Aletheia, The End of Darkness: An Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge Mission Log (IT IS FINALLY DONE)

[problemecium]

Veteran forumites may recall when my thread "Sights of Kidonia" was active. I managed to get a humongous mothership assembled in orbit for the Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge, filled with all manner of fun payloads and equipped with over 9000 m/s of delta-V, and then... I abandoned the project, the challenge left unmet once again. That was actually my third attempt to pull it off, the successor to "Julia" and an unnamed predecessor mothership. Each attempt had been grander than the last, and each attempt had failed (for the first, I was woefully short on delta-V; for the second, a KSP update to make the LV-N nuclear engine not consume oxidizer made the existing design unworkable; and for the third, I simply stopped playing KSP for over a year and didn't feel like trying to pick up where I left off, largely due once again to changes in the game). Only one thing to do: Try a FOURTH TIME! Officially at least. I did an undocumented minimal test run a while ago with an uncrewed ion probe just to reassure myself there was hope. And naturally I must continue the trend of making every new mothership dwarf all the previous ones...

Teaser image showing the scale of the hull I designed alongside Kidonia. I'll be updating the thread as important milestones in the mission are reached.

Edited January 30 by problemecium
IT IS DONE

[problemecium]

Part 1: Eiffel Tower to Orbit

The stage was set with all the crew I planned to include either waiting at KSC or on the way and set to arrive within a few days, over 3 million funds available, Kerbin's SOI cleared as best as I could manage of clutter from previous missions, and the transfer window to Jool open with its optimal point in roughly 8 days. The mission had been meticulously planned out from tiny payload components all the way to the vast hull of the mothership. Thus the only thing to do was begin assembly by launching the core of the ship, the payload section.

Due to the aerodynamics of the payload section as designed, a custom launch configuration was necessary, composed of a large fuel reserve at the top, an engine cluster at the bottom, and a support cage featuring four large winglets to ensure stability on ascent. Only by using its own LV-N nuclear engines and onboard fuel supply was this component able to reach orbit. While its TWR was very low whilst running on these, they could be fired fairly early, as even a few kilometers up they near maximum thrust and are already more efficient than any chemical engine, and they could sustain thrust for a very long time and thereby gradually accomplish the orbital injection.

The next launch was a cleanup operation to remove the payload section's launch hardware so that its docking ports would be available for the rest of the orbital assembly:

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This contained two orbital tugs. The support cage was detached and the smaller tug used to tow it away. Unfortunately I had miscalculated and this component proved too heavy for the tug to completely deorbit, so another mission will be needed later to complete the recovery of this component. Meanwhile the fuel reserve was detached and the larger tug used to tow it away.

Next the command section was launched. As it was much smaller and lighter, it was readily handled by my 30-ton launch vehicle along with a heavy-duty orbital tug for use during the rest of the orbital assembly process:

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The tug proceeded to attach it to the forward docking port on the payload section. The support cage is still present and visible in the background.

Next , with KSC once again on the day side of Kerbin, the empty fuel reserve from the first launch could be deorbited and recovered:

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Over 100,000 funds were recouped from this recovery. Next to launch was the largest and heaviest single component of the mission, the core of the transfer stage used for the trip to Jool and later back to Kerbin:

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Unfortunately this launch had to be performed at night due to the short time frame available for the mission. My 250-ton launch vehicle was barely able to insert it into orbit, and then it performed the rendezvous using its own engines and the fuel from a small tanker I had included.

Finally the transfer stage drive core was carefully docked onto the payload stage's rear docking port. This operation was very slow and difficult, as not only was this component very long and very heavy, but it had to be attached very precisely to ensure that the side-mounted drive pods that would be installed later in the mission could be attached with proper alignment. If too much deviation occurred here, these pods would cause significant torque and make the mothership unable to maintain a heading during its ejection burns from Kerbin and later from Jool.

Stay tuned for the next installment, which should feature the installation of the side-mounted drive pods and possibly of the crew or of one or more payloads.

Edited August 3, 2020 by problemecium
formatting bug

[problemecium]

Part 2: Aletheia, The End of Darkness

With the central hull assembled, it was time to attach the four side-mounted drive pods.

