Kerpollo - A Complete Science Mode Run In 9 Acts

[Grogs]

@Superfluous J, here's my next mission report:

DISCLAIMER: The following is a fictional account of a trip to a made-up world, Dres. The flight director producer would like to remind everyone that Dres does not exist, and rumors of its existence are false. Furthermore, rumors of a secret prison facility on Dres are patently false because, obviously, Dres does not not exist! Those continuing to spread rumors about Dres may be given the opportunity to learn about its non-existance firsthand!

With the KNSA legal mumbo jumbo out of the way (What's that all about?), I'm happy to report that the Dres mission is complete. The launcher flew really well and I put the transfer vehicle into a 250x250 orbit to make the long burn to Dres. I had a really hard time getting an encounter, so I launched with just a close approach and made two small correction burns along the way. After inserting into a polar orbit, Bob went EVA for a while until he had collected reports for all the biomes, then flew the lander down to plant the flag and collect a surface sample. The return was uneventful except that there wasn't enough fuel to capture in Kerbin orbit. I tried to aerocapture just for fun, but the angle was too steep and the remaining engine and fuel tank (aka, auxilliary heatshields) got all explodey. The capsule was unharmed and we had an uneventful landing on the polar caps. Next stops: Duna! And Ike!

 

Mission Details below:

Spoiler

 

Here's the ship on the launchpad. OK, start the countdown. T-10... 9... Hey, wait a minute! What the heck is Bill doing in there again? That guy is sneakier than a fox. OK, let's get Bob in there and head out.

 

The rocket got a new flame job on the way to orbit. Plenty of power in those boosters!

 

I had a hard time getting an encounter. Whenever I would start moving the intercept closer, it would disappear. I finally launched with this and made two small corrections en route to finally get an encounter.

 

Setting up a capture and polar orbit.

 

Bob collecting EVA reports from all the biomes

 

Bob down on the surface planting the flag

 

The ascent stage of the lander redocking with the command module

 

Only 1 year and 229 days to wait around for the return trip. In a Mk2 pod. Let's do the time warp again!

 

Things getting a little explodey on re-entry

 

Safely down and collecting one last surface sample

 

2284 science. Nicely done!

 

That was enough to get half of the 300-point techs.

 

 

Full album is here: https://imgur.com/a/k0pwRNw

[GRS]

"Dres does not not exist"

I see what you did there...

[Superfluous J]

7 minutes ago, Grogs said:

I had a hard time getting an encounter. Whenever I would start moving the intercept closer, it would disappear. I finally launched with this and made two small corrections en route to finally get an encounter.

I have this issue all the time with the smaller worlds. Dres and Gilly in particular are a chore to get to. I find that exactly what you did (eject with the assurance that you can fix it later) is the best course of action.

[Grogs]

I'm happy to report that Dunpollo is complete! Middle planet for the middle mission.

I decided to set this up as a true Apollo-style mission with a 3-kerbal Mk1-3 pod and a 2-kerbal Mk2 lander. This decision meant I had a pilot (Val) to make maneuver nodes if necessary during rendevous. Of course that also meant a larger ship. I took advantage of the new 3.75 meter tanks and some Twin Boar and Pollux boosters to get everything moving in the right direction. I also employed the three new science instruments: the atmospheric analyzer, seismometer, and the infrared telescope. Bob and Val were able to plant flags on both Duna and Ike, and then return home with over 6000 science!

Next up: Eelollo, which sounds like a rock music festival.

