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Team Galileo Grand Tour

Leganeski

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 0: Mission goal and craft

This mission will attempt to land a Kerbal on every body with a surface in all three Team Galileo planet packs: Galileo's Planet Pack, Grannus Expansion Pack, and JNSQ. 

This mission does not qualify for the linked challenge, due to JNSQ's changes to the stock solar system. Nevertheless, I will try my best to follow its other rules (although I may need to use the debug menu for the purpose of circumventing a bug; I'll note each time this occurs).

Update: the rules of the challenge have been changed, and now allow planet packs! I did end up using the debug menu to circumvent two bugs, but I doubt that breaks the spirit of the "no debug menu" rule.

 

The mission includes ISRU, but as an additional challenge, each refueling stop must be on a different celestial body.

In order to make the systems fit together properly, JNSQ is included at 1x scale (using JNSQ Rescale 1x), and GPP is included in its secondary configuration (using GPP Secondary).

Unlike my previous mission, I am using some other mods as well, selected to ensure a mix of realism and balance with stock parts. Notably included is Explodium Breathing Engines, which is so important to the mission that I can justify its use only because its engines, following the path of realism, are strictly worse than their stock counterparts (except for the range of bodies on which they can operate).

Full modlist:

Spoiler

KSP 1.12.3, Making History, Breaking Ground

 

Better Crew Assignment

Better Time Warp

Explodium Breathing Engines1

Grannus Expansion Pack

Galileo's Planet Pack2

JNSQ3

Keep It Straight

Kerbal Engineer Redux

Missing History

Near Future Launch Vehicles

Near Future Solar4

Planet Info Plus

Precise Node5

ReStock+

Simple Fuel Switch6

Stock Jet Adjustments7

 

1 With custom configs for GEP, taken directly from CelestialBodies.pdf: Sirona 83% ExL and 2% ExV, Brovo 2% ExV, Epona 1% ExV.

2 With optional mod GPP_Secondary.

3 With optional mods JavelinEngine4 and Rescale_1X.

4 The final designs of the crafts ended up not including any parts from these part mods, so they don't affect the mission.

5 Removed in Part 14, where it was replaced with the more user-friendly alternative Kerbal Precise Maneuver.

6 With custom config to add an additional oxidizer-only option to every affected tank.

7 Only the atmosphere curve extender, in order to provide more realistic performance at high pressure. The additional air compressor parts have been removed, as I'm not confident they work with KSP 1.12, and wouldn't want to use them anyway.

 

xJxn6s9.png

 

The following visual and QoL mods were added during the mission. They do not alter the mission except for automating small repetitive tasks.

Part 5: Waterfall (visual)

Part 5: Tracking Station Evolved (tracking station GUI)

Part 7: Scatterer8 (visual)

Part 14: Time Control (timewarp physics and UI)

Part 14: Kerbal Precise Maneuver (maneuver node GUI)

Part 14: AutoAGL (altimeter HUD)

 

8 With ocean wave collisions disabled so that the mod remains purely visual.


During orbital assembly, I also had these mods installed, but did not use them and uninstalled them before leaving LKO after realizing I didn't want them to be part of the mission:
Astrogator

Gravity Turn

JX2 Antenna4

 

There are a lot of places I need to visit, so I've compiled a list of all the celestial bodies with their most important properties.

(0.0) List of celestial bodies

Spoiler

The list is formatted as follows:

Average distance from primary: body name (radius, surface gravity, atmospheric pressure at datum, other notes)

 

  • Sun (70300 km, 27.7 g, star)
    • 5.81 Gm: Moho (260 km, 0.29 g)
    • 10.85 Gm: Eve (820 km, 1.4 g, 10 atm, explodium atmosphere, explodium sea)
      • 34.77 Mm: Gilly (12 km, 0.075 g)
    • 15.01 Gm: Kerbin (640 km, 1 g, 1 atm, oxygen atmosphere, water sea)
      • 36.38 Mm: Mun (160 km, 0.145 g)
      • 58.79 Mm: Minmus (64 km, 0.05 g)
    • 22.88 Gm: Duna (320 km, 0.34 g, 0.04 atm)
      • 14.67 Mm: Ike (84 km, 0.06 g)
    • 37.63 Gm: Edna (104 km, 0.08 g)
      • 1.908 Mm: Dak (8 km, 0.008 g)
    • 45.07 Gm: Dres (144 km, 0.12 g)
    • 75.91 Gm: Jool (5600 km, 1.04 g, gas giant)
      • 35.06 Mm: Laythe (440 km, 0.58 g, 0.6 atm, oxygen atmosphere, water sea)
      • 64.09 Mm: Vall (220 km, 0.18 g)
      • 117.2 Mm: Tylo (360 km, 0.32 g, 0.2 atm)
      • 233.2 Mm: Bop (76 km, 0.05 g)
      • 295.8 Mm: Pol (52 km, 0.03 g)
    • 143.8 Gm: Lindor (3200 km, 0.94 g, gas giant)
      • 23.44 Mm: Krel (60 km, 0.03 g)
      • 42.86 Mm: Aden (120 km, 0.07 g)
      • 75 Mm: Huygen (268 km, 0.15 g, 1.5 atm, methane atmosphere, methane sea)
      • 123.8 Mm: Riga (300 km, 0.18 g, 0.06 atm)
      • 230.3 Mm: Talos (200 km, 0.11 g)
    • 188.5 Gm: Eeloo (240 km, 0.15 g, 0.02 atm)
      • 12.72 Mm: Celes (80 km, 0.04 g)
      • 25.87 Mm: Tam (4 km, 0.0035 g)
    • 210.9 Gm: Hamek (180 km, 0.1 g)
    • 684.8 Gm: Nara (1440 km, 1 g, 40 atm, hydrogen atmosphere)
    • 7000 Gm: Ciro (70980 km, 25.8 g, star)
      • 3.496 Gm: Icarus (160 km, 0.16 g)
      • 6.992 Gm: Thalia (270 km, 0.3 g, no ore)
        • 11.3 Mm: Eta (60 km, 0.05 g)
      • 10.49 Gm: Niven (400 km, 0.5 g, 0.12 atm)
      • 13.98 Gm: Gael (600 km, 1 g, 1 atm, oxygen atmosphere, water sea)
        • 28 Mm: Iota (100 km, 0.085 g)
        • 55 Mm: Ceti (150 km, 0.135 g)
      • 22.38 Gm: Tellumo (1000 km, 1.9 g, 10 atm, oxygen atmosphere, water sea)
        • 1.455 Mm: Lili (7 km, 0.015 g)
      • 39.16 Gm: Gratian (550 km, 0.75 g, 0.5 atm, methane atmosphere)
        • 10.3 Mm: Geminus (230 km, 0.22 g)
      • 72.72 Gm: Otho (3500 km, 0.92 g, gas giant)
        • 20 Mm: Augustus (350 km, 0.35 g, 0.1 atm)
        • 32 Mm: Hephaestus (125 km, 0.08 g)
        • 65 Mm: Jannah (105 km, 0.065 g)
      • 139.8 Gm: Gauss (2500 km, 1.03 g, gas giant)
        • 18.5 Mm: Loki (180 km, 0.1 g)
        • 57 Mm: Catullus (1200 km, 0.9 g, 5 atm, hydrogen/methane atmosphere)
          • 6 Mm: Tarsiss (320 km, 0.17 g, 1.4 atm, methane atmosphere, methane lakes)
      • 274.1 Gm: Nero (5000 km, 0.97 g, gas giant)
        • 30 Mm: Hadrian (300 km, 0.18 g, 0.4 atm, nitrogen sea)
        • 48 Mm: Narisse (90 km, 0.04 g)
        • 80 Mm: Muse (130 km, 0.08 g)
        • 135 Mm: Minona (120 km, 0.06 g)
        • 800 Mm: Agrippina (50 km, 0.03 g)
        • 1625 Mm (retrograde): Julia (30 km, 0.015 g)
      • 419.5 Gm: Hox (250 km, 0.14 g, 0.01 atm)
        • 12.5 Mm: Argo (80 km, 0.035 g)
      • 542.6 Gm: Leto (210 km, 0.12 g, 0.005 atm)
      • 2000 Gm: Grannus (30170 km, 71.4 g, star)
        • 0.26 Gm: Taranis (200 km, 0.2 g, tidally locked, lava sea)
        • 1.764 Gm: Toutatis (350 km, 0.45 g, 0.04 atm, tidally locked)
        • 2.480 Gm: Nodens (700 km, 1.1 g, 2 atm, oxygen atmosphere, water sea)
          • 19.92 Mm: Belisama (250 km, 0.27 g)
        • 5.897 Gm: Sucellus (150 km, 0.14 g)
          • 4.7 Mm: Caireen (30 km, 0.02 g)
        • 11.9 Gm: Sirona (3000 km, 1 g, gas giant)
          • 35 Mm: Airmed (160 km, 0.15 g)
          • 70 Mm: Brovo (300 km, 0.35 g, 0.15 atm, methane atmosphere)
          • 120 Mm: Damona (80 km, 0.06 g)
        • 23.5 Mm: Epona (500 km, 0.6 g, 1 atm, methane atmosphere)
          • 17 Mm: Rosmerta (50 km, 0.03 g)
          • 90 Mm (retrograde): RAB-58E (10 km, 0.009 g)
        • 37.3 Gm: Cernunnos (120 km, 0.07 g)

In total, there are 77 celestial bodies, of which three are stars and six are gas giants, leaving 68 for me to land on.

 

The mission craft is composed of seven modules, which are launched separately and assembled together in LKO.

(0.1) Mothership (Team Galileo Grand Tour)

Spoiler

ywnIABf.png

The mothership, Team Galileo Grand Tour. TGGT is powered by six "Cherenkov" nuclear engines from Restock+, providing 1800 kN of thrust. The engines account for over half of the dry mass of TGGT alone, providing significant vacuum TWR that should hopefully be enough to land on thin-atmosphere bodies like Duna and Niven. Most of the rest is fuel and ore storage, with a drill, large Convert-O-Tron, fuel cells, and radiators for refueling.

It also includes some scientific instruments (not for the science but for readings of temperature, pressure, and so on), an ore scanner, an antenna, RTGs for power when not refueling, and of course, grand tour flags.

Near the top are three docking ports and four claws for docking to the other modules, and fifteen large reaction wheels for steering.

At the top is a command pod for three kerbals, which can detach along with a heat shield and parachute to return them safely to Kerbin.

 

Since there's no separate refueling module, TGGT will bring all the other modules down to the surface with it in order to refuel. This (along with TWR concerns) means that I will be trying to use all of the other modules as early as possible.

(0.2) Oxygen-breathing plane

Spoiler

MUtceAQ.png

The plane for Kerbin, Laythe, Gael, and Nodens. It is powered by one RAPIER and two NERVs. Both engines are quite efficient throughout most of the ascent, allowing space for oxidizer to power the RAPIER in closed-cycle mode for a bit. This lets the plane have enough thrust and Δv to SSTO even from Nodens, allowing it to be reused for all four targets. However, its TWR, Δv, and thermal tolerance are no match for Tellumo.

The plane is somewhat heavy and doesn't really have enough wing area to land fully fueled on Gael, so it includes twelve parachutes to slow it down even further.

(0.3) Methane-breathing plane

Spoiler

sf2xuon.png

The plane for Tarsiss, Huygen, Epona, Gratian, and Catullus. Its main feature is the "Sphinx" jet engine at the back, the explodium-breathing equivalent of the Panther. It provides nearly identical performance to the Panther, except with significantly reduced ISP (4072 - 1810 s compared to 9000 - 4000 s). The front half of the plane includes a LFO tank with three Twitch engines to pull the plane to orbit, and detaches to provide extra delta-v at Catullus. (This means I have to use it at Catullus last, leading to some otherwise strange routing.)

Getting this plane to work reusably at Gratian was difficult: the delta-v margins are very tight, and I needed to add a drain valve to remove any excess oxidizer and parachutes on the wings to land safely in Gratian's thin atmosphere.

Brovo also has some methane in its atmosphere, and the plane might be able to work there as well. The atmosphere there is thin, so using TGGT will probably be easier, but I'm not actually sure.

(0.4) Eve lander

Spoiler

RAY1vOS.png

Eve is big enough that it needs its own, non-reusable plane. It is quite similar to the methane plane but does not have a docking port at the front because it will only be used once.

There is an additional oxidizer tank at the back, and the front stage uses a bigger engine (confusingly also called "Sphinx", from Near Future Launch Vehicles) to provide the TWR needed for Eve, along with elevons to provide additional steering.

(0.5) Nara lander

Spoiler

lYQfBTV.png

Nara needs its own plane for a lot of reasons, primarily its enormous size. This plane is almost identical to the one for Eve except that it has more fuel in the front and uses the hydrogen-breathing variant of the Panther engine, the "Lion". As with the Sphinx, the Lion has the same thrust curves as the Panther but even worse ISP, at 3076 - 1368 s. As a result, the plane requires extra oxidizer drop tanks, which are mounted on the sides. Still, the Lion greatly outperforms rocket engines, which near Nara's surface have an ISP of zero.

You might notice in the picture that the plane has storage for one kilogram of Explodium Vapour, the methane version of Explodium not found on Nara. This is due to a bug in Explodium Breathing Engines: originally, the ExL version of the Mk1 Diverterless Supersonic Intake (which I use here) had the correct ExL harvester but only ExV storage, making it unusable. I tried to fix it manually with a patch to replace the storage with ExL, which correctly added the ExL but somehow kept the ExV storage. I'm not sure why, but this plane will never enter a methane atmosphere (and even if it did, it doesn't have any ExV harvesters), so it shouldn't cause any unusual behavior.

 (0.6) Tellumo lander

Spoiler

rOe74wE.png

The Tellumo plane. It uses a fairly similar design as the methane lander, but Tellumo's high gravity and orbital velocity require an upgrade from Twitch to Cub engines, as well as a heat shield at the back. Oxygen-breathing engines are already much more efficient than their methane-breathing counterparts, so the RAPIER's higher maximum speed but lower efficiency than the Panther is worth it.

(0.7) Taranis ferry

Spoiler

MmSf7BP.png

Taranis is the one place that TGGT doesn't have enough Δv to land on from anywhere else, even with gravity assists.

Clearly, the solution is to throw even more Δv at the problem using a dedicated, completely non-reusable vehicle.

Since the Δv requirements are so large, I focused almost entirely on payload reduction, even choosing the lightweight but non-retractable OX-4L solar panels, which I would never use in almost any other situation.

At the top is the actual lander. It consists of the bare minimum required for a lander, with a single Ant engine, a command chair, the smallest reaction wheel, battery and solar panel available, and just enough fuel to get from low orbit to the surface and back.

The rest of the craft is almost entirely xenon engines and tanks, which provide over 40 km/s of Δv.

 

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 1: Assembling Team Galileo Grand Tour

The modules are launched into orbit separately and dock together.

(1.1) TGGT

Spoiler

FgKIkwu.png

TGGT and its launcher on the launchpad, 16 seconds after the start of the game.

TGGT includes a probe core, so it can launch unmanned. It launches with no ore in order to keep launch mass down to a more reasonable amount.

aSVDzF8.png

TGGT separates from the launcher and completes the rest of the ascent under its own power.

lUCzfuJ.png

(1.2) Oxygen plane

Spoiler

LdoQDdz.png

One of the requirements of the oxygen plane is being a Kerbin SSTO, so it doesn't need a launcher.

yEK0lEH.png

The Rapier loses power and switches to closed-cycle mode while the NERVs turn on.

lHUA3lE.png

i5lDeRi.png

The plane runs out of oxidizer and the NERVs finish the ascent.

tY2ZmRk.png

The plane has a lot of extra fuel, and gets to TGGT with plenty remaining.

CWFAwIw.png

Jeb gets out and boards the main (well, only) crew cabin.

(1.3) Methane plane

Spoiler

q8uBxqh.png

The Sphinx doesn't have a rear node, so some slight symmetry abuse is needed to attach the lander.

ixpGiea.png

On the launchpad, with Val piloting.

WgK81MG.png

Standard launch profile.

bVrt2U3.png

The launcher has a lot less spare fuel, but it still manages to meet up with TGGT.

ftgQyVo.png

The launcher, about to be detached, transfers its remaining fuel to TGGT's tanks.

wxSvFU8.png

There isn't enough crew space to store six kerbals from six module launches, so Val jetpacks back down to Kerbin.

bKCvtk3.png

RwiNL4d.png

VQJziCw.png

Using the EVA pack decreases both mass and surface velocity, allowing Val to survive re-entry and safely parachute to the water.

(1.4) Tellumo plane

Spoiler

5uDoc4t.png

On the launchpad. The heat shield necessitates a much longer fairing.

5ERzGP7.png

The Tellumo plane is bigger, requiring a two-stage launcher.

2yvhETB.png

The single-use landers attach to the claws.

5MVHDWY.png

The odd angle makes TGGT horribly unbalanced, so Bill reduces the problem by pushing the Tellumo lander to a better angle.

r88QMpQ.png

MkXjoD6.png

wtOXC8s.png

Bill manages to survive re-entry completely unassisted.

(1.5) Nara plane

Spoiler

ZUlVAvo.png

oClYLy4.png

QZWLl7l.png

Bob pilots the lifter, eager to get back home as fast as possible.

ZLMhU84.png

He stays long enough to push the plane into position, then immediately jetpacks back to Kerbin.

dgVqf1m.png

Bob reflects on his terrifying experience in space and decides that this mission is not for him.

(1.6) Taranis ferry / lander

Spoiler

Axr6RIK.png

Bill is back, piloting the Taranis ferry. It is quite small compared to the planes before it, but not much lighter.

9KdAY6m.png

Docking to TGGT. The angle is good enough; Bill doesn't need to adjust it.

The Taranis ferry is not designed to ever encounter any atmosphere at all, so everything is sticking out exposed.

