[stock] Eve Lander + Spaceplane

[Broco]

"Complete the Ultimate Mun 6 Expedition"

6 words that meant pain and suffering for the last 2 days. I didn't read properly before I accepted so I missed a little 3 letter word in the mission description.

"We need you to land on the Mun, Laythe, Eve, Ike and Minmus and finish on the surface of Kerbin using a single vessel."

Basically for these "tour"-missions I use one of my spaceplanes and refuel it at every planet system, I have mining stations and/or space stations at Minmus, Ike, Gilly, Laythe, Bop and Pol so I usually really don't need multipart vessels. This time KSP got me.

I didn't finish the mission yet since I will have to do it in between my other missions but I finished building and testing my vessel in sandbox mode (Thank god for Hyperedit). Since Eve is on the list I thought maybe I could build an Eve lander around one of my modified spaceplanes. I spare you the details of hours and hours of building, optimizing, tearing it apart, rebuild, optimize.... Here is what I came up with:

Part count: 966

Weight: 6015.7 tons

Price: 2,563,633 (Mission Reward is 4,122,260 + 618,030 Advance)

Craft file:
EVE-LanderJet.craft

 

The Images are from 2 flights but I did it in one, the Jebediah flight landed in an Eve ocean though.

 

This is the spaceplane I wanted to bring to Eve and back up:

 

And this is what I needed to get it done:

 

Since I cannot embed Imgur albums anymore here is the link for more images:

http://imgur.com/a/bEkEs

 

It looks like I'm stranded in Eve orbit now but in career mode i have a tanker stationed at Gilly that makes it there easily. This was pure Sandbox-proof of concept.

Morale of the story: Never just click accept on missions.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Broco
Imgur didnt work....

[Majorjim!]

Damn dude.. That is no simple task, I hope the brave Kerbals in orbit get rescued soon.

[Broco]

1 hour ago, Majorjim! said:

Damn dude.. That is no simple task, I hope the brave Kerbals in orbit get rescued soon.

We'll see if it works, I just launched the mission in my main game. As I said, I have a tanker stationed at Gilly, shouldn't be much of a problem

 

[Foxster]

15 hours ago, Broco said:

 

I'd love to know if this is capable of making Eve orbit. The only SSTO is saw capable of this was huge and had to be launched from the top of the highest mountain. 

Update - Never mind. Just saw the other pics where you have a massive lander. 

Edited August 3, 2016 by Foxster

[Broco]

5 minutes ago, Foxster said:

I'd love to know if this is capable of making Eve orbit. The only SSTO is saw capable of this was huge and had to be launched from the top of the highest mountain. 

Update - Never mind. Just saw the other pics where you have a massive lander. 

Yes, the point of this whole mission was that I have to land on Eve and 3 other moons in ONE vessel so my plan was to land with a big multipart vessel on Eve first but this vessel needs to transport my spaceplane which is able to make it to all the other moons on its own. Problem is you need a NERV engine and that thing weights a lot which means you need a huge vessel to lift it up from Eve surface.

Though I'm planning to build an Eve SSTO, in fact I tried it a lot already but it's basically the hardest thing you can do in KSP, none of my previous attempts made it, the closest I got was a 100km apoapsis but had no way to circularize the orbit afterwards and the periapsis was around 50km.

[Hotel26]

This is a shock to my plans.  I had intended to make an SSTO spaceplane (Mk3 cabin) to suit Eve and Laythe, assuming the capability to refuel on the surface.  It now seems like Eve is a dead-end (for me) since I have little interest in building massive single-use vehicles.  Say it ain't so?

Edited August 13, 2016 by Hotel26
Elaboration Mk3

[Foxster]

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

This is a shock to my plans.  I had intended to make an SSTO spaceplane (Mk3 cabin) to suit Eve and Laythe, assuming the capability to refuel on the surface.  It now seems like Eve is a dead-end (for me) since I have little interest in building massive single-use vehicles.  Say it ain't so?

It is so. 

You are just not going to make an SSTO for Eve, refuelled at the surface or not. Oh, it is just barely possible, but not in any practical way. 

Doesn't have to be a massive single-use craft though, 50t is enough. But if you are building a craft for Laythe and Eve then little of such a craft is going to be reusable on both bodies.  

[Broco]

It worked by the way, in my main savegame I refueled my spaceplane with my tanker stationed on Gilly.

Now heading back to Minmus, refuel again at my station in Minmus orbit, off to Ike, land and refuel again and then Laythe rinse and repeat.