 

Details below:

Spoiler

 

Starting tech tree

Dunpollo is the most complex mission I've done so far in the Kerpollo challenge. I could probably just throw together a really big ship with 10,000 m/s dV, stick a lander on it, and have it work. But it's a lot more satisfying to me to actually sit down, plan it out, and design a ship. In that light, Dunpollo breaks down into the following phases:

A. Launch to low-Kerbin orbit [3400 m/s]
B. Transfer to Duna and set up in a low polar orbit (~60 km) [2300 m/s]
C. Land on Duna, then return and redock with the main ship [2000 m/s]
D. Transfer from Duna orbit to a low polar orbit around Ike (~15 km) [900 m/s]
E. Land on Ike, then return and redock with the main ship [1000 m/s]
F. Transfer from Ike back to low-Kerbin orbit and land [2200 m/s]

Total dV: 11,800 m/s. This number is a bit more than the standard dV map would suggest because it accounts for plane changes to/from polar orbits. For the science!

All systems go for Dunpollo, and Bill is nowhere to be found. He must have gotten wind of rumors he would accidentally be "forgotten" down on Duna with just a few potatoes and a lifetime supply of disco music.

 

After a long trip, we put into a polar orbit over Duna and Bob went EVA to collect reports over all the biomes.

The lander parachuted down to the Dunatian polar region, requiring only a small puff of thrust at the end to softly land.

Val planted the flag before she and Bob climbed back into the lander for the return trip.

Successfully redocking after the Duna landing

Next up was a wild polar-to-polar transfer over to Ike.

Bob gathering the EVA data over Ike

We just used the same lander for Ike. It was overkill, but easier than bringing a separate one just for Ike.

Redocking over Ike with Duna in the background

After disposing of the lander, the team shifted back to a high Duna orbit to make planning the return trip easier.

There was enough dV left to capture in a low Kerbin orbit that just skimmed the atmosphere. This let us collect some upper-atmosphere science with the new analyzer.

After using the final stage as an impromptu heat shield, the crew successfully landed in the highlands. That's another new Kerbin biome.

jeb, Bob, and Val brought back 6662 science! Not bad at all.

Final tech tree. All 300-point techs complete and only three more 550-point techs to go. Will Eelollo be enough to finish the tree? Stay tuned!

 

Full album here: https://imgur.com/a/l181y1r

[sturmhauke]

 

I decided to take a crack at this. Here's Chapter 1:

[Grogs]

@Superfluous J, I'm happy to report that Eelollo is complete and so is my tech tree. I was amazed at the amount of science I received, over 10,000 points. I guess it was a combination of the high Eeloo multiplier, plus all those gravioli detector scans of each biome. The crew decided that they weren't doing a 10+ year mission crammed into a capsule so I designed Eelollo Prime around a Mk3 Cockpit with a crew compartment and cargo bay. It made for a cool (not so) little ship, but it required a huge launcher and transfer vehicle to put it into Eeloo orbit. All four of my kebonauts (including Bill!) went on the mission.

Next mission: Mohollo!

Details are below. Full album here: https://imgur.com/a/XDhZs6X

Spoiler

Starting tech tree

 

Eelollo is a simpler mission than the last on in that there's only one landing, but the dV requirements are still quite large. Here's the mission breakdown I used for planning:

A. Launch to low-Kerbin orbit [3400 m/s]

B. Transfer ship and lander to Eeloo orbit [4500 m/s]

C. Land on Eeloo and redock with the main ship [1500 m/s]

D. Return to Kerbin [4800 m/s]

 

Here's the main craft with the lander mounted inside the bay and an infrared telescope on the nose. Payload mass is 180.6 tons.

 

Here's the ship ready to take off. Total mass, 7070 tons.

 

32 Clydesdales gave the ship a nice kick off the pad, then the 45 Vectors took over and moved the ship up to orbit.

 

Mechjeb is showing 4379 m/s for the transfer to Eeloo orbit. That begins with a burn of 2674 m/s to leave Kerbin. I had trouble getting a solid intercept again after the burn and made a couple of corrections along the way. Par for the course with the small planets.

 

Here's the main craft pulling into Eeloo orbit. After collecting EVA reports and gravioli detector readings high and low over all biomes, it was time to land.

 

Jeb and Bob taking the lander out before heading down to the surface.

 

Planting the flag in one of the Ice Canyons.

