Another Old School Grand Tour

[Teutooni]

So this is my last nod to Tsiolkovsky, a final great mission of the old style where you bring everything you need with you. The goal is to land on every landable body in the Kerbol system, no refueling, no ISRU. 1.0 brings new challenges by nerfing most engines across the board, bringing aero heating etc. Still, should be doable just fine with a bit of planning.

KSP version is 1.0.4. Mods used are transfer window planner and kerbal engineer redux. Parts, aero, etc. are all stock.

The mothership has room for 5 kerbals with a comfy pressurised cabin. All the landers have stock science gizmos with them. Although this is a sandbox game, I'll be doing the science experiments just to demonstrate. You can find the landers at another thread. The mothership weighs 518 tons in orbit and has ludicrous amounts of delta-v which is a bit hard to calculate exactly, because parts of the payload get dropped along the way. I'd guesstimate about 20km/s.

First half of the journey is completed, visiting Mun, Minmus, Eve, Moho, Gilly, Duna and Ike:

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Edited October 16, 2015 by Teutooni

[Parkaboy]

Whoa, that small lander can really return from Eve? I'm impressed!

[nsgallup]

Cool!

I want to do a grand tour some time

[Teutooni]

Whoa, that small lander can really return from Eve? I'm impressed!

Spent the better part of a day trying to get the weight down on a working Eve return lander. Someone managed to get it down to ~33 tons but I couldn't replicate his results, so I settled for a 40-ton lander I knew I could reliably get to orbit.

Cool!

I want to do a grand tour some time

I thoroughly recommend one. Once you have all the basics down (transfers, rendezvous, constant altitude landing, gravity assists, aerocapture) it's just a matter of combining the techniques to achieve an efficient enough mission. It's actually not that hard. I haven't completed one though (currently in Joolian system), so take this with a pinch of salt.

[sdj64]

Respect for doing this with full science. Also looks like you have enough fuel to not have to worry constantly about it, unlike me. I would say "let the space race begin!" but I only have time for 2 landings a week, so it is likely you will finish first.

[Teutooni]

I would say "let the space race begin!" but I only have time for 2 landings a week, so it is likely you will finish first.

We shall see, the pace of my journey did grind to almost a halt in the Jool system. Mainly related to the ion tug not having enough power and therefore TWR to perform necessary manouvers while in a moons SOI. It has the delta-v, I just underestimated the TWR needs of transfer manouvers, only considering them for landings.

I should have enough delta-v even if I use the MS to perform the insertions at Laythe, Vall and Tylo. So far I have landed and returned from Laythe and Tylo, sitting at low Tylo orbit. The far lander is parked in low Vall orbit with not enough fuel to land. I discovered it could not survive Laythe aerocapture, so I separated it and redirected it to Vall. I need to refuel it with the MS, land on Vall, then continue to the smaller moons as planned. Most of the time I am at altitudes below 20km, so no time warp. Couple that with 0.01-0.1 TWR, and it takes a looooong time to perform manouvers.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Teutooni

[xendelaar]

Your story inspired me to try and perform a manned return mission firm Eve from sea level. Maybe after that i will start planning a grand tour as well!