A Jool 5 Oddessy

[RoninFrog]

About a week ago, this challenge caught my eye:

And I thought, "Hey!  I've never been to Jool!-" *pause* Yes, I've never been to Jool.  It makes me depressed whenever I see pictures of it for some reason.  I've also never been to Moho, and I have never, ever visited Dres (what's that?). *unpause* "-let's do this!"

From Kerbin to the Mun:

Spoiler

After many hours of designing landers, testing them, optimizing them, cramming them into mk3 bays, building lots of asparagus tanks to scatter around the Jool system, and trying to maintain a reasonable TWR using mk3 LF tanks and nuclear engines, I thought, "Forget this!"  I pulled out this megalith:

 This is my good, trusty old magnum opis, the HMS Sauron.  I crammed a bunch of Kerbals in it, and hit the spacebar.  Jeb, you're in charge, if anything goes wrong it's your fault.

Low on fuel; I guess it's time to go stuff some Mun rocks into those tanks:

Let's see.  Where's some good ore?

Found some good stuff in a crater by the south pole.  Fourth highest I've seen, second highest I've seen on the Mun.  I landed with... ahem... 0 m/s of dV left.  Man, that keyboard was sweaty!  Maybe I will remember to ditch the monopropellant next time.

All the kerbals (except Bill, he's managing the drills and ISRUs) got out for a quick screenshot (ugh, left that UI on again).  Jeb decided to show off a little.  He did a twist backflip between two of the boosters and over the row of kerbals and nailed a landing right smack in the middle without using his jetpack.

By the time all the kerbals were back in, I had refined over 10000 units of LFO.  (about 7.5 units/sec)

From the Mun to Pol:

Spoiler

Back in Munar orbit.  Let's go to Jool!

Jeb, in his eagerness to launch, forgot that the next Jool transfer was 6 months away.  6 months later...

I heard about this thing called a "gravity assist" that you can do around Tylo and Laythe.  Let's do this!  I'm gonna try to gravity assist around Tylo, and then adjust my trajectory so I'm flung right smack into Pol.  I hope I'm not severely botching this.

Well, would you look at that!  I'm depressed.

Hello, Tylo.  I will hopefully see you later.

Okay, Pol, you are going down!  Whoa, your ore is nooooo good.  (Scanner display is set to 50% cutoff)

Pol is really hard to land on.  Come on, Jeb, you aren't playing pinball in the astronaut lounge right now!  After many quicksaves, aborted landings, and bouncing/backflipping down mountains, the HMS Sauron settled in a basin with an acceptable ore percentage and over 1000(! ) m/s of dV left.  I don't think Jeb will ever learn what "a reasonable margin for error" is.

This is some extremely bumpy terrain.  When I got Corwin Kerman out, the central engine was suspended over 2 meters above the bottom of the basin.  It was hard to find a flat spot for a kerbal gathering as the ground goes steeply upward in all directions, but I found a good spot on a small semicircular ledge a little ways up.  Jeb, why do you always have to plant the flag backwards?

So far so good!  Alright, Tylo.  You're up next time.  You're supposed to be hard; tomorrow I'm gonna find out the truth...

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by RoninFrog
The pictures were "squooshy"

[RoninFrog]

Part 3:  From Pol to Tylo.  After tanking up, I returned to Pol orbit and then ejected myself towards Tylo.  Unfortunately Tylo was in a very bad position to transfer to.

Fortunately, the correction burn was only 47 m/s.  Coming in for a polar orbit:

Tylo has some really nice ore deposits, unlike Pol.  Nearly everything is above 60% cutoff, so I'm hopeful to break my ore record of 14.68%.  I found a flat, 80% cutoff, nearly equatorial landing spot, and I have 3900 m/s to get there.

Aaaaw, yeah.  That's the kind of ore I'm talking about.  Beat my old record by 0.10%!  This was probably the most intense landing I have ever done.  I nearly impacted the ground at 600 m/s, but spamming mammoths all over the bottom of the rocket really paid off.

The kerbals are a little woozy after that deceleration, and they can't hold a good crescent formation.

I probably can't go straight to Vall, gonna have to stop by Bop next to grab some more fuel and take a look at the kraken.

[RoninFrog]

Part 3: From Tylo to Bop Vall!  Jeb convinced me to do it.

After tanking up, I filled the ore tanks a little on that rich Tylo dirt for a little dV boost.  I don't know how high the highest terrain on Tylo is, but it's around 7km on Kerbin, so I shot for an 8km orbit.

After getting to orbit, I realized that I might just be able to make it to Vall, so I fired up my boosters and gave it a shot.  Boy, I am really not doing good on my transfer windows.

Hello Vall!

There's a good landing spot there:

Blast, landed a little to the northwest of the good stuff.  That's gonna cost me a couple hours of refueling.  Nailed the landing first try, though, no quicksaves.  Whoops, turning off the UI hid the ore percentage.  13.22% if yore curious.  Mmf, that's not a very winsome shot of the craft.  I'm gonna have to wait until tomorrow to get the kerbals out for a better picture.

