EELOO ‘NEW HORIZONS’ PROBE MISSION

[mrmoo]

In 2015,  NASA’s New Horizon probe swung past Pluto, gathering important data about it and its moon before slingshotting itself further away from us, now heading forever out of our solar system…pretty cool, huh? :)

But we all know the Kerbals and the great Kerbal Space Program is better than NASA by far, and to prove this we must one up them. Therefore, I challenge all of you budding Kerbonauts to design a probe capable of:

• REACHING THE PLANET OF EELOO
• SLINGSHOTTING PAST IT ON AN ESCAPE TRAJECTORY OUT OF THE KERBOL SYSTEM
• LANDING A SMALLER PROBE ON THE SURFACE TO DO SCIENCE!

The rules are as follows:

• The probe must pass within 70km of Eeloo’s surface and the lander must have a stable, prolonged touchdown on the surface
• The probe must be done in stock but the two DLCs (Making History and Breaking Ground’ are permitted
• The probe must way between 3 and 12 tons during its interplanetary stage (from leaving Kerbin’s SOI to entering Eeloo’s SOI)
• To validate your probe, you must send at least 5 pictures of your probe: one in the VAB (clear), one on the launchpad, in orbit around Kerbin, near Eeloo and finally an image of the lander of the surface. Another image is required of the final probes escape trajectory
• The information for your probe in your message (simply reply on this thread) must include: mass, name, overview, any cool notes and (hopefully not) controversial things, e.g. part clipping
• Cheats (including unnecessary part clipping) is prohibited and any will be disqualified
• Don’t ruin the competition. Be sportsman’s like and don’t ruin the fun for others.

THE TOP THREE WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON JANUARY 15th 2025.

The craft will be ranked out of 10 by my own judgement but can get bonus points for:

• +1p — The whole probe goes within 10km of the surface (proof needed, screenshot is sufficient)
• +2p — The probe weighs less than 7 tons (including lander)
• +2p — You put a merry Christmas Easter egg on your probe! ;D
• +3p — You return your lander to Kerbin safely (can be recovered from within Kerbin SOI by another craft and can use ISRU

FLY SAFE AND ENJOY A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR, HOPEFULLY NOT STRANDED ON DUN (i’m still sorry jeb)

[Scarecrow71]

3 hours ago, mrmoo said:

The probe must way between 3 and 12 tons during its interplanetary stage (from leaving Kerbin’s SOI to entering Eeloo’s SOI)

Which probe?  The one doing the fly-by, or the lander?  On that note, are we allowed to do separate launches?

[mrmoo]

4 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Which probe?  The one doing the fly-by, or the lander?  On that note, are we allowed to do separate launches?

Both, as a total. Yes, you can do multiple launches, but only within Kerbin's SOI, meaning you can't have a massive interplanetary stage powering the probe. So, as soon as it leaves the SOI of Kerbin, the whole craft must be between 3 and 12 tons.

But if you choose to sacrafice your sanity for the lander return mission (+3 points :D), you can go up to 15 tons.