Team Galileo Grand Tour

[Leganeski]

Part 21: Otho and Hox

 

TGGT goes to Otho's remaining moons, as well as Hox.

 

(21.1) Hephaestus

Theoretical Δv: 1870 m/s
Actual Δv: 3019 m/s (inefficient transfer)

As it turns out, my previous "actual Δv" calculations were in some cases off by up to 0.1 - 0.2% because I was ignoring the 282 kg mass of the crew members and their personal equipment. Now that I've fixed this, my future calculations should be more accurate.

This means that TGGT's true Δv capacity, assuming full crew and oxidizer storage, is 8843 m/s.

Spoiler

Fun fact: of all the bodies in the Ciro system (not counting Lili's equatorial ridge), Hephaestus has the tallest mountain relative to its size (5737 m, or 4.59% of its radius).

The ejection to Otho. Hadrian has a lot of Oberth effect, so a Gauss gravity assist wouldn't reduce this burn much.

The initial polar orbit results in an unfortunately high inclination. Thankfully, the descending node is in almost exactly the right place.

Leaving Hadrian.

The six-degree relative inclination gets magnified significantly when viewed relative to Otho. I could have reduced it more effectively by ejecting at a slightly different time, but I have some extra fuel and am going to refuel at Hephaestus, so I stuck with the direct route.

Approaching the Otho system from an unusual angle. (The camera is in orbit mode, so Augustus is moving up and to the right relative to this picture.)

This inclination is really not great. On the other hand, at least I get a polar orbit easily.

Hephaestus has a nice ore patch on the equator, but it appears to be in a mountainous biome.

Hephaestus has pretty low gravity; what could go wrong?

As it turns out, while the mountain range might be sloped, the terrain next to it is quite flat.

The landing site is at a totally reasonable slope! That's almost the complete opposite of Hadrian.

The phases of Augustus are really interesting to watch from here.

TGGT refuels to prepare for the trip to Hox. Hox is an ice planet, so it isn't as likely to have ore.

 

(21.2) Hox

Theoretical Δv: 2267 m/s
Actual Δv: 2323 m/s (some aerobraking at Hox)

Spoiler

Fun fact: parachutes are actually more effective on Hox than they are on Niven (Niven's atmosphere is 2.61 times denser, but its surface gravity is 3.57 times stronger). Or at least they would be, if the deploy requirement was based on density rather than pressure and deploying parachutes on Hox was actually possible.

Actually, I don't see any reason why the deploy requirement shouldn't be based on density, or at least consider the average temperature of the planet when determining the minimum deployment pressure. Maybe there could be a mod for that, but I wouldn't know how to make it.

(Even RealChute doesn't do that. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but having a deployment requirement based on pressure seems really inaccurate at extreme temperatures.)

I started the gravity turn a too late, resulting in some small losses.

Most of the ascent is completed during the circularization burn. Since Hephaestus's gravity isn't particularly high, this ends up working successfully.

The ejection to Hox. It's right at a transfer window, but due to Hox's high orbital inclination, it doesn't quite reach an encounter.

From left to right: Hephaestus, Otho, Ciro, Augustus, and (I think) Jannah.

A moderate correction burn leads to a good encounter.

Hox's atmosphere (which starts at 50 km) is not very thick, but that doesn't matter much for aerobraking. A periapsis of 14 km seems about right; I don't want to go too much lower than that or I risk hitting a mountain.

Because Hox is so small, the air near the edge of the atmosphere starts getting thick quickly.

(This is because the cutoff for the end of the atmosphere is based on when the dynamic pressure at orbital velocity falls below a certain value, and Hox's low orbital velocity means that more air is required to reach the same dynamic pressure.)

TGGT points straight down in order to maximize the surface area exposed to the atmosphere, and thus aerobrake more effectively.

I can't let my periapsis get too low, so TGGT turns to face up, providing some body lift.

Once I get closer to periapsis and the danger of crashing is averted, I turn down again.

TGGT has successfully captured into orbit.

By the time TGGT leaves the atmosphere, it has lost 500 m/s to aerobraking without spending any fuel or getting anywhere near overheating. Hox is great!

I proceeded with the ore scan procedure with an apoapsis of 1304 km, remembering that it was below the scanner's limit of 1500 km. However, I forgot that Hox's radius is less than 300 km, meaning that the actual altitude limit is lower.

After fixing my apoapsis, I get some ore data. There's ore everywhere! In fact, not only is its ore distribution great, but Hox is cheap to land on coming from almost anywhere else, making it a great refueling spot. I don't need fuel now, so it would be better to save Hox as a refueling spot for later.

When traveling below orbital velocity, however, Hox's atmosphere is not very helpful.

This was the most drag I achieved during the landing procedure. Comparing the local gravity to my vertical acceleration, I'm still only saving 0.20 m/s².

Landing on dark terrain at night was not great, but Hox's gravity is low enough that I could ensure safety by approaching the ground slowly.

Instead of refueling, I convert more of the ore from Hephaestus into liquid fuel.

Why does this place feel like a frozen wasteland? The KER readout offers a clue:

Maybe this wasn't the best landing location for sightseeing.

Zooming in, Argo is visible above the horizon. During the day, though, it's a bit hard to make out any features.

The EVA jetpacks work just fine here.

 

(21.3) Icarus Iota Jannah

Theoretical Δv: 2123 m/s
Actual Δv: 2898 m/s (some drag at Hox, inefficient transfer)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Jannah is the only body with a nice round average orbit distance (65 Mm) and orbital period (14.5 days, with a four-second error). I don't know whether this was intentional, but it's certainly an interesting coincidence.

Hox's atmosphere, although thin, is still relevant, and TGGT carries out a standard gravity turn.

Because the air near the edge of the atmosphere is thicker than at other bodies, I put my apoapsis well above the atmosphere to avoid staying there for too long and encountering excessive drag.

The direct route to Otho, prioritizing launching at a relative node over the transfer window. The resulting transfer is not super efficient, but it is fast and easy, and with how much fuel I have left, that's more important.

 I may be coming in to Otho a little fast, but at least there's not much inclination.

For some reason, the values below the separator in KER's left HUD haven't updated since entering Otho's SOI. It says that the local gravity is 0.87 m/s², but Jannah's datum level gravity is 0.64 m/s².

That's not too much of a problem; I can still use the somewhat inaccurate stock Δv readout to get a good idea of how much fuel I have left, and Jannah's gravity isn't high enough for me to need to worry about TWR.

Jannah has one small ore patch on the equator. It rotates slowly, so the patch is easy to target.

Descent goes smoothly.

 

Flags remaining: 27 (3 planted this chapter)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Leganeski

[Leganeski]

Part 22: Leto and Gauss

(Gauss was below the horizon, so I took a picture of everything else in the planetary system.)

 

TGGT gets a test of its steering capabilities in atmosphere and its sliding capabilities on slopes.

 

(22.1) Julia Leto

Theoretical Δv: 2082 m/s
Actual Δv: 1585 m/s (aerobraking)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Leto is the smallest atmospheric body, and its atmosphere is the thinnest (excluding Enon, whose atmosphere is not thick enough to be implemented in-game).

Leto's poles have the coldest average ambient temperature of anywhere (~30 K).

Refueling on Jannah.

The ejection to Leto. The transfer window happens to be close to the relative ascending node, so the burn lines up almost perfectly.

Although not very visible, Leto does have a thin atmosphere that goes up to 45 km. It's perfect for aerobraking into orbit.

Initially, I point sideways in order to maximize the area exposed to air.

As my periapsis gets closer to the terrain, I turn to point upwards, pulling the periapsis back up.

Leto's atmosphere is more effective than I thought and my latitude is pretty close to the equator currently; I wonder if I can land directly.

Almost. I slowed down successfully, but hit the ground going sideways too fast.

Attempt 2: I generated too much body lift and began to leave the atmosphere.

Attempt 3: the mountain was too steep, and TGGT started to flip over. Maybe I could turn on the engines and try again.

Attempt 4: not quite. These legs aren't really meant to land in any direction except straight down.

Maybe I should get to orbit first, then try again.

After passing periapsis, I turn back down again to maximize the amount of time spent in the atmosphere.

