Kerpollo - A Complete Science Mode Run In 9 Acts

[18Watt]

11 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

What Pe should I be aiming for upon entry then?

I usually put my Eve PE at about 70 km.  But like @Superfluous J said, even with a PE just 1 m into the atmosphere you’ll eventually land…

yeah, aiming for a 10 km PE is much too deep. 

[Scarecrow71]

6 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

I usually put my Eve PE at about 70 km.  But like @Superfluous J said, even with a PE just 1 m into the atmosphere you’ll eventually land…

yeah, aiming for a 10 km PE is much too deep. 

See, this is what I get for listening to Matt.  His video shows him aiming for 15-20km.

I'm going to make a few adjustments to the craft and try again today.

[18Watt]

15 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Unfortunately, something on/near the decoupler in the middle of the ship is overheating way too fast, causing the ship to crack in half and blow up.

Are you sure it’s overheating?  Another possibility is it can’t handle the g-forces.  Even with a shallow entry (pe 70 km +) you’ll eventually hit the soup and get close to 9 g’s.  With your steep dives I suspect you were going past 9 g’s.  
 

One suggestion is to turn on Rigid Attachment and/or auto strut for the affected part, and it’s neighbors on either side.  And coming in more shallow might reduce the ultimate load (g force) on those parts.

[Scarecrow71]

21 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

Are you sure it’s overheating?  Another possibility is it can’t handle the g-forces.  Even with a shallow entry (pe 70 km +) you’ll eventually hit the soup and get close to 9 g’s.  With your steep dives I suspect you were going past 9 g’s.  
 

One suggestion is to turn on Rigid Attachment and/or auto strut for the affected part, and it’s neighbors on either side.  And coming in more shallow might reduce the ultimate load (g force) on those parts.

I assume it's overheating...although why only that 1 part and nothing else around it?  That part overheats (or gets excess g's in entry) and then blows up, which splits the ship in half and causes the rest of it to blow up.  I am hoping that a shallower entry as has been suggested is the answer here.

[Admiral Fluffy]

59 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

15-20km

Try 75. That might work.

[Scarecrow71]

Well, I'm getting closer.  Set the initial descent Pe to 80km, and after 3 passes I was on my way towards actual land.  I got to about 55km, at which point the inflatable heat shields were no longer useful (heat effects ended).  I thought "Damn, I'm gonna hit land on this one!".  And I was right...except I should have stated HOW I was gonna hit land.  See, I went to decouple the heat shields, both top and bottom.  The bottom ones came off with no problem.  The top ones?  Too close to the stuff at the top of the craft, and so my science junior, half my parachutes, and, most importantly, the docking port all went up in a ball of gas and flame.  I thought, just for kicks, I'd still try to put this thing on the ground just to say I can.  And I hit the ground.  HARD.  Poor Bob is now just another Kerbal sacrificed to the Eve gods.

But, as I said, I'm getting closer.  I know that I have to alter the craft again to move those upper heat shields farther away from the top of the craft so as to not muck up (and yes, I am currently thinking of a word that rhymes with muck) my next attempt at landing.  I will get this done!

As an aside, I figured out that the Terrier engine behind that decoupler in the middle of the craft was what was overheating.  And it was due to a very steep descent profile.  Thanks all for helping me get the descent profile corrected!

Edited December 15, 2021 by Scarecrow71

[Superfluous J]

Oh jeez 10km!?

I thought you meant 10km DEEP, as in 10km from space.

Yeah I won't even put my Pe at 10km on Kerbin. on Eve that's a death sentence.

[Scarecrow71]

11 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Oh jeez 10km!?

I thought you meant 10km DEEP, as in 10km from space.

Yeah I won't even put my Pe at 10km on Kerbin. on Eve that's a death sentence.

Again, I was using Matt's video.  Which is old and probably from a version where Eve wasn't a train wreck in high heels.

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Again, I was using Matt's video.  Which is old and probably from a version where Eve wasn't a train wreck in high heels.

Depending on how old it was (pre-1.0?), back in the day you could hit Eve (or any other world with an atmosphere) head-on from interplanetary and slow down enough to trigger parachutes before hitting the ground. Man, the days before heating was introduced were fun times.

[Scarecrow71]

Well, I'm getting closer.  Multiple launches today, with each one producing results for things to correct.  My big concern right now is going to be fuel during ascent off Eve; my last failure showed me I need to put sepratrons on the lower heat shields as they would run into the rest of the ship and blow up fuel tanks.  This allowed me to see different amounts of dV remaining...and it didn't look good.

But I am getting closer on this.

