Exploring Sarkin (Beyond Jool, 1.12.5)

[FTLparachute]

As of late, I stumbled upon the mod Beyond Jool. An alternate outer planets mod to OPM, it is very well made and one I would highly recommend you try out. Now, after getting some SpaceDust configs into the pack and realising that I need a much more powerful computer to begin attempting Tyrant, the mod's big bad and (spoilers) the villain of this post, I decided to do a Cassini-esqe mission to Sarkin.

Mission Goals

- Orbit Sarkin, the mods Saturn analogue

- Fly-by all of Sarkin's moons

- Land a probe on one of the atmospheric moons

The Launch

Launching the rocket took 2 attempts as attaching the interstage to the bottom caused the entire lower stage to remain on the rocket.

The  transfer stage has about 3400 m/s on it, as before it goes to Sarkin, I've decided to make a quick pit stop

Wait, that's another modpack!

Yes, this is Crokslev, from the Minor Planets Expansion. I wanted to do this as 1) Beyond Jool has MPE compatibility and 2) MPE's 1.1 update has given Crokslev a significant glow-up. I did pay for this, as my shoddy trajectory cost me the whole transfer stage to recorrect. But, 5 years later, I had arrived.

The Landings

You may notice 2 atmospheric probes on the probe. These are for the 2 bodies small enough not to incinerate a probe - Moach, a dead moon still retaining an oxygenated atmosphere, and Volatus, the Titan analogue orbiting Tyrant.

Approaching Moach - the probes are detatched early so as to save fuel on the main probe. Tyrant visible in background.

Unfortunately, the first one was wrecked, as the drogues were not enough to slow the craft.

This looks quite intimidating. Until recently, this used to be identical in colour to Eve.

The aerobrake in question, done against Volatus' orbit. Sarkin and Tyrant overhead. Tyrant, by the way, is a terrestrial with greater GeeASL and radius than Alternis Tylo.

Touchdown!

The Volatus lander was much more successful. Although the entry speeds were upwards of 8km/s, I correctly judged the thick atmosphere would slow the craft fast enough to keep it only slightly charred. At least I had one success.

Foreshadowing + The rest of the flybys

Unfortunately, my sporadic quicksaving came back to bite me when a borked fly-by of Tyrant left me in a revesed orbit of Sarkin. However, I was still able to fly-by the other inner moons, Kotta and Aron.

Kotta, an oblate moon. The large crater on the right is Sushut Crater.

Aron, the Enceladus analogue. The 'Crater of Nertea' is plainly visible.

The 'Grand' Finale

Now, I was at this point hoping to do a dive into Sarkin similar to the one done by Cassini. This plan was thwarted by two factors (Sarkin's atmosphere being very short and thus getting very thick very quickly, and the orbital velocity being 25km/s), which, instead of a fireworks show, instantly deleted the craft.

Conclusion

While the mission achieved most of it's objectives, the lengths to get to Crokslev and the sabotage by myself Tyrant left me unable to reach the other two moons, Sapp and (big shocker) Eeloo. Despite this, I enjoyed the rest of the mission.

[Mr. Kerbin]

Wow!

I never thought I’d see the day…

Assuming you did the Sarkin Surveyor mission, you definitely passed!

(I still have to make a badge)

I think MPE compatibility may be changed to have my analogs replaced.

38 minutes ago, FTLparachute said:

and (big shocker) Eeloo

Oh, so you used the orbit switch thing?

[FTLparachute]

1 minute ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

Oh, so you used the orbit switch thing?

It helps de-clutter things a bit.

 

2 minutes ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

Assuming you did the Sarkin Surveyor mission, you definitely passed!

Think so.

Idea: Link to that post on the Beyond Jool thread - stops it getting buried in the mission ideas topic.

[Kevin_kerman]

wow, great job.

[Mr. Kerbin]

20 hours ago, FTLparachute said:

Sapp

Uh, one last thing.

20 hours ago, FTLparachute said:

revesed orbit

If you mean a retrograde orbit, Sapp actually orbits that way!

[FTLparachute]

1 hour ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

If you mean a retrograde orbit, Sapp actually orbits that way!

Said retrograde orbit was not even close to Sapp and even with the amount of waiting the Aron encounter took a lot of fuel. I would have if I could have

[Mr. Kerbin]

24 minutes ago, FTLparachute said:

Said retrograde orbit was not even close to Sapp and even with the amount of waiting the Aron encounter took a lot of fuel. I would have if I could have

Oh.

[FTLparachute]

Quick post here - the next mission is nearly complete, this being a series of missions to explore Beyond Jool's outermost bodies in the 'Robau Belt'.

Stay tuned.