First manned Gilly mission.

[Canopus]

After my brave Kerbalnauts landed on Duna, i decided that my next target should be Gilly. This time i went for an easier approach without assembling a big ship in Orbit. The Lander and the mothership are docked in Kerbin orbit and then ejected into interplanetary space by a chemical upper stage. The ship itself uses one of the Nucleonid NTR's as the main engine.

After the aerobraking in a high elliptical orbit around Eve:

I just love the silverish look of Eve's oceans:

Gilly:

First of the two landings:

Hovering over the rough surface:

Eve in the distance:

My Kerbals having fun in the low Gravity environment:

Mysterious ridge:

Back on Kerbin:

Next target, Laythe!

Edited May 16, 2013 by Canopus

[hugix]

Gilly is fun. It is one of the funniest places to play with EVA's and everything.

[Canopus]

Gilly is fun. It is one of the funniest places to play with EVA's and everything.

But walking around is very hard there. Every step sends your Kerbals flying:) Edited May 16, 2013 by Canopus

[Alephzorg]

Gilly is indeed very fun but a pain in the ass to land on. The low gravity combined with the impossibility to time warp when getting close to the surface makes every landing an exercise in patience.

[Spatzimaus]

Gilly is ANNOYING. I was using it as my fuel depot for Eve/Moho explorations, with the Kethane mod, and it was just horrible to refuel from for a few reasons:

1> Its gravity is so low that an orbit around it takes a LONG time, and rendezvous in Gilly orbit take a long time as well (but take very little fuel). Also, the low gravity means your lander will bounce quite a bit when it tries to settle in place; I ended up using RCS to push down to hasten the process.

2> The MapSat mod breaks on Gilly; the "current position" marker will be in the wrong spot, which makes it really hard to navigate on the way down.

3> It rotates fast enough that it's hard to land on the spot you choose, since it takes you so long to land due to low gravity. I did a large amount of hovering to move to the spot I wanted, in the end.

4> You can't time warp below 8km, which is where most of your flight will be.

5> Most of the surface is far enough above "sea level" that the navball won't switch from Orbit to Surface mode.

6> Seriously, look at the shape of the thing. You have to be really careful not to hit a mountain as you move towards a landing site.

I mean, I still ended up using it for fuel. The orbital velocities are so low that it's easy to dock with anything, the surface is nicely visible, and where else would you get fuel? But I have very little motivation to go back.

[CoriW]

There was this one time back before 0.19 (before rover wheels) when I sent a rover to Gilly powered by an Ion Engine... It was a terrible idea, that rover was going sub-orbital every time it hit a small bump! xD

[ZedNova]

How the heck did you get the trees?

I remember them in .17, but i can't get them anymore... ( Yes, i turned terrain scatters up to 100%)

[Canopus]

How the heck did you get the trees?

I remember them in .17, but i can't get them anymore... ( Yes, i turned terrain scatters up to 100%)

They are hard to find. Its actually the first time i noticed them:D

[Temstar]

Awww Gilly, one of the wackiest places in the Kerbolar System:

Edited May 16, 2013 by Temstar

[zekes]

Ohmygosh you have trees!