Attempt 5: successful? I made it into orbit, using a lot less fuel than it would have taken without aerobraking.

The ore distribution is not great. Leto spins rapidly, has an atmosphere, and has almost ore on the equator. Any one of those things I could deal with, but all three means that I can't reliably target good biomes.

TGGT's tanks are still 79% full, so I don't need to refuel yet.

Back into the atmosphere for another attempt at aerobraking.

I'm going slower this time, so I have to push my periapsis lower to get the same drag from the atmosphere.

Now that I'm going slower than orbital velocity, the goal is to stay in the air for as long as possible.

TGGT manages to turn its trajectory to point back upwards. This technically satisfies the definition of "flying" I proposed at Hadrian, but that's not really accurate: if you subtract centripetal acceleration from the local gravitational acceleration, I'm actually going quite a bit faster than terminal velocity.

At this point, I'm no longer getting much drag out of the atmosphere.

The landing burn begins. I've slowed down from 1020 m/s to 310 m/s while using only 25 m/s of fuel, proving the worth of Leto's atmosphere.

This time, I make sure to kill all of my horizontal velocity well before reaching the surface.

The landing is successful, but the slope is still too much for the landing legs to remain firmly planted.

Nine minutes later, shortly before I would have run out of electricity, TGGT reaches a less steep slope and slows down enough that I can activate time warp.

The star in the picture is actually Ciro! Leto is just really far away from everything else, making it really cold.At the current temperature (~44 K, far below the freezing point of water) and pressure (414 Pa, somewhat below the triple point of water), the water ice covering the surface of Leto is probably not actually very slippery.

 

(22.2) Lili

Theoretical Δv: 3558 m/s
Actual Δv: 3315 m/s (gravity assist at Otho)

Spoiler

Fun fact: when modeled as a sphere at the datum level (radius 7 km), Lili is the densest solid body, with a density of 7.517 g/cm³. This is more than the actual densest solid body, Tellumo (6.665 g/cm³) and less than only Grannus (8.302 g/cm³).

Lili is also by far the fastest-rotating body (42 minutes 35 seconds), spinning much faster than even Edna (2 hours).

The atmosphere is so thin that I can start the gravity turn very quickly.

 

I launched from a moderate latitude, but a combination plane change and circularization burn fixes the inclination.

The trip to Lili uses a gravity assist at Otho, mainly to reduce the Tellumo capture burn.

The Otho assist leads to an orbit intersecting Tellumo's orbit very nicely.

Hephaestus (top left) passes fairly close by.

Augustus passes very close by. The trajectory narrowly misses its SOI, and even that is only because I adjusted it to avoid an intercept.

The previous picture in map view.

The Tellumo approach. Lili's orbit line is not visible, but it orbits at a constant altitude of 455 km, making it fairly easy to intersect.

Tellumo is really nice when you're using it for a gravity assist, but I forgot how unpleasant it is to actually enter a low orbit. This is only half of the circularization burn, which I had to break up because of Tellumo's very high gravity.

Ciro shining through the rings.

I have to reach an orbit more than 25 km above Lili for the ore scanner to work, which is almost all the way out of its SOI.

In fact, this circularization burn doesn't fit inside the SOI, even with TGGT's overly high TWR.

I start burning at a pretty normal location, but I'm not close enough to Lili to actually be in its SOI yet.

Patched conics at its finest.

The equator is full of ore!

... on the one body where the equator is completely inaccessible. Lili, being tidally locked to the very close and large Tellumo, spins absurdly fast, and its synchronous orbit altitude (3602 m) is actually below its equatorial ridge. If you try to land on the ridge, you bounce right back off into orbit, and possibly out of Lili's SOI entirely.

The ore distribution in the middle latitudes isn't great, either. It looks like I will have to aim for the south pole. At least there I won't have to worry about rotational velocity.

From this angle, I can see Lili's rotation well. From this picture to the time I come to a stop on the ground below, Lili spins all the way around.

Maybe the polar terrain was not such a good landing spot. If Lili's gravity were higher, this would have ended in a massive explosion.

Correction: the polar terrain was definitely not a good landing spot. At the pole, there's a funnel leading directly into the void.

After a short burn away from the pole, I'm in much less danger of glitched terrain.

Finally, 14 minutes after touchdown, TGGT slows down enough to enable time warp.

Refueling.

The terrain is only somewhat less bad here, but in the low gravity, that's good enough.

 

(22.3) Loki

Theoretical Δv: 3231 m/s
Actual Δv: 2980 m/s (gravity assist at Catullus)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Loki is exactly the same size as Hamek (radius 180 km, surface gravity 0.1 g).

The gravity turn from Lili's surface is very steep to avoid the mountains.

If I wanted to eject directly to Gauss, I would have to correctly line up my orbit around Lili (with a period of ~65 minutes) with Lili's orbit around Tellumo (with a period of 43 minutes). This would already be very difficult, but my orbit around Lili is also polar, making it pretty much impossible. Instead, I leave Lili's SOI with a small burn and enter a medium Tellumo orbit.

From there, I can eject directly to Gauss.

A gravity assist at Catullus results not only in an orbit captured around Gauss, but also one that meets Loki's orbit quite well.

There's a familiar sight! I've just spent some time yesterday thinking about these three bodies.

Catullus during the gravity assist.

Tarsiss, partially eclipsed by Catullus. From this angle, I actually get to see one of its lakes!

After that huge gravity assist, capturing around Loki is quite cheap.

Loki's ore distribution is very good.

The KER mass readout has stopped updating again for some reason, but TGGT's tanks are still mostly full. I don't need a refill yet, and I'd rather save Loki as the one good refueling spot in the Gauss-Catullus system.

TGGT lands on yet another slope. It's not tilted enough to fall over, but it continues to slide for a while.

13 minutes later, the slope becomes flat enough that I can use time warp.

If it were just for a couple minutes, that would be fine, but this is getting ridiculous.

Maybe I should have included a ground anchor or something.

Tarsiss (top) looks so small from here that it's easy to forget just how big of a moon it is.

 

Gravity assists so far: 25 (2 performed this chapter)
Flags remaining: 24 (3 planted this chapter)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Leganeski

[Leganeski]

Part 23: Nero

 

Bonus update! I wasn't sure whether to combine Nero and Niven into one update or not, but they are very different from each other (and more importantly, I haven't actually gone to Niven yet), so I decided to leave them separate.

Nero's airless regular moons pose no challenge aside from their 10-degree inclination, but the views there are quite good.

 

(23.1) Minona

Theoretical Δv: 1634 m/s
Actual Δv: 1782 m/s

Spoiler

Fun fact: Minona has exactly the same density (1.754 g/cm³) as Julia, Krel, and Celes.

Sorry about the relative lack of commentary; there really just isn't that much to say about Minona. It's certainly a welcome addition to GPP, but it's hard to see what exactly it adds.

Taking off from Loki.

The transfer to Nero.

The relative inclination is certainly undesirable, but after quite a bit of trial and error, I manage to get the ascending node in a good spot.

The Nero capture burn, 61 m/s, is barely noticeable from an interplanetary perspective. I was surprised at how cheap it was, given its distance from Nero, but I guess that's what happens when you come from an adjacent planet.

Minona is full of ore! That's nice to know for the future, but I'm not really looking for more fuel right now.

TGGT's high TWR is massive overkill for Nero's medium-sized moons, so I can start the suicide burn very late.

It works, barely. I was kind of worried about starting the burn so close to the ground, but Minona's gravity is just not that high.

The slope is just shallow enough to stop on.

I actually don't know which moon that is above Nero. My guess is Muse, but it's hard to tell from this angle.

 

(23.2) Muse

Theoretical Δv: 894 m/s
Actual Δv: 1002 m/s

Spoiler

Taking off from Minona. Who needs a gravity turn when you have a relative TWR of 16?

Despite being nearly coplanar, the orbits of the moons are significantly inclined, making it unusually difficult to transfer from my orbit, which is completely misaligned with them. However, by ejecting at just the right time, I can barely reach Muse's SOI without a major correction burn.

Muse is just about the right size to maximize the benefit of the Oberth effect, making the circularization burn quite small.

Muse has a pretty good ore distribution. However, I still have some fuel left and the next target is really close by, so I don't need to refuel.