 

I was going to just dock the lander on the nose and dispose of it, but I decided to put it in the bay and take it back to Kerbin.

 

I didn't quite have the dV to put the ship back into orbit so I did a powered aerobraking maneuver. It was stable and held up quite well.

 

And what the heck, I tried to land the whole thing.

 

The crew survived, but it wasn't the most graceful landing. The engines, fuel tank, and lower half of the lander broke off and sank. But they would have been destroyed anyway if I had jettisoned them. Just need a bit more parachute if I try that again.

 

10,277 science for the mission!

 

The tech tree is all full now and I have over 5000 science left over.

 

[GRS]

Good luck for the next missions...

[Superfluous J]

On 6/5/2020 at 7:29 AM, sturmhauke said:

Here's Chapter 1

Welcome aboard!

On 6/5/2020 at 9:50 PM, Grogs said:

I'm happy to report that Eelollo is complete and so is my tech tree.

Nicely done! only the 3 hardest missions in the challenge to go

[Grogs]

9 hours ago, GRS said:

Good luck for the next missions...

 

6 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Nicely done! only the 3 hardest missions in the challenge to go

 

Yeah, just a couple of minor loose ends to tie up and I'm all finished.

[Grogs]

@Superfluous J, Mohollo is done! Bob and Val visited the Mohole-o while on Moho and pondered the idea (i.e., quicksaved) of landing at the bottom, but quickly realized that was ludicrous (i.e., blew up and then reloaded). Still, they landed on the edge and enjoyed the splendor of the 5-km deep hole at the top of the planet. I didn't do any tricks like gravity assists, so it was a brute-force 5-6k m/s of dV each way. Beyond making the large ship it wasn't wasn't too terribly difficult though.

Up next is Evepollo. I shudder at the thought of another visit to the purple kerbal eater. I've been working on some designs, and while I can get the individual phases working, they don't work together. For example, I've got a good Eve ascent vehicle and it can make orbit from Eve sea level in tests. When I put the chutes and heat shields on and actually land it first, it explodes on liftoff. And the launcher works great when testing it with a fuel tank as cargo, but when I put the actual lander on top it explodes just after liftoff. I'll get it eventually, but it will take some time to work everything out.

Details of the Mohollo mission below:

Spoiler

Moho. It's one ugly planet. And it's deceptive. Despite being much closer it takes more dV to get to than Eeloo. There are some short cuts that can help - like Eve gravity assists - but I'm just going to do it the straightforward way. Here's the mission profile:

A. Lift ship into low-Kerbin orbit [3400 m/s]

B. Transfer the ship to Moho and put it in a low orbit [5000 m/s]

C. Land on Moho and return to orbit [1800 m/s]

D. Return the ship to Kerbin [3800 m/s]

E. Capture around Kerbin and enter orbit before landing [2000 m/s]

That totals about 15,000 m/s dV. Part E is optional. If I have the dV left I'll do it, but if not I'll do a direct re-entry. Also the dV for part E may be reduced by aerobraking in Kerbin's atmosphere.

 

Here's Mohollo Prime on the pad. She's a svelte 6300 tons. And Bill didn't sneak in this time.

 

Dropping the Clydesdale boosters. They were slow off the pad, but gave the next stage a good start.

 

Up into orbit. It's about 5500 m/s to get to Moho orbit. Luckily we're carrying a lot of fuel.

 

Arriving at Moho. What a long capture burn! I broke it into two pieces to get a wide elliptical orbit for a plane change to polar, then brought it down to about a 25x25 km orbit.

 

After a 16-day EVA that still didn't collect reports from all the biomes, Bob and Val piled in the lander and went down to investigate the strange feature on the north pole.

 

Flying over the Mohole, Val wondered if she could land at the bottom (quicksaved).

 

Yeah, not in one piece. She rethought that idea (reloaded) and landed beside the Mohole instead.

 

Bob and Val planted a flag on the edge to mark the occasion. Bob couldn't help wondering what was at the bottom and pondered (another quicksave) a trip to the bottom on EVA thrusters.