QDzPeDC.png

There is now enough space in the crew cabin, which Bill joins.

(1.7) Eve lander

Spoiler

KPivRPv.png

aBNTd7U.png

I8je52R.png

Val pilots the Eve lander and docks with TGGT. Eve is the next destination, so the plane remains full.

bNwMWPQ.png

TGGT, fully assembled, from above. It's a mess but at least somewhat approximates being balanced.

C5m44ns.png

Val joins Bill and Jeb to form the official mission crew. There's no scientist, but this is sandbox mode, so one is not necessary.

B3cEgj4.png

The craft is now ready to leave LKO and start the grand tour.

E20b0H0.png

Team Galileo Grand Tour, fully assembled and crewed, ready to begin the grand tour on day 14.

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Leganeski

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Part 2: Eve

TGGT leaves LKO and explores the Eve system.

(2.1) Leaving Kerbin

Spoiler

The extra modules are heavy, so I want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. The single-target modules are the best, because they only need to fly on one planet before I can forget about them. Of those targets, the nearest one is Eve.

ZR30vNi.png

TGGT takes the next transfer window to Eve.

Evp6ElA.png

TGGT still has okay TWR even with everything else attached, so it can perform the maneuver in one burn.

0vPN0AJ.png

Testing how much Δv it will take to get to low Eve orbit and then Gilly from there.

As it turns out, I don't actually have enough fuel to go to Eve first, so I head towards Gilly.

(Aside note: the stage Δv readings on the side are wildly inaccurate; the overlapping stages and unactivated engines from different modules mess the calculations up. I've added an empty stage at the bottom which should display the amount of Δv that TGGT has remaining in its main tanks; it seems pretty accurate but doesn't include the extra I can get from refining stored ore. I don't have any ore yet, but once I get some, it will mess up that number as well.)

yyt82C1.png

The actual Eve encounter. Eve's atmosphere begins at 55 km, so it is safe.

(2.2) Eve Gilly

Spoiler

cEnKe5w.png

Gilly happens to be positioned in a relatively good spot.

v4RzLkV.png

Capturing at Eve.

JvH8O2w.png

The Gilly encounter. I need to have a periapsis of at least 25 km for the ore scanner to work.

0K4FEqC.png

Ore data for Gilly. It looks very good, and Gilly rotates slowly, so I find a landing spot without too much trouble.

wRtW3tK.png

Descending to the surface from 25 km up takes a while.

sQDwrfe.png

Gilly's gravity is no match for TGGT's powerful SAS.

Q1rQTbv.png

Valentina gets out and plants a flag. She is the first kerbal to step foot on another world, and in fact the first kerbal to step foot on any world at all.

(For those wondering about the date: in 1x scale JNSQ, years are 462 days long.)

jArLr4h.png

TGGT begins refueling. There's just one drill, but the amount of time this adds is negligible compared to the rest of the mission.

8gXgOuY.png

The ore tanks fill up for the first time.

The Jumbo Holding Tanks from Restock+ have a good mass ratio, so I'm using three of them to store 105 tons of ore. More than that would decrease my ability to do really long burns.

(2.3) Eve, for real this time

Spoiler

After refueling, I have enough fuel to go to Eve. In fact, I have a lot more than that.

P90KS8G.png

Low Eve orbit. Bill gets out and boards the Eve plane.

hwItV4I.png

TGGT lowers its periapsisis into the atmosphere, detaches the Eve plane (to the left of the navball), and re-circularizes.

Gnv46Gq.png

Bill enters Eve's atmosphere. The plane is going quite fast, but it's not very heavy.

HbcD6cY.png

The plane's two engines, both called "Sphinx". The jet engine is from Explodium Breathing Engines and named as a methane-breathing variant of the Panther, while the rocket engine is from Near Future Launch Vehicles and named as a vaccuum-optimized variant of the Otter.

4hauOun.png

The first temperature peak. At this point, the plane begins to point forward due to drag, and cools off slightly.

23D0Uat.png

The plane is starting to slow down. It has cooled down to 1643 degrees, but the atmosphere is rapidly getting thicker.

9vYVNJP.png

The second temperature peak, 14 degrees away from overheating.

After this point, the temperature decline is caused by the plane generating enough lift to reduce its downward speed.

UmNQBP1.png

The plane has slowed down and now steers very responsively.

cjpHi45.png

SdCD96s.png

The plane comes in for a landing on the beach, but the wheels repeatedly bounce off the ground and don't settle down.

fpZSR1w.png

Bill manages to bounce over to the ocean, where the plane finally comes to a halt.

 

hATOoTi.png

Bill swims to shore and plants a flag.

RrgrpNL.png

The sun sets just as Bill is swimming back to the plane. Even without visual mods, its reflection on the sea still looks cool.

7E0nxIz.png

The next morning, the plane begins its ascent.

NuAE1v3.png

It takes a few seconds to build enough speed to take off, but Eve's atmosphere is really thick.

JozHPbY.png

The plane has enough thrust to fly straight up.

4Rhwa2P.png

At 1 atmosphere, the plane begins to lose thrust, and turns towards the eastern horizon.

4WRd2RQ.png

The engine switches to wet mode to break the sound barrier.

4tV40Ux.png

The jet engine reaches its maximum speed and rapidly loses thrust in the thinning atmosphere.

KOnk5gu.png

oIG3r32.png

The rocket stage ignites, and the elevons quickly stabilize it.

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aoNVkb0.png

The TWR of the rocket stage started out high and quickly gets even higher, making circularization very quick.

HJYIda6.png

The rocket stage spends most of its remaining fuel matching planes with TGGT. 

At this point, its TWR is so high that the thrust limiter must be turned down for precision.

91yiADq.png

DUXOpxq.png

TGGT finishes matching planes and achieves rendezvous.

vnkWFLB.png

Bill returns to TGGT, leaving the near-empty rocket behind.

 

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Leganeski

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Part 3: Nara

TGGT heads to Nara and drops off another single-use plane.

(3.1) Transfer to Nara

Spoiler

Of the other single targets, the closest one is Nara. Also, Nara is positioned for a direct Hohmann transfer from the inner system during year 1 to intercept it at its ascending node and apoapsis, so I want to utilize that by making such a transfer as early as I can.

CrfOd9l.png

After waiting a year for the transfer window from Eve, TGGT starts burning for a the transfer to Nara.

Nara hasn't really moved much along its orbit in the four years since the save file started, so the transfer is still relatively good.

h1LYAI0.png

I overestimated how far above the atmosphere I actually was, and underestimated how much a four minute burn would lower my altitude.

This resulted in the ship going five kilometers into the atmosphere, but even at that altitude, drag isn't a very big problem

6 hours ago, Leganeski said:

this plane will never enter a methane atmosphere

Well... um... whoops? I guess I was wrong wait no, Eve's atmosphere has evaporated explodium, an unidentified mix of long hydrocarbons, not methane. Explodium may be identical to methane for all practical purposes, but I stand by my statement. Anyway, nothing happened to the Nara plane.

cPDYhDf.png

Also, it appears I underestimated the cosine errors from such a long burn. My trajectory ends up missing Nara's orbit entirely, but a relatively cheap maneuver fixes that.

0bWjaiJ.png

Before going to low Nara orbit, TGGT heads to Prax to refuel. (I've exhausted my ore, so the 1899 m/s remaining Δv figure is relatively accurate.)

9ObzujR.png

Nara capture. Nara is clearly visible below the ship, but not prominent this far away.

fGU4tTO.png
The thrust on two of the engines is turned down to compensate for the imbalance in the craft.

The path I took is almost certainly not the most efficient way to Prax, but it's relatively simple, and I had enough Δv for it, so I continued on.

(3.2) Prax

Spoiler

65R9zzV.png

Since I matched Prax's orbit so closely, insertion is very cheap.

8kxXTqu.png

Ore data for Prax. It's relatively good, but annoying to target given Prax's fast rotational period of 4 hours.

utxpyBn.png

ZwETG3t.png

Landing proceeds smoothly. Note, however, the landing legs sinking into the ground.

PVRbYS0.png

Jeb gets out and plants a flag.

VZEALbv.png

The drill is clearly touching the ground, but refuses to mine, saying "no ground contact".

OSfGMh6.png

3X5tFaZ.png

TGGT hops over to a different site. The problem seems to resolve, only to return after time warp is activated.

I tried all kinds of things to fix the drill, sending Bill out to move the drill around; going to a different location, taking off and landing back down again. Nothing worked. Looking back at it, I suspect the problem might be related to the landing legs sinking into the ground.

Given that the drill managed to start mining ore the second time, this is clearly a bug, so I used the debug menu to place TGGT on Minmus (while preserving latitude/longitude), refuel there, and then place it back on Prax. The result is a full ship at a location with ore that it already managed to reach, the same situation as if it had actually refueled there.

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The result. The drill contact bug still remains.

AnEgIVK.png

Launching back to orbit. Prax doesn't have very high terrain, so the gravity turn starts quite early.

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The burn to low Nara orbit.

(3.3) Landing on Nara

Spoiler

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4qiXddI.png

TGGT has much lower TWR when full, so circularization is split up.

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Jeb boards the Nara plane, and gets a close up view of the GPP grand tour flag.

khSBZZd.png

Similarly to the Eve descent, TGGT deorbits, releases the plane, and reorbits.

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Due to odd behavior involving pivoting the claw, Jeb is somehow misaligned from his seat. How does that even happen?

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Thankfully, getting out and back into the seat fixes the alignment.

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Jeb enters the atmosphere. Somehow I opened the wrong KER readouts and didn't notice, so it isn't displaying temperature.

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The plane soon enters a tumble.

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After slowing down... the tumble continues. I guess I never retested stability after adding the drop tanks.

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Draining the drop tanks halfway shifts the CoM forwards, allowing the plane to regain stability.

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Stall speed is incredibly low in Nara's thick atmosphere, allowing the plane to touch down gently.

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Jeb gets out and plants a flag.

I sure hope the plane works too; I hadn't expected the drop tanks to be half empty at this point.

(3.4) Returning to orbit

Spoiler

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The plane takes off just as easily as it landed.

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The plane turns vertical to get out of the lower atmosphere as fast as it can.

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5 kilometers up and the drop tanks are already empty.

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Ascending vertically at terminal velocity is really important to maximize efficiency when the atmosphere is this thick.

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Finally, the atmosphere begins to thin out, and the Lion activates wet mode. Fuel levels are disturbingly low.

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The jet stage runs out of oxidizer a lot sooner than I would have liked. The plane hasn't even broken the sound barrier.

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The Sphinx once again proves its usefulness as an upper stage engine, and the elevons stabilize the rocket very quickly.

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Despite fuel shortages, the efficient ascent profile (and insanely high TWR) allows the rocket to finish circularization.

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It even has enough fuel to rendezvous with TGGT, although not by very much.

Mul4W1n.png

Overall, Nara went a lot more smoothly than I was expecting; once I had partially drained the drop tanks, the lander was very stable and responsive at all stages of the ascent.

 

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 4: Tellumo

TGGT heads to the Ciro system and begins exploration.

(4.1) Going interstellar

Spoiler

xT8QA12.png

Nara has a very significant Oberth effect for outward transfers; 1475 m/s of this maneuver is just getting to Nara escape.

m3vChMJ.png

As with the Eve ejection, I'm doing this burn all at once because partially drained tanks means higher TWR.

Lili would be the optimal refueling point for going to Tellumo, but it's too deep in Tellumo's gravity well to reach safely with the remaining fuel. I decide to refuel at Julia instead, mainly because its weird retrograde orbit makes it annoying to transfer between it and Nero's other moons, and going there now means I won't have to do that.

lIkgh0x.png

XCCewTR.png

Ciro's orbital inclination leads to a Nero encounter from a horrible angle, leading to a high periapsis latitude that can't be easily fixed.

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Nero capture. Nero looks even more stunning up close.In the current version of GPP, Nero's atmosphere starts at 300 km.)

(4.2) Julia

Spoiler

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Nero's SOI is really big, so despite the high periapsis latitude, intercepting Julia is still relatively cheap.

3MY080u.png

Of course, I still haven't matched planes with Julia, making capture a bit more expensive. However, Julia orbits so far out that it is still perfectly manageable.

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Ore data for Julia. It's okay, but like Prax, Julia's four-hour rotation period makes good sites difficult to hit.

TBFRlnS.png

The landing gear works properly this time.

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The obligatory flag.

With Better Time Warp, travel time is not really a concern at all; I have previously encountered what I think were bugs due to excessively large dates, but none anywhere near this soon.

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Refueling proceeds smoothly; I'm growing more confident that the issue on Prax was related to the landing legs.

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Julia's terrain is hilly but really low; I start turning immediately.

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This is a stable orbit; Julia really is as smooth overall as it looks from far away.

(4.3) Tellumo

Spoiler

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6aQc77H.png

I use a direct route to Tellumo. GPP offers plenty of gravity assist opportunities but also plenty of refueling spots; there's not much reason to save every bit of fuel when I'll need to go to all the potential refueling spots at some point anyway.

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The capture burn. It was going to be a circularization burn but I stopped it after realizing my actual TWR was well below what the burn time indicator was implying.

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Tellumo's extreme gravity in fact requires circularization to be broken up into multiple passes.

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TGGT performs the plane detachment maneuver once again. Jeb is also on the ship, but for some reason his icon in the lower right is missing.

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The plane inflates the heat shield and enters the atmosphere facing forward to maximize drag. However, the drag is not enough.

o5zY8AQ.png

I didn't really want to turn the plane backwards because it makes the heat shield annoying to remove, but the nose cone would overheat otherwise.

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The heat shield slows the plane down successfully.

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After some swinging around and quite a few attempts, the heat shield comes off without breaking anything.

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The plane splashes down at a moderate speed. I found that extending the landing gear greatly increases the chances of surviving a sea landing intact.

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Val gets out. No flag can be planted, so she takes a water sample instead.

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At sea level, the atmosphere is too thick to breathe. The 5% carbon dioxide in the air certainly doesn't help either.

(4.4) Returning to orbit

Spoiler

This was definitely the most difficult piloting I have done so far in the mission, and I don't anticipate anything in the rest of the mission matching it. Tellumo's 1.9 g of surface gravity means that everything happens really quickly, and the thin Δv margins meant that I needed to maintain precision at this high speed.

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The plane manages to get out of the water relatively early, saving fuel that will soon become very important.

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The star visible just to the left of Tellumo's ring is Ciro; it is missing its sunflare somehow. However, this appears to be a purely visual effect; I haven't noticed and wouldn't expect any gameplay consequences.

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Tellumo's atmosphere is really thick but thins out really quickly, so the plane goes straight up at maximum throttle.

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As the pressure drops below 1 atmosphere, the engine begins to lose thrust.

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However, the RAPIER picks up thrust again as the Mach number increases.

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The increased thrust does not last long, and the engine dies down. The fuel tank is almost completely out of fuel.

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The large gimbal range on the Cub engines stabilizes the rocket stage.

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The rocket stage does not have quite enough fuel to get to orbit.

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Val gets out and jetpacks the rest of the way to orbit. With the EVA pack's low thrust, this is only doable because she was so close to orbit to start.

Almost every last bit of fuel was used getting to that point, revealing the importance of the quick exit from the water. In previous attempts, where I didn't make it out of the water until about 45 m/s, I ran of fuel too early and couldn't make orbit.

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Val has enough EVA fuel remaining to reach TGGT but no access to maneuver nodes, making rendezvous difficult. Instead, TGGT comes to get her.

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Val gets back in the ship, holding the water sample.

At this point, there are a few different directions to go. Gael, Lili, and Gratian are all close by and would be nice to get out of the way, while the Taranis ferry is the last single-use module and can be released from a range of orbital positions (although definitely not here). This post catches up with the current state of the mission, so I don't yet know for certain where TGGT will go next.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 5: Gael

The oxygen plane lands on Gael while TGGT refuels on Iota.

(5.0) Quick mod update

Spoiler

I was experimenting with visual mods throughout the Gael exploration. I added PlanetShine, Waterfall (with Restock configs), and Tracking Station Evolved, but PlanetShine didn't seem to be working right, so I removed it after landing on Gael. None of these mods should affect the actual mission whatsoever, only the visuals and the tracking station.

As the part count of TGGT drops and FPS improves, I might add more visual mods.

(5.1) Transfer to Gael

Spoiler

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The transfer to Gael. It looks expensive, but most (1726 m/s) of it is just escaping Tellumo's huge gravity well.

dJ0Tf92.png

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The burn is split into two parts. For some reason, the burn time indicator seems to use the TWR value from the end of the burn, leading to it underestimating the actual burn time of large burns.

NisVDPF.png

Gael capture coming from Tellumo is relatively cheap.

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I've encountered Gael with the Iota descending node right at periapsis, so the plane change is very cheap.

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Valentina gets in the oxygen plane and detaches from TGGT to go to the surface.

(5.2) Iota

Spoiler

TGGT heads for Iota while Val aerobrakes the plane down to Gael.

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Intercepting Iota from elliptical orbit is cheaper than I was expecting. It makes sense, though: Iota is a lot farther out than the stock Mun.

 

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Iota is full of ore and rotates slowly; finding a good spot is much easier than on Prax or Julia.

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Bill gets out to plant the flag. Iota is unbelievably white; the engine plume is barely visible behind it.

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Refueling goes smoothly. I'm still not sure of the cause of the ground contact bug, but the landing legs sinking into the ground (which they don't do here) is looking more and more likely.

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(5.3) Gael

Spoiler

Meanwhile, Valentina tests out the oxygen plane.

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The first of too many aerobraking passes. I wasn't sure how low I could go, so I lowered my periapsis gradually.

Gael's atmosphere begins at 70 km, so this pass was overly cautious and didn't really do anything.

hYNEiNk.png

As it turned out, the plane is relatively well suited to aerobraking, and I could have gotten away with far fewer passes. (Note the mission elapsed time, which started when the plane decoupled from TGGT.)