The terrain, in contrast, is quite unusual and features a lot of slopes. If the gravity were higher, I would try to land in a flat biome, but I'm paying more attention to latitude.

I was trying to land at a latitude of 10 degrees, which I overshot somewhat, but not badly enough to remove the benefit of landing off of the equator.

As on Minona, I'm not entirely sure which moons are visible, but my guess is that the top one is Hadrian and the bottom one is Narisse.

That moon is definitely Hadrian.

Muse's orbital inclination, while unhelpful for orbital transfers, is great for viewing Nero's rings!

 

(23.3) Narisse

Theoretical Δv: 848 m/s
Actual Δv: 954 m/s

Spoiler

I wait to launch until TGGT's position relative to Muse is roughly aligned with Muse's orbital plane. This greatly reduces the relative inclination, and I don't even have to do anything complicated like launching away from east.

As on Minona, I can do a very shallow gravity turn.

Now that I've gotten my orbital plane well aligned with the orbital plane of the moons...

... I apparently can't calculate a transfer because my "inclination is too high". That's the exact opposite of what should be happening!

This is one of many reasons why I don't often use the stock maneuver tool.

Of course, the transfer isn't actually very complicated.

Circularization around Narisse.

In map view, Narisse looks kind of bland.

However, from up close, it looks great! For some reason, this terrain is a lot prettier than what I remember from the last time I went here.

There's some ore. I do want to refuel here, so I'm aiming for the ore patch I'm currently flying over.

I didn't manage to cancel out my horizontal velocity in time, which, as I found out on Leto, is really bad for the structural integrity of the landing legs. Instead of landing, I do an emergency upwards burn and try again.

That's much better.

I was not expecting to see Hadrian so clearly. Of course, it's only 18 Mm away, so it makes sense that it would appear that large.

 

Flags remaining: 21 (3 planted this chapter)

[Leganeski]

Part 24: Niven

 

Niven is the largest body without a thick (≥0.5 atm) atmosphere containing a reactive gas that would allow a jet plane to work. Instead of a plane, TGGT must land on the surface itself. For this reason, TGGT was designed pretty specifically for Niven; this is why it has so many engines providing what is in most circumstances way too much TWR.

However, it wasn't designed very well. When I was planning out the ship sizes back in May, I thought "the TWR on the surface of Niven is above 1, so it should be fine," and then proceeded to add as many fuel tanks as I could without dropping the TWR below 1 (corresponding to a vacuum TWR of 5.412 m/s²).

How wrong I was.

Well, that's not quite true. It ended up being fine. Eventually. After a lot of explosions and quickloading.

 

(24.1) Reaching Nero Niven

Theoretical Δv: 4357 m/s
Actual Δv: 1108 m/s (gravity assists at Otho, Gratian, Gael, and Gael; aerobraking at Niven)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Niven is the largest planet with no moons. (Laythe is somewhat larger, but it's not technically a planet.)

Refueling on Narisse.

Ascending from a body as small as Narisse is easy at this point, but Bill remains unconvinced.

Ejecting to Otho, in preparation for a gravity assist chain. I don't need it on the Narisse end, but entering Niven's atmosphere at 4650 m/s with no heat shielding would not end well.

The Otho assist, leading to an intersection with Gratian's orbit.

Otho and Augustus.

Otho from up close.

The Gratian assist barely manages to make it to Gael's orbit.

I actually had to adjust the Gratian assist trajectory to avoid a Geminus encounter here.

This assist was pushing the limits of what Gratian can do in one pass, but I did manage to stay out of the atmosphere.

A better view of Gratian and Geminus together.

The Gael assist doesn't get all the way to Niven, but it makes progress and lines up for another Gael assist.

Gael's terrain from up close.

I happen to pass pretty close to Iota.

Another Gael assist leads the rest of the way to Niven.

I don't know how low to aerobrake, so I guess 50 km. (Niven's atmosphere starts at 75 km.)

50 km was too high. (I made it way past periapsis and am still not close to getting captured.)

45 km: still too high.

How about 38 km?

TGGT gets uncomfortably close to overheating, but the temperature starts to go back down from here.

Almost! I'm in an elliptical orbit, but it goes out of Niven's SOI.

After a short burn, the capture is complete. However, I still need to lower my apoapsis below 1500 km in order for the ore scanner to work.

It's time for more aerobraking! Not as low this time, because I don't want to deorbit yet.

A 50 km pass provided some slowdown, but not enough. However, it's more convenient to just do more passes rather than reload and try again with a lower periapsis.

Closer, but not quite there.

That's better!

Now I'm in a suitable orbit of Niven.

 

(24.2) Landing on Niven

Theoretical Δv: 1697 m/s
Actual Δv: 905 m/s (aerobraking) (in addition to 1687 m/s worth of ore jettisoned)

Spoiler

There's some ore about to rotate directly below periapsis, so now is a good time to land.

I use a 22 km periapsis to make sure I land somewhat close to the right location.

Attempt 1: the parachute worked, but it worked too well, and pulled the crew capsule right off the rest of the rocket.

Attempt 2: I tried opening the parachute lower, when the rocket would be going slower. Of course, that just meant that the parachute encountered more air and ripped the capsule off even harder. Note the acceleration meters: the capsule is currently decelerating at 205 G.

Attempt 3: When will I learn to stop relying on the parachute?

Attempt 4: I'm about to crash.

Attempt 5: I encountered too much aerodynamic torque and could not rotate to point retrograde.

Attempt 6: Close! Unfortunately, "close" is not what matters here.

Attempt 7: What if I dumped some ore to reduce mass?

Nope.

Attempt 8: I was reminded the hard way of what physics warp does to parachutes.

Attempt 9: at least the crew survived. However, I would like to continue the mission beyond Niven, so it's not exactly a successful landing.

Attempt 10: this time with TGGT's mass reduced from 308 all the way to 250 tons by emptying all three ore tanks.

I actually generated too much body lift here, and would have reached periapsis too soon.

To prevent this, I turn downwards towards prograde.

Having learned at least something from my mistakes, I start the landing burn early.

The parachutes deploy and help slow TGGT down, but I'm still not turning off the rockets.

Finally, I reach the surface with enough TWR to avoid crashing.

Success!

Refueling starts successfully, meaning that I did manage to land in the right biome.

I'm very glad it worked. I did leave Ceti available for refueling in case Niven didn't have available ore, but going from Niven to Ceti with TGGT's remaining fuel would have been difficult.

Niven's gravity is too high for an EVA pack to work, so Bill takes the long trip up the ladder.

 

(24.3) Launching from Niven

Theoretical Δv: 1416 m/s
Actual Δv: 3064 m/s (+ 273 m/s worth of fuel dumped) (drag, gravity losses)

Spoiler

The engines turn on and... nothing happens.

Remember when I said that TGGT needed a minimum vacuum TWR of at least 5.412 m/s²? Well, it has a maximum mass of 355.319 tons and 1800 kN of vacuum thrust, so its minimum vacuum TWR is 1800 / 355.319 = 5.066 m/s².

Whoops.

Even at an altitude of 3 km, its relative TWR is 0.98, so it can't get off the ground.

I burn fuel until the TWR rises above 1, then let the converter refill the fuel tanks with refined ore.

Now I can get off the ground... barely. This is going to be a long ascent.

Two minutes later, TGGT has reached the stunningly fast speed of 33 m/s.

As I lose fuel and the gravity decreases, my TWR goes up and I can begin the gravity turn. However, I need to remain nearly vertical to avoid accumulating excessive horizontal speed in the lower atmosphere.

The ore converter isn't working because it's core temperature is... what?! 7561 K? That's not good!

There's no overheating bar, so the converter part probably has a normal temperature, and it's just the core temperature that's bugged.

In that case, I have more pressing problems right now than a temporarily broken converter.

Edging closer to prograde. I don't usually use precision rotation controls, but they came in very helpful here.

Now that I'm almost out of the atmosphere, I can continue circularizing normally.

That was a long ascent. I was getting worried that I would run out of liquid fuel, but I ended up with a safe margin.

After letting the converter cool down for half an hour, it starts working again.

I'm left with 5493 m/s of fuel, which should be enough to get somewhere else.