The drive pods for this mission use the same basic design as those on the Phthanophaneron, the only changes being an invisible subtle adjustment to the part attachment hierarchy to improve rigidity and the addition of a shielded forward tocking port to make assembly more convenient. Thus for the first two I used the same 150-ton launch vehicle I had used previously, but for the second two I decided that it was too long and wobbly to easily control or land safely, so I designed a new vehicle with several improvements. The new vehicle has a noticeably larger capacity, though for the time being is still rated for roughly 150 tons. Its shorter frame and wider base make it more rigid, easier to steer, and more stable after landing, and it happens to have a higher landing speed tolerance and both a lower cost and a lower part count. These improvements made the last two installations and recoveries go very smoothly - although by the time the last one was finished I was working with less than three units of MonoPropellant!

As shown in this large collage, each drive pod was launched and rendesvoused with the mothership using the launch vehicle, then handed off to the heavy-duty orbital tug to be moved into place. The launch vehicle was immediately returned and recovered, as due to the very high launch costs, even with the reductions from the improved version, there were not enough funds available to have multiple of these vehicles in operation at once. Fortunately the launch vehicles had a comfortable delta-V margin left over and managed to land very close to KSC to maximize recovery value. There is a small mistake visible in the image wherein I accidentally named one of them based on a 250-ton payload rating rather than its actual rating. A few operations ended up occurring at night, but hopefully with the brightness increased it's easy enough to tell what was happening.

With that, the hull is at last fully assembled! I hereby reveal to you Aletheia, Jool Exploration Ship named for the Lovecraftian and Greek goddess of truth, a.k.a. The End of Darkness:

96 meters long and 1.2 kilotons, capable of achieving over 10,000 m/s of delta-V while carrying 108 tons of payload, with seating for up to 30 Kerbals. This infographic explains the planned mission components (note that a few numbers are placeholders I intend to update once the real values are determined later in the mission):

This is the largest craft I have ever constructed in Career mode. I've designed larger, yes, but never assembled anything of this scale in a serious playthrough.

Edited August 4, 2020 by problemecium
hi

[problemecium]

Part 3: AAAAAAAA

Just as I finished patting myself on the back for smoothly completing the assembly process, I suddenly had the dreadful realization that inside those cargo bays were supposed to be docking ports for attaching the payloads - and I had completely forgotten them! Near despair, I weighed my options: Cheat, swapping in a fixed version and hope nobody notices? Carefully extract the defective section, somehow manage to recover it, and send in a replacement, all strictly legit? Reload an old quicksave and start the whole assembly over again?
Long story short I went with option B, so enjoy this unplanned bonus interlude wherein I perform careful rocket surgery and blow through an absolutely obscene amount of funds.

The first step was to launch a batch of recovery hardware for retrieving the defective payload section. This launch proved to be very problematic, as invisible problems in the part attachments in the craft kept causing the rocket to be uncontrollably wobbly or to self-disassemble when the fairings were deployed. Apparently some bug exists where stacked fairings detach their bases when the sides are detached. Also, somehow, despite checking specifically at least twice, I managed to launch the thing all the way into orbit and then find out that it had no MonoPropellant tank aboard, causing me to have to start over. Eventually after many frustrating tries I was able to properly rendezvous with the mothership and continue the mission.

The hardware consisted of three modules that each featured numerous airbrakes and parachutes and attached via Advanced Grabbing Units to the side of the payload section. I first separated this section from the rest of the ship in order to prevent any bugs that might occur from propagating into the other sections and dooming the entire mission. Since several glitches had occurred already I was in no mood to take unnecessary risks. Here the orbital tug I included is moving the last of the three into place.

_

By attaching the parachute modules to one side of the payload section, I was able to force it to descend sideways, hugely increasing drag and making a soft splashdown possible. I also opened the cargo bays in the hopes of increasing drag even further, revealing where the docking ports were supposed to have been installed but weren't - oops!

Now that this part was out of the way, I decided to take some time to clean up some of the other components that had been left in orbit earlier. First came the launch vehicle used for the recovery hardware:

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Second was the 250-ton launch vehicle used for the transfer stage:

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Next was the 30-ton launch vehicle used for the command section:

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Finally came the 30-ton launch vehicle (a silghtly different design) used in the first cleanup mission earlier:

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Now that plenty of funds were available, it was possible to launch the new and improved payload section. Impatience motivated me to avoid leaving additional orbiting hardware or set myself up for extra refueling missions by eschewing having the vehicle launch itself in favor of a huge and very expensive launch assembly that managed to consume nearly two million funds and thus require me to take a break for a few contracts just to be able to afford it:

This was composed of five of my 50-ton launch vehicle connected together alongside a number of winglets and struts. Even with a nominal 250 tons of launch capacity, the payload still couldn't be carried all the way to orbit in a single stage as it weighed over 450 tons. Thus a sort of multi-stage approach was needed:

The launch assembly propelled the payload section onto a sub-orbital trajectory, and then this section detached and completed the orbital insertion under its own power. This turned out to be a very difficult operation, and I failed to complete it several times.