[septemberWaves]

I had a 2-stage Eve rocket that could lift 18 kerbals to most prograde Eve orbits from sea level, and the upper stage with the crew is reusable (and adapted from a vehicle which can SSTO from anywhere other than Eve, so the whole vehicle would be able to do any grand tour with refuelling and a few minor adaptations). However, due to recent technical setbacks I can't currently use the mods that I created it with and I'm consequently trying to adapt it to function with stock parts. In any case, it was an incredibly challenging thing to create to even use just two stages. An Eve SSTO is really not a sensible thing to attempt without the nuclear turbojets that some mods add, and even then it's barely worth the effort.

[Broco]

On 15.8.2016 at 10:00 PM, eloquentJane said:

I had a 2-stage Eve rocket that could lift 18 kerbals to most prograde Eve orbits from sea level, and the upper stage with the crew is reusable (and adapted from a vehicle which can SSTO from anywhere other than Eve, so the whole vehicle would be able to do any grand tour with refuelling and a few minor adaptations). However, due to recent technical setbacks I can't currently use the mods that I created it with and I'm consequently trying to adapt it to function with stock parts. In any case, it was an incredibly challenging thing to create to even use just two stages. An Eve SSTO is really not a sensible thing to attempt without the nuclear turbojets that some mods add, and even then it's barely worth the effort.

I would love to see some pictures of that.

[septemberWaves]

8 hours ago, Broco said:

I would love to see some pictures of that.

If I can get it working again I'll post some pictures. I am able to use mods again now so it's just about doable again (it wasn't really achievable in stock). The problem now is that I've lost both the Hyperion-derived Eve rocket and the original Hyperion files, meaning I have to reverse engineer from what I can remember of how the vehicle worked. Although, I tried recreating the regular Hyperion (24 kerbal SSTO for anywhere but Tylo and Eve) earlier today, and something seems to have changed with the mods I've been using since I can no longer get the required amount of delta-v for it. And due to that, I doubt I'll be able to re-engineer it in a similar way to make an Eve transport without some serious modifications and probably some additional sacrifice of crew capacity and functionality.

[DarkFighter]

I accepted the same contract and I have a plan: I use a normal mk1 jet, that usually weighs around 10t and I have a 15t lifter that gets to Jool. So I park the lifter in LEO and land with it, then wait on the ground till the lifter is at a good point so I can catch him with the jet. The other moons are then easy through my refueling stations at each system.

[Broco]

On 25.10.2016 at 11:18 PM, DarkFighter said:

I accepted the same contract and I have a plan: I use a normal mk1 jet, that usually weighs around 10t and I have a 15t lifter that gets to Jool. So I park the lifter in LEO and land with it, then wait on the ground till the lifter is at a good point so I can catch him with the jet. The other moons are then easy through my refueling stations at each system.

I can't really imagine what you mean with "catch" but I'm interested in pictures, sounds cool.

[DarkFighter]

On 3.11.2016 at 1:18 PM, Broco said:

I can't really imagine what you mean with "catch" but I'm interested in pictures, sounds cool.

So, my game decided to reset . I'm currently back at my first Orbit, I'll try to land on the Moons and do first missions to Duna and Eve as quick as possible. Then I'll do my command network and the fuel systems(That would take a while). I'll do some missions till I have this one again.

I have some mods for rocket parts, but the lander and the other rockets WILL BE STOCK!

My Lander on the Muns will be a mk1 plane with rapiers(and vertical engines for the moons), I'll attach some heat shields for the atmosphere, land with the rapiers and vertical engines. Then I'll burn up like a rocket till I have a high enough AP. Meanwhile, a rocket with a big engine with the docking port will be there, I'll burn retrograde with that so I have an encounter BEFORE we burn up in the atmosphere. The jet will (with the help of RCS) dock and then I'll burn prograde asap. I could go with a mammoth engine and these thud radial engines for the fine-tuning. The tanker will wait at Ike.

I'll post the link to the Mission report when I'm done.

 

PS:  Does yorshee know that you use the picture that she/he draw? Here is the link to the post. 

       PPS: I'm from Germany too

Edited November 7, 2016 by DarkFighter

[Chris_2]

On 8/15/2016 at 10:00 PM, eloquentJane said:

I had a 2-stage Eve rocket that could lift 18 kerbals to most prograde Eve orbits from sea level, and the upper stage with the crew is reusable (and adapted from a vehicle which can SSTO from anywhere other than Eve, so the whole vehicle would be able to do any grand tour with refuelling and a few minor adaptations). However, due to recent technical setbacks I can't currently use the mods that I created it with and I'm consequently trying to adapt it to function with stock parts. In any case, it was an incredibly challenging thing to create to even use just two stages. An Eve SSTO is really not a sensible thing to attempt without the nuclear turbojets that some mods add, and even then it's barely worth the effort.

