The Eve-OH - 1.0.5 Eve lander and orbiter

[Foxster]

It is proving rather tricky in the borked atmosphere of 1.0.5 to get down to Eve and back to orbit but it's possible without burning up either way.

Here's [B]The Eve-OH[/B]...

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Sy288qb.jpg[/IMG]

Craft file: [URL]https://www.dropbox.com/s/l3bxy8x4tz5yktb/Auto-Saved%20Ship.craft?dl=0[/URL]

Nothing tricky about flying it really. Just follow the staging. Use the two de-orbiting engines to, well, de-orbit. Make sure the air-brakes are deployed. Aim for some land. Deploy the 'chutes at about 200m/s. Should land OK without using the engines again but give 'em a toot if you feel the need. Stage to drop the 'chutes, ladders and air-brakes before taking off. Use the last of the de-orbit tanks before discarding them and the landing wheels.

Here's a MJ profile that will make a 105km orbit...

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/gZmnbzP.jpg[/IMG] Edited November 17, 2015 by Foxster

[Overfloater]

whaaaat? :huh:

are u telling me it's STILL better to use flat-top rockets?

[KerikBalm]

Its the rotated nose cones trick.... the tanks are capped

[problemecium]

it... it's so small!
In 1.0.4 I couldn't for the life of me get one to work at less than twice that size.

Can that take off from sea level? If not, how high does it have to be?

[Foxster]

[quote name='parameciumkid']it... it's so small!
In 1.0.4 I couldn't for the life of me get one to work at less than twice that size.

Can that take off from sea level? If not, how high does it have to be?[/QUOTE]Yup, sea-level is fine. Or at least I tried it from about 250m, so I'd say it will be OK right down at SL. There's actually about 500dV left by orbit and so the craft could be made even lighter if you really, really wanted to.

[Kobymaru]

What's the dV on this? And what is the TWR at Eve Sea Level?

Sorry, I'm at work, so I can't check myself.

[Foxster]

Once the junk has been dropped then the dV is between 7593 and 7832, depending how much of the de-orbit/landing tanks you use getting down. The SL TWR is 1.19 once the de-orbit tanks are dropped.

[Rune]

So 8km/s gets you all the way to orbit from Eve's surface now? Well, then, this...

[img]http://i.imgur.com/reo35sz.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/7QtkBsc.png[/img]

...should do the job just as well. And I finally can make an Eve lander compact enough to move around with ease!


Rune. Thanks for the info! :) Edited November 18, 2015 by Rune

[Foxster]

Maybe.

You are going to hit two problems:

1. That might burn up on re-entry. You have to get anything you want to survive re-entry within the occlusion shadow of the heatshield, especially the tips of the air brakes.

2. It very likely will burn up on lifting to orbit due to the drag of the nosecones at about 40km. Use round ones and flip them 180° and it will be more likely to make it.

[COLOR="silver"][SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE][/COLOR]

Here's a mk2 that will make it all the way down from a hyperbolic Eve encounter orbit, which some have said is impossible in 1.0.5. Use the Puff engines to set the Pe to about 62km and two orbits of Eve will get a landing.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/cXESqzZ.jpg[/IMG]

Craft file: [URL]https://www.dropbox.com/s/gtwp3uck6cujd13/Eve%20again%2018.craft?dl=0[/URL]

Be absolutely spot-on in getting it retrograde before hitting the atmosphere at 90km.

[Rune]

[quote name='Foxster']Maybe.

You are going to hit two problems:

1. That might burn up on re-entry. You have to get anything you want to survive re-entry within the occlusion shadow of the heatshield, especially the tips of the air brakes.

2. It very likely will burn up on lifting to orbit due to the drag of the nosecones at about 40km. Use round ones and flip them 180° and it will be more likely to make it.

[COLOR="silver"][SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE][/COLOR]

Here's a mk2 that will make it all the way down from a hyperbolic Eve encounter orbit, which some have said is impossible in 1.0.5. Use the Puff engines to set the Pe to about 62km and two orbits of Eve will get a landing.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/cXESqzZ.jpg[/url]

Craft file: [URL]https://www.dropbox.com/s/gtwp3uck6cujd13/Eve%20again%2018.craft?dl=0[/URL]

Be absolutely spot-on in getting it retrograde before hitting the atmosphere at 90km.[/QUOTE]

Well, everything is inside the shroud or has >2000º heat resistance, but still that is why I put a whole 700m/s on the deorbit stage. Nobody says you can't shave 500m/s off of entry speed by brute force, right? Plus, I might not even drop it full if I do get around to it: a mission to Eve is serious business, so I might drop a whole base to perform detailed exploration, and that means ISRU on the surface. I don't plan on using the airbrakes until after the flames stop and I open the shroud!

As to the way up... well, it has slightly less TWR than yours, and there's always the magic of throttling down. Using upside-down nosecones would look horrible and feel cheaty for me, sorry. I hope their 2000º Temp rating is worth its money! Still, thanks for the feedback, makes me think maybe I shouldn't feel so sure about the ascent... good thing the final stage is small enough that a determined kerbal could push it!


