Laythe science mission

[Foxster]

As part of my testing of 1.1, I've been running a science mission to Laythe. This being enough of an edge case I figure it might throw up some issues. However, that it is 1.1 is kinda irrelevant for the next stage. 

I landed an MPL very near the sea and was able to collect data from the sea biome at this location. I then launched a second mission, delivering a small science aircraft...

This netted the Shore and Dunes biomes too, returning their science to the MPL. That just leaves the poles, which I'd like to bag for completeness. Unfortunately, the little plane doesn't now have the fuel for a trip from near the equator to one of the poles and back to bring the science to my MPL, plus it would be a rather long and boring flight even if it was possible. 

I need a full science suite launched from Kerbin, landed at a Laythe pole, the experiments run and the results delivered to my MPL. How would you tackle this?

 

Edited April 4, 2016 by Foxster

[Hodari]

If you don't want to have to fly to the poles(or presumably to fly back from the poles either), you might just want to launch a separate mission with its own MPL for that.

[KerikBalm]

I would send a larger plane, with turboramjets to get to the poles and back semi-ballistically.

[pipercarman]

You would be better off flying a new plane to Laythe. As this would be easier than refuelling it. And make sure in the future to put more fuel tanks on your plane so you will not have to do this in the future.

[SpacedCowboy]

23 minutes ago, Hodari said:

If you don't want to have to fly to the poles(or presumably to fly back from the poles either), you might just want to launch a separate mission with its own MPL for that.

 

Yes, this would seem to be the best solution. However, Foxter, Are you playing career or sandbox? If career, there may be financial and or tech tree constraints here which I'm sure your'e aware of.

[cantab]

You may get better range out of your plane at a slower cruising speed, but then that makes it an even longer flight.

Otherwise, send bigger plane is the obvious choice. I think I'd land the plane from orbit into the poles, then you only have one-way atmo flight to do not the round trip.

[Foxster]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. 

I'm not actually a great aircraft person and don't really fancy a long and boring flight. Then there is the problem of getting a larger plane to Laythe, the little one was challenging enough. 

I'm tempted to take a rocket that I can land at a pole, grab the science and then launch it over to the equator either suborbital or via an orbit. I think that might actually be a more compact mission than taking another aircraft. I suppose I could even take along an ISRU and refuel the craft before that hop. Umm, decision, decisions...

[GluttonyReaper]

Rocket with jets is nice for Laythe, good for precision landings.

[SpacedCowboy]

1 hour ago, GluttonyReaper said:

Rocket with jets is nice for Laythe, good for precision landings.

There's an idea

[Jetski]

Land a rocket at the poles with a small upper stage and capsule. Land and science, climb your ladder (you remembered a ladder, right?), and blast off leaving the landing gear and science equipment. Make a nice ballistic lob to near the MPL, decouple capsule and land with a single chute like at home  Pick up your kerbal with that plane thingy you have near the MPL and crunch yummy Sci points. Light and cheap. May even be able to reuse the chute if you pack an engineer instead of a scientist (no need to reset experiments, single biome)  

[Warzouz]

10 hours ago, Jetski said:

Land a rocket at the poles with a small upper stage and capsule. Land and science, climb your ladder (you remembered a ladder, right?), and blast off leaving the landing gear and science equipment. Make a nice ballistic lob to near the MPL, decouple capsule and land with a single chute like at home  Pick up your kerbal with that plane thingy you have near the MPL and crunch yummy Sci points. Light and cheap. May even be able to reuse the chute if you pack an engineer instead of a scientist (no need to reset experiments, single biome)  

Further more, don't forget to add a small probe core and antenna on the leftover ship on Laythe. So when a "get science from Laythe" contract pops out, you get immediate credit for it. It's around 50kg additional payload (nearly nothing)

Edited April 5, 2016 by Warzouz

[Hodari]

The question is: If you're going to have to launch another mission from Kerbin to the Laythe pole anyway, why not just give that mission its own MPL?  Seems like it'd be a lot easier(and probably cheaper) to do that rather than needing an extra sub-orbital hop(and a reasonably accurate landing on a world with an atmosphere) just to bring everything back to your existing lab.

[Foxster]

2 hours ago, Hodari said:

The question is: If you're going to have to launch another mission from Kerbin to the Laythe pole anyway, why not just give that mission its own MPL?  Seems like it'd be a lot easier(and probably cheaper) to do that rather than needing an extra sub-orbital hop(and a reasonably accurate landing on a world with an atmosphere) just to bring everything back to your existing lab.

Ah, that would perhaps be too easy. I'm trying to push the envelope here to test 1.1 and I've already put an MPL down.  

[Jhawk1099]

I would make a single stage to suborbital flight. Figuring out how to land close to your base with an atmosphere would be difficult yet if you were in a plane you could correct by flying.

Also 100th post!!!

Edited April 5, 2016 by Jhawk1099

[Foxster]

Whoops, only just found out that Laythe's poles are not frozen...

Splashed down OK (after a bit of F5/F9). Wonder if it can still make orbit though from water?

Umm, this surface sample report taken from below the surface whilst floating over the pole is a tad misleading...

