Grand Tour throughout the Real Solar System [Video]

[xendelaar]

I have been wanting to perform a grand tour of the real solar system for quite some time now. After weeks of trial and error, I finally built a craft that is capable of visiting every planet and moon in the solar system. It was quite a challenge to begin with!

Performing the mission itself took me several weeks, and it was an amazing experience that presented many interesting challenges along the way.
After completing the grand tour, I thought it would be nice to make a small recap of the experience. That's why I created this video.

Since the journey was so long, I decided to chop the video up into several episodes (maybe two or three). Mainly because video editing takes a massive amount of time, and I'm not really good at it, haha.

I hope you enjoy the video. If you have any questions regarding the craft or journey, I would love to answer them.

 

 

Suggestions regarding the video, editing and or music are always welcome. I love to learn to improve my skills.

 

SOME ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

The inner planets (which are actually called the inferior planets) were one of the biggest hurdles I faced during the challenge. Due to Venus' thick atmosphere, I couldn't easily refuel on the planet. Otherwise, I would have needed an insanely large ship. Additionally, Venus does not have a small moon where we can land and refuel. So, the only way I could visit Venus and Mercury was through dedicated and disposable landers.

Getting out of the thick atmosphere was also a significant challenge. The rotors tended to shake violently and almost break when I increased the power on their motors too much. So, I had to ascend in a delicate manner to keep the craft intact and pointing upward. It took me over an hour to reach an altitude of 40 km. I couldn't use physics time warp because rotating rotors tend to disassemble when you try to do that. So, that part of the mission was quite boring. Fortunately, the scenery was absolutely stunning!

To get to Mercury (similarly to Moho), you need an insanely large amount of delta v (17 km/s) to get there and back to Earth. That's why I used ion engines, which are highly efficient. However, they lack the oomph to make efficient transfer burns and also don't like the dark, as they run on solar power. So, here I had to adjust my standard way of burning by increasing the altitude to get a longer orbital period. It was a refreshing experience to have to adjust my approach in this way.

 

special thanks to @jimmymcgoochie for convincing me to make a mission rapport. Maybe it was just a small nudge haha

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by xendelaar

[jimmymcgoochie]

Good, gooooood!

I assume this is stock parts only? The solar panels on servos was a nice trick I might have to borrow for future use 

[xendelaar]

2 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Good, gooooood!

hahaha epic remark

Quote

I assume this is stock parts only? The solar panels on servos was a nice trick I might have to borrow for future use 

yeah, I found that without at least one set of servos, I would need more panels in case the sun and my prograde vector were in a 'sub optimal' orientation.  

thanks for watching

[xendelaar]

Here’s the second episode of my grand tour through the real solar system in KSP. In the previous episode, Jeb visited Venus and Mercury.

In this episode they will travel to Mars and Jupiter.
The mission was a great experience and I really enjoyed the visuals the mod makers were able to create.

Some highlights:

Mars
I didn’t think I could aerobrake this easily in Mars’ atmosphere! I thought the helicopter parts would surely melt or something. Landing was a bit more difficult though and I needed quite a bit of fuel to land. Luckily I had enough fuel in stock…
The moons of Mars were a real kraken bait. The game would crash for no reason and landing on the surface was extremely difficult.

Jupiter
I completely misjudged the situation while trying to get captured by Io. I thought it would be smart to start near Jupiter and work my way to the rims of its SOI. I forgot that getting captured near the gas giant would cost a lot more delta v and I eventually didn’t have enough go juice to land on Io.
So by performing flyby’s, I was able to shave off a bit of delta v on every pass I made. It took me soooo long to slow down enough to land that I almost thought of reloading and starting over. But in the end I did managed to land! Afterwards I found out the helicopter on top of the craft is also filled with fuel. The fuel wasn’t shared with the rest of the craft so if had turned on cross flow, I would have probably had 1000 m/s extra of delta v. I felt reaaaly stupid when I found that out haha...

[xendelaar]

Here’s the thirdepisode of my grand tour through the real solar system in KSP.

In the previous episode, Jeb and Bill visited Venus, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. In this episode, they will visit the seven moons of Saturn!

[Some insights]

The first part of the mission started out pretty fun! Visiting Titan was especially a great experience. After that.. I have to admit things got a little more repetitive... The view of Saturn on the closest moons was luckily breathtaking, which made the mission much more bearable.

Edited March 28, 2023 by xendelaar

[king of nowhere]

On 3/28/2023 at 12:55 PM, xendelaar said:

. After that.. I have to admit things got a little more repetitive...

the problem in every grand tour, especially with a system expanded beyond stock.
 

i found that parts breaking up and radiations help keeping things fresh. on the downside, they mutliply lag.

[xendelaar]

On 4/1/2023 at 10:25 PM, king of nowhere said:

the problem in every grand tour, especially with a system expanded beyond stock.
 

i found that parts breaking up and radiations help keeping things fresh. on the downside, they mutliply lag.

you are absolutely right... your suggestion sounds pretty awesome. maybe I should try it. do you use a mod for that? what's it called?

thanks for the comment btw

[king of nowhere]

8 hours ago, xendelaar said:

you are absolutely right... your suggestion sounds pretty awesome. maybe I should try it. do you use a mod for that? what's it called?

thanks for the comment btw

kerbalism.

kerbalism is a mod that focuses on realism and adds a bunch of additional challenges to the game:

- life support; kerbals need food, oxygen, water, potentially nitrogen. you can set up complex combinations of chemical plants to recycle as much of that as possible.