Rune. Or, you know, I could be dead wrong. Quite literally! Edited November 18, 2015 by Rune

[problemecium]

Hmm, 250m you say?
I have yet to do tests in 1.0.5, but in 1.0.4, the difference between 250m and sea level was a lot bigger than one would expect. I could make a ship take off from 500m, and with difficulty I could cobble together a thing that just barely (or almost) made it from 250m, but 0m was all but impossible for me.

[Foxster]

[quote name='parameciumkid']Hmm, 250m you say?
I have yet to do tests in 1.0.5, but in 1.0.4, the difference between 250m and sea level was a lot bigger than one would expect. I could make a ship take off from 500m, and with difficulty I could cobble together a thing that just barely (or almost) made it from 250m, but 0m was all but impossible for me.[/QUOTE]
Fair enough. I'll try it later - Work is the curse of the Kerbaling classes!

[Foxster]

To confirm it can make orbit from sea level, or from 8m anyway...

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/2CpH8MV.jpg[/IMG]

If you want to repeat it with MJ then this slightly tweaked ascent path works...
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/TjgBaiJ.jpg[/IMG]

You can even start the turn a bit lower, like 25km, to save some more dV but much less than that and it will heatplode. Edited November 19, 2015 by Foxster

[Foxster]

For those concerned about the "exploitive" nature of inverted nose cones, here's a working version without.

Turns out the best 0.625m nosecone is the Mk16 parachute. Has none of the thermal runaway tendencies of the Small Nose Cone and has a higher max temp. It is a bit heavier though, so that plus a little more drag from the non-inverted shock cones means that the on-orbit dV margin is reduced to only about 120 or so.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/xcpGn4u.jpg[/IMG]

Craft file: [URL]https://www.dropbox.com/s/kps07kwqr3s91df/Eve%20again%2021t.craft?dl=0[/URL]

[Bulbashenko]

Its really the compactest Eve ascent vehicle i ever seen!
But by using simple cones you will win in weight almost 450 kilo (The shock intakes are heavier in 1.0.5). It does not compensate the drag?
I like your vessel, but the remake from Rune are nicer and i will made the same way.
Sorry for my English.

[Foxster]

[quote name='Bulbashenko']Its really the compactest Eve ascent vehicle i ever seen!
But by using simple cones you will win in weight almost 450 kilo (The shock intakes are heavier in 1.0.5). It does not compensate the drag?
I like your vessel, but the remake from Rune are nicer and i will made the same way.
Sorry for my English.[/QUOTE]The simple cones have more drag and for Eve it's that rather than a few Kg that will kill a lift to orbit.

You can certainly try Rune's remake but we don't yet know whether it is capable of a landing from and returning to orbit.

[Rune]

[quote name='Foxster']The simple cones have more drag and for Eve it's that rather than a few Kg that will kill a lift to orbit.

You can certainly try Rune's remake but we don't yet know whether it is capable of a landing from and returning to orbit.[/QUOTE]

Yup, we certainly don't. I haven't even posted it up ye, and it'll be a while until I do an Eve mission on my save! And KS aerodynamics can yet screw with me, big time. But if someone want to test it out for me...


Rune. Well, I'm a PM away ;)

[selfish_meme]

From my experiments in 1.04 around 1.20 is the lowest twr, so if yours is less than Foxsters 1.19 it probably won't get off the ground.

[Seaview123]

I tried testing this design out, but found out that my Kerbal engineer (1.0.18.0) showed me some bad data in the VAB. It showed I had extra dV, so I packed on some more tiny tanks to my asparagus stages, then found my first stage thrust to weight was .97 at launch on Eve. It made for some interesting explosions, though, and some heartfelt cuss words, too, since getting it to the surface intact, on a level enough plane to launch from, and 'nearby' my stranded Kerbal, was a whole lot of time and effort wasted. And by "nearby" I mean about 45 minutes of rover drive time. 

I'll try again after trimming it down some.

http://imgur.com/zwThBrV  How I got it to Eve. The Eve Return Vehicle is under the fairing to the right.

http://imgur.com/7ZGq1Ph  ERV on a 5 degree slope. I lowered landing gear to straighten her out.

http://imgur.com/dgGtgQQ Just prior to the explosions... <expletive deleted> !!!

Edited January 5, 2016 by Seaview123

[Seaview123]

Here's an update...

I removed about 3 tons of fuel from my ERV and managed to get airborne, but found several more problems on ascent. The fins I used are mostly unmovable so if there was any lateral movement during launch it caused an angle on ascent. Then, once the asparagus stages dropped free my thrust vectoring and gyros couldn't keep me flying straight enough to make orbit. Fortunately, I had a single parachute to get back down safely with. I'll redesign and try again. My Kerbal has spent the last 10 years on Eve, so another couple more shouldn't be too much of a problem, don'tcha think?

Here are some pictures of my failed attempts to fly...

http://i.imgur.com/9jUg00p.jpg Prior to launch, after removing 3 tons of fuel.

http://i.imgur.com/lP9Szy9.jpg Seven full thrust aerospikes do bad things to a launch platform.

http://i.imgur.com/E3cGF5g.jpg Climbing out of the fireball.

http://i.imgur.com/dpmo010.jpg Angle way too steep...

http://i.imgur.com/d4TZPv2.jpg Parachute ride of shame... but lived to try again another day.

 

Edited January 5, 2016 by Seaview123