The Jool Sarnus-10 Challenge

[Monkey Taylor]

The Jool Sarnus 10 Challenge

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The Jool Sarnus 10 challenge is a challenge in which you need to land on all 5 moons of Jool, like the Jool 5, but you also need to land on the 5 moons of Sarnus (OPM). These are the rules:

1.  You must have the "Outer Planets Mod" to get Sarnus.
2.  You must do it with one ship.
3.  You have to return back to Kerbin.
4.  The rocket has to cost under or exactly 250,000 kerbucks ().
5.  The pilot has to be Jebediah Jones Kerman. 
6.  You can have Kerbal Engineer Redux & Precise Node Alignment.
7.  ISRU is allowed.

Hope you have fun failing. 

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2016 by Evenus

[Pro100kerbonaut]

[installing OPM]Challenge accepted!

 

[JacobJHC]

3 hours ago, Evenus said:

The rocket has to cost under or exactly 250,000 kerbucks ().

Cheers for getting the funds symbol into text.

[The Space Dino]

I probably have the engineering skills to build something that would complete this challenge, but if I fly it, it has a 99.99%  chance of becoming junk.

[Monkey Taylor]

11 hours ago, JacobJHC said:

Cheers for getting the funds symbol into text.

It's in the Emoticons! 

[HoloYolo]

I doubt this challenge is Impossible but I'd like to see your attempt before trying it.

[DustInTheWind]

The funds rule is a real constraint. RTGs are almost a necessity for Sarnus, and just one is 10% of your budget. What about info mods, part mods, ISRU, etc?

[HoloYolo]

5 minutes ago, DustInTheWind said:

The funds rule is a real constraint. RTGs are almost a necessity for Sarnus, and just one is 10% of your budget. What about info mods, part mods, ISRU, etc?

Do Solar Panels work and/or are cheap enough for Sarnus? Also, doesn't Sarnus have that Tylo-like moon?

[DustInTheWind]

Solar panels are as effective as they are on Eeloo, so not very. Slate is not quite as bad as Tylo, but very close. Tekto is Laythe without Oxygen for air-breathers.

Here is an older (1.1.3) dV map OPM delta V 1.1.3

[HoloYolo]

26 minutes ago, DustInTheWind said:

Solar panels are as effective as they are on Eeloo, so not very. Slate is not quite as bad as Tylo, but very close. Tekto is Laythe without Oxygen for air-breathers.

Here is an older (1.1.3) dV map OPM delta V 1.1.3

This challenge is starting to seem a bit too hard, dare I say impossible.

[Nefrums]

15 hours ago, DustInTheWind said:

The funds rule is a real constraint. RTGs are almost a necessity for Sarnus, and just one is 10% of your budget. What about info mods, part mods, ISRU, etc?

Just bring enough batteries on the landers, the mothership can have a couple of solar panels.

 

I'll try this if I can get outer planets to work.

Edit: ckan ftw! 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2016 by Nefrums

[Mikki]

On 20.11.2016 at 5:54 PM, Evenus said:

Hope you have fun failing. 

 

No, me wishes to see your entry as stated in the rules
Then, i might try it for less funds than you.
Anything else is not a challenge.

[sdj64]

How about recovered funds?  I have seen, and built, Tylo-capable self refueling ships.  Mine costs around 1 million but has a lot of extra stuff that isn't needed.  It can be recovered for full after the mission is over.  Though, it shouldn't be too hard build such a ship for less than 250k.  Fuel cells can power the ISRU, and one RTG or a bunch of solar panels can provide power in orbit.

 

[Nefrums]

initial designs point to that this challenge is definitely possible,  probably possible to do it in half the cost.

I like the funds restriction because it is different from other challenges and forces you to build something different.  It feels like trying to do a bigger low mass jool 5 without ions and rapiers.   

Surprisingly Laythe is the hardest moon to build a cheap lander for.  The Saturnus moons are straight forward apart from Tektu, that is like you put Eves atmosphere on mun, low gravity and crazy drag. 

 

 

 

 

 

[DustInTheWind]

I just can't get over the budget without using ISRU, which was never defined by the OP. That might be because I have never been able to pull of an efficient SSTO flight profile. Now, if recovered funds don't count against the 250k, the mission becomes much more manageable since the cost of getting a payload into orbit is only fuel.

With Slate, you can use any single-stage lawn chair lander that can almost do Tylo. With a little work, and a Clamp-o-tron Jr, that lander can be used for all non-atmospheric moons with a couple of disposable LFO tanks for refueling and a Tylo descent assist stage.

Tekto isn't as much of an issue if you use a lawn chair inside a fairing, but I always considered that "cheating" since there is no visual way in or out of the faring. However, using a command pod really ups the total payload to haul. Can you even still do a lawn chair lander for Laythe? Last time I put a kerbal in a chair inside a service bay, he went *poof* at about 30km.

[Nefrums]

6 hours ago, DustInTheWind said:

Can you even still do a lawn chair lander for Laythe? Last time I put a kerbal in a chair inside a service bay, he went *poof* at about 30km.

That is not a problem,  as long as the kerbal is not clipping the edges of the service bay it works.  I found that sparks make for a cheaper Laythe lander then using airbreathing engines. 

I have flags planted on Laythe and Tylo so far, 8 moons to go.  I have no idea how much dV is needed for getting around the Saturnus system and back to Kerbin, But my mothership went up to over 9km/s dV after having used the tylo and Laythe landers so I think it should be enough.

 

 

 

 

[DustInTheWind]

11 hours ago, Nefrums said:

I have no idea how much dV is needed for getting around the Saturnus system and back to Kerbin, But my mothership went up to over 9km/s dV after having used the tylo and Laythe landers so I think it should be enough.