Meanwhile, the launch assembly parachuted into the ocean east of the space center:

_

Finally, now that the new payload section was in orbit I could proceed with reassembling the mothership. Since the payload section is designed to lie between the command section and the transfer stage, the command section had to be detached earlier, and since it only had a single docking port, it had to be left in orbit until the new payload section could retrieve it.

The retrieval was made possible by the orbital tug attached to the rear docking port, providing a temporary control point, and by the Vernor engine clusters attached to the payload section itself. These were another feature I had overlooked earlier and are essential for enabling the ship to dock with its transfer stage, both later on for the return trip to Kerbin and, due to the forced change in plans, here in Kerbin's orbit before departure.

Now that Aletheia has been reassembled and hopefully doesn't have any other fatal flaws (I checked over and over, very carefully, this time around), it should be possible to proceed with installing the payloads and delivering the crew.

Edited August 6, 2020 by problemecium
smaller images

[problemecium]

Part 4: Payloads Part 1

Sure enough, no unforeseen obstacles stopped me from proceeding to start installing the payloads. First up was a batch of minor components, consisting of the smallest payloads and a few adapter pieces needed for large payloads later in the mission:

Aletheia's cargo bays do now contain docking ports, but it was intentionally designed with standardized, non-offset docking ports to keep it flexible so that it would be easy to reuse in different missions in the future. Thus a few of the mission components require adapter hardware to be attached. Since the adapters were small and light, all of them were launched at once along with the light lander, a rover, a sky crane, and an additional orbital tug equipped with different sizes of docking ports to enable it to handle the specialized adapters.

_

_

Shown here in order:

• The Tylo lander's adapter: simply a large docking port attached to a miniature docking port.
• The Laythe plane's adapter: similarly a large docking port and miniature docking port, but with the latter offset to enable the Laythe plane to fit while attached via its own off-center docking port.
• Additional survey probes: a group of three probes attached to a girder segment and a standard docking port. Since this didn't have any extra docking ports, once it was in position the orbital tug had to detach and carefully push it into the cargo bay while the probes used their reaction wheels to maintain alignment. While Jool has five moons, due to the difficulties in landing on Tylo and returning from there to orbit, no mining of Tylo is planned at this time and thus there is no need for a fifth survey probe. The fourth survey probe planned for this mission is included within the portable station core to be launched later.
• Light lander, rover, and sky crane assembly: a unit containing the light lander for Jool's three smallest moons, a small rover, and a sky crane for the small rover. An additional docking port is included to allow other components to share the same cargo bay if necessary.

Once all of these components were installed, the next launch was an "Auxiliary Return Kraft" or "ARK":

This is a compact vehicle with just enough crew accommodations and delta-V to return up to eight Kerbals to Kerbin from Jool's orbit. Two of these are planned for the mission overall. Should a major contingency occur such as the mothership being severely damaged or running out of fuel, these will ensure that the entire crew is still able to return home.

Planned for the next update are the second ARK and the portable station core. Still remaining to do after that are boarding the crew, topping off the mothership's fuel reserves, and performing any necessary final checks before departure. The center of the Jool transfer window is only seven hours away, so things are becoming rushed.

By the way I do invite feedback, be that recommendations, warnings should someone notice something that looks wrong, questions, etc. I see that this thread has a number of views but with no comments I have no idea whether people are enjoying reading about this or expect anything from it.