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The parachutes do their job; this plane flies really poorly at low speed and a normal landing would have been very hard. I'm not sure whether the 1.2 tons of dry mass is worth it, but I can't redesign the plane now.

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Val plants a flag. Despite the resemblance to Kerbin, her journey is far from over.

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Guess what happens when you forget to put your helmet back on?

I was prepared to handle some things going wrong, but certainly not this. Well, that's what quicksaves are for.

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The actual takeoff. I would have stayed on the ground a bit longer but I really didn't want to run into the ocean; this plane is a lot heavier than the others and I doubt it could take off from water.

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Val remembers to put her helmet back on.

With 23 tons and only one RAPIER, the plane generally has some trouble breaking the sound barrier, but lowering the pitch to horizontal seems to work.

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Even a single RAPIER is really effective.

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As the RAPIER loses thrust, the NERVs take over.

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The RAPIER flames out and switches to closed-cycle mode. The combined thrust is overpowered for Gael; it's mainly this high to take on Nodens.

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After running out of oxidizer, the NERVs finish circularizing.

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TGGT is still at Iota, but the plane has a lot of leftover fuel; it's more than enough to get there.

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Matching orbits with TGGT.

Iota is so bright that it's really hard to read the closest approach label in front of it. I have to turn the camera to the side to adjust the intercept properly.

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Valentina redocks to TGGT and rejoins Jeb and Bill in the crew cabin.

TGGT's fuel tanks are still mostly full at this point. The next destination will probably be Gratian, but I'm not entirely sure where I can refuel near it: the mountainous terrain on Geminus is difficult to land on and I don't want to refuel there with a still unbalanced ship.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 6: Gratian

TGGT goes to Gratian and tests out the methane plane for the first time.

1XsFLln.png

 

(6.1) Transfer to Gratian

Spoiler

qy25qQN.png

Iota's orbital period is an annoyingly large fraction of that of Gael, and it isn't at the right place during the Gael-Gratian transfer window.

However, waiting for Iota to move into position doesn't add too much Δv to the total transfer cost.

JoStJoR.png

At the start of the Iota ejection burn, I found out the hard way that I forgot to turn off the engines on the oxygen plane after it docked to TGGT.

I didn't bother reloading; they consumed very little fuel in the few seconds they ran before I shut them down.

dcmhZ5b.png

I'm falling down to Gael and doing the ejection burn near the atmosphere in order to maximize the Oberth effect. In many cases the TWR of TGGT's nuclear engines wouldn't be high enough to do this kind of ejection, but here the maneuver is not too large.

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At least for now, storing fuel in the oxygen plane is not worth the unbalancing it causes, so I move all of the remaining fuel to the main tanks and lock the tanks on the plane.

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The encounter with Gratian isn't at a great angle, but it's not too bad, and the capture burn is manageable.

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During the capture burn, I got an accidental Tellumo encounter. I've often had these sorts of encounters before, but not many with a non-giant planet, and especially not at such a good angle. Unfortunately, I am not planning to go to the Tellumo system again any time soon.

Jl3Db2e.png

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I need to get TGGT's orbit very close to the atmosphere (which begins at 55 km), so I do the last of circularization in a separate burn.

(6.2) Landing

Spoiler

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Bill gets in the methane plane.

hJFhOjE.pngLnHR5pc.pngLf1082A.pngbMMGL5w.png

The plane has working rocket engines and can deorbit itself, but instead lowers its periapsis using a catapult-style separation maneuver in order to conserve fuel.

 

Why do I need to save 13 m/s of fuel?

This plane is mainly designed for Catullus, and so includes a lot of oxidizer to get out of the thick atmosphere there using the jet stage. It has to function as a SSTO on Gratian in order to work properly on Catullus, but it's not designed as a Gratian SSTO at all. I can't add more fuel to the rocket stage without running out of oxidizer during the air-breathing phase of the Catullus ascent, and there's only barely enough fuel to reach Gratian orbit. During testing, if I tried to reach even a 65 km orbit for more room between it and the atmosphere, I ran out of fuel. As a result, I'm using this plane for Gratian but saving every bit of fuel I can.

 

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Orbital velocity on Gratian isn't nearly as fast as on Catullus, so heating is not a concern.

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Another consequence of the Catullus optimization is that the plane doesn't have very much wing area, so it can't slow down to a safe landing speed at only 0.36 atmospheres. Instead, parachutes are deployed to slow down further. Even then, 11.7 m/s straight down is only barely safe.

eY3ckpm.png

All four objects visible in Gratian's sky during the day, from top to bottom: Sun, Geminus, Grannus, and Ciro. Ciro is actually much brighter than the other stars, but it doesn't appear that way because it's still missing its sunflare.

Xc2vvqg.png

Bill gets out and plants the flag.

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I just discovered this menu; it allows you to rename your vessel and change its type. Here I fix the name and set the type to "plane".

JnfF2qs.png

The plane takes off more quickly than I was expecting and manages to avoid the hill up ahead.

As it turns out, that was because the engine was in wet mode the whole time. I'd like to say that was intentional, but I was planning to take off and start the ascent in dry mode to save oxidizer, then switch to wet mode later.

Regardless, using wet mode during takeoff worked very well, and the extra oxidizer consumption isn't a problem anywhere but Catullus. In fact, I'll probably do the same thing on Epona, and definitely on Brovo if I end up using the plane there.

wmXaUI8.png

The plane cruises past the sound barrier. The speed of sound is slower than on Kerbin due to Gratian's cold temperature.

The performance of jet engines is a function of Mach number rather than speed, so a lower speed of sound means that the plane can go supersonic more easily but reaches its maximum speed earlier. Here, this is bad because I need to get as much speed as possible out of the comparatively-high-efficiency jet stage.

GA4MPOz.png

The end of the air-breathing stage. Look at how much oxidizer I have left; the wet-mode takeoff wasn't a problem at all.

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In fact, there's so much leftover oxidizer that I have to drain it to reduce the mass of the rocket stage.

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The plane circularizes with only 41 m/s to spare. That's not enough to rendezvous with TGGT, so TGGT will have to meet with the plane.

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The plane docks and Bill rejoins the crew cabin.

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I have to rename TGGT as well; the "methane lander" name from the plane had taken priority.

(6.3) Leaving Gratian

Spoiler

There's a lot more fuel left in the tanks than I was anticipating, probably because I'm not carrying the heavy Tellumo lander around any more. I have over 5000 m/s left, so I decide to go directly to the Grannus system.

d9I1GT6.png

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The burn time is underestimated somewhat here, although it's not as far off as at Tellumo.

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During interstellar transfers, even somewhat ridiculous correction maneuvers can still be pretty cheap. Here, I'm aligning my Epona ascending node with periapsis in order to make the plane change burn cheaper.

LYU6Feu.png

The encounter trajectory, as is usual for Grannus, is an ellipse that only barely exceeds the SOI limit. This makes the capture burn negligible.

vZbSv5T.png

Grannus does have a working sunflare, and its increased brightness from closer up is noticeable.

TGGT has now made it to Grannus. Its next destination, visible as the target during the Grannus capture maneuvers, is the Epona system.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 7: Epona Taranis

mYRMzS4.png

 

TGGT continues its journey to Epona. But before it can get there...

(7.0) Visual mod update

Spoiler

I installed Scatterer around this point, after the Taranis lander with its long stack of autostrutted parts separated from TGGT and reduced lag. As a visual mod, this does not affect the mission at all.

(7.1) Preparing encounters

Spoiler

vb4nBYe.png

When TGGT reaches its Taranis descending node, Jebediah gets in the Taranis ferry and detaches it.

mWeHwYb.png

The five ion engines start successfully and begin the plane change burn.

The batteries aren't nearly large enough to do all of the burn at once; instead, the solar panels slowly recharge them. This far from Grannus, though, each panel generates only 0.002 charge per second.

eSnVelC.png

Three days later, the burn finishes. The engines weren't on the whole time; they ran at full power and then stopped while the batteries recharged.

GdCcrdL.png

Next up is the much larger burn to lower periapsis. Each battery charge only lasts for 14.6 m/s, so it was somewhat tedious.

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The burn takes fourteen days. Thankfully, I'm moving so slowly around Grannus that even then, cosine losses are negligible.

QRWSDns.png

A bit later, TGGT reaches apoapsis and finds an Epona encounter. It will take 53 years to get there.

48 years later...

(7.2) Reaching Taranis

Spoiler

qZjjAxl.png

Jebediah reaches Grannus periapsis and begins to circularize. Here, there is no shortage of solar power, and the ion engines can run continuously.

The burn is multiple hours long, and has to be split up into many periapsis burns ... of up to 5000 m/s each. Using ion engines.

Better Time Warp was very helpful here; using 27x physics warp made the process much less boring.

KiLlsOU.png

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After a few burns, the first stage runs out of fuel and is jettisoned to reveal... more xenon.

Taranis is hard.

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Finally, I have an orbit matching that of Taranis pretty closely. I wouldn't do this to get to any other planet, but I have so little time in its SOI that I can't do any big maneuvers there.

HsRhJar.png

The first attempt at capturing into Taranis orbit. It fails due to a lack of solar power. The panels say "direct sunlight", which is not the case, but aren't generating any measurable power.

Oh wait, there is direct sunlight, but only from Sun and Ciro, both of which are very far away. Well, that would explain the low power output.

Lfssnb4.png

The second attempt, which fails because the solar panels are "blocked by Taranis." Uh, what? I'm over the day side; the craft's shadow is even visible on the surface.

Maybe it's because Taranis is blocking Sun, even if Grannus is visible. Well, that's certainly inconvenient.

vERwQyf.png

Eventually, I find this ridiculous capture maneuver. It's overly expensive, as you might expect, but it happens while the solar panels are still working.

This is an ion-engine craft; an extra 150 m/s is no big deal.

f9eo9Z6.png

Approaching Taranis, for real this time. Note that I haven't entered its SOI yet.

QA9Kz3b.png

The panels are generating a ridiculous amount of power. Here, this one panel is generating over 2500 EC/second. For reference, I'm using about 18 EC/s in total to power the engines and reaction wheel.

I'm not sure this is even the correct amount of power; by my estimate, this panel should be generating at most a couple hundred EC/s. I guess the takeaway is that Kopernicus support for interstellar solar panels is buggy, but I can't really do anything about that. Anyway, even the correct amount would still be complete overkill, so this doesn't matter very much.

oM8CkSP.png

Circularization. The solar panels are blocked at periapsis, and I can get maybe 25 m/s on each battery charge, but that's enough to circularize over a few passes.

(7.3) Landing on Taranis

Spoiler

I2ff8Yy.png

Jeb gets in the lander.

vNBxF5B.png

The lander detaches from the rest of the craft. It is designed to be as light as possible, consisting of 135 kilograms of LFO along with everything necessary for a lander in the smallest size available ... and a used decoupler.

Whoops.

I should have used a stack separator, but I didn't think of that when designing the craft, and it's too late to change it now.

 

The decoupler weighs 10 kilograms, which is certainly not good on a 355 kilogram lander, but it's not a total disaster. On the bright side, it means I don't have to try to balance the lander on the Ant engine.

The decoupler lowers the available Δv of the lander from 1478 m/s to 1426 m/s. According to the Δv map, landing on Taranis and returning to orbit both take 720 m/s, for a total of 1440 m/s. Uh oh.

However, that number is for a moderate-TWR craft starting from and ending at a 20 km orbit. My orbit is at an altitude of 8 km, just above the highest mountains. The lander is so small that even the single Ant engine, providing 2 kN of thrust, results in a Taranis TWR of 2.8 - 4.4. The actual descent and ascent costs should be lower than 720 m/s, especially if I take advantage of the high TWR by starting the gravity turn early.

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Landing. I happened to land at an altitude of 4904 meters, further reducing the fuel cost to 685 m/s.

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Jeb plants the flag.

I had plans for what to do if the lander tipped over after Jeb stopped piloting it and got out, but the decoupler makes all of that unnecessary.

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I'm launching from 4.9 km and need to reach an 8 km orbit, so the ascent needs to be very horizontal. The engine's TWR has increased even more, allowing me to maintain a time of about 12 seconds until apoapsis.

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The mostly-horizontal ascent profile saves even more fuel, reducing the ascent Δv cost to 607 m/s and leaving 134 m/s to rendezvous with the main craft.

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I'll need the extra fuel, because apparently I forgot to equatorialize the main craft's orbit before detaching the lander. I can't do that now because the craft doesn't have any control without Jeb in the chair.

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The lander has enough extra fuel to complete the plane change burn, although not by very much.

For some reason, the stock Δv readout stopped working, but KER is still displaying the correct value.

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When the lander finishes rendezvous, it has just 4 m/s remaining. That's 0.05 units of LFO, or about 250 grams.

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Jeb returns to the main craft.

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I have to perform the Taranis ejection burn on the day side, limiting the prograde component of the possible escape velocity and losing most of the potential Oberth gains. However, I still have 2112 m/s remaining in this stage (the stock readout and KER disagree on the Δv value; KER is correct), which I expected to jettison in Taranis orbit, so this is well within the margin of error.

gFqa0OX.png

Again, Taranis appears huge even just outside of its SOI. Its left half is visible in the picture not because of the ambient lighting boost (which Scatterer seems to disable), but because it's backlit by Ciro.

Jebediah is now in a low Grannus orbit close to Taranis, while TGGT is on a trajectory towards the Epona system, where they will rendezvous.

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I guess the takeaway is that Kopernicus support for interstellar solar panels is buggy, but I can't really do anything about that. 

@Leganeski, have you installed Kopernicus' MultiStarSolarPanels.cfg?  It's required for multi-star support.  Just download it from the Kopernicus GitHub and install it into the Kopernicus/Config folder.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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14 hours ago, OhioBob said:

@Leganeski, have you installed Kopernicus' MultiStarSolarPanels.cfg?

I thought I did (this would have been in the middle of section 7.3, right after the plane matching burn), but it didn't seem to do anything. Maybe it doesn't affect vessels that have already been launched?

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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On 6/15/2022 at 7:11 AM, Leganeski said:

Maybe it doesn't affect vessels that have already been launched?

Apparently, this is not the only problem. I started a new save with exactly the same mods and put a copy of the last stage of the Taranis transfer vehicle into Nodens orbit. The solar panels still produced excessively large amounts of electricity.

I'll do some more testing, but unless I figure out a way to fix the problem, I will attempt to simulate the proper output of the solar panels by limiting all maneuvers to a single battery charge whenever I'm further than 491 Mm away from Grannus.

 

Why 491 Mm?

After detaching the second stage soon after leaving Taranis, the transfer vehicle has three OX-STAT solar panels. However, the panels are facing different directions and can't rotate independently, so at least one of them is always facing away from the star and not producing power. The maximum power output occurs either when one panel is facing directly towards the star and producing full power, or when it is facing directly away from the star, meaning that the other two panels are each pointed 60 degrees away from the star and producing half power. In either case, the power output is the same as the maximum output of just one panel.

The listed maximum output of one solar panel is 0.35 EC/sec, at Kerbin's average insolation of 1360 W/m2. However, the craft has one ion engine, which requires 8.74 EC/sec to operate at full power. This means that the solar panels need to be producing at least (8.74 / 0.35) ≈ 24.971 times the listed value, which can happen when the stellar radiation flux is at least 1360 * 24.971 ≈ 33961 W/m2. Grannus produces this much flux at a distance of 491.3 Mm.

(Taranis is well within that distance, so being able to use ion engines freely near its orbit is correct.)

 

I shouldn't need to worry about any of this too much longer, though, because the mission of the Taranis transfer vehicle is currently nearing its end, and none of the other modules have any solar panels.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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 Part 8: Epona


After making an interstellar voyage starting from Iota with plenty of fuel to spare, I realized that the mission is getting somewhat boring and not challenging enough. I don't have to do any gravity assists or weird maneuvers that make KSP what it is; I can just brute-force my way to the next destination and refueling stop with TGGT's massive amount of Δv.  

To try to make the mission more interesting, I'm adding a new restriction to the mission goal:

  • Each refueling stop must be on a different celestial body.     

This goal is secondary to the main goal of landing a Kerbal everywhere, and I won't stop the mission if it turns out I can't do it. Nevertheless, I have followed this rule so far and will try my best to continue following it in the future.

Importantly, asteroids and comets are not celestial bodies, so I will not refuel at them at all.

(This is also one of the main reasons why I didn't refuel at Ceti, Lili, or Geminus: I want to be able to use those places as refueling stops to get to Icarus and back.)

I expect this rule to make the most of an impact at Belisama, where the original mission plan involved four different refueling stops in order to get to and from Toutatis and Nodens.

In the outer system, though, it's not as much of a big deal because of the abundance of small moons everywhere. How can I make the mission more Kerbal? Well...

N1WKTUc.png
     
(8.0) Visual mod update

Spoiler

Thinking that the lighting issues I had encountered earlier were an issue with Kopernicus that might have been fixed in the recent slew of releases, I reinstalled PlanetShine.

As it turns out, I was wrong; it was definitely a PlanetShine issue. I uninstalled PlanetShine shortly thereafter.

As always, none of this affects the mission at all.

 

Edit: No, it wasn't actually PlanetShine. The bug showed up again even with PlanetShine uninstalled. My next guess as to the source is Scatterer, but the issue isn't nearly important enough to warrant removing Scatterer. It leaves the surface visible, in almost the correct color, and resolves itself quickly, so I will simply ignore it.

     
(8.1) Return from Taranis, continued

Spoiler

Mz7TEUn.png

The last of the second ion stage. It's so close to Grannus that the maneuver looks like a moderately small course correction, not the nearly 2000 m/s burn that it is.

KliAtwG.png

When I get there, Grannus is blocked by Taranis, and this time in a way that actually makes sense. Well, I can just do the burn on the next orbit eleven hours later.

BgeDtZc.png

Better Time Warp continues to prove its usefulness. With only three stages left, I can speed the physics warp rate up to 43x.