That's great. If a 2-stage system is possible, maybe it's an idea to recover the booster (1st) stage on Eve? Like Falcon 9. The booster would never leave Eve, but if it could land using parachutes and be refueled, it would still be a fully reusable Eve system! The problem is of course to develop some way of docking the system on the surface in a way it's possible to re-launch it again. Hmmm. I might try this...

Edited November 7, 2016 by Chris_2

[DarkFighter]

21 minutes ago, Chris_2 said:

That's great. If a 2-stage system is possible, maybe it's an idea to recover the booster (1st) stage on Eve? Like Falcon 9. The booster would never leave Eve, but if it could land using parachutes and be refueled, it would still be a fully reusable Eve system! The problem is of course to develop some way of docking the system on the surface in a way it's possible to re-launch it again. Hmmm. I might try this...

It could be waaay easier with extraplanetary launchpads 

Just have to try to land near the base,  but thats easy with trajectory 

[septemberWaves]

@Chris_2 I think I considered that, but it wasn't practical due to the re-entry heating. Also, that would introduce the issue of having to load the upper stage onto the lower stage for every launch, which is not an easy feat to achieve on Eve. And in any case, that design was heavily modded, and for some reason I've been unable to get it working again.

[Broco]

On 7.11.2016 at 9:07 PM, DarkFighter said:

PS:  Does yorshee know that you use the picture that she/he draw? Here is the link to the post. 

       PPS: I'm from Germany too

Yes he/she knows and hello neighbour

 

On 7.11.2016 at 9:36 PM, Chris_2 said:

That's great. If a 2-stage system is possible, maybe it's an idea to recover the booster (1st) stage on Eve? Like Falcon 9. The booster would never leave Eve, but if it could land using parachutes and be refueled, it would still be a fully reusable Eve system! The problem is of course to develop some way of docking the system on the surface in a way it's possible to re-launch it again. Hmmm. I might try this...

I played around with a reusable Eve booster stage but even the small ore tank and a small drill (which, by the way is ridiculously inefficient) + all the solar panels and batteries you need were too much weight.

On Minmus I have a landing pad on a refinery for refuelling purposes that works just fine but Eve is so much harder. First of all, landing on point in Eve is really hard because of the insane atmospheric density. It's nearly impossible to always land in the same spot without some correction maneuvers later which requrire more fuel which then makes the rocket heavier etc.

But I think the only possible solution is that you have a refinery on the ground and a reusable booster stage with a lot of punch, basically a bunch of FL-T800 tanks, some with an FL-T400 on top, with aerospikes and 2 docking ports in the middle, one facing upward, one downward to dock with the refinery. No landing legs, only parachutes, engines and tanks with 2 docking ports basically, also some fins for steering. Could work but I never managed to achieve it.

But a refinery could be easily done, I only do simple designs now since the bigger once tended to randomly explode in old patches

[Heckspress]

A way to make an EVE SSTO (if you're a bit loose on that term) is by using stock electric propellers. You can get up to good heights with little to no resource cost and then rocket/jet from high altitude.

Only problem would be size.

[DustInTheWind]

Or, you could just do what I did and use a Mk1 Pod with a Clamp-o-tron on the bottom. I've used this basic design twice for "tour" missions. 

1.05   -  I ran the Eve mission first, so I had the port under a faring

 

1.2.1   -  I did Eve after Jool 5, Eeloo, Dres, Duna, Ike, and Gilly, so I couldn't use a faring. That cost me a lot of additional drag.

 

Edited November 30, 2016 by DustInTheWind
Fixed images

[Martian Emigrant]

On 2016-08-02 at 7:25 PM, Broco said:

....

....

Is that a droid behind the canopy?

Joke aside. What I have seen done by others is to have a huge ark-type ship navigate the system and smaller made-a-purpose even expendable ships do the landings. The only constant is an MK1 capsule that attaches to the various ships. That's the "single vessel".

 

ME

[Broco]

On 30.11.2016 at 5:36 AM, Martian Emigrant said:

Is that a droid behind the canopy?

Joke aside. What I have seen done by others is to have a huge ark-type ship navigate the system and smaller made-a-purpose even expendable ships do the landings. The only constant is an MK1 capsule that attaches to the various ships. That's the "single vessel".

 

ME

Ye, I kinda have problems finding good spots for my RCS tanks and kinda thought it looks cool. Greetings from R2.