Wow, the days on Vall are long.  What's with that?  It took seemingly forever to get to morning.  The kerbals held a much better crescent formation here than on Tylo.

Next up is the most famous of Jool's moons:  Laythe!  I'm gonna find out for sure whether its atmosphere is breathable.

[RoninFrog]

Part 4: From Vall to Laythe.  I got into a very low orbit, Pe 7420 m and Ap 8374 m.  I underestimated the maximum height of Vall's mountains, and at one point passed within 280 m  of the top of a mountain!

I am never going to learn how to do these transfers properly.

Hmm.  Really bad ore here.  Scanner is at 60% cutoff.  I couldn't find anywhere on the narrow band higher than an estimated 11% ore.  That equatorial landing spot on the left looks decent.

Coming in hot!  The Sauron handles reentries well.  The trick is to open all the storage bays at the top, which makes it extremely stable pointed retrograde.

Well, blast.  I can't remember the exact ore percentage here, but it's between 10% and 11% .  I guess that's the best I'm gonna get for a planet with such restricted landing locations.  Awesome screenshot, though!

When day dawned, I got all the kerbals out and took their helmets off.  Nobody exploded.  The kerbals were being even rowdier than on Tylo, so attempting a crescent was hopeless.  Oh, Jeb.  The flag is backwards again...

Now only Bop left before I go back to Kerbin!

P.S.  The kraken has been kind to me during the last couple legs.  I have been getting phantom electricity at a rate between 0.88 and 0.42 units per second constantly.  The engines were off, the solar panels were retracted, and I checked all of the fuel cells.  I never figured out where the electricity was coming from, so I assume it was the kraken.

Edited April 24, 2020 by RoninFrog
The other right

[RoninFrog]

Part 5:  Laythe to Bop.  Last moon in the Jool 5!

Tanking up on Laythe took nearly a Kerbin week, but it the takeoff was very nostalgic for the kerbals.

Here is a great view from Jeb's cupola as the Sauron drifts into space.  Vall is visible just above Jool.

Got in a nice equatorial orbit.  Unfortunately, an equatorial orbit is not all that helpful when going to Bop.

Am I going to nail the transfer this time?  Nope.  I had to orbit Jool a few times and do more than a couple correction burns.

I spent a few orbits looking for the kraken with my eyeballs since I didn't bring any probe cores.  I heard it's possible to see it from orbit, and I have seen a couple Mun arches from orbit, but I didn't have any luck.  Ore on Bop was not great, an estimated 7-10% uniformly over the whole moon, so I did my best and got a 10.21% landing site.  Bop is a lot less jagged than Pol, so landing was easy.

I landed near the north pole which doesn't make for great pictures as the light comes in at weird angles.  The kerbals were being zombies again, always facing the same direction.  Jeb, it doesn't matter if you didn't plant the flag backwards if no one can read it!  I don't think he will ever learn... 

Any bets on whether I can shoot straight back to Kerbin without having to refuel in Kerbin SOI?

[HansonKerman]

wat ze <insert absurdly loud obscene word here>!
 

yeah okay. Good job. <clap clap> Try stopping somewhere like Dres or Duna. Best to save fuel 

On 4/16/2020 at 6:09 PM, RoninFrog said:

what's that?

Nono, Dres is pretty cool.... am I the only one that thinks that? It has a cool canyon, and a literal *asteroid belt.*

On 4/19/2020 at 8:00 PM, RoninFrog said:

atmosphere is breathable.

not according to EVA reports but...

On 4/19/2020 at 8:36 PM, RoninFrog said:

Nobody exploded

but- the EVA reports and KSPedia (I think) state-

[KerballingSmasher]

5 hours ago, HansonKerman said:

but- the EVA reports and KSPedia (I think) state-

SHHHHHHHH

[RoninFrog]

7 hours ago, HansonKerman said:

Try stopping somewhere like Dres or Duna

You may get your wish.  I cannot for the life of me get a Kerbin intercept, but I can get a Duna intercept for only 300 m/s...

[RoninFrog]

It's been a while, but the next leg is long.  Part 6:  Bop to Kerbin

Fueling was grueling in 10% ore, but I got 'er done eventually.  Now let's get back to Kerbin!  Engines at full throttle:

My method of interplanetary travel is to just go for it and then worry about launch windows.  I was definitely not going to get a Kerbin encounter out of this, but I had a pretty good Eve window.  So I did a gravity assist (purple trajectory -> green trajectory).

Hello, Eve.  You aren't going to eat me this time.

And another gravity assist a year-and-a-half later:

After such a long journey around strangely colored planets, the kerbals were thrilled to see the brilliant red of Kerbin's oceans and... why did I say "red"?  JEB!!!!!!!!  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!?