 

Definitely not a good idea unless he wanted to stay there permanently. Still, he at least made it down in one piece. This trip would also violate the Kerpollo rules because the bottom is apparently part of the south pole biome. Weird.

 

After giving up on the idea of reaching the bottom, Bob and Val headed back up and docked with the orbiter.

 

The return to Kerbin was uneventful and a powered aerobraking maneuver lowered the Ap over several passes until it was time to land.

 

Safely down on the slopes of the Kerbalayas.

 

6176 extra science for the trip

 

And the tech tree is ... still finished.

 

Full album is here: https://imgur.com/a/74ljnp8

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Grogs said:

This trip would also violate the Kerpollo rules because the bottom is apparently part of the south pole biome. Weird.

The mystery of the Mohole grows!

[sturmhauke]

Munpollo is complete!

 

[Venturer2Space]

Hi @Superfluous J I'm new to the forums but I've been playing KSP for a few years now. I can't wait to give this a go after a few tests in sandbox. 

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Venturer2Space said:

Hi @Superfluous J I'm new to the forums but I've been playing KSP for a few years now. I can't wait to give this a go after a few tests in sandbox. 

Thanks! My original Kerpollo run (not a challenge back then just my idea for a fun playthrough) was back in 0.23.5 and I consider it the best teacher of the game I ever had.

[Venturer2Space]

I was just wondering @Superfluous J would it be ok for me to write up my report in the Mission Reports Forum, of course linking back to this challenge.. 

[Superfluous J]

11 minutes ago, Venturer2Space said:

I was just wondering @Superfluous J would it be ok for me to write up my report in the Mission Reports Forum, of course linking back to this challenge.. 

Yes several others have and I don't mind at all. Just make sure you link to it here at least when you start so I can follow along, and when you finish so you can claim your prize.

Disclaimer: There is no prize.

[Venturer2Space]

Just now, Superfluous J said:

Yes several others have and I don't mind at all. Just make sure you link to it here at least when you start so I can follow along, and when you finish so you can claim your prize.

Disclaimer: There is no prize.

Fab! I'll set it up in a couple of days  

[Grogs]

Welcome aboard @sturmhauke and @Venturer2Space. It's a fun challenge and gives you a reason to visit every body in the Kerbol system.

 

@Superfluous J, I'm happy to report that Evepollo was a success! After several redesigns, I finally got all of the components working together without too many explosions. At Eve, Jeb wanted to see the beach so he set the 120-ton lander down in a spot only 160 meters above sea level. This gave him an opportunity to prove Bill's claim that the ascender was capable of reaching orbit from sea level. Bill came through on this one, and Jeb and Bob safely launched it back to orbit and rendezvous with the orbiter with almost 1000 m/s to spare. After that, the Nerv-powered orbiter took a tiny lander to Gilly where Jeb touched down briefly. The highlight of this phase was Jeb riding the lander's command seat while still attached to the orbiter like some sort of a prowhead from an old sailing ship.

 

Next and final(!) mission will be Joolollo! I'm going to try and do a Jeb-level Jool-5 with full science collection, 2 kerbals on every landing, and a unique kerbal for each moon. I'm sensing that it's going to be a big ship, so lots of design work ahead!

 

Details of the Evepollo mission below:

Spoiler

Eve. Purple planet. Kerbal eater. Those who go unprepared tend to die in a fireball or get stranded on the surface. Even those that are prepared die sometimes because it's so unforgiving of the slightest mistake even to the point of being unfair at times. The mission profile breaks down as follows:

A. Liftoff to low-Kerbin orbit [3400 m/s]

B Transfer to Eve orbit [3000 m/s]

C. De-orbit the lander [~500 m/s]

D. Launch from Eve's surface and rendezvous with the orbiter [~8000 m/s]

E. Transfer from Eve orbit to Gilly orbit [1800 m/s]

F. Land on Gilly and rendezvous with the orbiter [100]

G. Return to Kerbin and land [2100 m/s]

Total dV isn't the big challenge here. It's figuring out how to land a craft on Eve with 8000 m/s safely and get it back to orbit. Once you have a lander that can accomplish that, the rest is like any other mission.

