Want to touch the Sun? Do it at night!

[Jeb x Valentina]

The Koyager 1 probe is the one that is the biggest pride of kerbalkind. Since Bill made its blueprints to nowadays, it's been sending incredible data about the kerbol system. And even today, that it has left Kerbol's SOI it's still sending data, however, it seems a bit random. However, with the help of very intelligent scientists, chess players, mathematicians, Squads (That's how they call monkeys in Kerbin) and snack manufacturers, the KSC has finally decoded the message; It appears that an alien race known as the humans, a few lightyears away, have touched their star's atmosphere using a probe (the parker solar probe) Wernher Von Kerman Exploded in anger as he saw this,  and now the KSA has a new challenge; build a spacecraft that can get closer to the Kerbol than the parker solar probe, and then do it back to Kerbin safetly. Your mission: Build and launch a probe that can get closer than 41,842,944 km (the closest distance from the parker probe to the sun) to kerbol, and then return to Kerbin's SOI.

Challenge modes:

1. Normal mode: Build a probe that can get at least 41,842,944 km close to Kerbol, and then return it to Kerbin's SOI safetly
2. Hard mode: Build a probe that can get at least 20,000,000 km close to Kerbol, and then return it to Kerbin's SOI safetly
3. Impossible mode: Build a probe that can get at least 10,000,000 km close to Kerbol, and then return it to Kerbin's SOI safetly
4. Legend mode: Build a probe that can get at least 5,000,000 km close to Kerbol, and then return it to Kerbin's SOI safetly
5. God mode: Build a probe that can get at least 500,000 km close to Kerbol, and then return it to Kerbin's SOI safetly

Rules:

1. No exploits, kraken drives, cheat menu, etc.
2. No mods (this doesn't mean you have to uninstall them, just don't use their parts/functions)
3. Your probe core can't overheat to death, it must survive
4. You must get back to Kerbin's SOI after you approched Kerbol

Bonuses:

1. Add at least one kerbal to your ship, it must survive (+5 pts.)
2. Your craft must survive reentry and landing into kerbin (+10 pts.)
3. Launch an impactor from your craft into Kerbol, wait until it gets 5,000 km close, then do science in there and transmit it until it crashes or overheats (The impactor gives 15 pts. And every 5 experiments you do yield you 1 extra point, you cannot repeat experiments, i.e, if you did a magnetometer BOOM scan, you can't do another one)

Scoring system:

The one with the craft that gets the closest, and the most bonus points wins

Required submissions:

A comment, indicating which challenge mode you did
A video submission, showing from the moment your craft was launched, to the moment you returned to kerbin's SOI

Edited June 14, 2022 by Jeb x Valentina

[Rutabaga22]

What about KER that's a visual readout. I can't just not look at it.

[Jeb x Valentina]

1 minute ago, Rutabaga22 said:

What about KER that's a visual readout. I can't just not look at it.

If it's a visual mod, it's ok, if it doesn't has new parts nor another planet pack it's also ok, Just try to use it as least as possible

[sevenperforce]

3 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

No mods (this doesn't mean you have to uninstall them, just don't use their parts/functions)

Let me help you out.

Ordinarily when we do challenges like this, we say something like “No use of part mods or physics-altering mods.”

This communicates that you want a fair challenge with equal competition.

[Jeb x Valentina]

18 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Let me help you out.

Ordinarily when we do challenges like this, we say something like “No use of part mods or physics-altering mods.”

This communicates that you want a fair challenge with equal competition.

Thanks

[Bej Kerman]

21 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

2. No mods (this doesn't mean you have to uninstall them, just don't use their parts/functions)

Honestly, it might be safer to enforce a vanilla-only install just to ensure that no-one inadvertently leaves a mod on that, say, alters how the thermal mechanics work.

[QF9E]

Here's my submission on Hard mode. I know it's not a video, but that is hardly necessary as the mission took only about 1 second:

FYI: the distance from Kerbin to the Sun is only 13.6 million km. Please keep in mind that the KSP solar system is much smaller than the real one.

Edited June 15, 2022 by QF9E

[Teilnehmer]

4 hours ago, QF9E said:

Here's my submission on Hard mode.

[Kerb24]

Legend mode is just a Moho mission.

[QF9E]

The altitude limits for the various modes aside, I had never done a mission to the vicinity of the Sun before. It turns out that from up close the Sun is quite impressive! I managed to get to within about 100 000 kilometers. Which is more than close enough to complete the challenge in God mode.

Please excuse my using the Precise Maneuver mod. It does exactly the same as the maneuver tab in the gizmo at lower left, only much more user-friendly. I am so used to this mod that I did not even notice I had been using it until I was editing the video. Due to the extreme caution necessary when time-warping in the vicinity of the Sun, completing this mission took quite a lot of time, and I rather not have to do it again just because I used this particular mod that has no bearing whatsoever on my craft or the game physics.

 

[Jeb x Valentina]

12 hours ago, QF9E said:

Here's my submission on Hard mode. I know it's not a video, but that is hardly necessary as the mission took only about 1 second:

FYI: the distance from Kerbin to the Sun is only 13.6 million km. Please keep in mind that the KSP solar system is much smaller than the real one.

LMAO

6 hours ago, Kerb24 said:

Legend mode is just a Moho mission.

5 hours ago, QF9E said:

The altitude limits for the various modes aside, I had never done a mission to the vicinity of the Sun before. It turns out that from up close the Sun is quite impressive! I managed to get to within about 100 000 kilometers. Which is more than close enough to complete the challenge in God mode.

Please excuse my using the Precise Maneuver mod. It does exactly the same as the maneuver tab in the gizmo at lower left, only much more user-friendly. I am so used to this mod that I did not even notice I had been using it until I was editing the video. Due to the extreme caution necessary when time-warping in the vicinity of the Sun, completing this mission took quite a lot of time, and I rather not have to do it again just because I used this particular mod that has no bearing whatsoever on my craft or the game physics.

 

IT'S PERFECT! I actually thought you would crash into the sun at the 2:01 minute, but you didn't! However, guuess i'lll remove landing bonus  even tho, you win! Also, the spacecraft you used was epic, you definetly didn't use all the radiator i'd expect.

[Jeb x Valentina]

11 hours ago, QF9E said:

The altitude limits for the various modes aside, I had never done a mission to the vicinity of the Sun before. It turns out that from up close the Sun is quite impressive! I managed to get to within about 100 000 kilometers. Which is more than close enough to complete the challenge in God mode.

Please excuse my using the Precise Maneuver mod. It does exactly the same as the maneuver tab in the gizmo at lower left, only much more user-friendly. I am so used to this mod that I did not even notice I had been using it until I was editing the video. Due to the extreme caution necessary when time-warping in the vicinity of the Sun, completing this mission took quite a lot of time, and I rather not have to do it again just because I used this particular mod that has no bearing whatsoever on my craft or the game physics.

 

 new challenge