 

(24.4) Otho Tarsiss Tellumo Thalia Where next?

Theoretical Δv: 3613 m/s
Actual Δv: 980 m/s (gravity assists at Gael, Tellumo, and Nero)

Spoiler

I've visited all the bodies in the Ciro system. I could go back to Ceti to get more fuel, but Ceti's orbital inclination is inconvenient and I'd rather move on to somewhere new. On the other hand, ejecting directly from Niven to Ciro escape is quite an expensive burn.

It's time for more gravity assists!

I launched from a latitude of 30 degrees, leading to an inclined orbit. This makes it harder to eject efficiently, but when I do, I can use the vertical speed to cancel out almost all of Niven's 1-degree orbital inclination, and intersect Gael's orbit.

Since I'm coming in from an angle, the Gael assist is more effective, and pushes my orbit out past Tellumo.

Gael's main continent. I'm not used to looking at a Kerbin-like planet from space and seeing an endless expanse of land, but I suppose that was always a possibility.

Gael, Ceti, and Iota (directly above Ceti).

The Tellumo assist pushes the resulting orbit all the way out to Nero.

Ciro through Tellumo's rings.

Lili appears over the horizon, going the opposite direction.

Before the Nero assist, I need to do a small correction burn to avoid an accidental Otho encounter.

I overshot the burn by 62 days as a result of high time warp rates, but this far away from Ciro, that doesn't really matter.

The Nero assist leads the rest of the way out of the Ciro system.

Nero and Hadrian.

Ciro, visible as a speck just above the mouse pointer, recedes into the distance.

Leaving Ciro's SOI.

 

This concludes my grand tour of (the secondary layout of) Galileo's Planet Pack!

I remember landing on Leto for the first time, used to textures from the stock system. I looked at the ground, in all its detail, and thought "how is this even the same game?"

But it's not just the graphics: every planet and moon fits together wonderfully, and the level of internal consistency was so much better than anything I had seen before that I had to go back and re-evaluate my understanding of the stock system. Nowadays, I hardly play stock anymore because the atmospheres, densities, terrain, and many other things just feel so wrong compared to what I have seen from Team Galileo.

Thank you, @Galileo, @OhioBob, and @JadeOfMaar, for creating such an amazing system!

 

 

Gravity assists so far: 32 (7 performed this chapter)
Flags remaining: 20 (1 planted this chapter)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Leganeski

[Leganeski]

Part 25: Duna

(and some dwarf planets)

 

There are a bunch of moons remaining in the main Sun system, as well as a few planets. I already landed on all the bodies with thick atmospheres, so there are no major problems left, meaning that I don't have to do complicated route planning. As in the Ciro system, I will go through the bodies in alphabetical order to ensure a variety of orbital transfers.

You might have a few questions:

Surely Duna isn't the first body in alphabetical order?
It's not; it was the most significant celestial body out of the ones in this chapter. Aden is the first alphabetically, but I already went there in part 15.3.

Duna is the wrong color!
A lot of bodies have the same name as stock bodies, but they are from JNSQ, which completely overhauls the system.

JNSQ? The bodies are too small!
I'm using the JNSQ 1x rescale option in order for the system to fit with GPP and GEP. This means that most bodies from the stock system are roughly the same size as they are in stock, but the outer planets and moons might be smaller than you're used to if you're familiar with JNSQ. They have the same surface gravity, though.

What's up with all the spiky terrain everywhere?
That's a side effect of downscaling the system; the terrain gets compressed horizontally. The bodies look a lot better from up close at their native 2.5x scale.

 

(25.1) Aden Amos

Theoretical Δv: 601 m/s
Actual Δv: 948 m/s (inefficient transfer)

Spoiler

The ejection from Ciro leads to a pretty good intersection with Nara's orbit.

Nara is huge compared to its slow orbital velocity, so the relative speed doesn't have much impact.

The Amos circularization burn is similarly cheap due to Amos's moderate size.

There's a lot more ore than I would have expected on such an icy moon, but that's probably because I'm not using Rational Resources.

I am mainly deciding whether to refuel or not based on how inconvenient the body's orbit is. In this case, Nara's inclined orbit is really inconvenient to get to and from, so I am refueling here. (If it weren't so inclined, I would be more willing to leave Amos open as a possible future refueling stop.)

Enon is visible just above the horizon.

 

(25.2) Bop

Theoretical Δv: 1711 m/s
Actual Δv: 2048 m/s (gravity assist at Lindor, but then inefficient transfer)

Spoiler

I wait to eject until Nara is aligned with the plane of the inner planets.

The inclination resulting from an inwards Nara ejection is really severe, but it can be fixed with a Lindor assist.

After the assist, I have a much better trajectory towards Jool.

Lindor from up close.

After that time spent lowering inclination with a gravity assist, Bop's inclined orbit ruins much the benefit.

Bop has plenty of ore.

The slope is just shallow enough that I can use time warp to stop the sliding.

I could have put Bob on Bop, but that plan was foiled by TGGT's maximum crew capacity of three.

Laythe is visible just to the right of Jool.

I don't really need more fuel, but there's no reason not to get some: I wouldn't want to match Bop's severely inclined orbital plane again anyway.

 

(25.3) Celes

Theoretical Δv: 1302 m/s
Actual Δv: 1733 m/s

Spoiler

Fun fact: out of all the bodies orbiting solid planets, Celes has the highest density (80%) relative to its parent planet. (I'm excluding Dak, Tam, and Lili because they stick out well beyond the datum level, decreasing their actual density.)

Despite its appearance, Celes is technically a binary planet for the same reason as Argo. (Excluding these as well, the densest moon compared to its solid planet is Enon, which is 77.1% as dense as Nara).

Bop ascent.

I planned out this great trajectory to Lindor before realizing that I needed to go to Eeloo, not Lindor.

That's better? Eeloo's eccentric orbit is confusing to target, but this trajectory looks okay.

The required plane change burn is not great, but this is Eeloo we're talking about. It's not meant to be convenient to reach.

This entry trajectory looks fast, but that's just because Eeloo isn't very big.

The actual capture burn is quite reasonable.

Celes rotates slowly, so the ore is easy to target.

There's a mountain on my landing spot! Fortunately, this can be fixed by starting the landing burn early.

This terrain would be really bad in higher gravity, but it's not much of an issue on a body the size of Celes.

Eeloo looks a lot like Nara from this far away.

Eeloo's orbit is not great, so I grab some fuel while I'm here.

 

(25.4) Dak

Theoretical Δv: 2772 m/s

Actual Δv: 3089 m/s

Spoiler

The orbits of Eeloo and Edna are actually inclined by only 3.5 degrees relative to each other, but Celes is completely misaligned from them, making the ejection more complicated. However, adding a large normal component to the burn puts the descending node in approximately the right place.

Edna and Dak have basically no Oberth effect, so I have to do almost all of the capture burn before reaching Dak.

Dak has ore, but it is relatively convenient to reach, so I won't refuel here yet.

Landing on Dak is easy with a relative TWR of 212.

 

(25.5) Dres

Theoretical Δv: 778 m/s
Actual Δv: 1558 m/s (inefficient transfer)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Dres does not exist.

Launching from Dak. I don't exactly need to worry about doing a gravity turn in this kind of gravity.

Dres orbits quite close to Edna, but their orbits are misaligned by 6.65 degrees, necessitating a huge plane change burn.

This is nowhere close to a standard Hohmann transfer, but it works well enough.

Thankfully, I already did almost all of the plane change on the way out of Edna, so there's not much left needed to capture at Dres.

Dres rotates really quickly, so those ore patches are not easy to target, but the big one visible on the right side is reachable.

What looked like a flat crater turned out to be not very flat at all, and TGGT starts sliding.

Staying upright with SAS requires more electric charge than the RTGs produce. However, normal mining operations with the fuel cells running actually produce a net power gain, so I start mining immediately to fill the batteries back up.

As Valentina knows, Dres is actually a hoax created by the government in year 14376, and was secretly added the target list while no one was paying attention.

 

(25.6) Duna

Theoretical Δv: 2960 m/s
Actual Δv: 2256 m/s (aerobraking)

Spoiler

After launching from Dres, I had to pull up the gravity turn here because of the mountain ahead.