 

Here's the ship on the launchpad ready for departure. It's about the same size as my Eelollo launcher was, but has a lot more parts.

 

Here's the payload section consisting of the landers and command module separating from the transfer stage that got them to Eve.

 

The Eve lander was able to enter the atmosphere without significant heat problems and remained stable on retrograde despite some funky outward forces from fins and landing gear.

 

Twelve parachutes were able to slow the lander enough that a single, quick thrust from the center engine was able to bring it down for a safe landing.

 

Jeb and Bob planted the flag, then hurried back inside the lander before it randomly exploded as things tend to do on Eve's surface.

 

Raising the gear and jettisoning all attachments before liftoff.

 

Bill's design was good and the ascent stage was able to takeoff even from 160 meters above sea level.

 

Things always get a little explodey on Eve, and this time was no exception. Here two radial booster tanks burst into a fireball when jettisoned. Luckily nothing in the remaining stages was damaged.

 

Because Jeb flew a fairly shallow gravity turn, there were a lot of heat issues even up to 65,000 meters. I had to throttle down to avoid losing parts, but the improved efficiency of a gravity turn seemed to make up for it. The final stage of the ascent vehicle had over 1000 m/s of dV left upon reaching orbit.

 

Here's the lander re-docked with the orbiter.

 

Jeb wanted to ride in the command seat of the Gilly lander all the way from Eve to Gilly. Bob and Val didn't seem to mind.

 

Here's the orbiter with Jeb still attached orbiting Gilly

 

Jeb had to plant the flag quickly and then go chase after the lander because it went flying away when he left the command seat.

 

Redocking with the orbiter after returning from Gilly

 

After returning to Kerbin the crew landed in the ocean just off the coast.

 

Total science for the mission was 7639

 

And now there is an overflow of 18,961 science.

Full album is here: https://imgur.com/a/k5etULX

Edited June 11, 2020 by Grogs

[Venturer2Space]

@Superfluous J I have started my Mission Report for this challenge! The link to it is below  

 

1st Kerpollo Mission Completed! 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Venturer2Space

[Venturer2Space]

@Superfluous J 2nd Mission Completed! 

Full details are on my Mission Report thread which is linked below

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Venturer2Space

[Venturer2Space]

I'm on a roll today @Superfluous J Minmus mission completed! 

Details are in the mission report below 

 

[Grogs]

Hey @Superfluous J did you see my Evepollo report above? I'm getting ready for the Joolollo-5 mission now and I want to make sure everything is good with Eve before I proceed.

[Superfluous J]

28 minutes ago, Grogs said:

Hey @Superfluous J did you see my Evepollo report above? I'm getting ready for the Joolollo-5 mission now and I want to make sure everything is good with Eve before I proceed.

Weekends are crazy busy. I should hopefully have time to review all posts tomorrow. Sorry!

[Superfluous J]

20 hours ago, Grogs said:

Hey @Superfluous J did you see my Evepollo report above? I'm getting ready for the Joolollo-5 mission now and I want to make sure everything is good with Eve before I proceed.

You look good. Sorry for the delay!

Nice job getting back to Eve orbit with only 7000m/s. I give myself more than the 8000 listed and usually have to try several times.

[Grogs]

3 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

You look good. Sorry for the delay!

Nice job getting back to Eve orbit with only 7000m/s. I give myself more than the 8000 listed and usually have to try several times.

Great! I'll tell Wernher to get cracking on the Joolollo rocket.

 

I've always used the magic 8k number for Eve planning too, but when I finally came up with a design that worked I ran with it. There were a lot of flipping rockets and suborbital flights before I came up that design though.