{All landings done!} Jool V mission (with a 467 ton cruiser!)

[Firemetal]

III have been wanting to complete the Jool V for a while now. I have gotten pretty adept at SSTOs, have landed on almost every planet and returned in the stock game and gotten pretty far on a career save. Recently, I was thinking what if I carried some ships, packed with DV, Jool and then releasing them to go to all the other planets, then meeting up and taking the kerbals back to Kerbin.

So I didn't think this would work at first, these ships being heavy would require a big mothership. I put together a small 30 ton mk1 SSTO with about 6k m/s with the nerv. I built a 400 ton mothership and stuck the ssto to it. The mothership still had 12k m/s. I then took my famous Astro Explorer and removed the parachute. I then copied this and strapped a 9 ton Tylo lander onto it. The Tylo lander has loads of fuel left once it has ascended to orbit from the surface of Tylo so I thought I'd bring it to Vall if the Astro Explorer doesn't have the TWR to land on Vall. The 1st Astro explorer will land on Pol, then Bop, then Vall so I might as well park the cruiser in Vall orbit and take the SSTO there after it has done Laythe.

However I knew I couldn't take the entire thing up to LKO with one rocket and using two would cause a flex when activating the engine. However I hyperedited it into orbit and stress tested it. No flex. If there does end up being one, I'll download KJR.

Phase one

Getting the Mothership and the SSTO into orbit

I used a pretty big ship to get this 400 ton spacecraft into orbit. I had about 300 m/s to spare in LKO but I had to decouple the last boosters unfortunately.

Spoiler

Liftoff!

First Booster Sep.

Second booster sep. Flea assisted jettisons never get old.  

Orbit!

Last booster Jettison

Phase 2

Getting The Astro Explorer and the Tylo Tug to the mother ship

 

Had a couple of issues with this launch. The top was a bit wobbly but not too much so it was pretty easy to get into orbit. The whole thing didn't have enough torque so once I was within 1km of the mothership, I decoupled the payload only to find out the Tylo tug didn't have RCS thrusters. I have no problem with doing a rendezvous without RCS at Tylo but the monopropellant tanks are dead weight.

Docking was a little tricky but I did it in the end. I got to the target docking port, just to find out that there was a docking port in the way.  This was from when I was building it in the VAB, I forgot to remove it. :/ Anyway I undocked that and then docked to the mothership.

Spoiler

 

Liftoff!

Here you can see the docking port problem. You can see one docking port already docked to the target one.

Docked!

Also to get a good encounter with the Mothership, I had to dip into the atmosphere at about a 63km PE dangerous maneuver but I'm lazy.

 

Phase 3

Getting to Jool and all moon landings!

Spoiler

So I transferred to Jool using a regular Hohmann transfer and used a laythe assist to get into orbit around Jool.

To spite my worries, this thing was the most stable vehicle ever. No flex, physical time-warp while full thrust. Totally rigid.

And then I got ready to release the SSTO... just to find out I forgot to put power on it. No solar panels or batteries.

So I had to start again, this time with the power. Build the ship in orbit, transfer, capture.

But I got back and released the SSTO. I got the SSTO close to Laythe while the Mothership was a few hundred kilometers out. That way the Mothership ended up in an orbit just below Tylo's.

Then I released the Tylo Tug & The Astro Explorer (TT and AE) while the Mothership went into an 130km Vall orbit. AE used a Tylo gravity assist to raise the Jool AP to Pol's orbit and do most of the inclination change. Then it was onto an 100 m/s correction burn and a 1km capture burn. Meanwhile TT got captured around Tylo and prepared to land.

However it was AE that got around to landing first.

Landed!

Meanwhile at Tylo...

Somewhere around a 700 m/s capture burn.

Jeb bravely boards the lander.

The landing however was slightly messy. I wanted to save some DV in the lander as a backup Vall lander but that DV went to getting into orbit around Tylo.

So meanwhile at Laythe.

Not wanting to waste fuel, I slowed down using an aerobrake, This is a good decision as you'll see later.

Final de-orbit burn.

Took me so many tries to land on Laythe. I should of made the landing gear wider. :/

Meanwhile back at Pol...

Bob ascends from Pol and heads to his next destination: Bop.

It actually took me only 600 m/s to transfer from a Pol orbit to a Bop orbit. Neat!

Here the landing gear refused to open so I had to land like a spaceplane on Bop.

Bob! Knocking down flags is not funny!

I originally planned for Bob to land AE on Vall but my impatience crashed him into Vall. Unfortunately the last quicksave was back at taking off from Laythe which had been done between Bop landing and Bop takeoff. So I decided to mix it up a bit and take the SSTO to Vall instead!

Now I had about 800 m/s of margin left but the low TWR got me to Vall orbit with 200 m/s left.

I decided to do something a bit risky to keep space clean: ignite the engine facing retrograde and hit the EVA button at the same time. It worked but I spent a little more EVA propellant than I should have.

5/5 Moon landings and 1/3 Kerbals in the return vehicle.

Next Phase: Return to Kerbin!

I finished this. Apparently, I didn't show the interface in the pictures so my entry wasn't valid. I really don't see the point in posting the rest of the pictures. If anyone wants me to though,  will.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Firemetal

[Firemetal]

Unfortunately I'm restarting the mission. The Laythe SSTO didn't have power on it. I have to add power and then get back to where I was. (Jool orbit)

Annoying. :/

[DMSP]

38 minutes ago, Firemetal said:

Unfortunately I'm restarting the mission. The Laythe SSTO didn't have power on it. I have to add power and then get back to where I was. (Jool orbit)

Annoying. :/

Damn. Well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.