to recycle the Tin Poppy (Jool tug ship) as the rover delivery system for Gilly. The Tin Poppy was unmodified from its original design, and included more than enough dV and TWR to deliver the crew and Geep to Gilly, then return to Eve orbit. The plan was to also use the Tin Poppy to drop the Eve rover into the atmosphere in much the same way as it was used to deliver the Laythe boat.

Additionally, the Tin Poppy doubled as the crew compartment for the interplanetary journey, eliminating the need for an additional capsule/crew compartment. This configuration, however, didn’t leave space for Marissa. The Mission Director approved this decision and came up with an alternative plan for her.

 

 

The Eve rover was a bit of a new challenge for the engineers. For the most part, rovers (and the Laythe boat) were all delivered without the need for a thermal protection system. The engineers weren’t sure about the rover and all its components surviving an Eve reentry, so they set about devising a protection system. Ultimately, they encapsulated the rover inside an aeroshell, and mounted a heat shield to the bottom. (The crew manages to mount the rover seats through FM.)

 

 

With all the major mission elements designed, the entire system was assembled. The Eve rover was mounted to the top most section of the rocket, followed underneath by the Gilly mission payload. The Gilly rover and Tin Poppy were mounted to a set of decouplers on an offset midbeam support. The remainder of the rocket is essentially the Eeloo system with an extra pair of SRBs to increase TWR at liftoff.

 

 

 

With that, the crew departs blissfully for the final destinations...Gilly and Eve!