132 meters above the ground: safe enough, but definitely closer than I would have been comfortable with.

Dres has very little Oberth effect, making ejections even to nearby planets relatively expensive.

I don't need to refuel on Duna, so I decide to aerobrake directly from an intercept rather than trying to capture into a polar orbit.

The critical temperature reaches 1928 K on the first pass, which is worrying but ultimately safe.

However, I don't quite get captured from aerobraking alone, so rocket braking is added at the end.

In an elliptical orbit, I can easily equatorialize to reduce surface velocity. (In JNSQ, Duna is not tidally locked to Ike, so it rotates faster.)

On the second pass, I reach periapsis at 18 km, which is low enough to deorbit TGGT.

In Duna's thin atmosphere, 500 m/s is as slow as I dare to go on aerodynamic lift alone before starting the suicide burn.

I can't point straight retrograde or I would hit the ground, so I try an angle in between a standard and a constant-altitude descent profile.

(Due to TweakChutes, regular parachutes don't work on Duna. This is one of the few cases where I think that actually makes sense.)

It works!

Duna doesn't seem nearly as impressive after landing on Niven. The sight of Ike in the sky is nice, though.

 

Gravity assists so far: 33 (1 performed this chapter)
Flags remaining: 14 (6 planted this chapter)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Leganeski

[Leganeski]

Part 26: Eeloo and Hamek

 

If you have been paying close attention, you might notice that the next body I haven't landed on yet is Edna, not Eeloo. The reason I went to Eeloo instead is because I completely forgot about Edna, and thought I had already landed on it when in fact I had just gone to Dak. By the time I realized this, I was already on my way to Mun, so I will go to Edna after Mun. (Edna's location actually would have made it a great stop in between Duna and Eeloo, so skipping it here wasn't useful.)

 

(26.1) Eeloo

Theoretical Δv: 4711 m/s
Actual Δv: 3824 m/s (drag at Duna, but then aerobraking at Eeloo)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Eeloo's orbit is the only one to cross another orbit around the same body (when projected onto Kerbin's orbital plane). In fact, Eeloo crosses both Lindor and Hamek.

Eeloo is in a 2:3 orbital resonance with Lindor.

Bill walks up the ladder. Duna's gravity is increased to 0.34 g in JNSQ, which is too much for the EVA pack.

I wasn't aiming for any particular location, but there happens to be ore here. I'll take it!

TGGT doesn't have very much relative TWR on Duna, so I have to perform a steep gravity turn to avoid horizontal speed in the lower atmosphere.

At this point, I can safely ignore the rest of the atmosphere.

The ejection to Eeloo. I could have saved a lot from a gravity assist, but getting the transfer to line up nicely with Eeloo's orbit is already hard enough.

Eeloo has a thin atmosphere in JNSQ, so I can aerocapture for free.

Entering the atmosphere. (Eeloo's atmosphere starts at 65 km.)

Maximum heating. The part closest to overheating is, of all things, the thermometer. While the irony is pretty funny, I should probably move the thermometer somewhere else.

As I get closer to periapsis, I turn down in order to stay in the atmosphere.

Capture is successful!

As I drop below orbital velocity, I turn upwards to stay in the air.

0.02 atmospheres doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually quite effective against Eeloo's low gravity.

By the time I start the landing burn, I have slowed all the way down to 201 m/s. This atmosphere is really helpful!

The surface is moderately sloped, requiring a lot of power from the reaction wheels to stay upright.

There happens to be ore here, so I start the mining process to fill up the batteries. (Yay for unrealistic stock resource chains!) As the slope flattens out, I can activate time warp and wait for the tanks to fill up.

Celes is visible above the horizon.

 

(26.2) Enon

Theoretical Δv: 2042 m/s
Actual Δv: 2517 m/s

Spoiler

Fun fact: Enon has a very thin atmosphere, similar to that of Pluto. However, the atmosphere is so thin that it is not modelled in-game.

As an airless body, it is the largest by radius (280 km), although a lot less massive than Thalia (270 km), Moho (260 km), and Belisama (250 km).

Launching from Eeloo.

Eeloo and Nara both have significantly inclined orbits, but the relative node is close to Nara's apoapsis, making the transfer a lot more efficient.

As with many similar capture maneuvers, I approach Nara at the right distance so that I reach periapsis at the intersection with Enon's orbital plane.

This results in a very cheap plane change burn at apoapsis.

Enon appears small in comparsion to Nara, but it is in fact larger than even Eeloo, and provides a lot of Oberth effect.

"You must be in a stable polar orbit between 28km and 1400km to perform an orbital survey."

Wait, what? I'm in a stable polar orbit, above... oh wait, it said 28 kilometers. Right. I forgot that there was a lower limit of 0.1 times the body's radius. This is actually the first time that this limit has come up: I haven't been to Moho yet and didn't do an ore scan on Thalia. For all other bodies, either this limit is below the universal minimum of 25 km, it's below the top of the atmosphere, or the body was too big for TGGT to land on (Tellumo, Eve, Epona).

After fixing my orbit, the ore scan works. The distribution is okay, and Enon rotates slow enough that I can easily target the equatorial ore patch on the left side.

Despite its size, Enon doesn't have very much surface gravity, so the landing proceeds smoothly.

Enon isn't near anywhere else I haven't been to yet, so there's no reason not to refuel.

Nara isn't quite visible from this location on the surface, but it can be seen at the top of a short jetpack-assisted jump.

 

(26.3) Eve Gilly Hamek

Theoretical Δv: 1693 m/s
Actual Δv: 2256 m/s (inefficient transfer)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Hamek is in an exact 40:71 orbital resonance with Lindor (and thus a 60:71 resonance with Eeloo). This has absolutely no noticeable effect, and I'm not really sure why the resonance exists.

I'm launching east, away from Nara, but Nara rises over the horizon anyway during the initial upwards takeoff.

The shallow gravity turn takes TGGT pretty close to a mountain, but it passes safely over the top.

The ejection to Hamek. There's way more resulting north-south speed than I would like, but I can't really do much better coming from Nara.

Enon (left), Amos (center right, next to the mouse pointer), and Nara (right).

This is what happens when you have too much latitudinal velocity. Oh well, I've got fuel to spare.

The ore distribution is fine. Hamek's fast rotation is not great for targeting ore patches, but the one on the left is big enough.

KER's impact marker comes in quite helpful here.

 

(26.4) Huygen Ike Jool Kerbin Krel

Theoretical Δv: 1382 m/s
Actual Δv: 1582 m/s

Spoiler

I attempt a very shallow gravity turn to take full advantage of Hamek's fast rotation.

Instead of an efficient ascent, I get a great reminder to make sure your trajectory is clear before activating time warp.

On the next attempt, I go a bit higher and avoid the mountains.

The transfer to Lindor is not optimal on the Lindor end, but that doesn't matter very much given how fast Krel orbits.

At Lindor, the capture burn is more expensive than it could have been, but it remains quite cheap.

Lindor, Aden (center), and Krel (right, next to the mouse pointer).

Krel isn't very big, so almost all of the cost here comes from its velocity around Lindor.

Huygen and Riga. The entire Lindor system is extremely flat; Krel actually has the most inclined orbit at 1.5 degrees off of the plane of Lindor's rings.

In addition to Huygen, Riga is also visible here on the horizon directly above the flag pole.

Riga is more clearly visible from this angle.

 

Flags remaining: 10 (4 planted this chapter)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Leganeski

[Leganeski]

Part 27: Moho

 

I was worried that Moho would cause routing issues like Icarus did, but the adjacent bodies in the route are Minmus and Mun, which are perfectly positioned on the other side of an Eve gravity assist.

(27.1) Laythe Lindor Minmus

Theoretical Δv: 4332 m/s
Actual Δv: 3412 m/s (Oberth assist at Kerbin)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Minmus has only half the density of its planet Kerbin, the least of all regular moons. (Rosmerta is tied, with half the density of Epona.)

It is also the only regular moon not tidally locked to its planet. (There are a few other unlocked moons, but they all have orbital eccentricities of at least 0.16, in comparison to Minmus's 0.03.)

Krel is a convenient refueling spot and I currently have plenty of fuel, so I leave without refueling.