Edited August 9, 2020 by problemecium
a major contingency

[RealKerbal3x]

@problemecium Nice work so far! I would never have the patience to assemble such a monster of a ship

Also, a suggestion: if you have the spare funds, you should buy the DLCs. Both add really useful things - in particular, Breaking Ground's robotics are helpful in folding things up in cargo bays and deploying them later, and Making History has 5m rocket parts which make excellent heavy-lift launch vehicles. I would highly recommend them

Edited August 9, 2020 by RealKerbal3x

[problemecium]

Part 5: Payloads Part 2

The second ARK followed the first, performing the same routine of rendezvousing using the launch vehicle and then maneuvering itself into one of the forward cargo bays:

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Next, once it was daytime over KSC again, the launch vehicle for the minor components installed earlier deorbited itself and barely managed to land on level ground near the mountains west of KSC:

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The only remaining payloads at this point were the three largest payloads: the portable station core, the Tylo lander, and the Laythe plane. Since time was running short, with the center of the Jool transfer window less than three hours away, the portable station was used to retrieve the crew from my LKO station where they had been standing by. Thus it was launched atop an oversized vehicle equipped with a Hitchhiker Storage Container so that all of them could be transported at once:

_

Once the vehicle reached the station, the crew boarded via EVA so that time and fuel needn't be expended, nor unnecessary risk taken, with another docking maneuver. The vehicle then rendezvoused with Aletheia where the station maneuvered itself into one of the large cargo bays. This operation went very slowly due to the tight fit. Since it only carried four Kerbals, the remaining crew transferred from the launch vehicle via EVA.

_

The next installment is planned to include the Tylo lander and Laythe plane, and it may possibly include the final refueling mission. Most importantly though, one crew member remains absent! The fifth scientist, Tanuki, is still aboard an orbital shuttle that has run out of fuel at an inconvenient 9.5 degree orbital inclination. Another craft will probably have to be launched to retrieve it and bring him to Aletheia.

Comments:

I'm not using the DLC for this mission for BadS Points, if you will. Also if and when I finish, I'd like to be able to publish the relevant craft files so people can replicate it, and I want it to not require the DLC.

[problemecium]

Part 6: Time Travel

Peggy the Engineer was going through some routine checklists in preparation for the vessel's eventual departure when she was interrupted by a string of expletives coming out of the mobile lab. She found Tatiana, the Scientist, poring over instrument readouts from the Blame Jeb Space Telescope, which had recently been tasked with attempting to identify exoplanets. Unbelievable, Tatiana kept saying. When she finally settled down enough to start explaining the situation coherently, she reported that the telescope had somehow not only met with success despite the short mission duration but managed to chart over 9,000 new planets - within optimistic estimates, if the telescope had been operating for at least seven months! Could it, Peggy asked, be a bug, or the result of hacking? Tatiana denied it on the basis that as soon as she noticed the anomaly, she had examined data from the Kerbal Deep Space Network and even taken a few measurements of her own. The data was real! After going through every explanation they could imagine, the two gathered the rest of the crew for a discussion on the matter, which is when things got even weirder. All the EVA packs and personal parachutes were missing! The crew scoured the ship, but it was as if they had all simply stopped existing at the precise time the telescope had experienced its anomaly. Then Barbara, another Scientist, pointed out not one but a myriad of stars visible out the ship's windows were either missing or new and unfamiliar. The crew contacted KSC and found that all the space program's top minds - yes, even Mind Kerman himself - were in a frenzy over the situation. As best anyone could guess, only one scenario explained everything that had happened - the Kraken had struck, but rather than destroy any of their ships, it had somehow transported the entire Kerbolar system seven months into the future! There had been a number of other effects, including changes to nearby stars and more subtle alterations such as the disappearance of personal equipment. Miraculously, it seemed that nothing truly deleterious had happened to anyone or to Aletheia, although the space program would have to run checks on all other active craft and probably make a few adjustments to future designs. As far as Aletheia was concerned, despite the strange events there seemed little reason for the mission not to continue, so continue it did.

So yeah that's my explanation for the seven month hiatus in posts here ;P

The next order of business for the mission was to launch and install the lander for Tylo. The launch was straightforward and completed in short order, and despite a tight fit, the lander was able to insert itself into the cargo bay and dock without incident, even though it ran out of MonoPropellant mere moments before contacting the docking port:

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Next was the spaceplane for Laythe. During the aforementioned checks, it was discovered that the hatch, which previously had been able to allow pilots to embark and disembark, no longer had enough clearance. Fortunately this was a simple issue of raising the top wings just enough to make up for the lost clearance without causing the craft to lose its ability to stow within a Mk3 Cargo Bay. With that issue resolved, another straightforward launch was performed and the craft and despite another tight fit, after a few tries it was able to snugly fit into the cargo bay and dock:

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Clearance was very tight but the craft managed to fit in place without any pieces intersecting with the walls of the bay. At this point, all of the components initially planned for the mission are installed, although the ship does not yet have all of its intended supply of fuel and crew, and a few additional components are being considered in light of the recent anomaly.