Lxs1saf.png

The second stage runs out of xenon.

YhjDYrW.png

The third stage is small enough that I can use it all in a single burn.

nLr7Tkv.png

With such a large burn, cosine losses exceed 90 m/s. However, I have so much Δv that this much is pretty much negligible.

YQ9a3j0.png

9WIocLO.png

6sEW1ib.png

The last stage takes the craft to a Sirona encounter, where it will perform a gravity assist.

o4Qlb0c.png

I want to get as much out of the assist as I can, so I go very close to the edge of the atmosphere at 320 km.

CuCzUiK.png

Approaching Sirona. Its ring (right) and Airmed (left, next to the mouse pointer) are visible.

cEQRNfV.png

Sirona, lit by Ciro. (Update: it's actually Sun.)

oSUv18M.png

Sirona, lit by Grannus.

HqnpvLp.png

Sirona (center) and Brovo (top right).

AerrV6J.png

About a year later, I have another Sirona encounter.

V9AMZS2.png

Sirona. The day, night, and Ciro Sun-lit sides are all visible.

D2qngiS.png

This assist has a very close pass to Brovo. In fact, I had to move it north to avoid getting a Brovo encounter.

9y0hsg1.png

The second assist is enough to get to Epona, where it performs... another gravity assist.

wpMzRIT.png

Grannus is still a lot brighter than Ciro Sun here, but it's definitely closer.

KEJ4t5b.png

The Epona assist leads to, you guessed it, another Epona assist about six years later. But before that, TGGT finally arrives at Epona.

 

(8.2) RAB-58E

Spoiler

7VaFYIc.png

RAB-58E orbits retrograde, so TGGT's Epona encounter needs to be shifted to the other side of Epona.

JwRS49p.png

Even coming from the SOI limit of Grannus, Epona is large enough that the capture burn is completely reasonable.

W7WCptx.png

Passing Epona. The lighting from Ciro Sun is even more apparent here.

vyqxKOO.png

RAB-58E orbits really slowly, right next to Epona's SOI limit, so circularization is even easier.

VTTwaIZ.png

The ore data not what I was expecting, but I guess this is what happens when there are only three biomes.

Targeting even that one biome with ore is not easy because of the three-hour rotational period. In fact, TGGT's orbit just above the scanner limit is slower than this.

TMRFfqR.png

This maneuver would never be possible somewhere with more gravity, but here I can do pretty much anything to my orbit for not much fuel.

yPCYnLe.png

Reaching a low equatorial orbit means that I can target the biome much more easily.

DVUdazV.png

Is RAB-58E really a moon? It's larger than Tam, but it might be fair to call both of them asteroids. In either case, it's certainly not a major moon in the same way that Rosmerta is.

t2WyJhz.png

A jump takes Bill 100 meters into the air, enough to experience noticeable Coriolis forces.

zxgdtE1.png

fJdaSVz.png

Refueling proceeds as normal.

LM3OHWd.png

xs9ydhY.png

eOXu8Fx.png

TGGT leaves RAB-58E and heads towards low Epona orbit.

Epona rotates reasonably fast, so I reverse my orbit to prograde at apoapsis.

nta3MQb.png

PjewFdb.png

As with Gratian, I lower my orbit very close to the edge of the atmosphere at 45 km.

mFGZ29J.png

This time, I remember to equatorialize before releasing the lander.

 

(8.3) Epona (finally)

Spoiler

I spent a lot of time making sure that the methane plane could fly on Epona. I fine-tuned the amount of LFO in the rocket stage and even added Explodium Breathing Engines configs for GEP. I really want to test it and make sure that I did everything correctly.

On the other hand, I realized that the oxygen plane could also work there. Its engines aren't particularly efficient in Epona's lower atmosphere, but it has a lot of fuel, and it doesn't need to go all the way to the datum level where the 1 atmosphere of pressure would make the NERVs unusable. I also want to test this out of curiosity.

So why not test both?

gm7WwfO.png

Both planes have a docking port, so they can attach to each other.

IXn2lfr.png

Orbital velocity on Epona isn't too fast, so heating is not an issue. However, the planes do enter an uncontrollable tumble.

bTICdHM.png

Thankfully, they both have parachutes, and Epona's atmosphere is dense enough that they work well.

YhVeJGo.png

After some sliding, the planes roll to a halt.

gvexx8o.png

The oxygen plane is much heavier than the methane plane, causing the methane plane to dangle in the air.

28tt3N2.png

Bill also brought a flag and doesn't know what to do with it, so he plants it too.

HQZT8fW.png

To get back in the plane, the astronauts use the incredibly realistic strategy of jumping into boarding range.

 

(8.4) Reorbiting the oxygen plane

Spoiler

8L8VfQB.png

Epona's atmosphere has no oxygen. The LFO tanks do, though, and the RAPIER can operate in closed-cycle mode, allowing the plane to get off the ground before hitting the upcoming hill.

YSeLXJA.png

With all three engines, the plane is significantly overpowered, and ascends really quickly. This is only seven seconds after the last picture.

v3Mk54y.png

Eventually, the plane runs out of oxidizer, but the NERVs have regained enough specific impulse (here, 652 seconds) to be usable on their own.

wTjbYu3.png

b8wxSmW.png

9c1sk8Y.png

The fuel margins are a bit tighter than on Gael, but there is still plenty to spare for returning to TGGT.

FdduvIh.png

TGGT doesn't actually have anyone left on it, but it does have a probe core, allowing it to align its docking port with the plane.

 

(8.5) Reorbiting the methane plane

Spoiler

O5emOny.png

The methane plane is actually meant to operate here, and the engine starts successfully.

yApKKo0.png

It takes off the ground even more quickly, and that's with the engine in dry mode!

CvSl7CV.png

The Sphinx on dry mode manages to take the plane well past Mach 1 (which is a lot lower on Epona due to the cold temperature), at a steep angle.

x6AUfac.png

d5pmQku.png

The plane finishes the rest of its air-breathing ascent in wet mode.

T0FR7Ki.png

By the time the rocket engines activate, the plane has a significant vertical speed that proves very helpful for getting to orbit.

kDfHiPc.png

Belatedly, I remember to drain the oxidizer in the jet stage, which is still about 75% full.

(I will need all the oxidizer I can fit in the jet stage during the Catullus ascent, so it's overfilled for anywhere else.)

ENFyiiW.png

OD3q8XZ.png

The plane makes it into orbit and docks with TGGT with some fuel to spare. The margins, though somewhat tight, are nowhere near as close as they were on the slightly larger Gratian.

 

At this point, Jeb is still in the Taranis transfer vehicle orbiting Grannus near Epona, and TGGT is in low Epona orbit with still mostly full tanks. Both are headed towards the Sirona system.

 

Edited by Leganeski
I have changed my opinion about RAB-58E since originally writing this chapter.
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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 9: Brovo

Jebediah rejoins TGGT at Brovo, where the atmospheric capabilities of all the remaining modules are tested.

W1QoFKq.png

 

(9.0) Note on illumination

Spoiler

I've been encountering this behavior, which I thought was intentional lighting from Ciro.

I eventually traced it to what appears to be a bug in JNSQ_Rescale_1X, causing the range of Sun's illumination to be 36.9 Tm (way beyond Ciro) rather than 3.69 Tm (just far enough to reach Ciro's SOI most of the time, but not any celestial body inside of it).

As a result, every time I have said "lit by Ciro" since coming to the Grannus system, it was actually Sun, not Ciro, and was likely unintended behavior. (If so, it's a very understandable mistake: I can think of a place where a single extra zero typed at the end of a number would have caused it.)

As cool as the lighting from Sun is, it's ultimately not realistic: at its average distance of 7 Tm from anything in Ciro's SOI, it should be roughly as bright as Mun viewed from Kerbin or the Moon viewed from Earth. At the correct brightness, it would be noticeable in the sky, but not bright enough to light up the ground any meaningful amount.

I think I've fixed this on my installation as of now, but I haven't yet tested it to make sure. If I did it correctly, the change should appear somewhere around the middle of part 10 or so.

 

Edit (June 27):

This was in fact unintended behavior in JNSQ.

On 6/27/2022 at 11:03 AM, OhioBob said:

This bug has been pointed out to me already and has been fixed, though not yet released.

If you're also using JNSQ_Rescale_1X, @OhioBob's comment has a fix for it.

 

Edit 2 (June 30):

My own fix turned out to be identical to @OhioBob's (it's just shrinking the relevant curves by a factor of 10), and it seems to be working as intended: the night sides of Nodens and Toutatis are black when viewed from orbit, showing no trace of Sun's illumination.

 

Edit 3 (July 1):

The fixed lighting appears starting with part 11.

 

The journeys of the Taranis transfer vehicle and TGGT to Brovo overlap significantly in time, so for clarity, they are described separately here rather than in chronological order.

 

(9.1) TGGT to Brovo

Spoiler

9dl68Bg.png

Ejecting from Epona to Sirona is relatively cheap as far as interplanetary transfers go.

PaqfrlA.png

Further corrections lead to a Brovo encounter. It doesn't look great, but the inclination will actually turn out to be useful.

rFDIS4j.png

Even coming from an interplanetary trajectory, Brovo's motion around Sirona reduces the capture burn a lot.

vhTTrcH.png

Sirona and Brovo.

feL1H6G.png

Instead of equatorializing at apoapsis, I burn to a polar orbit.

QrTMYBx.png

Now that I'm in a "stable polar orbit between 30 km and 1500 km" (wow, that condition is annoying to satisfy), I can do an ore scan.

cibSJ7H.png

There's a nice patch of ore right by the equator.

On an unrelated note, Brovo is rather dense. It's even denser than Duna, which is roughly the same size (6.7% larger radius, 2.9% less surface gravity) and a lot warmer. I can't think of a plausible explanation for this, but the discrepancy is minor enough that I wouldn't be surprised if there was one.

MfpFknK.png

nEWvzaI.png

TGGT heads to a low equatorial orbit after completing the scan.

 

(9.2) Return from Taranis, the finale

Spoiler

K1FIaHB.png

Jeb refines his second Epona assist (from section 8.1) to intersect Sirona's orbit nicely.

JEZaB7n.png

NkP0UEG.png

Why Brovo?

I can't do any large burns, and in the Grannus system, it is very hard to capture around anywhere just 80 m/s at a time. However, Brovo makes it a lot easier. Its motion around Sirona significantly reduces the relative speed of an intercept to a safe speed for aerobraking at its atmosphere, and its moderately-sized gravity well reduces the cost of capture even more.

I don't know how low I should put my aerobraking periapsis, so I guess 45 km, somewhat below the edge of the atmosphere at 65 km.

YpHd5jD.png

Maximum aerodynamic heating. The craft has a really low ballistic coefficient because it's so small, and it's also not going very fast, so I'm nowhere near overheating.

(I've set up a maneuver node at periapsis with the amount required for capture; most of the maneuver is done through aerobraking.)

p1GaoGi.png

This side of Brovo appears blue because it's the night side (i.e. Grannus is below the horizon), and is visible because it's illuminated by Sun.

Come to think of it, that's probably why the solar panels say "direct sunlight": there is direct "Sun-light", just not light from the star that would actually power the panels.

kts4SEY.png

At periapsis, the ion engine (which now has significant TWR because it's almost half of the craft by mass) provides a boost to the deceleration.

2YSTZgd.png

The craft is successfully captured around Brovo, but it's not out of the atmosphere yet.

WfTwcDv.png

As it turned out, I overshot the capture by 145 m/s. I'm still in orbit, though, so this will work.

dLPQ94n.png

I set up a modest plane change burn...

MU2Jpnm.png

... and end up 0.9 m/s short when the battery runs out.

BGKC0uU.png

However, my periapsis is now above the atmosphere, so I can do the rest on the next orbit.

iGuowWj.png

BmSLVgl.png

SLdbOoD.png

Having established that the craft can make 80 m/s burns, I lower Jeb's orbit the rest of the way to TGGT.

xIjnRiA.png

The mission of the Taranis transfer vehicle, to get Jeb to Taranis and then back to TGGT, is now complete.

U6OC6mx.pnghY7Fvdt.pngrarHqJd.png

Jeb deorbits the transfer vehicle, jumps out, and jetpacks over to TGGT.

qVM8AHN.png

The last stage of the Taranis vehicle, now uncontrolled, continues into the atmosphere.

hEC7w3M.png

KHL91mq.png

Tj9D7GX.png

h89ZOJy.png

Now all of the remaining solar panels are where they belong -- in low Grannus or Taranis orbit, attached to inaccessible debris. Doing all of those gravity assists was fun, but I'm very glad that I don't have to worry about solar panels any more.

 

(9.3) Landing the planes

Spoiler

Which module is designed for Brovo? Well... none of them. I had originally planned to use a dedicated lander for larger bodies with thin atmospheres, but scrapped the design after realizing I didn't need it.

I currently have the methane plane, the oxygen plane, and TGGT itself. When I started the mission, I was planning to use TGGT here, but it turns out I can use all three!

aLPfzTV.png

Bill gets out and repacks all the parachutes.

bRDpoRc.pngADk4xSg.pngh8yhLSk.pngfyb1qRm.png

The catapult-style deorbiting maneuver is used again. Not because the fuel savings are necessary, but because it's awesome!

Oex78FZ.png

Even if the lighting from Sun is unintentional, it definitely makes landing a lot easier.

XrwzwYI.png

The oxygen plane lands safely using its trusty set of parachutes.

oF773YR.png

That star is Sun, its dimness a constant reminder of how far TGGT has travelled.

9YT0tPt.png

Val plants a flag on the surface.

tcEKiqD.png

One orbit later, the methane lander detaches using the same spinning maneuver.

3navJOw.png

WIx7B0z.png

Wait, is that Valentina's landing site? It was pretty low and flat; why not go there?

5LrGsfE.png

I deployed the parachutes a bit too early, and will have to drive the rest of the way to the site.

umIP5iE.png

Landing planes on Brovo is hard. The atmosphere is less dense than Kerbin's, but there's also less gravity. In theory, these should just about cancel out, but in practice, it makes everything a lot more bouncy.

DCSCsmB.png

After some more attempts, the plane finally makes it to the ground safely.

Trying to get closer to Val and the oxygen plane, I tried to turn on the engine, but instead of pressing the 2 key (mapped to "toggle the jet engine"), I accidentally hit 3 (mapped to "drain the oxidizer"). This cost me some oxidizer before I could turn the draining off, but I have a lot of excess oxidizer, and the loss shouldn't affect the plane's ability to return to orbit.

7FcVsne.png

q4H57Ab.png

After that, I turn on the engine correctly and drive over to the flag.

9m52CWS.png

Jeb is very excited to finally be on solid ground again, and claims Brovo for himself.

 

(9.4) Landing TGGT

Spoiler

Now that TGGT doesn't have anything attached to it, it can go through air without the risk of lateral asymmetry causing it to flip over.

gS2JWvW.png

pdv8r4T.png

TGGT deorbits over the ore patch.

n0ILrzl.png

You thought that parachute was for the emergency return capsule? Well, yes, it is, but it can come in useful whenever there's enough atmospheric pressure.

gGChpKa.png

Nuclear engines and regular parachutes: certainly not a standard combination. It works only because of the low gravity and cold temperature.

QhzE2w9.png

TGGT touches down safely... on an 18-degree slope.

EFfKuXs.png

Six minutes of sliding later, it finally comes to a halt.

9qCnqQ4.png

Bill also has his own flag.

WgJZccZ.png

The ladder is out of reach, and there's no one left in TGGT to extend it.

YVwqyqr.png

Thankfully, TGGT has a probe core, installed just in case something like this happened, and can extend the ladders all by itself.

pzhQAA4.png

I run some science experiments to see what they say.

"Perhaps flight would be possible on this moon." Having just landed two planes there, I would be inclined to agree.

H11juez.png

Refueling proceeds smoothly.

xpXcsk9.png

Liftoff is a bit slow with the relatively high gravity (well, high compared to a normal refueling spot).

lWPLSRa.png

VI8TtiO.png

TGGT is not even close to aerodynamic, so I ascend very steeply to get out of the lower atmosphere as fast as possible.

OnF9dYT.png

yRcFHb5.png

There's still plenty of fuel and ore left, more than enough to get to the next destination.

 

(9.5) Rejoining the oxygen plane

Spoiler

B6Jvycu.png

The medium-size landing gear lets the plane drive right over Jeb.

fxVwfKj.png

The first attempt at takeoff crashes into a hill. Maybe bringing these planes down to Brovo wasn't a great idea.

byremCc.png

This time, I coast to the bottom of the hill before trying to take off.

fN0RPSC.png

OsoIz0d.png

It works! I have absurdly high TWR with all the engines on, so the plane quickly reaches supersonic speeds.

2uUq9GX.png

The plane runs out of oxidizer, but the NERVs are performing quite well at this altitude.

t1Qb9JW.png

I overshot the apoapsis-raising burn and ended up at 96 km, well above the 68 km orbit of TGGT. Well, I guess this means I have already completed the first step of rendezvous.

pnWoiaj.png

kIrMuS7.png

TVY10cr.png

The rest of the redocking process happens the same way as it did on Epona.

dhn6lv8.png

Valentina and Bill are on TGGT in low Brovo orbit, ready to continue further into the Grannus system. Jebediah has decided to take an extended vacation on Brovo, and will remain there until TGGT comes back to Sirona.