The ejection to Kerbin.

What a good encounter! Oh wait, that's the wrong moon. Whoops.

Capturing at Minmus directly would be really expensive, so I instead enter an elliptical orbit around Kerbin.

While this maneuver saves a lot of fuel and is sort of like a gravity assist, I'm not counting it as one because it doesn't make use of Kerbin's velocity around Sun like a gravity assist would.

I don't really understand what's going on with this maneuver, but it gets me a Minmus encounter one day later.

Minmus orbits quite slowly, so the circularization burn is really cheap.

Minmus rotates quickly, so it's nice to have a large ore patch like this one.

Minmus still has its flat basins at the datum level, and they are just as easy to land on as the ones on stock Minmus.

Refueling. While Minmus actually is in a convenient location, I need a lot of fuel to get to Moho.

 

(27.2) Moho

Theoretical Δv: 5445 m/s
Actual Δv: 4361 m/s (Oberth assist at Kerbin, gravity assist at Eve)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Excluding tidally locked planets, Moho has the longest solar day (222 Kerbin days). Moho's orbit is also somewhat eccentric, so near periapsis, it actually orbits faster than it rotates, causing Sun to move backwards in the sky.

This terrain is nothing like stock Minmus, but it still doesn't pose much of an issue.

Minmus doesn't provide much of a boost from the Oberth effect, so I drop down to Kerbin and eject from there.

This leads to an intersection with Eve's orbit.

After a gravity assist, my trajectory makes it almost all of the way to Moho's orbit.

Eve's characteristic purple color is not seen as often in JNSQ, but it is still there.

This is definitely a totally safe distance above the atmosphere.

After a "small" correction burn, I reach Moho's orbit.

Ouch. I knew I didn't encounter Moho at the best point in its orbit, but I was hoping to save more from the gravity assist. On the other hand, as long as Moho has ore, 2093 m/s is well within my budget for this leg of the journey.

As I discussed in the Enon section (26.2), Moho is large enough that the minimum ore scan altitude is raised from 25 km to 26 km. I like to leave at least 1.2 km of margin above that to account for burn inaccuracies, which is why my periapsis is 27.6 km, a bit higher than normal.

I was so focused on the lower altitude limit that I forgot about the radius-dependent upper altitude limit of five times the body's radius, or in this case 1300 km. Whoops.

There's no reason not to circularize, so I do it on the next orbit to lower my apoapsis to within the limit.

There's plenty of ore, and Moho's slow rotation provides no complications.

Moho's high surface gravity (0.29 g) forces me to take a more horizontal descent profile.

After slowing down, I can return to retrograde.

This hill turned out to be just a bit too sloped, and TGGT starts falling over.

Before it crashes, I try to save the landing attempt by making a short jump.

It works! This area is somewhat less steep, and TGGT touches down safely.

Compared to Taranis, Moho has a lot less lava but also a lot less being stuck in a chair for years at a time.

 

(27.3) Mun

Theoretical Δv: 5503 m/s
Actual Δv: 3248 m/s (gravity assists at Eve, Oberth assist at Kerbin)

Spoiler

Fun fact: Mun never fully eclipses Sun when viewed from Kerbin. (Sun is 439 times larger than Mun but at most 431 times farther away.)

Refueling at Moho. Compared to the background stars, Sun is moving noticeably slower across the sky.

There are some mountains up ahead, so the ascent starts pretty steep.

After clearing the mountains, I switch to a constant-altitude ascent.

Ejecting from Moho at periapsis saves a ton of fuel. 1089 m/s is less than half of what I spent for the reverse maneuver when coming from Eve!

A single Eve assist isn't enough to get to Kerbin, or even a 1:1 resonance with Eve, but I can try another assist on a future orbit.

This is closer to what I remember Eve looking like the last time I went here. It almost looks like Hadrian.

The second Eve assist gets me the rest of the way to Kerbin.

I don't even need to get very close. Eve is huge!

At Kerbin, I once again capture near the atmosphere in order to save fuel.

It was at this point that I realized that I never actually landed on Edna. Whoops. I guess I'll go there next. 

Wow, that's a lot of ore. However, because the trip from Moho was so cheap, I don't actually need to refuel here.

I did it! I landed my Mun rocket! It only took nineteen thousand years, an overbuilt mothership, five different planes, an ion lander, and probably at least twenty refueling stops along the way.

 

(27.4) Edna

Theoretical Δv: 3138 m/s
Actual Δv: 3504 m/s

Spoiler

Fun fact: Edna has the shortest synodic rotation period (2 hours 1 second). This is equal to its solar day, which is longer only than that of Lili.

Instead of refueling on Mun, I refine the last of the ore from Moho into liquid fuel.

I could have gotten a direct transfer to Edna by waiting for a transfer window, but this way, I don't have to do a large plane change burn.

There's plenty of ore, but Edna rotates so fast that it's quite hard to target.

KER's impact marker is there to the rescue! I don't think I would have been able to target that ore patch on the first try without it.

That is some interesting terrain. While I enjoy viewing interesting terrain, that is best done from a safe distance away from the slopes, which is why I started the landing burn early.

As a result, I landed on a steep slope instead of a ridiculously steep slope.

As I slide down the hill, I start the refueling process to get more electric charge.

Eventually, I come to a stop and can fill up the tanks. Edna's fast rotation is very visible: even with a trained engineer, the sky span around many more times than usual before the tanks filled up.

Dak is visible above the horizon.

 

Gravity assists so far: 36 (3 performed this chapter)
Flags remaining: 6 (4 planted this chapter)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Leganeski

[Leganeski]

Part 28: Lindor

 

TGGT returns to the Lindor system but fails to find any traces of chocolate.

 

(28.1) Nara Pol

Theoretical Δv: 1492 m/s
Actual Δv: 1426 m/s (gravity assists at Laythe, Laythe, and Tylo)

Spoiler

Fun fact: In JNSQ, Pol is no longer tidally locked to Jool.

Taking off from Edna.

A close pass with a mountain.

The ejection to Jool. I can reach Jool without having to do a large correction maneuver in solar orbit, but it results in a lot of southwards velocity when I get there.

I could simply incorporate the plane change into the Pol capture burn, but why do that when I could solve the problem with a gravity assist?

Laythe's polar ice cap.

After two more orbits, I find a direct Laythe-Tylo chain that somehow ends almost exactly where I want.

After executing the maneuver, it turns out I could get even closer to Pol's orbit!

Laythe again, this time as it casts a shadow on Jool.

Tylo.

The gravity assists may not have been necessary, but they did make the Pol injection burn pretty cheap.

This ore distribution is okay. I can target the patch on the west side reasonably easily.

The local terrain in JNSQ is always great, but this is even better than usual.

I probably don't actually need more fuel here, but I don't know whether I'll be able to find any on Riga. Also, Pol isn't in the most convenient orbit.

 

(28.2) Prax Riga

Theoretical Δv: 1649 m/s
Actual Δv: 712 m/s (aerobraking)

Spoiler

Taking off from Pol.

The ejection to Lindor. Jool and Lindor have similar orbital planes, so I can actually do the transfer at a transfer window.

It's aerobraking time! Riga's atmosphere is thin but quite cold, so it's more effective than its pressure of 0.06 atm would suggest.

On the way to Riga, Huygen is visible as a brown speck next to the mouse pointer.

Riga looks a lot like Tylo, but the surface conditions are substantially different.

Entering the atmosphere.

As I get lower, TGGT starts to slow down.

As I drop below orbital velocity, I turn south in order to increase drag while simultaneously lowering my latitudinal velocity.

As the pressure rises above 0.04 atm, I can deploy the parachute. As it turns out, this is not necessarily a good idea.

Attempt 2: I wait to fully deploy the parachutes until after drag has slowed TGGT down a lot more.

It does not work. I quickload right before crashing into the ground.

Attempt 3: this time with a deploy altitude of 1600 m, in between those of the first two attempts.

The parachutes aren't enough on their own, so I turn on the rockets to assist in the descent

It works!

I've hardly used any fuel since Pol (30 out of 237 tons, or about 8% of TGGT's total Δv budget), but there's ore here, so why not take it?