Here's what happened.  I was in a bit of a dilemma.  After the second gravity assist, I was in an orbit of Kerbol with the same orbital period as Kerbin, but in a completely different orbit, meaning I would not come close to Kerbin for decades.  I only had about 3100 m/s dV, so if I burned to get an encounter, I wouldn't be able to land on the Mun and refuel.  But not all hope was lost!  In about 6 months I had a good Duna intercept, with a gap less than 1000 km.  All that was needed was a 300 m/s burn to get an encounter.  Duna has weak gravity, so landing is easy.  It also has an atmosphere, so aerobraking is possible.  If I refuel on Duna, I will have more than enough fuel to get a good Kerbin encounter.  What can go wrong?

Just a quick note, the reason my tenses are so strange is I'm writing this in segments while I'm doing it. 

Jeb, are you sure about this?  That is a lot of heat bars...   I was definitely not as confident about this whole thing as the kerbals were.

And the survey scanner says...  Ore on Duna is decent, good at the poles.  I'm going to shoot for that red patch in the canyon there.  Based on the Narrow Band, I estimate it's at least 14%.

Hey, look at that!  That's the first good ore I've seen in a long while!  And, uh, Jeb, let's try not to cut it so close on the dV next time.

Congratulations, Jeb!  You planted the flag well this time!

I guess this leg should be called "Part 6: Bop to Duna".  Maybe I should think about transfer windows next time. 

[RoninFrog]

Part 7: Duna to Mun

This part will be abbreviated as it is only a refueling mission.  I actually used a transfer window planner, and I had much better luck with my Kerbin intercept!

I fine-tuned my orbit enough that I got a great Mun intercept from way out in the interplanetary.

The capture burn around the Mun was only 700 m/s!  I was expecting more like 1700 m/s, so I have a lot of extra dV.

I landed in the same spot as last time, so I didn't get out and plant a flag.  Look at that extra dV !!! That is what I call "slightly obscene".

The next leg should be the last.  Unless I mess up the transfers again and end up on Minmus. 

[RoninFrog]

Part 8 (the last): Mun to Kerbin!

After refueling, I launched to the northeast to try to align my trajectory along the Mun's orbit.  I also did the dV boost with the ore, just in case.  Here is the HMS Sauron at full throttle, in all its might and glory:

I burned early to get myself into a polar orbit.  Just one more planet to scan!

Oh man.  Ooooh, man.  The scanner is at 80% cutoff.  At first, I thought, "Sacred bovine!  Look at that beautiful ore!"  Then I realized that all that glorious red is in the ocean.  The second best I found was in the desert, I estimate about 11-12% based on the Narrow Band.

Didn't get any good shots of the reentry, blast.  The next picture I got is of the Sauron screaming in at Mach ~2.5 (The Sauron's terminal velocity) and 5000m altitude!  Those kerbals in the crew cabin are experiencing nearly 8 gees, by the way.

I don't remember how many quicksaves the landing took.  The hard part was holding a steady retrograde, because setting SAS to  causes the Sauron to wobble crazily, chasing the retrograde marker.  Setting SAS to regular stability caused the retrograde marker to drift off of straight up, meaning I would tumble on landing.  There was one particular attempt where I landed at about 8 m/s and for a few seconds, everything was fine.  Then, one of the side boosters suddenly just peeled off and fell over like a felled sequoia.  Eventually I got it by just waiting until the very last second and hitting 'Z'.  Ore here is less than I could've gotten as I landed to the west of where I would have liked, but it doesn't really matter.

All the kerbals piled out for a quick picture and a flag planting.  Jeb, the flag is completely black in case you don't know.  I would tell you to "do a better job next time" but there won't be one.

Well, that's the end of this Jool 5!  Should I get the kerbals back in and go do another?  Or should I go visit Dres?  Actually, there is a small crater on Tylo that I noticed had 10.00% on the Narrow Band...  Based on my math that means it should have 15% ore, the maximum possible with default settings... Maybe it's time to go do some spelunking!

[HansonKerman]

17 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

visit Dres

I’d love to see you do the Dres Canyon, the Mohole, and the underrated canyon on Duna in one launch

[RoninFrog]

2 minutes ago, HansonKerman said:

the underrated canyon on Duna

I actually landed in the 'Midland Canyon' biome on Duna.  Is that the right one?

[HansonKerman]

On 4/25/2020 at 1:54 PM, RoninFrog said:

I actually landed in the 'Midland Canyon' biome on Duna.  Is that the right one?

maybe. I will check the wiki (though the wiki is not a good resource). If it is you still have to do Dres and the Mohole tho

ok, idk but if it looked like a canyon it was probably the canyon.

OR do all the moons of OPMs Sarnus? Or maybe I’m just asking too much and should do it myself??? 

a ok.

ahem... “THOU SHALT GO AND VISIT THE MOHOLE”

Edited April 27, 2020 by HansonKerman