Oh, goody. Looks like we are going to make orbit OK...

Not bad, just 8.8km off target. Ran out of fuel at about 20m though, so the landing was a little rough. But the Kerbal and the juicy science survived. The rest is just flying over and collecting the data and bringing it back to the MPL. We'll call that Fox:3 Laythe:0. 

Of course we need to get our pilot back to base too (funny, but the aircraft wouldn't go over 10m/s with the Kerbin on the ladder so we'll have to drive it)...

Mis

Mission accomplished...

Edited April 5, 2016 by Foxster

[KerikBalm]

Whut... last time I was there, there was white "land" at the poles, at least at the north pole.

Kerbal maps still shows Ice colored stuff at the poles... did you go far enough? maybe you hit the poles biome before you actually got to where the solid surface is?

As for getting a plane there... A plane that SSTOs on kerbin will easily SSTO on laythe. So then if you refuel it in orbit, it should have enough dV to get to laythe... for many designs, particularly "LF only" designs that use nukes (I've made some, but I prefer to add a little oxidizer and kick a bit with rapiers).

Or... you can claw it, or put a docking port on it, and have a tug or mothership carry it there.

I've done the claw for other craft, but in my career laythe mission, I chose to have the mothership dock it... designing it with the docking port right at the center of gravity was no easy task (maybe I should have used a surface attachable docking port... but I opted for the inline one because... style. It balances when the aft tanks are full, and the fore ones are not. So I refueled it at my LKO station before rendevous-ing with the laythe mothership with the rear tanks full and only a little fuel in the fore tanks (which I transfered to the laythe mothership shortly after the ejection burn started.

My design can function as a "submersible", carries 6 kerbals and a full science package, much excess LF for suborbital hops to other biomes before returning to orbit. It has tiny pontoons with hydrofoils (mainly just as a place to mount the hydrofoils) for water takeoffs and landings, as well as landing gear, also braking parachutes. I didn't put a LV-N on it because I wanted high TWR for water takeoffs... which is why I carried it to laythe instead of having it fly itself there after a refeul in orbit.

(this design changed slightly from these water test, the FL-T200 and 100's were switched for balance reasons)

(I might have overdone it on the size of the mission... I'm only taking 6 kerbals... but there is a lab, 4 hitchhiker cans, 2 cupolas, and a 6 seater ssto... this is only one of many ships in the flotilla to Jool... their surface base, rovers, and juno powers jets were launched seperately, as were 3 ISRU packages for the Jool system, and a lander for all the airless worlds)

Burning and stable, part one of PE kick

Ejection burn plotted

booster depleted, ditched (yea, I had to burn a lot of LF near the top to keep it stable at higher accelerations than 5 m/s)

Still stable, nearly to Jool

Booster after retroburn... perhaps I left too much LF in it... it only needs to raise PE at apoapsis, aerobrake a bit, then raise PE more and wait for refuel

The only problem was my mothership had too many docking connections, and the added weight, even if very well balanced, meant I had ot limit acceleration to between 5 and 6 m/s/s (it changed as fuel burned and was transfered)

Then there are ways to get non-spaceplanes to orbit... surface attach decouplers that leave nothing are your friend:

(that one I clawed and pushed to Duna)

Edited April 5, 2016 by KerikBalm

[cantab]

1 hour ago, Foxster said:

Umm, this surface sample report taken from below the surface whilst floating over the pole is a tad misleading...

There are old glitches relating to this. When you stand on a floating vessel, you're considered "Landed" and get one set of science results. When you're swimming in the water you're considered "Splashed" and get another set of science results. If you didn't realise this, well you missed out on some science.

It also was possible to glitch the floating ship itself into thinking it's landed, by switching from the Kerbal back to the ship. However this can have nasty side-effects, like dropping your ship through the ocean and into a big explosion.

[Foxster]

Anyone confirm that the poles of Laythe are perhaps frozen in 1.0.5?

[Findthepin1]

@FoxsterThey are. Are they unfrozen in 1.1?

Edited April 6, 2016 by Findthepin1

[Foxster]

1 hour ago, Findthepin1 said:

@FoxsterThey are. Are they unfrozen in 1.1?

Yup. Very soggy at the poles of Laythe these days. 

Must be global warming, uh?

[Findthepin1]

Do you have any idea why they got rid of the polar caps? I think they're a defining part of Laythe, almost as much as the oceans. I'd like it if they made them bigger, actually. :|

[Andem]

12 minutes ago, Findthepin1 said:

Do you have any idea why they got rid of the polar caps? I think they're a defining part of Laythe, almost as much as the oceans. I'd like it if they made them bigger, actually. :|

I was under the impression that Laythes oceans were to salty to for ice caps... I dunno. I would like them larger as well.

[Findthepin1]

Whoever has 1.1 already, can you put up a picture of Laythe in the tracking station, so we can all see the lack of ice caps? I need to see it from afar.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Findthepin1

[Foxster]

Here is a zoomed in view of the North Pole of Laythe in 1.1...

The large lighter coloured area in the foreground is the north polar biome. You can see it is submerged compared to the islands at the top of the picture.