Bill gets out and repacks the parachute.

 

(28.3) Sun Talos

Theoretical Δv: 1733 m/s
Actual Δv: 2095 m/s (drag at Riga)

Spoiler

Fun fact: among moons with an equatorial orbit (inclination less than 2 degrees), Talos has by far the slowest orbit at 104 days. In fact, the second slowest is Riga!

Despite being the largest moon of Lindor, Riga is still not that big, so Bill can simply jetpack back up to the crew cabin.

Leaving Riga. I started the gravity turn too early here, so I hold my angle of 50 degrees above the horizon instead of pitching towards prograde.

Now that I'm above most of the atmosphere, I can resume the normal gravity turn.

The transfer to Talos. 

The ore distribution is good.

I don't want to hit the right side of that mountain, so I angle up a bit to send my trajectory over it.

It works, and also gives me more time to slow down before crashing.

I have seen all four other moons of Lindor multiple times from elsewhere in the Lindor system, and they are never too hard to spot if you know where to look. Talos, however, is far enough away that I can't see it even when pointing the camera straight at it from the surface of Riga. In fact, this chapter is the first time I've ever seen Talos outside of map view.

 

Gravity assists so far: 39 (3 performed this chapter)
Flags remaining: 3 (3 planted this chapter)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Leganeski

[OhioBob]

17 hours ago, Leganeski said:

TGGT returns to the Lindor system but fails to find any traces of chocolate.

Fun fact:  While most people seem to associate the Lindor name with the chocolate, the planet is actually named after baseball shortstop Francisco Lindor.  Lindor played for the Cleveland Indians at the time JNSQ was made.  I briefly considered changing the planet's name after Lindor was traded to the New York Mets.

[Leganeski]

10 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

Fun fact:  While most people seem to associate the Lindor name with the chocolate, the planet is actually named after baseball shortstop Francisco Lindor.

Interesting! I was mainly referencing Lindor's description in the Tracking Station:

Quote

[...] A critical question has been raised recently- whether Lindor contains water or chocolate.

 

[OhioBob]

22 hours ago, Leganeski said:

Interesting! I was mainly referencing Lindor's description in the Tracking Station:

[...] A critical question has been raised recently- whether Lindor contains water or chocolate.

Haha.  I didn't even know that was there.  I think JadeOfMaar wrote that; he uses a lot of food references in his descriptions.  Although the planet name has nothing to do with Lindor chocolate, that probably is his inspiration for that.

[Leganeski]

Part 29: Jool

Jool, Vall (near top), and Laythe (above and behind Vall), from Tylo.

 

Remaining in the Jool system is Tylo, which could be a bit of an issue because its atmosphere is relatively dense. However, the surface conditions there are not that different from Brovo, so TGGT should be able to land there.

 

(29.1) Tam

Theoretical Δv: 852 m/s
Actual Δv: 1692 m/s (inefficient transfer)

Spoiler

Fun fact: basically everything about Tam is slow. Tam has the slowest orbit (57.2 m/s), the slowest low orbit velocity (11.7 m/s at the datum level; 9.1 m/s at the highest terrain altitude), the slowest rotational period (131 days), and of course the slowest equatorial rotational velocity (0.00885 m/s, which is over twenty times slower than anywhere else).

You might have already figured this out after reading the previous paragraph, but Tam is also the smallest body (radius 4 km) and has the least surface gravity (0.0035 g). In fact, it's small enough to completely fit inside any other celestial body, even Lili or Dak!

Oh, and Tam has the only circumbinary orbit.

TGGT's tanks are pretty full and Talos is in a convenient orbit, but I refuel anyway because the next two bodies, Tam and Tylo, will both present difficulties for targeting ore patches.

I'm not sure exactly how to transfer from Lindor to Eeloo. Eeloo's orbit has a considerable amount of both eccentricity and inclination, and there's no good way to account for both of those factors at the same time. I choose to account for inclination, resulting in a transfer that looks really weird when viewed from the north.

I find a Tam encounter that looks pretty good. What I missed, because it's nearly impossible to tell from this angle, is that the trajectory around Eeloo is retrograde and I'm actually approaching Tam head-on.

If it were anywhere else, I would probably fix that, but Tam's orbit is so slow that meeting it in the right direction doesn't actually save very much Δv. Also, fixing it would mean I would need to change the time of my Eeloo encounter by 60 days, which would bring the cost back up a significant amount. Instead, I leave the head-on encounter alone.

Circularization. Given that I'm trying to slow down my orbit from 918 m/s to 8 m/s, I doubt that the resulting orbit will actually be very circular.

The burn starts way before I even get close to Tam.

No, that's not a typo in the picture. The lower altitude limit for the ore scanner is 25 km, and the upper limit is 20 km (five times Tam's radius). It's impossible to do an ore scan on Tam, or any other body with a radius of less than 5 km. (Or greater than 15000 km, although that doesn't come up very much.)

I land on the weirdest terrain I've ever seen in KSP. There are tiny but steep hills everywhere, and only three or four of the twelve landing legs are actually touching the ground. If there were more surface gravity, this would make landing very difficult, but here it's at most a minor inconvenience.

 

(29.2) Tylo

Theoretical Δv: 2337 m/s
Actual Δv: 882 m/s (aerobraking)

Spoiler

Fun fact: due to a combination of the lower gravity and colder temperature, parachutes on Tylo can actually support up to 38% more mass than they can on Laythe at the same speed. (That's at the datum level. Tylo's terrain is generally at a higher altitude than Laythe's, so in practice, the actual number is somewhat lower.)

Although I couldn't scan for it, there happens to be ore here. There's a significant chance I won't find ore wherever I land on Tylo, and Eeloo's orbit sucks, so I start drilling.

Because of the unusual landing spot, the drill isn't actually contacting the surface. However, the "no ground contact" message does not appear, and the drill starts collecting ore as if it were below the ground. I don't know what I was expecting to happen in this situation, but that wasn't it. Well, I guess I'll take it.

If the drill hadn't worked, I would have made a 1 m/s jump over to one of the peaks and tried again.

Eeloo and Celes. Celes is actually one third the radius of Eeloo, but it appears larger than that because it's much closer to Tam right now.

This was the easiest ascent ever.

This works, I guess? It's probably not an optimal transfer, but I'll just aerobrake at Tylo.

I'm not really sure what altitude to aerobrake at. The suboptimal transfer means that I'm coming in pretty fast, and Tylo's size means that there is a substantial risk of burning up.

Entering the atmosphere (which starts at 75 km). This isn't exactly a safe speed, but there's only one way to find out for sure.

Maximum heating. Nothing exploded, but the thermometer almost did.

I keep telling myself "I've got to go move that thermometer somewhere safer", but I never actually do anything about it.

The parachutes deploy, slowing TGGT down considerably. Will it be enough?

Nope. Not even with rocket braking near the end. I guess it's time to try deploying the parachute earlier.

On a side note, this is one of the best pictures from the mission in terms of what I think really captures the essence of KSP.

This time, I try with a lower periapsis, and also a different longitude. This moves the landing zone closer to both the equator and the day side.

I come in at an angle to try to reduce my latitudinal velocity further.

Also, I raised the parachute deploy altitude to 3800 m. Hopefully that should work better.

The thermometer gets dangerously close to overheating.

In other cases, the crewmembers wouldn't realistically know the precise "critical thermal percentage", but here, the thermometer readily displays the exact temperature.

As the heating dies down, I can focus more on steering.

The parachutes deploy successfully without ripping the crew capsule off of the rest of the rocket. The result is a much safer speed than the last attempt, at a significantly higher altitude.

Near the surface, I start rocket braking as well because the terminal velocity of 66 m/s isn't very survivable.

Success! Well, almost success. I landed on a slope.

Twelve minutes later, I reach a gentler slope and stop sliding. Isn't KSP's ground physics just wonderful?

There's some more ore here, so I'll take it.

 

(29.3) Vall

Theoretical Δv: 2444 m/s
Actual Δv: 3270 m/s (drag at Tylo)

Spoiler

Fun fact: while Vall is not in a resonance with either Laythe or Tylo, it is evenly spaced between them. (Vall is 1.8283 times farther out than Laythe, and Tylo is 1.8283 times farther out than Vall.)

