Solid Gilly

[TheMunRover]

I had an idea. Gilly and back (launch, landing, return) with ONLY solid rockets. No liquid fuel, oxidiser or mono prop. I dont know if its possible, but i would like to see you try! 

[Liam_The_Great]

It definitely is possible, Bradley Whistance has actually landed on Eve and come back with only SRBs.

[Bej Kerman]

22 minutes ago, Liam_The_Great said:

It definitely is possible, Bradley Whistance has actually landed on Eve and come back with only SRBs.

The challenge factor where would be landing on a body with practically 0Gs without fine inputs.

[camacju]

14 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

The challenge factor where would be landing on a body with practically 0Gs without fine inputs.

I would just use sepratrons to get within 50m/s of the correct value and then lithobrake.

I'm actually gonna try doing this challenge and see how I end up doing.

[vyznev]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

The challenge factor where would be landing on a body with practically 0Gs without fine inputs.

I developed some tech a while ago that might be useful here. If it works for docking in orbit, it should work for a Gilly landing. Those are basically the same thing anyway.

[camacju]

In VAB. I purposely over-engineered this because this is the first time I've actually tried doing a solid fuel only mission.

Launch with the Clydesdale booster

Circularizing orbit with the Thumper booster. First major sign of overengineering here - the Hammer booster was supposed to be the orbital insertion stage but instead I just left it in orbit because I can't really use it for the Eve transfer.

Six Shrimp boosters provide the Eve transfer

Fine tuning Eve encounter with a few stages of Sepratrons

Aerobraking

Shrimp booster raises orbit at the right altitude to get a good Gilly intersect. From here it's all Sepratrons

Fine tuning Gilly encounter

I can't get the landing burn exact so I get close then lithobrake the rest of the way.

Landing burn

Second major sign of overengineering - only the top ring of Sepratrons was intended to land on Gilly, hence the absurdly low TWR of some of the upper stages. At least I know I have way more delta-v than needed to get home.

I wait until Gilly's facing in about the right direction and then burn straight upward. I can't get enough fine control to get into an orbit first.

Shrimp booster detaches

Eve escape burn  - very inefficient because I do have the margin required

Fine tuning Kerbin encounter

Fine tune burn

Burning off the rest of the solid fuel to make aerobraking easier

Aerobraking

Parachute deployed

Successfully landed back home

[Liam_The_Great]

Wow, that's really impressive camacju!

[camacju]

Thank you!