Edited by Leganeski
Update information on lighting issue (it's fixed now!)
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OhioBob

OhioBob

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Leganeski said:

(9.0) Note on illumination

This bug has been pointed out to me already and has been fixed, though not yet released.  To fix it, just open the file JNSQ_Rescale/JNSQ_Bodies/Sun.cfg and replace the intensity curves with the following:

Spoiler 
				ScaledIntensityCurve
				{
					key = 0 1 0 0
					key = 600000 1 0 -2.405E-07
					key = 1200000 0.9 -1.202E-07 -1.202E-07
					key = 2400000 0.8 -6.010E-08 -6.010E-08
					key = 4800000 0.7 -3.005E-08 -3.005E-08
					key = 9600000 0.6 -1.503E-08 -1.503E-08
					key = 19200000 0.5 -7.515E-09 -7.515E-09
					key = 38400000 0.4 -3.758E-09 -3.758E-09
					key = 76800000 0.3 -1.879E-09 -1.879E-09
					key = 153600000 0.2 -9.393E-10 -9.393E-10
					key = 307200000 0.1 -4.698E-10 -4.698E-10
					key = 614400000 0 -2.348E-10 0
				}
				IntensityCurve
				{
					key = 0 1 0 0
					key = 3600000000 1 0 -4.008E-11
					key = 7200000000 0.9 -2.004E-11 -2.004E-11
					key = 14400000000 0.8 -1.002E-11 -1.002E-11
					key = 28800000000 0.7 -5.010E-12 -5.010E-12
					key = 57600000000 0.6 -2.505E-12 -2.505E-12
					key = 115200000000 0.5 -1.252E-12 -1.252E-12
					key = 230400000000 0.4 -6.263E-13 -6.263E-13
					key = 460800000000 0.3 -3.130E-13 -3.130E-13
					key = 921600000000 0.2 -1.566E-13 -1.566E-13
					key = 1843200000000 0.1 -7.828E-14 -7.828E-14
					key = 3686400000000 0 -3.913E-14 0
				}
				IVAIntensityCurve
				{
					key = 0 0.9 0 0
					key = 3600000000 0.9 0 -3.608E-11
					key = 7200000000 0.81 -1.803E-11 -1.803E-11
					key = 14400000000 0.72 -9.018E-12 -9.018E-12
					key = 28800000000 0.63 -4.508E-12 -4.508E-12
					key = 57600000000 0.54 -2.254E-12 -2.254E-12
					key = 115200000000 0.45 -1.127E-12 -1.127E-12
					key = 230400000000 0.36 -5.635E-13 -5.635E-13
					key = 460800000000 0.27 -2.818E-13 -2.818E-13
					key = 921600000000 0.18 -1.409E-13 -1.409E-13
					key = 1843200000000 0.09 -7.045E-14 -7.045E-14
					key = 3686400000000 0 -3.523E-14 0
				}

 

 

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 10: Sucellus

(also featuring: Nodens)

83Oeeei.png

TGGT presses on inwards towards Grannus.

 

(10.1) Sucellus

Spoiler

XFJFkF0.pngbi9jA3Z.png

TGGT ejects directly to Sucellus from Brovo. Brovo's gravity well and motion around Sirona make it rather cheap compared to how fast the planets are moving.

KrjmeZh.png

Sirona (center) and Brovo (center left), for the last time not even close to the last time. The exploration of the Sirona system is nowhere near complete.

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Sucellus, unlike Brovo, has very little Oberth effect, and capturing is not cheap. However, I can afford it because I'll be refueling soon.

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Sucellus. It doesn't look like a planet, but it doesn't look like an asteroid either. It's still basically round, though.

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Ore data for Sucellus. There's loads of ore all over the place, and Sucellus doesn't spin ridiculously fast unlike some other places. Finding a landing spot is relatively easy.

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The terrain is not great, but the gravity is low enough that it's not a serious problem.

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Landing on Sucellus now is somewhat out of order compared to my original plan, but it means I don't have to find another intercept with the Sucellus system, which has an annoyingly inclined and eccentric orbit.

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Refueling proceeds smoothly. I probably could have gotten away with not refueling, but I didn't know how much ore Caireen would have.

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Returning to orbit.

 

(10.2) Caireen

Spoiler

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Sucellus is small, so getting to Caireen is cheap.

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Caireen is a lot smaller.

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Ore data for Caireen. It's... really not good. There's no ore anywhere.

Or is there? If you look closely, you can kind of see some slightly pink regions. TGGT has a large drill, so if there's any ore at all, it can get it.

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... There's no ore at all. This is getting bad, but if I can't refuel at Caireen, I would have to reload all the way back to Brovo so that I could come to Caireen before refuelling on Sucellus.

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TGGT has plenty of fuel left, and uses it to go to a region that at least looks slightly more ore-rich.

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There's very little ore here, but it's more than nothing, which is all that matters when there's no time limit. TGGT is able to refuel successfully.

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This is as good a time as any for Bill to get out and repack the parachutes on the oxygen plane, which will come in useful on Nodens.

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Bill ponders a clearly very important question: is Caireen round enough to be a major moon? It's not clear from orbit, and even Bob's technical definition from section 8.2 doesn't provide a conclusive answer: Caireen's terrain heights scale by a factor of 6 at RSS scale, in between GEP's regular 3x multiplier and the 10x multiplier for minor non-spherical bodies.

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Returning to orbit. The gravity is so low that the unusual ascent profile doesn't really matter.

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Caireen orbits quite slowly, and it's very tricky to get its orbit to line up with a Nodens transfer window. Instead, I head back to low Sucellus orbit.

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(10.3) Leaving for Nodens

Spoiler

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The transfer to Nodens. It's not a perfect approach, but at least it gets there, which is significant when considering Sucellus's 3.7-degree inclination relative to Nodens.

EEAMYIA.png

The burn is quite long, and I started it too early. This attempt did not exactly end well.

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I tried again, starting the burn about 40 seconds later. TGGT reached an unsafe altitude: Sucellus's terrain goes up to 7140 m, which is above the altitude of 6366 m I'm at in the picture. However, there weren't any mountains there, and the burn finished sucessfully.

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The encounter with Nodens is too fast to capture, so I perform a powered gravity assist over the north pole to align my orbital plane with Nodens and also reduce the relative velocity somewhat.

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Grannus continues to get brighter.

The lighting issue described in section 9.0 is still present: Sun's illumination, and even its reflection in Nodens's ocean, are still visible. This is because I forgot to actually change Sun's IntensityCurves until later.

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The assist leads to another Nodens encounter from a better angle.

 

(10.4) Meanwhile on Brovo...

Spoiler

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After almost two years, Jebediah has gotten bored of Brovo and decided to end his vacation.

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Jeb follows Valentina's example and rolls down to the bottom of the hill up ahead before turning on the engine.

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As on Gratian, the plane takes off in wet mode so that it can leave the ground before crashing into something. Even then, the air is rather thin, making steering difficult, and the plane starts to tilt in an unfortunate direction.

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Jeb is an excellent pilot, however, and quickly recovers.

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The jet engine is significantly overpowered for Brovo, and makes it most of the way to orbit very quickly.

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The rocket engines take over. Compared to Gratian or Catullus, Brovo's gravity is no big deal.

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The plane makes it into orbit with most of its LFO remaining.

 

Unfortunately for Jebediah, TGGT is already long gone, and redocking will have to wait until it returns from Nodens.

 

TGGT is now orbiting Grannus and is ready to reach Nodens. Jebediah's vacation on Brovo is over, and he has returned with the methane plane to low Brovo orbit.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 11: Toutatis

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TGGT swings by Nodens in order to go to Toutatis. Due to a miscalculation, Valentina comes with Bill but ends up waiting in orbit with the oxygen plane.

 

(11.0) Lighting update

Spoiler

The lighting bug is fixed now! Sun's light is no longer visible from the Grannus system, which means that Toutatis's night side, where I ended up landing, remains perpetually dark and hard to see. It's the intended behavior, though, so I can't exactly complain.

 

(11.1) Reaching Toutatis

Spoiler

I'm quickly running out of refueling spots in the inner Grannus system. Sucellus and Caireen, the best stops for getting to and from the outer system, have already been used. Belisama is in a useful position, but I need to save it for later so that I can get back to the Sirona system without running out of fuel.

TGGT can't land on Nodens. (Well, it probably could, but I'm not confident that all the parts would survive, and it definitely couldn't get back to orbit.) It can't get to Taranis (again, it could get there, but it doesn't have enough Δv to capture into orbit). The only other place is Toutatis.

Toutatis is a really bad refueling spot, as its high gravity means that TGGT only has barely enough TWR to get off the ground, and not enough to carry either plane with it. In fact, that's the main reason why I left the methane plane at Brovo. Its atmosphere has practically no value, as it's way too thin to fly a plane, and its pressure at ground level is just below the minimum to open a parachute. However, I can get ore there, and it's a lot better than nothing.

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Instead of an encounter for capture, the second Nodens approach becomes a powered gravity assist.

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Passing Nodens. The night side is black now!

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A bit later, Nodens eclipses Grannus.

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A third Nodens assist leads to a good orbital alignment with Toutatis.

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My original plan was to throw the oxygen plane at Nodens for aerobraking, and send TGGT to Toutatis alone. However, I significantly underestimated quite how fast the plane would be going when it reached the atmosphere, and aerobraking proved impossible.

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Instead, the plane goes along with TGGT for the assist.

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During a course correction maneuver, Toutatis happens to pass rather close by. Zoomed in, it's clearly visible as a black circle in front of the skybox. Since Toutatis is so close to Grannus, though, its SOI is small enough that this isn't an encounter.

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The approach to Toutatis is okay. The capture burn is doable and a lot cheaper than I was fearing, but on the other hand, the apoapsis of the captured orbit is very far away from the equator, making it extremely expensive to equatorialize after the ore scan is complete.

 

(11.2) Landing TGGT

Spoiler

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Toutatis looks... rather like Brovo, at least on the day side. I imagine that the night side might look different if it were illuminated, but I have no way to tell.

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There's not much point in leaving the orbit elliptical, so I circularize it on the next pass.

(Toutatis's atmosphere ends at 65 km.)

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Ore data for Toutatis. It's pretty good, but I'm hoping to land in a lowlands biome in order to avoid steep slopes. There's a lowlands biome with ore, but it's the Dark Side Lowlands, which is inconvenient because it's on the night side. However, in Toutatis's gravity, avoiding mountains takes priority over visibility.

I thought about equatorializing the orbit, but it's way too expensive: performing the maneuver would leave me with 1087 m/s (KER's Δv figure is correct, at least while the plane is still attached). Even after the plane detaches, that's not really enough to land safely.

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Instead, Val detaches the oxygen plane and waits in the near-polar orbit.

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Landing is not easy because it's so hard to see where the ground is, but KER really helps, as does TGGT's really high TWR when it's running low on fuel. (At this point, the engines make up over half the mass of the craft.)

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Bill is unhappy with the night side landing as well, but at least there's a nice view of the stars and other planets. (Except for Taranis.)

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This time, Bill remembers to extend the ladders before leaving. (I also remembered that I had an action group for that.)

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The science instrument readings. Despite what the experiment says, I actually did completely discount Toutatis's atmosphere.

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Refueling proceeds normally.

 

(11.3) Ascent and rendezvous

Spoiler

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TGGT waits until it passes directly under the plane's orbit before launching.

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With a TWR of 1.15, liftoff is really slow.

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I'm following an ascent profile somewhat in between a normal atmospheric ascent and a constant-altitude ascent, because I have a low TWR but also need to get to 65 km altitude.

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As TGGT gets farther away from Toutatis and depletes its fuel reserves, its TWR increases to the point where it can finish raising apoapsis while pointed prograde.

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Rendezvous is made slightly inconvenient by the plane's periapsis being so close to the atmosphere. However, it works as long as I do all the maneuvers there.

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The plane redocks successfully.

 

TGGT and the oxygen plane are now docked in low Toutatis orbit, ready to go back to Nodens. Jebediah is still waiting in the methane plane in Brovo orbit.

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Part 12: Nodens

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TGGT goes to Nodens and finds that it's actually a pretty nice place. The oxygen plane successfully performs its most difficult task: landing there and returning to orbit.

 

(12.1) Capturing at Nodens

Spoiler

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Toutatis is in a 5:3 orbital resonance with Nodens, so my polar orbit will never line up with Toutatis's orbit during a transfer window. Instead, I eject to meet Nodens's orbit ignoring where Nodens will actually be then, and will encounter it on a future orbit.

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Eventually, I find a pretty good Nodens encounter, but the inclination of everything will end up being unhelpful.

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Unlike everything else in the inner Grannus system, capturing at Nodens coming from Toutatis is actually pretty cheap.

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Belisama is so big that I get an accidental encounter with it on the second orbit even though my orbit isn't aligned with it.

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At apoapsis, the oxygen plane detaches with Valentina and lowers its periapsis into the atmosphere.

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The first aerobraking pass happens unfortunately close to the Belisama encounter correction maneuver that TGGT needs to do at periapsis a few minutes later. I do have an alarm for that, but I can't do both things at the same time.

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Maximum aerodynamic heating. The entire plane is rather heat-resistant, so it doesn't come very close to exploding.

Instead of pointing directly up, the plane is oriented significantly closer to prograde so that it produces lift and can get back out of the atmosphere more quickly, hopefully before TGGT's maneuver.

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The alarm goes off and the plane is still in the atmosphere. Uh oh.

Wait... the alarm was set for a full minute before the maneuver. I would have liked to use that time for attitude adjustments, but I probably don't need all of it.

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13 seconds later, the plane reaches space again. See? There was plenty of time. Absolutely nothing to worry about.

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TGGT follows a fairly standard course to approach Belisama, similar to its path towards many other moons previously.

 

(12.2) The surface

Spoiler

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One orbit later, the plane comes back down to the atmosphere again. It's going a lot slower this time, and heating is even less of a concern. This means that I can aim for a good landing spot.

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There's an east-facing beach up ahead; that would be perfect.

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The air here is definitely dense enough to land the plane normally, but I'm not a great plane pilot, and crashed when I tried to do that. Parachutes to the rescue!

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After quickloading, the terrain scatters show up.

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Val gets out and explores the surrounding area.

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She tries climbing one of the trees. It doesn't end very well, but Kerbals are quite resistant to impacts.

 

(12.3) Ascent

Spoiler

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The ascent begins with a coast down to the beach to gain speed.

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In the dense atmosphere, the plane takes off very soon.

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Breaking the sound barrier. The plane is optimized for flight on Kerbin, and has a mass that is close to the limit of what one RAPIER can handle. On Nodens, the higher gravity makes it a lot harder to reach the speed where the thrust starts to increase, and I wasted some fuel trying to get there. However, as an oxygen-breathing jet engine, the RAPIER's efficiency is still quite high, so the amount of fuel I lost was relatively small.

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Eventually, the NERVs switch on. The RAPIER managed to reach a signifiant vertical speed in air-breathing mode, making this part much easier.

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The RAPIER provides a much-needed burst of thrust in closed-cycle mode.

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The ascent finishes with some fuel to spare. Unfortunately, the unsuccessful attempts at breaking the sound barrier meant that there's less than I was hoping for; 755 m/s isn't enough to get to Belisama from low orbit.

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TGGT changes its course so that the Belisama encounter becomes an inclination-reducing gravity assist. This was definitely intentional and totally not because I forgot that I needed to bring the plane to Belisama too.

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Bill gets a good view of Belisama as it passes by. This is the first time that all three crewmembers are in different SOIs (Bill is at Belisama, Valentina at Nodens, and Jebediah at Brovo), and probably also the last, unless something goes very wrong or the Laythe landing goes very differently than how I'm currently expecting it to turn out.

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The plane does have enough fuel to complete the rest of orbital plane matching.

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My original plan involved bring TGGT to low orbit anyway, so I guess I'm not spending any extra fuel.

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Docking proceeds as usual.

 TGGT and the oxygen plane are now docked in low Nodens orbit and will head to Belisama to refuel.

Edited by Leganeski
I'm back! Update coming soon!
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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 13: Sirona

(well, its moons)

Sirona is a gas giant, so no landing is performed there. However, TGGT does get some great pictures of it while exploring the rest of the planetary system.

DeMKQKi.png

 

(13.1) Belisama

Spoiler

One of the main advantages of my route was that I could reach Toutatis and Nodens without having to go to Belisama first. Of course, this means that I have to go to Belisama now that I've finished those landings, both to plant a flag and to get more fuel.

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Belisama is a rather large moon, particularly for one orbiting a solid planet, so the encounter needs to enter its SOI at an unusual angle in order to reach a polar orbit. However, the rest of the transfer proceeds normally.

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Belisama has plenty of ore in convenient places.

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Belisama is the largest place that TGGT needs to land on with something else attached to it. Normally, its high gravity would make landing an unbalanced ship difficult, but TGGT is running low on fuel and its TWR is extremely high. (Well, high for a nuclear-powered craft; 11.38 m/s2 is almost half the TWR of the engines themselves.)

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Nodens remains an attractive destination spot. Maybe once the mission is over, the Kerbals can repurpose TGGT and the oxygen plane into a reusable tourist shuttle between Kerbin and Nodens.

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Refueling proceeds without any issues.

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During takeoff, TGGT's TWR isn't nearly as high, and flying it is made more difficult by the fact that I have to repeatedly change the thrust limiter on one engine to align the total thrust with the constantly shifting center of mass.

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However, while Belisama's surface gravity (0.27 g) may be strong compared to other airless bodies, it's not that high overall, and the ascent finishes smoothly.

 

(13.2) Airmed

Spoiler

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With a mostly full tank of fuel, TGGT can finally return to the outer system. The transfer from Belisama to Sirona is really expensive, but there's no good way to make it cheaper. I could do a repeated Toutatis-Nodens gravity assist chain, but that would take forever and get very repetitive.

(Despite the close approach, I'm not aiming to intercept Sirona directly; I'll do some correction burns in solar orbit to get an encounter on a future orbit.)

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The burn is almost nine minutes long, so I start it quite late to avoid crashing into the ground.

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By the time the burn finishes, TGGT is leaving the Nodens system very quickly.

(The fuel levels in this picture look dangerously low, but there's still a lot of unrefined ore in the ore tanks.)

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One last picture of Nodens, from outside of its SOI.

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Eventually, I find a good Airmed encounter.

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Approaching Sirona. Visible in the picture is Brovo, yet again, because the mission somehow didn't have enough of Brovo already.