[problemecium]

Part 7: Equipment Resupply

Due to the anomaly discussed in Part 6, the mission needed a batch of personal equipment for the crew and had the opportunity to take advantage of the new ability to store and carry spare parts for repairs and other purposes. A new module was constructed for all of these items and piggybacked to the (hopefully) final fuel tanker, but before this could be launched, some funds had to be recovered from the launch vehicles that had recently deployed the Laythe plane, Tylo lander, and portable station.

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The resupply mission was then launched with barely 15,000 funds to spare. The tanker had an added crew cabin attached and was tasked with picking up the final crew member in orbit on its way to the mothership. While it was en route, the launch vehicle was recovered.

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The tanker then rendezvoused with the ship containing the final crew member, Tanuki Kerman. Also shown here is the equipment stored within the aft cargo module, which includes the newly available magnetometers for all six survey probes, spare parachutes and electrical equipment, spare struts and docking ports, and personal equipment for all seven crew members.

Edited March 13, 2021 by problemecium

[problemecium]

Part 8: Ready to Go

It turned out that one final refueling mission would be necessary, but a full size fuel tanker would be both excessive and too expensive given current available funds. A scaled down version was designed, a few quick contracts were completed to amass the remaining funds for launch, and then the new fuel tanker was sent on its way to Aletheia. As timing would have it, it reached its closest approach at roughly the same time as the previous fuel tanker, so careful coordination was necessary to keep both craft on course to dock. Out of abundant caution, rather than use the fuel aboard the last fuel tanker to dock, a space tug was detached from the mothership to tow it into place.

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Once both craft were attached, Tanuki quickly transferred into the mothership, the ship's fuel supply was topped off, and then the cargo was transferred into various compartments. It was just barely possible to store everything without needing the additional storage modules, so they could be left behind to save delta-V for the mission. A thorough final check was performed to make sure every last tank aboard Aletheia contained the fuel it needed, including a small reserve for refueling the small lander. Last, Valentina, who had been overseeing construction, transferred out of the ship and into the crew cabin aboard the larger fuel tanker. With that done, Aletheia appeared to at last be fully ready to detach from the tankers and other construction modules and begin its journey.

The crew, initially proposed to be ten Kerbals, had been reduced for various reasons to seven, allowing for a different Kerbal to land on each of Jool's five moons and return to Kerbin while the remaining two could stay in the Jool system aboard the portable station. The five scientists were Mavis, Barbara, Maya, Tatiana, and Tanuki, Peggy served as the engineer, and Lars took the position of pilot. All were very excited for the trip.

__

Fully laden with all mission components, Aletheia currently comprises 853 parts and weighs nearly 1.3 kilotons:

Surprisingly, upon review of my previous mission, I found that this actually puts it at a lower part count and total mass than Kidonia despite its significantly larger dimensions, higher delta-V, and more complicated mission profile. I believe this is mainly due to carrying fewer large components (e.g. one fewer portable station, no mining lander, and no habitation ring) and improvements in the efficiency of my designs.

Some may have noticed that the resolution of my screenshots has increased. The reason is that I have a new, much more powerful PC now, and thanks to that I am better equipped to stream future parts of this mission. Is there any interest from readers here?

Edited March 15, 2021 by problemecium
I forgot to style the title >.<

[king of nowhere]

hey, just discovered this.

i like overengineered missions, and i like big motherships with dozens of probes that will have a tool for everything. 850 parts, not bad. your ship has a nice sleekness about it.

you should get more upvotes.

[obney kerman]

Wow, these are some beautiful ship designs!

[problemecium]

Bumping the thread, not because there has been an update, but to announce that there's about to be one!

I'm starting a live stream of the next part of the mission in about 15 minutes (23:00 UTC).

[Maria Sirona]

On 3/15/2021 at 5:32 PM, king of nowhere said:

i like big motherships with dozens of probes that will have a tool for everything. 

You have a good taste. This mission report is sooooo epic!

[tanuki]

Keep me safe please. I am particular to snacks and crazy piloting shenanigans!

