Journey to Eve

[dtondo]

Hi guys,

I was able to build a powerfull rocket to go duna and back:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8M_Y5cNjEpvcHVXTGZ4YzZHVEU/view?usp=sharing

The trick is let this tank in duna orbit and dock when back:

Now I'm trying to go to eve, but I can't find a way to mount a ship to do the job. Does anyone did it in version 1.0.4?

[Geher]

Hi guys,

I was able to build a powerfull rocket to go duna and back:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8M_Y5cNjEpvcHVXTGZ4YzZHVEU/view?usp=sharing

The trick is let this tank in duna orbit and dock when back:

http://s21.postimg.org/zfo8ej8oj/image.jpg

Now I'm trying to go to eve, but I can't find a way to mount a ship to do the job. Does anyone did it in version 1.0.4?

Sounds like you made it to Duna for the first time. Congratulations!

If your future mission should include landing, then the next step would be Ike and Gilly and after that Dres or Jool's Moons. Eve is probably the hardest thing in KSP to land on and get back. So right now don't even think about getting back from Eve's surface.

[Warzouz]

Going to Eve is not hard, circularize at low orbit require more fuel than Duna. Areobraking is more dangerous if you ship is not designed for it.

Now for landing it's quite easy but taking of is harder. Engines have a lower ISP than on Kerbin and you'll heat up faster.

It's propbably the hardest thing to do in stock KSP : ascending from Eve (followed by landing on Tylo, and circularizing at Moho)

[Aegeas]

...but I can't find a way to mount a ship to do the job. Does anyone did it in version 1.0.4?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/134874-Space-Station-Nuclear-Tug-set-%28WIP%29

This might be a little over powered but the tug should do the job for you. Just make sure on the craft you want to dock with it that you use the same combination of adapters between the large fuel tank and the docking port like what is on the end of the space station.

The tug file already includes a launch vehicle so its ready to go.

[crestofawave]

funny, i just got to duna as well, just with a sat, as i wanted to scan it first and test the rocket base, i found it even though my an and dn were 0.0, quite hard to get an encounter with it, all the others i was able to get encounters with being on that plane.

im using a very simple rocket that does the job in our imediate system, and able to go to duna as well with fuel to spare.

when my minmus base is up itl be even easier, looking forward to eve.

[FlyingPete]

Landing on Eve is simple enough, it's getting back again that's the hard part. Consider sending the crewed ship to Eve orbit only, with a side trip to explore Gilly. You can deploy a separate probe or rover to land on Eve and transmit science back.

[dtondo]

Hi everyone thanks for all answers,

My main issue is discover a rocket that can put in orbit launching it by Eve's land....

Going to Eve is not hard, circularize at low orbit require more fuel than Duna. Areobraking is more dangerous if you ship is not designed for it.

Now for landing it's quite easy but taking of is harder. Engines have a lower ISP than on Kerbin and you'll heat up faster.

It's propbably the hardest thing to do in stock KSP : ascending from Eve (followed by landing on Tylo, and circularizing at Moho)

Warzouz according to: http://deltavmap.com return from Eve (12.000) request less deltaV than Joe (40.000) ...I'm wrong?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/134874-Space-Station-Nuclear-Tug-set-%28WIP%29

This might be a little over powered but the tug should do the job for you. Just make sure on the craft you want to dock with it that you use the same combination of adapters between the large fuel tank and the docking port like what is on the end of the space station.

The tug file already includes a launch vehicle so its ready to go.

Aegeas, man how you ship works to go eve and back? I see no parachutes... how do you can land on eve?

Landing on Eve is simple enough, it's getting back again that's the hard part. Consider sending the crewed ship to Eve orbit only, with a side trip to explore Gilly. You can deploy a separate probe or rover to land on Eve and transmit science back.

FlyingPete, That is a great ideia to grab science. In my case I got all science needed

[Warzouz]

Warzouz according to: http://deltavmap.com return from Eve (12.000) request less deltaV than Joe (40.000) ...I'm wrong?

12000 was in beta. It's easier now. I've landed a 180tons lander with 9400 m/s and get back to low orbit with 2900m/s left. I don't remember which altitude (maybe 1500m). I tried to make a lighter ascent vehicle, but I failed with 7000m/s. This require a lot of tweaking to manager heat and avoiding flipping.

Aero streamline is very important. You should be fine with 7500 to 8000m/s. Remember that there is a very large nearly flat aera on the equator which altitude is mostly between 1000 and 2000m. Landing there should be the easiest but maybe not the most efficient (there are higher peaks).

My tests were done with hyperedit. I didn't started the real mission yet.

[Jaeleth]

Taking off eve is talking about 500 tonnes of ship (around 1000 tonnes in eve).

it is possible, it is almost easy, but it requires a LOT of work.

i am talking landing at less than 1000m MSL on eve, not on highlands and peaks.

