Jool 5 Challenge: Voyage of the Nautilus

[EBAO]

After many long hours of planning, building, flying, crashing, recording, editing, and uploading, my Jool 5 Challenge is finished!

I present: “The Voyage of the Nautilusâ€Â

Ship Specs:

Name: Nautilus Mk3

Mass: ~450 tons

Dv: ~7,000 (Lf only)

Acceleration: 5.0 Gs max

Mission Cost: ~578,000 space credits, 433,000 Refunded 145,000 total

Mission Time: 4 Years, 42 Days, 5 hours

Science Earned: 5,909

Crew: 6, Jeb, Bob, Bill, Val, Joegee, Gerburry

Game Version: 1.04

Mods Used: KER, ScanSat, Science Alert, USI-LS, Kerbal Alarm Clock, Stage Recovery, Engine Lights, Distant Object Enhancement, Trajectories, EVE.

(HyperEdit was left on accidently during launch but was uninstalled soon after, videos show it was not used.)

Launches Required: 1, The Nautilus can SSTO everything but Eve.

Refueling: The Nautilus has an ISRU unit so its self refueling.

Living Quarters: Mk3 Cockpit, Lab, Very Large USI-LS “Snack Roomâ€Â, and a middle “Wet Workshop†Fuel tank

Additional Stuff: Resource Scanning Ion Drone (18,000Dv)

Ship design:

The new ISRU unit makes the challenge much easier, so to step it up a notch, I wanted to make the mission time realistic and include a life support element. No more Kerbals spending 54 years slowly drifting thru the system. My guys (and girl) were going there in style, very fast, with plenty of snacks. The ship needed to be fully reusable, which required being able to SSTO everything, and having enough Dv left to travel to the next destination and land. (5,000-7,000Dv). 4 Rhinos and 8 Nervs were the first step. The big trick was getting the fuel load just right (and balanced). Power was generated by 2 RTGs and 5 fuel cells. An ore ratio of 2.5% would allow for the fuel cells to power the ISRU while still allowing net gain. The fuel cells were usually not required because time compressions over 1000x did odd things with resources. Even though the fuel cells were rarely turned on, I brought them for the added realistic mass if one were to not “time cheat†the resource conversion. Science was not a high priority. I show that I can max out the Jool system, but I have no interest in that. Other Jool 5ers have already "science the sh!t" out of the system, and my career does not need more science.

Mission Summary:

The Nautilus launched from the KSC and rendezvoused with the Kerbal Space Station in LKO. There it refueled, took on supplies and exchanged crew with several other space craft docked at the station.

A fuel drop tank was transferred to the Nautilus to allow for minimum time to Jool. The drop tank had an Apollo 13 moment and almost destroyed the Nautilus, the Space Station and risked deorbiting a class E asteroid in to Kerbin, potentially wiping out all of Kerbalkind (see outtakes). But there were only a few dents and with some duct tape, the drop tank was attached to the nose of the Nautilus and the mission carried on. The Nautilus boosted its orbit, undocked the drop tank, and ejected out of the Kerbin system on its 400 day journey to Jool. Arriving at the Jool system, the Nautilus injected with a long burn and gravity assist. One orbit reversal/plane change later, a Bop rendezvous was established. Landing at Bop, the Nautilus refueled for a difficult powered landing on Tylo. Lifting off from Tylo did not leave much fuel remaining for landing on Vall, so the Nautilus was designed to land on Vall using only the Nukes, a very low TWR, slow landing. On to Laythe, air brakeing and parachutes assisted in landing, and after refueling were repacked in orbit. Pol was the last stop before heading home. From Pol the orbit was dropped close to Jool to take maximum advantage of the Oberth effect on the way home. The Nautilus entered the Kerbin system at over 6,000 m/s and slowed to 3,500 m/s after a 30 minute long Nuke burn which heated up the Nautilus quite nicely. Unfortunatly it did not time to cool off and before hitting the Kerbin atmosphere. Careful aerobraking captured the Nautilus into the Kerbin system. The ship came out quite hot. A couple more aerobraking maneuvers and the ship rendezvoused with the Kerbal Space Station for the second time. After unloading extra supples and loot, the Nautilus did its final burn and landed at the KSC. (The first time used parachutes as seen in the images, but I forgot to record video. The second time the parachutes all failed and was forced to do an emergency powered landing, Like a boss )

The entire mission took more than 40 hours over the course of a month. I recorded everything, then spend several more hours editing out junk, time compressing (upto 16x) the “proof†stuff, and highlighting the interesting parts. I tried to keep each episode less than 15 minutes. Secondly, I decided to strip out all the sound. The game has one sound track and it gets old after a while (and it sounds funny under compression). I also did not want to ruin everything with my own crappy soundtrack overlay. Watch in beautiful silence or listen to whatever you want.

So without further ado…

Video Album: https://youtu.be/FkIlV4qF6lE?list=PL_KpVLjgOXT5ry7VzqBbzsN9C6i5OOBWV

Episode 1, Launch

Episode 2, KS

Episode 3, Ejection

Episode 4, Bop

Episode 5, Tylo

Episode 6, Vall

Episode 7, Laythe

Episode 8, Pol

Episode 9, Going Home

Episode 10, Landing

Episode 11, OUTTAKES!!

Imgur Album: http://imgur.com/a/MjOjS

I am now going to take a little break and wait for 1.1, umm make that 1.05.

I’m out,

EBAO

Edited October 15, 2015 by EBAO

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Speechless.

[maceemiller]

Whoa! Your mission has given me the inspiration to attempt the Jool 5 myself. Ive never even seen Jool before so this is going to be fun. Excellent piloting