Tylo's surface gravity (0.32 g) is right around the minimum where ladders are required. I could probably make the jump to the crew cabin, but it would definitely not be easy, so I take the ladder instead.

Tylo's atmosphere is fairly dense, so I take off straight up.

The transfer to Vall, almost all of which is just to escape Tylo.

I don't need ore from Vall, so I can inject into a low equatorial orbit instead of taking an ore scan.

Avoiding the mountains here is a bit of an issue, but I find a pretty good landing spot.

Unfortunately, this area is not nearly as flat as it looked.

Fortunately, it only takes two minutes to get to the bottom this time.

Val on Vall.

 

Total gravity assists: 39
Flags remaining: 0? (3 planted this chapter)
 

[Leganeski]

Part 30: Everywhere and back again

 

That was all the targets. Vall was the last one.

Wait, really? Let's go check.

(30.1) All the flags

Spoiler

Sun has no surface.

Moho (section 27.2)

Eve (2.3)

Gilly (2.2)

Kerbin (16.3)

Mun (27.3)

Minmus (27.1)

Duna (25.6)

Ike (16.2)

Edna (27.4)

Dak (25.4)

Dres (25.5)

Jool has no surface.

Laythe (16.1)

Vall (29.3)

Tylo (29.2)

Bop (25.2)

Pol (28.1)

Lindor has no surface.

Krel (28.2)

Aden (15.3)

Huygen (15.2)

Riga (28.2)

Talos (28.3)

Eeloo (26.1)

Celes (25.3)

Tam (29.1)

Hamek (26.3)

Nara (3.3)

Amos (25.1)

Enon (26.2)

Prax (3.2)

Ciro has no surface.

Icarus (18.3)

Thalia (18.2)

Eta (18.1)

Niven (24.2)

Gael (5.3)

Iota (5.2)

Ceti (19.3)

Tellumo (4.3)

(I landed in the water, so a surface sample was collected instead of planting a flag.)

Lili (22.2)

Gratian (6.2)

Geminus (19.4)

Otho has no surface.

Augustus (19.2)

Hephaestus (21.1)

Jannah (21.3)

Gauss has no surface.

Loki (22.3)

Catullus (17.3)

Tarsiss (17.2)

Nero has no surface.

Hadrian (20.2)

Narisse (23.3)

Muse (23.2)

Minona (23.1)

Agrippina (17.1)

Julia (4.2)

Hox (21.2)

Argo (19.1)

Leto (22.1)

Grannus has no surface.

Taranis (7.3)

Toutatis (11.2)

Nodens (12.2)

Belisama (13.1)

Sucellus (10.1)

Caireen (10.2)

Sirona has no surface.

Airmed (13.2)

Brovo (9.3-4)

Damona (13.3-4)

Epona (8.3)

Rosmerta (14.2)

RAB-58E (8.2)

Cernunnos (14.1)

Yep, that's all of them. I guess it's time to go home.

 

(30.2) Return to Kerbin

Theoretical Δv: 1608 m/s
Actual Δv: 1723 m/s

Spoiler

The rest of the ore from Tylo is refined into fuel. There's more than enough to get home, so I don't need to get refuel here.

The transfer to Kerbin.

During the transfer burn, I pass almost directly over the flag.

Vall, Tylo (the gray speck at the top right edge of Vall), Jool, and Laythe.

The Kerbin encounter looks pretty good.

I know I said I was never planning to use the emergency escape decoupler, but now seems like the perfect time to use it. That way, TGGT doesn't have to go to low orbit, and the crew capsule can aerobrake down to the surface.

Once I reach Kerbin's SOI, the crew capsule (along with its heat shield and parachute) separates from the rest of TGGT.

The crew capsule is now ready to aerobrake down to the surface.

 

(30.3) TGGT returns to Mun

Theoretical Δv: 2556 m/s
Actual Δv: 1900 m/s (Oberth assist at Kerbin)

Spoiler

The task of the main TGGT mothership has been completed. It has carried the crewmembers everywhere they need to go, and then back to Kerbin. However, it still remains completely functional with its probe core. It just needs more fuel, and there's a great place to get some nearby: Mun, which is still an available refueling spot.

TGGT performs a small prograde burn to reach periapsis eight minutes before the crew capsule does, and also outside of the atmosphere.

Once it gets there, it captures into to a Mun transfer orbit.

I already did an ore scan on Mun, so I know there's plenty of fuel almost everywhere along the equator.

A successful landing on what happened not to be quite the best landing spot.

Twelve minutes of sliding. Oh well, it could have been worse.

TGGT begins refueling once again, ready to take on whatever challenges lie ahead.

 

(30.4) Descent to the surface

Spoiler

Right after the mothership completes the injection burn, the crew capsule arrives at Kerbin.

Entering the atmosphere.

I have to remember to deploy the parachute! The stage button isn't working, probably because I've already activated that stage trying to do something else.

The heating dies down, and the crew capsule starts to fall towards the surface.

I jettison the heat shield to reduce weight and thus reduce the final impact velocity.

It works: the capsule slows down to 8 m/s.

The capsule splashes down safely in the ocean.

And that's it! The crew capsule is recovered, marking the end of the mission.

This concludes my grand tour of the JNSQ system, and completes all the goals of the mission. (I landed a kerbal on the surface of every solid body and returned home, without refueling on the same body twice.)

When I started exploring GPP, I thought I could never go back to the stock system. But now I can! JNSQ fixes so many problems with the stock system, has much better terrain, and of course adds a bunch of even more interesting planets and moons. Thank you,  @Galileo, @JadeOfMaar, and @OhioBob, for making yet another wonderful system!

 

Craft files:

Team Galileo Grand Tour mothership

Oxygen plane

Methane plane

Eve plane

Nara plane

Tellumo plane

Ion tug and Taranis lander

 

(30.5) Epilogue

The crew capsule and crewmembers are safely transported back to the KSC. While emptying one of the compartments in the capsule, Jebediah notices a flag at the back of the drawer. There's a label attached that reads "Tellumo". Thinking back to that part of the mission, he remembers Valentina carrying a flag back inside the crew capsule after she couldn't plant it in the water. Well, it's a flag, so it better get planted somewhere, right?

 

It is only thanks to the efforts of countless people over a decade that KSP modding has reached its current state. However, there are a few people in particular without whose work this mission would not have been possible.

Thanks to @linuxgurugamer for maintaining Better Time Warp.

Thanks to @Gordon Fecyk for creating Explodium Breathing Engines.

Thanks to @Snark for creating so many small mods that improve gameplay significantly, most notably Simple Fuel Switch.

Thanks to @OhioBob for his dedication to maintaining the quality and consistency of all his mods.

And last but certainly not least, thanks to @king of nowhere, whose OPM Kerbalism grand tour was what initially inspired me to do a grand tour mission.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Leganeski
Fix section number

[OhioBob]

19 hours ago, Leganeski said:

Thanks to @Gordon Fecyk and @OhioBob for creating Explodium Breathing Engines.

Explodium Breathing Engines is all @Gordon Fecyk's.  I deserve no credit for it.

Edited November 26, 2022 by OhioBob

[Leganeski]

19 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

Explodium Breathing Engines is all @Gordon Fecyk's.  I deserve no credit for it.

Whoops, you're right. For some reason, I thought that you did some significant theoretical work on it, but I was probably just getting that confused with Eve Optimized Engines (which is also great, by the way).

[OhioBob]

15 hours ago, Leganeski said:

For some reason, I thought that you did some significant theoretical work on it

I did post some calculations, but that was just free advice to help confirm some of Gordon's numbers.  There was no real collaboration between us, and I certainly don't deserve any credit for the mod.

Edited November 26, 2022 by OhioBob

[Gordon Fecyk]

On 11/25/2022 at 9:41 PM, Leganeski said:

I thought that you did some significant theoretical work on [Explodium Breathing Engines], but I was probably just getting that confused with Eve Optimized Engines (which is also great, by the way)

If anything, @JadeOfMaar deserves as much credit as me for getting the thing going. That was my first real add-on for KSP so I had to learn a lot from experienced modders. As for @OhioBob and his contribution, I really needed his help to make sure I didn't cheat my way off of Nara.