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Airmed (next to the mouse pointer) and Sirona.

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Capturing at Airmed is not nearly as bad as the Belisama ejection burn, but it's still pretty expensive. There are plenty of ways to make it cheaper (for example, a gravity assist at Epona or an aerogravity assist at Brovo), but at this point I knew that I definitely have enough fuel to approach it directly.

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Airmed has plenty of ore on the dark side and not so much on the light side.

(It has a normal day-night cycle, but its leading and trailing hemispheres have different colors, which are incorporated into the biome names.)

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TGGT lands on Airmed with quite a bit of fuel to spare.

When I was designing TGGT, I knew that the trip from Belisama to Airmed would be one of the most Δv-intensive parts of the mission, but I didn't know exactly how much it would take, so I just added as fuel much as possible while maintaining enough TWR to take off from Toutatis (and hopefully Niven in the future). Also, it's not carrying the methane plane like I thought it might need to, so it had more Δv to begin with.

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Landing and refueling on Airmed is a really important milestone because it means I've made it out of the inner Grannus system. Now, with a full tank and many nearby refueling spots, I can move around relatively freely.

 

(13.3) Damona

Spoiler

(Jeb's trip to Damona actually happened before the last section, but I'm putting it here for continuity.)

P4MN4DM.png

Jebediah has been waiting in low Brovo orbit for a while. He decides that it's time for a small change in attitude: 1049 m/s of Δv is no longer "barely enough to get to Damona, even assuming everything goes right", it's "plenty, what could go wrong?"

In theory, going from here to Damona and then back to low Damona orbit should take 907 m/s. Compared to that, 1049 m/s is not actually a safe margin at all, but I wanted to see whether it was possible.

(KER's 2549 m/s figure is wrong; I don't know why it's overestimating so much, but my best guess is that it's still counting the jet engine as operational because there's a little bit of methane left in the intake.)

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Transfers within the Sirona system are really cheap, which is good considering the fuel budget.

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Jeb arrives at Damona.

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I tried some overly optimistic lithobraking. It turned about as well as you would expect.

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After a couple attempts, I decide to descend the normal way. It's not great for the fuel budget, but it's a lot safer than lithobraking.

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Unfortunately, the plane landed on a slope and can't come to a stop. Fortunately, it has steering.

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After nine minutes of sliding, the plane stops. The wheels didn't speed up the descent all that much, but they did make it a lot less stressful.

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Sirona is smaller when viewed from Damona, but still quite big.

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Jeb goes to plant a flag down and ... um ... he left his flag on Brovo. Whoops. At least he can take a surface sample.

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Because Damona's gravity is so low, the plane can take off the normal way despite the lack of air.

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The plane makes it back to orbit successfully with 76 m/s remaining. See? Plenty to spare. There was totally nothing to worry about.

(The plane needs to be intact because there's no way anything else would work on Catullus.)

 

(13.4) Damona, done correctly this time

Spoiler

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TGGT finds a cheap transfer to Damona.

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After receiving news of Jeb's stunts, Bill and Val prepare to rescue him again.

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The plane redocks to TGGT.

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Jeb gets in the capsule, ...

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... grabs a flag, and immediately gets back out.

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After using his jetpack to slow down to 41 m/s, a totally safe speed (are Kerbals made of reinforced concrete or something?), Jeb crashes into the ground and rolls to a stop.

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This time, he has a flag!

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Jeb jumps off the ground and begins to fly back to the ship.

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In classic Jeb style, the ascent features a close pass with a mountain.

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He makes it back to orbit safely. Unfortunately, EVA kerbals can't use maneuver nodes...

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... so Bill and Val have to come get him yet again.

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Jeb finishes the rendezvous with his jetpack.

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The surface sample would have counted for the mission goal, but now I can confidently proceed knowing that I landed on Damona the right way.

 

TGGT is now in low Damona orbit with plenty of fuel left. The initial stage of its mission is finally complete: it now has all of its reusable components (two planes and three crewmembers), and nothing else. (There is a single decoupler above the ore converter, but it is only for a hypothetical emergency situation and is not meant to ever be used.)

I could leave the Grannus system now, but there are only two bodies remaining (Rosmerta, which I specifically set aside as an exit point for the system, and Cernunnos), so why not go to them first?

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Part 14: Cernunnos

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Wait, what? Why does Cernunnos get its own chapter?

Cernunnos is arguably a planet, and I'm trying to have each part title be a new planet I went to during that part. It might be a dwarf planet (and most of the other dwarf planets* will likely not get a separate chapter), but it ended up being more interesting than a routine refueling stop.

*In particular, Dres, Hamek, Celes, and Argo. I'm counting Celes and Argo as binary planets, which makes them dwarf planets since they're nowhere near big enough to be major planets.

 

(14.0) Mod update

I added some more mods. As always, they don't affect the mission. This time, they do affect the gameplay, and one changes the behavior of physics warp slightly. However, none of the changes provide an advantage beyond making things faster for me.

Spoiler

Added:

Time Control (among other things, it lets you add a hotkey for "warp to two seconds before the next SOI change", which helps avoid some bugs)

Kerbal Precise Maneuver (it includes a button for "place the current maneuver exactly at periapsis/apoapsis", and I couldn't resist that)

AutoAGL (because why not?)

 

Removed:

Precise Node (it was redundant after adding KPM)

 

(14.1) Cernunnos

Spoiler

XnfIiI9.png

TGGT drops down from Damona to Sirona to eject. Damona isn't in exactly the right place, but it doesn't matter very much because I'm heading straight to another refueling location, and the ejection burn is still only 450 m/s.

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Bye, Sirona!

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Airmed transiting Sirona.

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The capture at Cernunnos is a bit more expensive because there's not much of a gravity well to help out.

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I do an ore scan and... there's absolutely no ore anywhere on the entire planet.

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Unlike on Caireen, where the total amount of ore was merely very low, here it is actually zero, so I can't refuel. However, once the ore from Airmed finishes refining, I have over 5100 m/s, which should be enough to land and then get to Rosmerta.

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Landing is easier because I'm not aiming for any non-existent ore patch.

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Bill is not happy about having his refueling plans ruined, but it's not that bad for the mission.

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Sunset leads to a lot of shadows from the many hills. Cernunnos rotates so quickly that the shadows move quite fast; in fact, it's spinning fast enough that the movement of the skybox is clearly visible in real time.

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Launching is even easier: I landed close to the equator, and Cernunnos isn't very big.

 

(14.2) Rosmerta

Spoiler

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The transfer back to Epona. The relative inclination isn't great, but it still seems to intercept Epona pretty nicely, right?

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Wrong. That was a lot more expensive than I was hoping for. However, once I'm in the Epona system, moving around it is quite cheap.

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That's much better. The ore seems to be in some kind of "equatorial lowlands" biome, which is pretty much optimal.

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Landing is completed with... actually quite a lot of fuel to spare. It wasn't even really very close. This is why I'm so glad I put as many fuel tanks as I did on TGGT.

ziaTUNE.png

Refueling proceeds successfully. I make sure to load up the methane plane, which will be used again soon.

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Epona in the sky. This isn't even zoomed in!

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And that's a flag on every solid surface in the Grannus system!

Id2O9gg.png

Plotting transfers out of Grannus is extremely nonintuitive. I don't know how to do it properly, so I'm basically just guessing until I get something like this that kind of works.

wAPqo8u.png

Bye, Epona!

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Bye, Grannus!

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At the edge of Grannus's SOI, it is just barely visible as a reddish-gray speck next to the mouse pointer.

 

This concludes my grand tour of the Grannus Expansion Pack! The system was really fun to explore, and the bodies looked amazing both from space and from up close. Not only that, but I did not encounter a single bug anywhere in the system. None of my planes crashed due to bouncy terrain (unlike on Eve), and the drill always worked when it should (unlike on Prax). The system was incredibly realistic and yet still provided a very interesting challenge. Thank you, @OhioBob,  for making such a wonderful mod!

The mission is not over, though. I still have 45 (if I counted correctly) more bodies to land on across two star systems. My next goal is to go to Laythe and Kerbin so that I can leave the heavy oxygen plane behind.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 15: Huygen

Lqb1TW8.png

 

As you may have guessed from the chapter title, TGGT goes to Huygen.

If you're familiar with the JNSQ system, this may be somewhat different from the Huygen you're used to, as it has been scaled down to match the scale of the GPP and GEP systems. This particular part of the mission could have been easily accomplished at JNSQ's default 2.5x scale (Huygen is still not very big there), but the Eve and Nara planes would not have been able to get back to orbit.

 

(15.1) Descent

Spoiler

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Leaving Ciro always results in an unhelpful inclination. Here, I make a burn to put the ascending node in a better position.

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The travel times are getting ridiculous, so I shorten the orbital period somewhat.

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After that, Huygen is reached directly.

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Uh, what just happened? I was in space, doing nothing, and everything blew up.

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The cause appears to be overheating. But why? Why is everything so hot?

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Apparently, the ambient temperature of space high over Lindor is above 6000 degrees. I think that this is an appropriate use of the "Ignore Max Temperature" cheat.

I suspected it might be caused by an issue with Lindor's HazardousBody configuration. I looked at that and didn't see anything wrong, so I completely disabled it, and the problem went away.

This feature is supposed to only affect crafts below an altitude of 15 km, in order to provide a soft lower limit to the atmosphere. I'm not going to go anywhere near that low (because, if nothing else, I wouldn't be able to get back to orbit), so disabling the feature won't do anything bad.

1eI1OUi.png

At Huygen, the overheating stopped, and I turned the cheat back off.

(I added a config to circumvent the bug shortly after this, so it won't appear again, at least not at Lindor.)

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Huygen's atmosphere goes all the way up to 150 km, so I have to be very careful to avoid it.

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Once again, the methane plane deorbits using the catapult maneuver.

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The atmosphere is really dense, and the plane lands easily. (I didn't even bother repacking the parachutes because I knew I wouldn't need them.)

 

(15.2) Ascent

Spoiler

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Lindor is still visible, as is Sun, but everything else is obscured by the hazy atmosphere.

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Jeb goes swimming in the water sea of unknown composition, but which definitely doesn't have any water in it. Given the composition of the atmosphere, it's probably methane.

R1Sb8io.png

The plane takes off very quickly.

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The engine, even in dry mode, is still way more powerful than it needs to be here.

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The plane throttles down to conserve oxidizer. Note the absurdly high TWR at full throttle, 12.48.

pQ3v8QB.png

At 40 km, the atmosphere is thinning out. The plane pitches over and starts flying normally.

UPysIFW.png

The engine's performance is based on pressure, not density, so it flames out when there's still plenty of air. Thankfully, it can continue operating in wet mode.

aluo3SC.png

At 62 km, wet mode flames out as well. However, I know that I could be going faster.

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The plane turns back down (which takes a long time in the low gravity), and the engine eventually reignites.

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Note the current orbital parameters: I'm actually going faster than orbital velocity.

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I'm on what looks like a perfectly normal suborbital trajectory... except that the jet engine is still running.

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By pointing  above prograde, the plane can keep its apoapsis above the atmosphere despite the drag.

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I managed to reach space entirely with jet engines! On Huygen this isn't super impressive, but I was using a plane that wasn't designed for that at all.

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Circularization is accomplished using rocket engines as normal.

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The plane rejoins TGGT with most of its fuel to spare. Perhaps I overpacked slightly.

 

(15.3) Aden

Spoiler

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I knew getting around Lindor was cheap, but this is pretty ridiculous.

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Aden has lots of ore. It spins slowly, so reaching the ore will not be a challenge.

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ICQsiqs.png

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I make sure to fill up the oxygen plane during refueling.

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Aden's terrain poses no issue for Valentina. Bill, however, isn't so sure about the ascent profile.

 

TGGT has made it back to its home stellar system, and is now in orbit around Aden. Next time, I'm going to Laythe for real.

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 16: Kerbin

4v4WSkz.png


TGGT returns to Kerbin and drops off the oxygen plane.

Yes, I remembered to go to Laythe first. (The landings on Laythe and Kerbin were so similar that I combined them into one chapter.)

No, this isn't the end of the mission. I went to Kerbin because it's a planet too! I need to land on it and return to orbit just like on all the other bodies.

 

(16.1) Laythe descent

Spoiler

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I eject directly from Aden to Jool. Due to Aden's orbital speed, it's not very expensive.

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Riga is visible next to the mouse pointer.

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Krel passing in front of Lindor.

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Aden passing in front of Lindor.

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Huygen, in a different direction. It's amazing to be able to see four moons at the same time!

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I'm trying to orbit Laythe equatorially, so I need to get rid of the inclination ahead of time.

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The daily eclipse from Jool.

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Bill gets in the oxygen plane, which is flung into the atmosphere by TGGT's reaction wheels.

(Laythe's atmosphere starts at 70 km.)

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However, I'm aiming for the beach, which requires a bit more precision from the engines.

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Here's a good beach!

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The plane manages to land safely on the relatively flat terrain without using parachutes.

I recently learned that planes can land with much less risk of crashing by disabling the steering on the back wheels and disabling the brakes on the front wheels. This makes a huge difference; if I had known this when I was designing the planes, I would have made them very differently, probably with a lot fewer parachutes. As it is, there's not much I can do with it now; I retried the Tellumo landing, but that didn't work because of a terrain bug. However, it does mean that if I can find flat terrain, I might be able to actually land the normal way.

cYhOvUJ.png

The plane steers towards the beach and coasts to a stop.

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Laythe's atmosphere is hazy as well. I don't know what causes the haze, but it does explain the unusual colors from space.

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During the day, Jool is not as vibrant as it is when viewed from space, but it is still quite large in the sky.

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Laythe, despite its reduced size compared to stock, is still the largest moon by far, especially in terms of surface gravity.

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Bill goes swimming in the water. Unlike on Huygen, this is actually real water.

 

(16.2) Laythe to Ike

Spoiler

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The plane takes off from the ground, resulting in it being "splashed down in Laythe's Inland Water". Perhaps the science situations are a bit broken.

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Bill remembers to put his helmet back on.

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In the reduced gravity, breaking the sound barrier is much easier.

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I don't think I actually needed to bring any oxidizer, but it definitely made the ascent a lot faster.

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Laythe has lots of Oberth effect, preventing the transfer to Duna from getting very expensive.

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i1LpgRa.png

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Ike has almost no Oberth effect, but...

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... it does have plenty of ore, making it the perfect spot from which to go to Kerbin. (I can't use either moon of Kerbin, because I need both of them available to get to Moho and back.)

GUQ2PJG.png

Ike has some hills, but its gravity is low enough that they aren't a tipping hazard.

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I'm avoiding Duna for now because I don't want to find out the hard way what happens if I try to land TGGT on an atmospheric body with planes still attached.

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I fill up the oxygen plane once again in preparation for Kerbin.

 

(16.3) Kerbin

Spoiler

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This is the reason why I chose Ike; it's quite cheap to reach Kerbin from there.

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 The oxygen plane could probably reach Minmus after its ascent, meaning that TGGT wouldn't have to go all the way down to low orbit. However, I'm saving Minmus for the trip to Moho.

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Once again, Bill goes down in the plane.

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There's the KSC! Unfortunately, I overshot it a bit.

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Fortunately, I'm flying a plane, and planes are good at turning in midair.

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Approaching the runway from the east. I've never done this before, but I wanted a flat surface to land on, and that's sort of the intended purpose of the runway.

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I make sure to slow down before touchdown. I don't think the wheels are perfectly aligned, so anything faster than 60 m/s is dangerous.

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The plane lands safely. With a small boost from the engine, it coasts to the west end of the runway.

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Before stopping, the plane turns around to face east again. It is now in almost exactly the same situation as when it started its journey in section 1.2, 8740 years earlier. (The pilot is different; Jeb was flying it the first time.)

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Bill recieves the dubious honor of being the first Kerbal ever to stand on Kerbin. As the science report says, "I don't think a spacesuit was entirely necessary to get here, was it?"

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It appears landing here was a good decision.

The KSC is right there, but Bill's journey is far from over. In fact, he has a fully fueled SSTO waiting for him on the runway!

 

(16.4) A perfectly ordinary SSTO

Spoiler

The ascent is almost an exact repeat of section 1.2: the oxygen plane starts with a full tank on the runway, and ends docked to TGGT, which was waiting for it in low orbit.

of19rEi.png

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Due to what I'm guessing is wheel misalignment, the plane leaves the runway in an unusual direction.

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However, it manages to make it into stable flight successfully.

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Crossing the sound barrier is just as hard as before, but this time, I have some more practice with this particular plane, and quickly find a good climbing angle.

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On his way to the crew capsule, Bill repacks the parachutes on the methane plane.

 

The oxygen plane has certainly made it to orbit with all its parts. But is it really an SSTO if it can't go back down again?
Unfortunately, I need all the crew members to remain on TGGT so that they can continue the mission. This means that the descent will have to be accomplished without any control at all. However, I can activate some of the parts ahead of time.

XJi3J1L.png

The plane is deorbited with its wheels extended and parachutes activated, set to deploy when it slows down to a safe speed.

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The wheels speed up the aerobraking process tremendously, and don't burn up because I was never going very fast to begin with.

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Due to the drag from the wheels, the plane falls down at an angle, letting the lift from the wings slow it down even more.

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The parachutes deploy successfully.

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Since I have so many parachutes, and the fuel tanks are empty, the descent speed is completely survivable, especially for a water landing.

The parachutes are on the top side of the wings, automatically pulling the wheels towards the bottom even though I have no control.

GnHuDYr.png

The plane splashes down in the water safely and is recovered in one piece.

 

The oxygen plane has now completed its mission, bringing astronauts to the surface of Kerbin, Laythe, Gael, and Nodens, and back to TGGT. It has been recovered safely on Kerbin. It was a bit hard to steer but very effective at doing everything else, and I would totally use a similar design again.

