Three To Eve - Mk 1-2 Command Pod Challenge

[Jack wooster]

I'll repost this in case someone was doing it when the boards went down.

The challenge is to land a three man crew on Eve, in the Mk 1-2 Command Pod, take them on an EVA, and then return them in the pod to KSC. Stock parts only, except Mechjeb which is allowed. The easiest way I would think is to land on one of the high plateaus and use plenty of docking and refueling, I can't see a single ship being able to do this mission, but you never know.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Jack wooster
Grammar

[Jack wooster]

Here is my attempt:-

Eve lander lifts off from Kerbin, it shed a few orange stages and then reaches orbit half empty.

Once in orbit it need a fair few visits from a refueling tug, the tug couldn't be too big because that lowered the frame rate so much, docking became impossible.

Transfer to Eve used up nearly all the fuel again, and so this time interplnetary refueling tugs there needed.

Fully fueled up we plunging into Eves atmosphere on a long shallow dive to use up as much speed as possible without burning the engines.

Landed on Eve everybody streches their legs.

The ship sheds it's rather explosive landing gear as it takes off

Pod arrives back in orbit, with about 10 litres of fuel to spare.

The recovery ship collects the pod.

and returns it to Kerbin.

bringing everyone home safe and sound.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Jack wooster

[Flixxbeatz]

A pretty high end computer you got there.

[Jack wooster]

Sadly not, the frame rate on that initial Kerbin launch was dreadful.

[metaphor]

I did it, was writing my post when the forums went down.

Here is the album.

My Eve return vehicle was 224 tons, from an altitude of 6400m on Eve. But it doesn't really reach Eve orbit... I used a small high-thrust tug to catch the command pod while in a suborbital trajectory. I could have made the lander reach Eve orbit with about 50 tons more, but this way seemed cooler. Took a lot of tries to get it right though, so I wouldn't recommend it for any other missions. Requires 3 launches from Kerbin's surface, but it's probably possible to do it in one launch with a really good computer.

Here's the lander on the surface of Eve

[Flixxbeatz]

Yup, my signature totally makes sense.

[Jack wooster]

Excellent metaphor! I wondered about suborbital capture, when I was trying to build a ship that could make orbit and kept failing, that must have taken some real seat of the pants flying.

[foamyesque]

I'm thinking about an alternate approach.

I've yet to nail the full re-entry, though.

[Jack wooster]

Lovely pic, Foamyesque.

[Shuttle]

One guy managed to build a rocket that can provide enough power to land one man on Eve and bring him back to Kerbin.

http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/162q22/257613_tons_882_parts_and_2_uav_drones_puts_jeb/

Liftoff mass: 2576.13 tons 882 Parts

Mass to Kerbin Orbit: 385.33 tons

4226 m/s atmospheric Delta-v in the liftoff stage

2747 m/s vacuum Delta-v in the interplanetary stage

7724 m/s atmospheric Detla-v in the Eve ascent stage

5623 m/s vacuum Delta-v in the return stage (~1/3 of which was used in finalizing Eve orbit)

20,520 m/s total Delta-v

[magnemoe]

I did it, was writing my post when the forums went down.

Here is the album.

My Eve return vehicle was 224 tons, from an altitude of 6400m on Eve. But it doesn't really reach Eve orbit... I used a small high-thrust tug to catch the command pod while in a suborbital trajectory. I could have made the lander reach Eve orbit with about 50 tons more, but this way seemed cooler. Took a lot of tries to get it right though, so I wouldn't recommend it for any other missions. Requires 3 launches from Kerbin's surface, but it's probably possible to do it in one launch with a really good computer.

Here's the lander on the surface of Eve

You managed to dock with something going suborbital?

I have been thinking about this method, however my idea was to use an basket to catch the pod in with landing legs to grip it. With some forward radial engines for braking it would be able of snatching the pod fast and get away.

[Istas]

I've got a lander that can lift the 4-ton pod from sea level on Eve (no messing around with mountains) to orbit. It doesn't have ladders though, and I also haven't yet had the patience to refuel it once it gets to LKO (and again once it gets orbit around Eve), then tug it to Eve. It works though, it makes it to LKO, and I used hyperedit to insert it into Eve's upper atmosphere and flew it as if the rest had been done.

[metaphor]

You managed to dock with something going suborbital?

I have been thinking about this method, however my idea was to use an basket to catch the pod in with landing legs to grip it. With some forward radial engines for braking it would be able of snatching the pod fast and get away.

I would definitely not recommend this. It took me about 20 tries to get the orbit right and you need some really fast maneuvering to get it in close enough to dock fast enough. I don't think using a basket would help the time too much. It doesn't help that Eve has a really high density so orbits around it are faster than equivalent Kerbin orbits.

I was thinking of using suborbital capture to get off Jool from its surface, since Jool is much less dense and so has longer period orbits and more time for capture. You need about 21k delta-v for getting into Jool orbit from "sea level". I have a lander which has 19k delta-v, so would need a tug with at least 4k delta-v.

[Jack wooster]

Now Jool, that really is a challenge!