Curiously the HARD thing is not to get out of Eve. But to LAND on Eve...

now, before everyone else sets me on fire let me explain...

landing a small or medium crewed craft on eve is extremely easy. Just a parachute and it will practically stop the damn thing in mid air as it falls in that thick soup of an atmosphere. But landing a 500t beast... Not so.

lots of parachutes and engine power in the last tens of meters is required for hyper-soft landing

no landing gear will hold it, 9 out of 10 times the entire ship brakes in small pieces when landing on legs, wheels, you name it. The trick is landing on the engines, which will have to be mammoth for the first stage, and those engines will have to be attached to the fuel tanks with lots of struts for extra rigidity.

getting out means refuelling, if you used the engines for softening the descent. you-ll have to land a drill, or tanks on wheels, if you want to make it harder, or an even bigger ship... Anyway, using the drill or tanks:

dock it with the main ship (this is a very hard design problem, recommend using a hose made of mutiple attached small docking ports) and fill up the tanks.

the ascent is somewhat tricky, climb "very vertically" and from the 10000m the atmosphere behaves like sea level on kerbin (sort of). Have a very light final stage, monopropellant and some puffs will do nicely, for the final m/s you'll need to get out of the gripping hand of eve.

another problem is to get that big ship on eve. A ship big enough to get off eve should SSTO on kerbin, at least mine did, transferijg the fuel to the final stage to keep those mammoths burning without staging. Another boring and expensive and time consuming problem was to refuel the entire thing on orbit before ejecting to eve though...

By the way, a career mission to plant a flag on eve costed me around 2.500.000 credits.... Because i didn't want to leave the poor kerbals stranded there. I am taking 3 of them to the surface and back, though.

oh, almost forgot. The return ship. Getting them back to kerbin will cost me another 100-200k but it's a nuclear ship and is reusable so...

this is data from a real mission.

the point of landing so low on eve? I had to land near a rich mining vein so i could setup a mining operation for future manned lfights to eve. The only large rich mineral area i found near the equator (less deltaV) and with fairly level terrain was at low MSL so... Unfortunately EVE rich areas are all at low MSL, mountains and plateaus are poor in minerals, strange as it might seem

and carrying large amounts of fuel or ore through big distances on the ground is NOT a practical option... Not even with mechjeb handling rover autopilot. That would mean a lot of movie watching or nap taking while playing KSP ))

the aforementioned ship refueling on minmus orbit. shields assembled. Detachable engine assembled. To be detached prior to reentry eve. Refuel shuttle can be seen right of main ship

Same ship, different angle. Waiting ejection to eve in T-31 days

Edited September 29, 2015 by Jaeleth

[TheGeekno72]

If you've readed all the post you understand that : DON'T GO TO EVE YOU'LL STUCK THERE ! GO TO DUNA DRES AND JOOL ! IT'S MORE FUN AND WITHOUT PROBLEM !

[Jaeleth]

I could send you my ship, but that would be a spoiler since part of the joy of this game is to design the ships and tackle the engineering problems that come with big ships

Use hyperedit and sandbox mode to test your designs on Eve before sending a real mission.

took me a month (real time) to get the right ship design and landing procedures to do this.

2 hints: when using a big rocket there's a real problem in getting the kerbals on ground, sometimes it is not possible or practical to build large ladders. Deploy a small, disposable, crew cabin at bottom of rocket and simply transfer kerbonauts between that and the manned module which should sit at the top. landing a ship in eve means thermal shields. The 3.75m shield may nit be enough for large rockets with boosters (of course it won't ). Cluster smaller shields around a 3.75m one, like a daisy and attach them to the bottom of the rocket. Mammoth engines recommended for first and second stages, first stage multiple mammoths, i use 4. You canplace thing on bottom of a mammoth by attaching a radilal attachement point to the mammoth, sideways, and rotate and slide it beneath the mammoth. The rest is up to you to figure out, go have some fun

Edited September 29, 2015 by Jaeleth

[Yasmy]

Forgive me for being pedantic. I'm sure you know this.

about 500 tonnes of ship (around 1000 tonnes in eve).

Tonne is a mass unit, and is independent of the local gravity. Weight is the force on the mass due to the local gravitational acceleration. So tonnes are the same everywhere, but weight changes.

500 tonnes * 9.8 m/s^2 = 4.9 MN weight on Kerbin

500 tonnes * 16.8 m/2^2 = 8.35 MN weight on Eve

Edit: fixed SI prefix. doh.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Yasmy

[Jaeleth]

Yes, I know perfectly well the difference between mass and weight, my post was already too long to be concearned with semantic details since the difference here was unimportant because I was not calculating anything, just explaining a strategy.

[Yasmy]

Like I said, "I'm sure you know." Wasn't being critical, just pedantic for the possible benefit of anyone who hasn't had physics yet.