[Vagrant203]

In my experience, the lady Kerbals' shenanigans tend to actually work though.

[problemecium]

Part 9: Getting It Done

*cough, cough* *Necromances the thread like a boss*

KSP2 came out and I diverted my attention to that for a little while, then a bunch of other stuff happened that took me away from KSP altogether for months but this week I decided I had had enough of never having finished the Jool-5 Challenge and resolved to put my perfectionism and other ambitions on hold and finally get it over with. All those years living with the shame of having logged countless hours in KSP yet never beating the Jool-5 Challenge could finally come to an end.
So where did we leave off?

I did a live stream wayyyy back when of the ejection burn from Kerbin and took a few screenshots along the way:

The ejection maneuver consumed over 46% of the total fuel supply but put Aletheia on a course to intercept both Tylo and Laythe, providing maximum opportunity to conserve the remaining delta-V using gravity assists:

From here I decided to park the mothership in a wide orbit around Laythe to make later retrieval of the transfer stage easier.

All of the fuel was extracted from the transfer stage in order to maximise the capabilities of the command section. Because none ended up being left over, it seemed likely and indeed later came to pass that the transfer stage would be left in orbit of Laythe for potential use as a fuel depot in the future, rather than being retrieved and used for the return trip.

The command section detached and proceeded to enter into a low orbit and deploy the Laythe plane. After a fiery reentry, Maya Kerman successfully brought the craft to a safe landing.

Because the plane had been designed to be capable of performing a single stage ascent into orbit from Kerbin during tests, returning to the mothership from Laythe was very straightforward.

The plane was left in orbit above Laythe for potential later reuse, and a survey satellite was launched to observe Laythe going forward and provide supplemental orbital science data. All moons except Tylo would host such a satellite.

From here it was onward to Vall.

To avoid creating an excessively long post, this final report is being split into several parts. For these forum posts I have posted a selection of the most important and prettiest screenshots, but many more are available as supplemental documentation in case any doubts arise about how parts of the mission were accomplished.

 

Edited January 30 by problemecium
typo

[problemecium]

Part 10: Vall

Transferring among Jool's three inner moons requires very little delta-V aside from what is needed to eject from and capture into orbit around each, so plotting a course for Vall was simple.

On arrival, the survey probe was deployed early while still in a high elliptical orbit in order to conserve fuel, not that the probe itself had much need of this thanks to its ion engines.

The heavy lander was then detached and sent down to the surface. It turned out I was making a serious mistake here, as I would discover later...

Mavis Kerman successfully brought the lander down safely and then returned to the mothership where it was once again a tight fit to insert it into its cargo bay.

At this point I realized my mistake when, preparing to drop off the portable station, I noted that the small lander attached to it had over 1800m/s of delta-V - more than enough for a Vall landing! I had recalled some instance in the past wherein my small lander hadn't been up to the task, so I'd used the large lander instead, but alas! This had not been part of the mission plan, and not enough spare fuel had been brought along to refuel it. This could have been a disaster.
Fortunately I had prepared for the unexpected and brought a spare life boat Auxiliary Return Kraft (ARK), which contained enough fuel to refill the lander. This meant that the ARK would no longer be usable as a backup in case of emergency, so it would have to be left behind here along with the portable station when it was deployed shortly.

I also noted a second, thankfully much less significant mistake. I had deployed a survey probe from the extra probe package rather than the one conveniently attached to the station. I thus had to detach the latter and painstakingly relocate it to one of the auxiliary docking ports. I think this may have been the first time I ever docked something solely using ion engines!

The portable station was then deployed and the empty ARK sent to join it. In the future it might see use as an escape vehicle in case some emergency should happen to the station, but as I did not bring any extra crew to leave behind here, the two of them would simply sit idle for the time being. The station was now no longer available as a source of extra science points, so all of its research was transmitted home and the scientists moved into the main crew cabin aboard the mothership.

With all of the business with Vall completed, it was time to proceed toward Tylo.

[problemecium]

Part 11: Tylo, Bop, and Pol

Once again transferring from one moon to the next was among the easiest parts of the mission. I found it special that I happened to get a periapsis to a precise multiple of a kilometer:

The Tylo lander was finally able to fulfill its intended purpose and actually land on Tylo:

Tatiana Kerman proceeded to plant the flag.