[jost]

Feel free to "borrow" ideas from my Evepollo mission:
https://imgur.com/gallery/ZACFq6J 

I would never managed it without the help from this community so you might consider some of the advice I got:

Note, that the mission profile changed for Kerpollo (just Val on the lander instead of three kerbals)

[Akagi]

Ok, I'm going to try it!

[Akagi]

@Superfluos J, do you need screenshots of science rollers?

[Superfluous J]

"Need" is a strong term. I love to see 'em but if it's any trouble at all don't sweat it.

Mostly I just want a picture of each milestone on the main missions.

[Scarecrow71]

I am still working on this.  I just can't seem to land on Eve; her atmosphere is proving to be...problematic.  I'm close, but not quite there yet.

[18Watt]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I am still working on this.

Not sure if any of this will be helpful, but here’s some of the problems I ran into and the things I did to overcome them.  I’m assuming you are working with a propeller driven ascender?  If so, you’ll probably need the inflatable heat shield(s).

• The lower shield is too draggy, and the craft flips around.  My solution was to add a second inflatable shield to the upper part of the ship, facing down, or the same direction as the lower one.
• When detaching the heat shields, they collide with the lander causing damage.  Try altering when you decouple the heat shields.  Sometimes it works better higher up, sometimes lower, and sometimes after your parachutes are deployed.  The upper and lower shields may need to be decoupled at different stages of the descent.
• The lander tips over, or lands too hard.  Wider base, and I actually used the propellers to assist the parachutes at the end of the descent.  Or you could add parachutes.  Also, there is an element of luck in hitting a relatively flat spot.
• Probably do not want to dive too deep into the atmosphere.  I found a PE of 70 km was plenty deep.
• No matter how careful you are, eventually you are going to hit a wall of air at about 50 km, where you’ll experience very high g forces.  Building many parts with rigid attachment and auto struts might help keep things together.

My Eve lander works, but certainly not every time.  I’d say I need 3-5 attempts every time I take it to the surface.  Good luck!

[Superfluous J]

I did Eve by bringing enough (read: Drilling enough at Gilly) fuel to slow down almost all the way before going into the atmosphere. You still burn a bit and I lost some unnecessary solar panels, but I never exploded on entry. I'll probably do that any time I land on Eve in the future, it was so nice.

[18Watt]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

I did Eve by bringing enough (read: Drilling enough at Gilly) fuel to slow down almost all the way before going into the atmosphere. You still burn a bit and I lost some unnecessary solar panels, but I never exploded on entry.

That might be a better approach, my issue with detached inflatable shields colliding with my ship is something I haven’t really resolved.  There’s still an element of luck every time I drop the shields.

@Scarecrow71 might have the same concerns I did, namely that a lander with propellers has a lot of exposed delicate parts.  However, eliminating the inflatable shields would solve a lot of problems.  Just taking a wild guess at how slow you would need to be to enter safely- maybe 1,600 m/s or less.  I would also guess that slowing down that far would also reduce the violent g forces when you hit the thicker atmosphere.

Hmm.  Now I’m curious…

[Scarecrow71]

My primary issue is the lower inflatable shield hitting the lander as it ejects.  I have tried separatrons and even engines during staging to push it away, all to no avail; no matter what happens, that part always runs directly into the lander and blows up half my tanks.

[Akagi]

Got it! I'll send a pic or two once I'm on a computer with KSP

12 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

"Need" is a strong term. I love to see 'em but if it's any trouble at all don't sweat it.

Mostly I just want a picture of each milestone on the main missions.

 

[Akagi]

3 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

My primary issue is the lower inflatable shield hitting the lander as it ejects.  I have tried separatrons and even engines during staging to push it away, all to no avail; no matter what happens, that part always runs directly into the lander and blows up half my tanks.

Only eject the shield after chute opening.

[Scarecrow71]

Coming back around to this after taking some time to learn a few new things.  Have a ship on its way to Jool, and if I planned right I should be able to complete that in the next day or so.  And if this works, I've got an idea on changing up the Eve lander.

Stay tuned!

[jost]

The image for the badge doesn't seem to work any more. Is there a way to get it for a kind of mirror of it?

[Superfluous J]

14 hours ago, jost said:

The image for the badge doesn't seem to work any more. Is there a way to get it for a kind of mirror of it?

Oops I dropped my web host and forgot to make all the images that used to be there available elsewhere.

It's now https://i.imgur.com/z4stCXQ.png or just copy this image:

[jost]

6 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Oops I dropped my web host and forgot to make all the images that used to be there available elsewhere.

It's now https://i.imgur.com/z4stCXQ.png or just copy this image:

Thanks