TGGT has not completed its mission, and is currently in low Kerbin orbit with all three crewmembers, the methane plane, and a lot of fuel. Now that the oxygen plane is gone, it is 23 tons lighter, and can go farther between each refueling stop, with a total Δv budget of more than 8500 m/s. (The exact amount depends on the fuel level and availability of the fuel tanks in the methane plane, which both vary over time.)

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 17: Catullus

4rw56Dc.png

 

TGGT goes to Catullus, and visits its moon Tarsiss along the way. The last part on the craft meant to be used during the mission, a stack decoupler in the methane plane, finally performs its function for the first (and only) time.

 

(17.1) Back to the Ciro system (Agrippina)

Spoiler

There are plenty of refueling places available between Kerbin and Tarsiss. I chose Agrippina because, like Julia, its orbit is annoying and I want to get it out of the way.

HW2EIZc.png

The Kerbin flag shows up on the KSC screen! I hadn't realized this would happen, but it seems to be a feature of stock KSP.

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The transfer to Ciro. I'm going directly because I have enough fuel. The burn time is pretty long, but TGGT's TWR is high enough now that cosine losses aren't a big issue.

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On the way, I get an accidental Lindor encounter.

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Lindor is visible, barely. I didn't pass very close, which is probably good because I don't need any more inclination than I already have relative to Ciro.

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I approach Nero directly as well. The maneuver looks straightforward, but the trajectory is actually very close to encountering Grannus, and I had to nudge the Nero intercept location a bit to avoid the encounter.

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I capture into an elliptical orbit around Nero before going to Agrippina. I would go closer to Nero, but that would move the Agrippina descending node away from periapsis.

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Even then, capturing is still quite cheap.

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Nero from above.

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Hadrian.

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Now I don't have to worry about Agrippina's inclination.

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Since it's so far away from Nero, capturing around Agrippina is also cheap.

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Wow, that's a lot of ore. This is great because Agrippina spins really fast, but now I don't have to aim for a specific longitude, so I can ignore its rotation.

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By actually paying attention to the latitude indicator from KER, I can land close to the equator. Who would have guessed that?

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Nero's distinctive shape is still quite visible even from this far away.

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Agrippina is not actually a "cheap knockoff Minmus" but rather serves the important role of um... uh... I don't know. It's exactly the same size as Rosmerta and doesn't have very good views of anywhere. However, it does have a distinctive and somewhat interesting appearance from space.

sNCKEpN.png

The methane plane will be seeing quite a lot of use this chapter, so I make sure to fill it up, especially the oxidizer tanks.

CCjQgVV.png

Agrippina doesn't have any mountains above 1 kilometer, so the ascent is very short.

 

(17.2) Tarsiss

Spoiler

YNuiLZu.png

One route from Agrippina to Gauss. It's quite cheap and probably what I would have stuck with if I were shorter on fuel. Unfortunately, I misjudged the transfer window, and Gauss is significantly ahead of where it should be.

gKFdVYZ.png

Still hoping for a more efficient transfer, I add a normal component to reduce the relative inclination.

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Eventually, I realize that this burn to get an immediate encounter is way cheaper than the plane change and later correction maneuvers would be.

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Catullus and Tarsiss entry trajectories always make you question your sanity. The system is realistic, but KSP's patched conics system can't handle either body very well, leading to some truly bizarre results.

gKvTxsd.png

However, when done properly, it can save a ton of fuel.  Despite my suboptimal Gauss entry, I'm still only spending 188 m/s to circularize, which is just 14 m/s more than it would be if I were coming from the edge of Gauss's SOI!

In fact, the velocity at periapsis before circularization (800.4 m/s) is less than the escape velocity at that altitude (865.4 m/s), so the Tarsiss entry trajectory is actually elliptical.

(Tarsiss's atmosphere starts at 125 km.)

7T39OAh.png

Gauss and Catullus from far away, revealing the binary nature of the system. (Catullus is not even close to being a true moon: its higher density means that it has over 20% of the mass of Gauss.)

fyhJXEi.png

From left to right: Catullus, Gauss, Tarsiss (eclipsed by Catullus), and Loki.

As you might imagine, there are a lot of eclipses in this system.

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Tarsiss eclipsing Catullus.

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In Tarsiss orbit, Valentia boards the methane plane, which is launched into the atmosphere.

In terms of physical properties, Tarsiss is a slightly less extreme version of Huygen. It's still very extreme, though, and almost all of the steps in the landing and reorbiting process are the same as on Huygen. One relevant difference is that Tarsiss doesn't have any lakes near the equator, so I am not aiming for anything in particular.

9qXMgDw.png

Tarsiss has a rapid rotation rate due to its close orbit around Catullus, reducing the surface speed of orbital velocity even further.

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The ground texture loads in, revealing a notably different color than from space. I'm not really sure why this is the case, and don't have a clue how to fix it.

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As the plane gets lower, the ground starts looking more like that of an atmospheric body.

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The plane safely touches down on the ground. It's not hard to land given how slow the stall speed is.

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However, the low gravity means that the brakes aren't very effective either. The plane goes flying off the hill... at 8.2 m/s. This is why I called Tarsiss "extreme".

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At the bottom of the canyon, the brakes are more effective at stopping the plane.

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In the picture is Gauss.

OAnBPbv.png

Ciro and Sun. The atmosphere has no shortage of haze either.

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The plane takes off without difficulty. As on Huygen, it is completely overbuilt for the ascent, and the throttle must be kept low to avoid wasting too much oxidizer.

bQFhSCd.png

LW7zivo.png

At 0.08 atm, the engine begins to lose some thrust, and the plane starts turning forward.

QcTwQUM.png

At 0.023 atm, the engine switches to wet mode.

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At 0.0044 atm, the engine finally flames out. The plane is almost all the way to orbital velocity (which would be 582 m/s surface speed at this altitude), but is going significantly upwards in order to reach space.

oZ2mbFo.png

Catullus begins to rise on the horizon.

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The plane circularizes and redocks with TGGT.

 

(17.3) Catullus descent

Spoiler

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Getting from Tarsiss to literally anywhere else is really cheap. Even a direct ejection to Icarus would take only 640 m/s.

7VMIsZt.png

For Catullus, not so much. This 800 m/s burn is pretty much completely unavoidable.

(Unrelated fun fact: not only is the 800.0 m/s figure for the circularization a complete coincidence, this particular image happens to be the 800th screenshot of the mission. That number is including a few extras that didn't make it into this thread; I number all the screenshot file names so that I can easily sort them in order, and this one was named "tggt_0800.png".)

oMT5PP4.png

There's still some ore from Agrippina in the ore tank, which is converted into oxidizer in order to refuel the plane.

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TGGT isn't in the right place to see it, but here Tarsiss eclipses Catullus while both of them are being eclipsed by Gauss.

hLVctnX.png

Bill gets in the plane and flies off into the atmosphere.

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After two months IRL and 6069 years in-game, I once again have to worry about overheating. However, the plane was thoroughly tested on Catullus and should be able to survive just fine as long as it keeps its SAS set to surface radial out.

(Catullus's atmosphere starts at 130 km.)

4FKYadT.png

The critical temperature reaches a maximum of 1430 K. By using lift to keep its vertical speed down, the plane can completely avoid any danger.

9rwroFX.png

I overshot a bit and started going back up. At this speed, there's no danger of overheating, so I turn back down.

CPEIg5e.png

The wheels assist in slowing the plane down further and turning it towards the ground.

ZZe6ClO.png

The rush towards the ground is very successful, to the point that the vertical speed is starting to get dangerous.

ehtcV4j.png

The solution to that is to do a vertical loop.

I wonder how common it is for a plane to do a loop with landing gear extended.

gskDqjQ.png

After figuring out how to land planes properly (in particular, disabling the brakes on the front wheel), a 52 m/s landing speed is totally reasonable.

5kHumok.png

The brakes are a lot more effective this time, and stop the plane relatively quickly.

PGrj70G.png

Tarsiss is quite hard to distinguish from Gauss in an image taken from Catullus. This one is Tarsiss, which I know because it's more purple than Gauss and also moves across the sky.

I have already pointed out why I think it's unrealistic that Tarsiss moves across the sky and Gauss doesn't. In summary, Tarsiss is so much closer than Gauss that it would actually exert more tidal force on Catullus, and in the current configuration, it would start unlocking Catullus's rotation from Gauss. Either way, it's a very minor issue (well, except if you're trying to ascend from Catullus, in which case an extra 269 m/s of rotational velocity would be significant) and OhioBob already knows about it.

R64dYPQ.png

I chose Bill for this landing because, as an engineer, he can remove the parachutes which are not needed any more.

ssj7mRA.png

... or not, I guess. That's unfortunate.

I guess when you think about it, lifting a parachute that weighs the same as 90 kilograms on Kerbin would be a difficult task for one Kerbal.

This just means I'll stick with my original plan. The plane was tested on Catullus with parachutes still attached, so it should work.

 

(17.4) Catullus ascent

Spoiler

Bill does make a good point. How exactly am I planning to get off of Catullus? The LFO tank only has about 1600 m/s, and the jet engine can only reach about Mach 2.5. When put together, that's still less than orbital velocity

However, when not put together, the plane can do much better. Once the engine stops working, the wings are unnecessary and can be abandoned. Along with the oxidizer tank. And the engine. And the wheels. In fact, why not just put a decoupler behind the LFO tank?

Right from the start of the mission, sitting unused for six landings, was just that. This raises the actual Δv of the LFO stage to over 3500 m/s.

Also, the speed of sound on Catullus is really fast, allowing the jet stage to go faster.

In fact, the real Catullus lander was the friends we made along the way the methane plane all along.

mQm3EzM.png

Catullus's local terrain is pretty flat, and the plane takes off easily.

CatnLhz.png

I wasn't expecting the plane to be able to go straight up in this gravity, but I guess I underestimated how light the plane really was. (The jet engine makes up 17% of the total mass.)

BqZcx4j.png

As the air gets thinner, the plane turns towards a more standard ascent profile.

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The plane switches to wet mode. It's not supersonic yet, but I need to get going really fast as quickly as possible.

hZpa5XG.png

The jet stage reaches its maximum speed and squeezes out the last bit of Δv that it can.

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Right before the engine would have flamed out from lack of air, it runs out of oxidizer instead.

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The plane stage separates from the front, leaving only what's necessary to get to orbit.

oeMP1Il.png

The LFO stage on the plane rocket ignites.

VAib8td.png

The acceleration from the engines increases rapidly, and the shallow ascent profile causes significant heating. However, with the heat-resistant shielded docking port at the front, it's not very dangerous.

e5HVvnt.png

Apoapsis raising is completed, and the flames die down.

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Circularization.

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The last rendezvous and redocking.

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Once Bill gets back on TGGT, the rocket stage is now uncontrolled and is effectively space junk. However, I have a good way to get rid of it: the tried-and-tested catapult maneuver.

After the number of times I've done it, I figured it was time to show it in action.

At the end, the rocket's periapsis is at 105.7 km, well into the atmosphere.

IZ6cOpF.png

The docking port and service bay are left open, causing lots of drag that allows the rocket to survive reentry.

IaAyGny.png

There is some minor overheating, but it's slowing down quickly.

tDkqg1q.png

ZCJOUCO.png

However, the drag is not enough to slow it down to a safe speed before it reaches the surface.

GVcSdvZ.png

 

Ending with a satisfying crash into the surface of Catullus, TGGT's preliminary mission of carrying specialized rockets and planes across the system is finally complete. Now in low Catullus orbit with all three crewmembers, some ore, and full fuel tanks, it can start its true mission: landing on every single remaining solid planet and moon!

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Leganeski

Leganeski

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Part 18: Thalia and Icarus

e6UtXrZ.png

 

Now completely unencumbered, TGGT has enough Δv (8840 m/s in total) to get past any problem that might come its way. For example:

  • Icarus is hard to reach safely. However, I can avoid the problem by refueling on Eta, which is relatively close by.
  • Thalia doesn't have any ore, so I can't refuel there. However, I can circumvent the problem by refueling on its moon Eta instead.
  • Icarus orbits very close to Ciro, requiring a huge ejection burn to leave. However, I can mitigate the problem by ejecting only to Eta, and refueling there.

Wait... that's not good. I can only refuel on Eta once. Maybe this is more of a problem than I was anticipating.

However, the trip from Eta to Icarus costs quite a bit less than 8840 m/s. Maybe I can stick a Thalia landing in the middle.

Getting back from Icarus can be accomplished using ... uh ... a lot of gravity assists, probably.

 

(18.1) Eta

Spoiler

CLUjy0F.png

Instead of leaving for Eta directly, I eject to Gratian to save fuel.

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At Gratian, I perform a gravity assist putting me on a 1:1 resonance.

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Gratian and Geminus.

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The second Gratian assist lines my orbit up with Tellumo.

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The Tellumo assist results in a high-energy transfer to Gael, so that my relative velocity with Gael is enough to get to Thalia.

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Tellumo looks even better from off of the equator, especially now with Scatterer installed.

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The Gael assist gets me the rest of the way to Thalia.

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Eta orbits so slowly that synchronizing my arrival time with it is very difficult. In this case, that was more expensive than just intercepting it at an angle.

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The capture burn is expensive, but it's a lot better than the 4900 m/s burn I would get if I came directly from Gauss.

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The burn starts way before periapsis, but it's still well within Eta's SOI, avoiding the most severe issues.

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Eta has a good amount of ore, in areas that aren't super hard to hit.

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I added the "Impact Latitude" readout to KER a while ago but then forgot about it. It turns out that it makes targeting the equator much easier!

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Eta is the same size as stock Minmus, but the terrain is not as nice to land on.

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Refueling at Eta. I better make this fuel count.

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Jebediah gets a head start on forming an opinion about Thalia.

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I wonder what could possibly have influenced his opinion.

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Eta has no tall mountains, so this is actually a stable orbit.

 

(18.2) Thalia

Due to the nature of Thalia, I end up encountering some of its features that can only really be discovered by actually going there. If you haven't been to Thalia yet and would like to avoid spoilers, you might want to skip this section.

Spoiler

W85xy1w.png

The ejection burn to low Thalia orbit. Thalia is unique in that it's an airless body I don't need an ore scan for, so I can go as close to the surface as possible.

4mIpmFU.png

Unfortunately, Thalia is also the largest airless body (by mass; Enon has a slightly larger radius and its very thin atmosphere is not modeled in-game). This makes circularization and landing costs rather high; so much so that it doesn't really feel like an airless body anymore.

J2h30rX.png

Thalia's radiation belts are no joke either. TGGT can survive much higher temperatures, but not when the heat is evenly distributed like this. In fact, the thermometer currently reading 1012.5 K can only go up to 1200 K before melting.

uaiN8RK.png

From up close, Thalia somehow looks even less inviting.

fTTsYcA.png

I tried a normal landing procedure, forgetting that I was starting at 6 km rather than 25 km. The result: 269.1 m/s surface speed, 10.6 seconds to impact, and 5.89 m/s of acceleration. That would end very poorly, so I reloaded at this point.

uQKSEF8.png

On the next attempt, I try a constant altitude descent. I generally don't do this because it's much harder to pilot (compared to telling SAS to hold retrograde), but this time I didn't have any other reasonable choice.

e8VGFVf.png

It works fairly well, and doesn't cost too much extra fuel.

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As expected, there's no ore. I knew this ahead of time because (even bigger spoiler)

Spoiler

in GPP's ore distribution config file, Thalia's biomes are set to have a 0% chance of ore and and a 0% maximum ore concentration.

zES6fsb.png

tFpy4e6.png

Thalia's surface gravity is so high that the ladders are required.

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Ascent is much more difficult than on smaller bodies, and TGGT continues upwards for a while in order to have enough time to circularize.

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I end up circularizing at over 9000 m, which is apparently the altitude that I should have descended from to be safe.

 

(18.3) Icarus

Spoiler

Bw5Uc4i.png

The ejection to Icarus is expensive, but at least I don't have to do a plane change burn.

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The Icarus capture burn is even more expensive, but not as much as I was fearing because I intercepted it while it was close to periapsis.

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Once in orbit, Icarus's smaller size makes circularization easy. This is good, because I'm beginning to run out of fuel.

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Icarus has a very good ore distribution. Really, any ore at all is good; Icarus not having ore was one of the few possibilities that I could not think of a way to recover from.

B3HUGsO.png

In contrast to the ore distribution, the terrain is decidedly not great.

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It takes eleven minutes of sliding to finally come to a stop, during which the reaction wheels used so much electricity that I had to turn on the fuel cells. (TGGT has 45 kg of oxidizer storage, which is enough for 6545 electric charge.)

8HYHkYO.png

Ciro is rather bright from this close.

790SBDW.png

In fact, there's so much stellar flux that it maxes out the radiators during refueling. However, the other parts can radiate enough to keep the internal temperature reasonable.

87d8VqB.png

During refueling, Ciro moves noticeably with respect to the background stars. Icarus isn't tidally locked, but it is in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, so its rotation is still quite slow.

 

(18.4) Leaving Icarus

Spoiler

cpUeASg.png

After reaching orbit, my plan was to go to Ceti and refuel again there. However, I only have 4071 m/s of refined liquid fuel available because the rest of it is stored as unrefined ore. This isn't enough to get to Gael, so I eject to Niven and try to set up a gravity assist chain.

In fact, 4071 m/s isn't enough to get to Niven either. However, the burn is ten minutes long, during which the converter can refine some ore and hopefully provide the remainder of the fuel.

eWKZ5Ki.png

The burn starts, and the converter gets to work. I've already gone down from 198 m/s to 190 m/s missing.

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Unfortunately, cosine losses begin to appear. I'm still at 190 m/s missing for the burn.

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As Icarus's gravity gets weaker, the losses decrease, and the amount of missing fuel starts to go back down again. But then I run out of liquid fuel. Oh well. I guess the converter isn't that fast after all.

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An hour later, after the converter has made some more fuel, I burn the rest of the way to Niven.