With barely any delta-V left to spare, the lander managed to make it back to Aletheia.

The lander, like the Laythe lander, was left here in orbit for potential later reuse while Aletheia moved on to Bop.

The survey probe was launched, and with it, Aletheia, and the small lander all working together, an extensive search was performed for a certain rumored point of interest I had never visited before:

Spoiler

For some reason, Barbara got the worrying feeling that it wasn't entirely dead. Best to hurry back to the lander and get out of here quickly.

Barbara proceeded to plant the flag and return to the mothership:

Here a package containing a small rover and skycrane was deployed for potential later use exploring the surface:

The mothership then advanced to the final moon of Jool, Pol, where it deployed its last survey probe.

Pol's gravity was so low that the small lander didn't even need to refuel before landing here, which was fortunate considering the fuel shortage that had been incurred earlier in the mission.

Finally, Peggy returned in the lander to Aletheia.

All that was left to do now was make it home safely...

Edited January 30 by problemecium
oooooooooo

[problemecium]

Part 12: Conclusion

After several attempts to find a maneuver plan that fit within Aletheia's uncomfortably waning delta-V budget, it became clear that it was, sadly,  not feasible to return the command section to Kerbin. It proved fortuitous indeed that not one but two ARKs had been brought, leaving one still able to bring everyone home. A gravity assist from Laythe would eject it from the system and send it on its way to Kerbin, so Aletheia returned to Laythe one final time as all of the crew transferred into the ARK and detached. The now empty and all but spent mothership placed itself in a stable orbit to serve as its resting place while its crew bade it a loving farewell.

Shortly after they bade the Jool system farewell as they performed their ejection burn back toward home.

As Jool receded into the distance, everyone took one last look at the system, the planet and all of its moons visible together as if to wave goodbye themselves.

The return to Kerbin ended up involving an incredibly fast approach that was very difficult to handle. A strategy was adopted wherein the ARK would expend most of its delta-V just before entering the atmosphere, then orient perpendicular to the air stream and roll to combat any concentration of heat as it aerobraked, and finally use a gravity assist from the Mun to achieve a safe re-entry trajectory within a vaguely reasonable distance of the space center:

Having barely managed to survive intact, the ARK was now able to parachute gently to the ground and use the last of its fuel to provide a soft landing for its weary occupants:

The crew jubilantly climbed out and planted a flag to commemorate their achievement.

Before Aletheia reached Jool's sphere of influence, the space program stood at a total of 2906.8 science points. With the mission complete, including some science data generated in the onboard lab and some contributions from lucky contract offers and the Kerbin World Firsts Record Keeping Society, the final total was brought up to 17209, with 8755.7 points recovered from the return vessel (plus an extra 0.1 point for a surface sample gathered at the final landing site) and a further 5546.5 earned during the trip:

-

With that, the Jool-5 Challenge is at last complete! It was in many ways imperfect, with some opportunities for science data collection missed and many things not going according to plan, but through cautious preparation and a great deal of perseverance, it ended in success. I can finally say I did it and look ahead to greater adventures in the future.

For this challenge, a number of visual mods were employed, and a few mechanical mods were present, but no parts or functionality provided therein were used during the mission, so this is meant to qualify as a mechanically fully stock challenge submission at Jebediah's Level:
- All stock parts, resources, and other mechanics
- No functional parts were clipped into one another (I can provide craft files to support this claim if necessary)
- No ISRU or refuelling missions
- Normal difficulty settings used at minimum
- The mission departed Kerbin's SOI as a single ship, with no additional components provided after departure
- Each of Jool's five moons was visited by a different Kerbal, who was able to exit the ship to explore the surface and then board again
- All landings were performed in an enclosed landing craft rather than by EVA or an external seat
- All Kerbals were returned safely to Kerbin aboard part of the original vessel rather than via a shuttle or rescue mission
- Entire mission performed in Career Mode with default Science and Funds multipliers and the stock technology tree
- Bonus noteworthy circumstances: no DLC, no administrative strategies, no autostruts, no ion engines used for challenge completion (only for the survey probes which weren't part of the challenge), all mission components fully reusable
Please advise me if any qualifications were missed or require additional documentation, and thanks to all those who helped create and oversee this challenge! It brought me a great deal of enjoyment that KSP might otherwise have failed to provide me <3

Edited January 31 by problemecium
More details.