If your mission plan is based on using elliptical orbits for the mothership or a tug to shuttle around the landers, then it should be enough since you are a master at gravity assists. Sarnus can cost a lot of dV for a circular orbit.

Caveat Emptor: I haven't played OPM in a long while, so my input is based on an older version. I used to budget 3,200 m/s for Sarnus orbit in case I couldn't get a good gravity assist.

[Nefrums]

I used extra fueltanks (with docking port on) to get the landes to low orbit and back on Tylo and Slate. Use most of the fuel in the extra tanks to get the lander down to low orbit and then leave the tanks there to be able to refuel the lander after the landing. 

For other moons I used Landes with enough dV to get back to high orbit.

Direct transfer from Pol to Sarnus was only about 500dV + 150 dV plane change. 

Slate works just like Tylo to get a free capture at Sarnus.

I brought way more LF for the mother ship than needed. Could probably done it with half.

3 small moons to go...

Edited November 27, 2016 by Nefrums

[JessShadowheart]

This Sounds like a fun chalenge. But I guess my entry will take some time as my ships tend to be expansive. Looking forward to learn new things to keep it cheep though.

[JacobJHC]

If I use a reusable launcher will it not count against points? What I mean is if I use my SSTO rocket that delivers 200 tons to orbit and then land it at the KSC, refuel it, then recover it for full value will the launcher not count towards the 250,000 funds limit?

Also is ISRU allowed?

thanks.

[septemberWaves]

This challenge is very clearly inspired by the Jool 5 challenge, yet imposes some difficult restrictions (the price) as well as some rather arbitrary ones (requiring it to be piloted by Jeb).. I think part of the success of the Jool 5 challenge comes from how versatile it is; people have a lot of options for how they go about conducting a Jool 5 mission, and there are different categories of challenge to suit different people.

Perhaps more people would attempt this if you have a challenge category that is based on having it be a low-cost mission, but is not the only way to complete the challenge. I am sure some people are put off by the fact that we cannot have large and expensive vehicles for quite extensive exploration (myself included, if I even had time to conduct the challenge currently).

[DustInTheWind]

This could be one of the challenges with a long forum life if the rules were refined a bit:

• Mods are not addressed: I think informational mods like KER, MJ, Precise Node, etc should be allowed. Non-physics and aesthetic Mods like Chatterer, EVE, Planetshine, etc should be too. Part Mods can get tricky, but Jool 5 kept a good list of mods that weren't too "cheaty." Then you get into LS mods and stuff like like Dang It! 
• ISRU is not addressed. It should be
• Any limitations should address if recoverable SSTOs or Boosters account for mission cost. Also, with these long missions, there is the possibility of picking up contracts to offset mission cost. My Ultimate Challenge entry ended up netting 42,275,000 funds since I often checked for new contracts. I more than doubled funds in that save even with sending two EVE landers since the first one had a fuel line line issue once I got it out of the VAB. 
• What about CommNet? Since 1.2 this can greatly affect the difficulty of single pilot missions, and with the distances involved with OPM, a robust DSN becomes a necessity
• What about command pods? Keeping Jeb in a command seat for a couple of decades makes for one stinky spacesuit.

Great Challenges^TM are usually something that either a moderately experienced player can accomplish or something where failure is still fun enough to warrant another try. Perhaps the way to do this is to have levels like Jool 5, but instead of the number of Kerbals, base it on the mission cost. Heck, maybe instead of a low-mass sub-challenge, do a low-cost sub-challenge and open the challenge up to as many designs as possible. It would be really impressive to see an OPM Grand Tour, and it should be possible with ISRU.

[Nefrums]

I like the cost restriction, It is what makes this challenge different. 

There does not have to be rules for everything, let people use what the want to.

I flew this challenge in a stock ship, and I followed all reules from the challenge that was the inspiration for this one, as I think those rules are good and make for an interesting (design) challenge with out adding needles complexities that I don't like, like flying without precise node, building without KER etc.

 

my ship ship cost 100k and I had way to much fuel,  I ditched the entire last stage of my mothership with its 5k dV before reentry at Kerbin.

 I used a lifter design that I developed for the The Cheap and Cheerful Rocket Payload Challenge  based on kickbacks, twinboar and poddle. It can get stuff to orbit for about 600/t

 

The mothership is powered by a single nerv, and have dedicated landers for Laythe and Tekto, and one lander for the rest.

 

Album: http://imgur.com/a/Jvocc

Edited November 27, 2016 by Nefrums

[HoloYolo]

7 minutes ago, Nefrums said:

I like the cost restriction, It is what makes this challenge different. 

There does not have to be rules for everything, let people use what the want to.

I flew this challenge in a stock ship, and I followed all reules from the challenge that was the inspiration for this one, as I think those rules are good and make for an interesting (design) challenge with out adding needles complexities that I don't like, like flying without precise node, building without KER etc.

 

my ship ship cost 100k and I had way to much fuel,  I ditched the entire last stage of my mothership with its 5k dV before reentry at Kerbin.

 I used a lifter design that I developed for the The Cheap and Cheerful Rocket Payload Challenge  based on kickbacks, twinboar and poddle. It can get stuff to orbit for about 600/t

 

The mothership is powered by a single nerv, and have dedicated landers for Laythe and Tekto, and one lander for the rest.

 

Album: http://imgur.com/a/Jvocc

gg

[DustInTheWind]

@Nefrums, Well done!

And....I am totally stealing your atmospheric lander. I had no idea the atmospheric ISP penalty for Tekto would be small enough to keep such a high TWR. I was planning on an Aerospike for the flatter ISP curve, now I will have to rethink my attempt once I get OPM to work again.