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The first Niven assist gets rid of some unwanted inclination while also raising the orbit a little.

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Niven, the planet that will eventually cause piloting issues when I try to launch from it with a relative TWR only barely above 1.
However, I'm going too fast to safely land there now, so I'll do that later.

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The second Niven assist is equatorial and dips slightly into the atmosphere (which starts at 75 km).

Note that the deflection angle of the assist is less than 60 degrees, meaning that I'm going too fast relative to Niven. If I were going slower, each assist would give more Δv.

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This time, I get a much better viewing angle, making it look a lot less like Duna.

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TGGT starts heating up from the aerobraking, but only reaches 75% of its maximum temperature. This means I can go a bit lower next time and reduce my speed more.

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I'm making progress, but Niven isn't that big relative to its velocity around Ciro, so the progress is pretty slow.

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The next assist goes down to 64.5 km in the hopes that I can get more substantial aerobraking.

I4urDO7.png

My trajectory around Niven is also retrograde this time, increasing the surface speed by 270 m/s. The temperature reaches 92% of the maximum that the fuel tanks can handle, but the deceleration also increases. From the atmospheric efficiency and local gravity listed on KER, the deceleration here at periapsis is ... a whopping 0.173 m/s2.

Maybe going to Niven wasn't such a good idea after all.

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The assist pushes my Ciro apoapsis up a little bit higher, lowering the burn needed to get to Gael. This burn is technically unnecessary, but I'm getting somewhat impatient with the Niven assists, and the 3850 m/s remaining in the fuel tanks is much more than enough to slow down and land at the next stop.

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The Gael assist raises my orbit by quite a bit.

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At this point, I'm not sure that losing relative velocity is such a good idea anymore, so I perform only minimal aerobraking.

Actually, though, it wouldn't hurt if the exposed claws overheated and exploded. That would save fuel as well.

9wAhVP4.png

Wait, I have an engineer; I can just remove them manually. I remove three of them and two of the docking ports, leaving one of each in case a weird situation arises.

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The next Gael assist gets me the rest of the way to Tellumo.

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Periapsis is reached right at the day-night terminator, leading to great views of the surface.

Now that I have a trajectory intersecting Tellumo's orbit, I have successfully made it out of the inner Ciro system. Tellumo is huge, so an assist can take me just about anywhere I want.

In fact, that seems to be a problem with the rest of the mission: since I have no planes to worry about, I can go just about anywhere after each refueling stop. I could just go back to Niven with a more reasonable intercept speed, land on it and refuel, and then go to all the rest of the bodies in order. That would just be a bunch of outwards Hohmann transfers, and would get pretty boring.

So instead of doing anything sensible like that, I'm going to land on all the remaining bodies in the Ciro system in alphabetical order, starting with Agrippina wait no I already went to Agrippina Argo. That will hopefully require more interesting transfers, and probably many more gravity assists.

 

Gravity assists so far: 17 (9 performed this chapter)
Flags remaining: 35 (3 planted this chapter)

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Leganeski

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Part 19: Argo

and some large moons

NXyhoUl.png

 

TGGT reaches Argo and continues its ever more systematic journey through the Ciro system.

I'm beginning to run out of things to say about the mission, so I'll try to include fun facts about the bodies I visit in addition to commentary.

I'll also compare the theoretical Δv cost of each leg of the trip (ignoring aerodynamic drag, TWR constraints, inclination, timing inaccuracies, and gravity assists) to how much Δv I actually spent.

 

(Yes, Argo is the smallest body in this chapter. However, it's the only one that technically qualifies as a planet, so it got the chapter title.)

 

(19.1) Argo

Theoretical Δv cost (Icarus to Argo): 9307 m/s
Actual Δv cost: ~6220 m/s (gravity assists at Niven, Niven, Niven, Gael, Gael, Tellumo, Gauss, and Nero)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Argo is the least dense solid body, with a density of 1.535 g/cm3. It is only barely denser than the gas giant Gauss (1.445 g/cm3).

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The Tellumo assist pushes TGGT's orbit out to Gauss.

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Tellumo is an extremely effective gravity assist location, so there will be a lot of pictures of it.

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The Gauss assist leads to Nero in a significantly less eccentric Ciro trajectory.

(The bar at the bottom of this image is there because I accidentally pasted a copy of the screenshot over itself while converting it to the right image format in Preview, and didn't notice until now.)

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Gauss and Catullus, each with their moon.

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A clearer shot of Loki.

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One last assist at Nero raises the Ciro trajectory to intersect the the orbit of Hox-Argo very nicely.

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I'm not changing the orbit very much, so I don't have to get very close to Nero. Still, I wasn't expecting to be quite this far away.

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After a couple more orbits of Ciro, Hox comes into view.

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Argo has the slowest orbit in the Ciro system, making the capture burn very small.

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The ore distribution is okay, although not very close to the equator.

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Landing presents no problems.

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I ended up landing right next to a biome transition, resulting in some huge cliffs.

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Wait, what? I'm pretty sure I landed in the pink area of the ore map. Where's the ore?

Oh right, I landed next to a biome transition. It's probably in the other biome.

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The low surface gravity makes biome-hopping easy.

ykygTEa.png

There's the ore.

 

(19.2) Augustus

Theoretical Δv: 2662 m/s
Actual Δv: 3708 m/s (inefficient transfer, some aerobraking)

Spoiler

Next in alphabetical order is Augustus. There's not much to save with gravity assists, so I go there directly.

Fun fact: Augustus is the second-largest moon after Laythe (by mass; Tylo has a larger radius but is less dense). It doesn't really feel larger than Tarsiss or Hadrian, but it in fact has a slightly larger radius and much more surface gravity. 

vXN5CfU.png

Even with seemingly suboptimal maneuvers, getting around the outer system is really cheap.

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A correction burn partway through leads to a direct Otho encounter.

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Otho and Augustus.

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The capture burn is not cheap, but I can aerobrake some of it.

(Augustus's atmosphere starts at 65 km.)

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Remembering Augustus's relatively low surface gravity but forgetting about how cold it is, I put my aerobraking periapsis significantly higher than it should have been.

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The ore distribution is quite good, a relief considering how difficult it is to target a specific location on an atmospheric body.

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I begin the suicide burn late, knowing that the parachute will help.

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Even a single Mk16-XL parachute is somewhat effective, and saves over 100 m/s.

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On the other hand, it also causes stability issues when the engines are turned on, so I cut the parachute after reaching a safe speed.

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Augustus looks a lot like Duna from space, but the color from the surface is noticeably different.

NRsygHa.png

Readings from the science instruments. The actual ambient temperature is about 140 K, but the thermometer is warmer than that because the converter is still refining ore from Argo, producing heat that spreads throughout the rest of the craft.

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Jeb tries parachuting down from the top of TGGT. It doesn't really go well.

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In fact, I have successfully flown a propeller plane at Augustus in a different save. It didn't manage to land without crashing, but it did fly.

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Some more ladder action.

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Sunset during refueling. Hephaestus (I think) is visible in the top left.

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Later, as Ciro disappears behind Otho, the light of the atmosphere recedes to the east.

(The star prominently visible in the sky is Sun, which no longer lights up the atmosphere from this far away.)

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Otho right at the end of the eclipse, with Ciro about to appear at the top.

 

Looking back at this section after doing some atmospheric shenanigans at Hadrian, I could have saved way more fuel with aerobraking than I did. I guess that goes to show how much I've learned over the course of the mission.

 

(19.3) Catullus Ceti

Theoretical Δv: 4723 m/s
Actual Δv: 4120 m/s (drag at Augustus, but then two gravity assists at Tellumo)

Spoiler

I already went to Catullus, so the next target is Ceti.

Fun fact: Ceti is the slowest rotating object in the Ciro-Grannus system, with a rotational period of 63 days (and a stellar day of 74 Kerbin days).

mjEKloe.png

Augustus's atmosphere has a relatively low scale height, so I start turning soon after takeoff.

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Ceti is much deeper inside the Ciro system, so instead of going directly there, I eject to Tellumo for a gravity assist.

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While leaving the Otho system, Hephaestus appears to the right of Augustus.

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Tellumo is really big, but not quite enough to get all the way to Gael, so the the assist leads to a 1:1 resonant orbit with it.

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Tellumo's rings from up close.

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The next assist goes the rest of the way to Gael.

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The approach to Ceti ends up being at a very good angle.

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For a  moon in the inner system, that circularization burn isn't very bad.

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Ceti is completely full of ore! Its slow rotation also means that landing sites are easier to target.

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Landing on the surface. Gael is easy to notice from here, but it's not very big in the sky.

ePI8aLD.png

In fact, Ceti is such a great refueling spot that it would be able to save the mission if Niven ends up not having ore. I don't really have any alternatives left (Lili orbits too fast and Geminus is too big), so I skip refueling on Ceti now in case that happens.

 

(19.4) Ciro Eta Gael Gauss Geminus

Theoretical Δv: 3479 m/s
Actual Δv: 2630 m/s (gravity assist at Tellumo)

Spoiler

TU4kqwX.png

Ceti doesn't have much Oberth effect, so I want to avoid as much stellar apoapsis raising as I can. To do this, I eject to Tellumo and perform a gravity assist.

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Tellumo is so big that the assist almost completely reverses the relative velocity, pushing TGGT's orbit the rest of the way to Gratian.

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Lili in a gap between Tellumo's rings.

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Behind the rings, Ciro changes color slightly.

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Lili orbits so fast that it quickly reappears on the other side of Tellumo.

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Unlike Ceti, Geminus is big and orbits quickly, significantly reducing the capture burn.

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Gratian, and Geminus eclipsing it.

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Geminus's ore distribution is not great. However, there is one small patch on the equator.

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TGGT safely touches down... onto the side of a hill. On Geminus, this is pretty much unavoidable.

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After a seven minute slide, it comes to a stop and can refuel normally.

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Valentina, the pilot in charge of the landing, is not happy about the terrain. It's easy enough to avoid mountains with a relative TWR of 5.5, but that decreases a lot during refueling.

 

TGGT is now on the surface of Geminus with full tanks. The next target is Hadrian, which provides a temporary return to aerodynamic rather than orbital challenges.

 

Gravity assists so far: 23 (6 performed this chapter)
Flags remaining: 31 (4 planted this chapter)

Edited by Leganeski
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Part 20: Hadrian

oJxrQ2g.png

 

Hadrian doesn't really fit into either of the adjacent chapters, and I have a lot to say about it, so it gets its own chapter.

Why is Hadrian so special? It's the only body with a dense inert atmosphere, and this combined with its low gravity makes flying there completely different from anywhere else.

In fact, the conditions are so unusual that I've often said one could fly a brick there. Well, TGGT is shaped approximately like a brick. It's time to find out whether or not that's true!

 

(20.1) Reaching Gratian Hadrian

Theoretical Δv: 2485 m/s
Actual Δv: 3340 m/s (inefficient transfer, but then some aerobraking)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Hadrian's atmosphere is more than three times as dense (2.092 g/m3) as the next most dense inert atmosphere (Tylo, with a density of 0.568 g/m3).

4SMDF2J.png

Leaving Geminus. It's pretty big, but not enough to pose much of a problem.

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The transfer to Nero. It feels a lot like the transfer from Kerbin to Jool which I have done so many times in stock system saves.

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Hadrian's orbital inclination can occasionally be helpful, but it certainly isn't here.

The southwards speed isn't great, but I should be able to get rid of most of it with aerobraking.

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The capture maneuver. It's too much to aerobrake with no heat shielding, so I have to add in some rocket braking too.

UzJBFDB.png

When facing backwards, TGGT is pretty heat-resistant. However, it's also somewhat prone to flipping, exposing the more delicate parts on the top. (I would have thought that the first part to overheat would be the ore scanner, but, somewhat ironically, it was actually the thermometer.) To prevent this, I slow down somewhat before entering the atmosphere.

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The rocket braking continues into the atmosphere, because I do need to get captured in one pass.

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ueRNT6X.png

By the time I leave the atmosphere, I've managed to get captured into a polar orbit. It did use more fuel than I was hoping for, though.

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Hadrian and Nero.

 

(20.2) Descent

Theoretical Δv: 985 m/s (from elliptical polar orbit)
Actual Δv: 135 m/s (aerobraking)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Hadrian's ocean is the only one that has the same composition as the atmosphere (both are almost completely pure nitrogen).

lhFTcJz.png

It's a bit hard to see, but there's plenty of ore on the equator. There's just one problem with that ore: it's under the bottom of the ocean. TGGT has never been tested in liquid because it was never supposed to go anywhere with an ocean, and I doubt it could even remain upright. Even if it did, it would likely float, preventing it from reaching the ground.

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Instead, I aim for the poles, which have land that is relatively easy to target. There's not much ore there, but I wasn't planning on refueling and can make it to Hephaestus with the fuel I have left.

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My aerobraking trajectory ended up overshooting the polar continent, so I rocket brake a bit more.

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TGGT is not aerodynamic and cannot easily control its trajectory. However, it does have some control, obtained through body lift. By doing this, I can move the landing spot at least sort of close to the pole.

meJrz2I.png

JWQ760X.png

Parachutes are extremely effective at Hadrian: the single Mk16-XL cluster, meant for the three-ton emergency capsule, can slow down the 232-ton rocket to 25 m/s.

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TGGT rocket brakes the rest of the way, landing safely on the ground.

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Bill tries parachuting off the top of the rocket.

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It's also very effective, even at the low speeds involved.

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A beach landing wouldn't have been possible either: I was aiming for the pole and ended up 35 kilometers away, and that level of precision would have negated all the advantages of going to the beach unless I wanted to walk 70 kilometers. Traveling across the surface for nine hours straight might be enjoyable to some people, but it's not exactly what I'm trying to achieve on this mission.

 

(20.3) Ascent

Theoretical Δv: 816 m/s (from pole)
Actual Δv: 1559 m/s (drag, suboptimal ascent profile)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Hadrian is exactly the same size as Riga (300 km radius, 0.18 g surface gravity).

CcWgp4p.png

Despite the density of the atmosphere, its cold temperature means that the surface pressure isn't very high, allowing nuclear rockets and EVA jetpacks to work.

LzI3O3L.png

As it turns out, there is ore in the Poles biome! Hadrian is so inconvenient to land on that I wouldn't want to refuel there in the future anyway, so there's no reason not to refuel now.

sEcqdA4.png

Due to the atmosphere, the engines are operating at reduced efficiency (635 s, compared to their vacuum efficiency of 820 s), but it's still way more than enough to counter Hadrian's low gravity.

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TGGT will flip if I start turning too early, so I continue the ascent straight up for a while.

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By the time I start turning, my apoapsis is already out of the atmosphere.

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Circularization. The resulting orbit is polar, but Hadrian already has enough orbital inclination that I can't avoid inclination entirely.

 

TGGT is now in low Hadrian orbit, ready to go to the next moon, Hephaestus. However, the trip to Hadrian has left some unresolved questions. Can TGGT really fly there? It was certainly using lift to steer, but it never managed to entirely stop its vertical descent. That can't really be called "flying". 

Yet it did manage to get close, and that was with moderately full tanks. What if the tanks were empty?

 

(Spinoff 1) Flying the brick

Spoiler

While this spinoff starts where the previous section left off, it is not part of the mission, and will not affect the next chapter.

hOqdl7d.png

Hidden in plain sight among the scientific instruments is a drain valve, through which most of the fuel is drained.

XuHI9Qq.png

After deorbiting, TGGT flies better with its reduced mass. However, it can't quite get its vertical speed to zero.

JyMhX31.png

However, planes can use thrust to maintain flight. After a short burn, TGGT is going up again.

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TGGT is now going upwards and traveling at less than terminal velocity, and with all of its engines turned off, still manages to maintain an upwards vertical acceleration through body lift alone. This combination guarantees that the lift-to-drag ratio is higher than 1, meaning that TGGT has successfully achieved aerodynamic flight!

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After flying for less than a minute, running out of speed, and deploying its parachute in a desperate attempt to survive, TGGT crashes into the river.

Maybe I should have used an actual plane instead.

 

(Spinoff 2) Flying an actual plane instead

Spoiler

Hadrian's atmosphere is inert, so I can't use any jet engines there.

Wait, that didn't stop the oxygen plane from going to Epona, which has no oxygen. Hadrian is way smaller than Epona and its atmosphere isn't as dense, so it should be easy to launch from. Why didn't I think of this before adding Hadrian to TGGT's target list?

The oxygen plane is currently recovered at Kerbin. I could get it to Hadrian without breaking continuity, but it would require eight tons of liquid fuel and one Bob Kerman, both available at the KSC. That would violate the rules of the grand tour.

It would also take a while. Instead of doing that, I reverted to the end of section 12.2, when the oxygen plane was fully fueled and landed on Nodens, and used the cheat menu to place it above Hadrian.

In case it wasn't clear, this section is also very much not part of the mission.

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The oxygen plane back in year 4104, having just landed on Nodens.

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One "set position" later, the plane is flying at Hadrian.

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The stall speed on Hadrian is so slow that there's not much risk of crashing during touchdown.

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However, the hill ended right there, and the plane goes flying off the edge. Maybe the wings are a bit too effective here.

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After reaching the other side of the valley, the brakes finally slow the plane to a stop.

AHGUIwv.png

Hadrian has less atmospheric pressure than Epona, so the nuclear engines can function properly and take the plane off the ground.

0w2JrT1.png

The plane doesn't need the extra thrust from the RAPIER, but I'm using it anyway to get rid of the oxidizer.

hKxk0qS.png

The nuclear engines are totally overkill for Hadrian's low gravity, and the rest of the ascent is straightforward.

ufdd0q2.png

The plane makes it to orbit with 2495 m/s to spare. That's the same amount as it had after ascending from Laythe!

 

In conclusion: not only can the oxygen plane fly at Hadrian, it does so better than anywhere else.

 

Flags remaining: 30 (1 planted this chapter)

Edited by Leganeski
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