- radiations; solar storms hit at random times, and some planets have radiation belts. you can protect against solar storms by putting other parts between the sun and the ship, and you can mitigate the effect of radiations with shielding (very heavy), but you can't spend more than a few days close to jool even with the best shielding

- parts failure; most parts have a chance to malfunction over time - or with repeated use in the case of engines. making them high quality (heavier) mitigates the problem. an engineer in eva can inspect the part and refurbish them. awesome at first, but it becomes boring when you have to keep flying around the ship to inspect everything. redundancy and contingency plans for broken parts are recommended. can be deactivated.

- stress; kerbals will get stressed during long missions. when they get too stressed, they may do something dumb - like breaking something, or losing life support resources. can be mitigated by giving them luxuries, like more living space, a cupola, plants, etc.

- semi-realistic resource utilizaton; forget planting a drill in the ground and getting fuel for free. you have to extract carbon and water and turn them into fuel by using lots of energy, and it's a slow process. I used 600 tons of mining equipment to get 3000 tons of fuel in a few years (3 to 15 depending on ore/water content of the biome), and during those years parts may break. Also, you need the right resource combination in a biome to refuel. Mining fuel is possible, but it does have a significant cost on the mission. you can still use the regular stock isru if you prefer.

 

I did 4 grand tours with this mod, and others. if you are interested in more information, the links to the reports are in my signature.

i totally recommend the experience; building a ship that can  handle life support for decades, survive multiple parts failure, and carry around the heavy mining industry is a unique challenge.

i also recommend caution; having to take frequent stops to service all the aging parts slows down the mission. adding redundancy imposes a bigger ships, with resulting lag. So the missions are a lot longer. it took me some 3 real life months to complete the grand tours in the stock system, 6 months with the outer planets mod, 9 months with real solar system. try at your own peril.

[xendelaar]

20 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

kerbalism.

kerbalism is a mod that focuses on realism and adds a bunch of additional challenges to the game:

- life support; kerbals need food, oxygen, water, potentially nitrogen. you can set up complex combinations of chemical plants to recycle as much of that as possible.

- radiations; solar storms hit at random times, and some planets have radiation belts. you can protect against solar storms by putting other parts between the sun and the ship, and you can mitigate the effect of radiations with shielding (very heavy), but you can't spend more than a few days close to jool even with the best shielding

- parts failure; most parts have a chance to malfunction over time - or with repeated use in the case of engines. making them high quality (heavier) mitigates the problem. an engineer in eva can inspect the part and refurbish them. awesome at first, but it becomes boring when you have to keep flying around the ship to inspect everything. redundancy and contingency plans for broken parts are recommended. can be deactivated.

- stress; kerbals will get stressed during long missions. when they get too stressed, they may do something dumb - like breaking something, or losing life support resources. can be mitigated by giving them luxuries, like more living space, a cupola, plants, etc.

- semi-realistic resource utilizaton; forget planting a drill in the ground and getting fuel for free. you have to extract carbon and water and turn them into fuel by using lots of energy, and it's a slow process. I used 600 tons of mining equipment to get 3000 tons of fuel in a few years (3 to 15 depending on ore/water content of the biome), and during those years parts may break. Also, you need the right resource combination in a biome to refuel. Mining fuel is possible, but it does have a significant cost on the mission. you can still use the regular stock isru if you prefer.

 

I did 4 grand tours with this mod, and others. if you are interested in more information, the links to the reports are in my signature.

i totally recommend the experience; building a ship that can  handle life support for decades, survive multiple parts failure, and carry around the heavy mining industry is a unique challenge.

i also recommend caution; having to take frequent stops to service all the aging parts slows down the mission. adding redundancy imposes a bigger ships, with resulting lag. So the missions are a lot longer. it took me some 3 real life months to complete the grand tours in the stock system, 6 months with the outer planets mod, 9 months with real solar system. try at your own peril.

wow! that sounds impressive. I don't know if I want to work 9 months on a grand tour haha. but maybe a stock grand tour would be doable..

Thanks for the explanation. I will look into it

[xendelaar]

Welcome to the epic finale of my Grand Tour through the Kerbal Sized Real Solar System! Join Jeb and Bill as they journey to the far reaches of space, exploring the moons of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and even Earth itself.

Prepare to be awed by the incredible beauty of the gas giants up close, and hold onto your seats as we soar above the mysterious surface of Pluto, where we discover something truly amazing.

It took us over 1,232 years to complete this incredible journey where we planted 25 flags on different celestial bodies, but every moment was worth it. Check out the video clip and experience the thrill of space exploration for yourself!

Spoiler

A small rectification is in order: After completing the grand tour... I went back to Uranus and I noticed that the planet DOES have rings! I just was too far away from the gas giant to see them! My bad!

 

[Credits]

Keep It Wavy by Punch Deck  
Impatience by Punch Deck
Coalescence by Punch Deck
https://soundcloud.com/punch-deck

Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Edited April 23, 2023 by xendelaar

[jimmymcgoochie]

I didn’t know KSP would even let you go beyond 1000 years. What made it take so long, just waiting for transfer windows between the outer planets?

[king of nowhere]

it says the video is private

[xendelaar]

On 4/20/2023 at 12:01 AM, jimmymcgoochie said:

I didn’t know KSP would even let you go beyond 1000 years. What made it take so long, just waiting for transfer windows between the outer planets?

I think that the transfers at the outer planets went from years to decades. Perhaps that also meant that getting a proper transfer window also increases in time? Mining also took a lot of days,  but I don't think it took years. 

 

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

it says the video is private

I added some missing scenes to the video and had to reupload the whole thing making the first video redundant. 

I changed the link now. My apologies:)