Jool fueling tanker

[Boris_T_Roach]

I needed a fuel tanker suitable for orbiting Jool and refueling any and all probes in the area

So after a few assembly flights, the final 2 fuel tanks were added about 15 mins ago

I'll retract the big solar panels before starting the engines and the flight to Jool starts tommorrow..... wish me luck...

Boris

PS that weighs twice as much as the Jool orbital lab being planned....

[Shiftyeyesshady]

Cool looking, but horribly inefficient. Never use more than two Nuclear engines, just use longer burns. After two Nuclear engines, you start to lose efficiency pushing the heavy weight of the engines.

[sanity]

might not have enough thrust to break kerbin orbit in 1 pass

[Boris_T_Roach]

I never do anyway, always move AP out to 2000-3000km first before doing the departure burn, and the 4 LOX engines on the back are there for exactly that purpose, to help with getting the heffalump into solar orbit.

Boris

<<<heffalump pilot

[Oggula]

Wait so you're saying 4 LV-Ns is enough to propel 6 big orange tanks without committing ritual suicide from the boredom? I use 6 LV-Ns just to propel 1.5 big tanks in my Moho lander. Less engines might be efficient, but that time is far better used designing craft that can do the job as well but more quickly. Time is money.

[Blackbird]

little tipp: you should consider removing those normal engines and just useing the nuclear ones. you don't have to break your orbit after the first, second or third burn. if you have to make 10 burns to brake kerbin orbit that doesn't matter but you will save a lot of fuel if you only use like 3 or 4 nuclear ones and remove the weight of the normal engines.

little question: why retract the solar pannels? there is no drag to brake them or do I miss something?^^

[Blackbird]

Time is money.

I guess fuel costs more, at least where i come from ;D

[nhnifong]

Looks like a great ship

[Boris_T_Roach]

Well the Mechjeb on the front does'nt need the power from the big panels at the back, plus they get in the way of the Lox booster engines, so until the lox boosters are dropped the panels stay shut.

I did try launching a 6 LV-N drive section, but its too heavy to get into orbit using my heavy lifter

Hopefully what will get into a Jool orbit just outside the orbit of Laythe will be the 5 orange tank payload, and the LV-N drive section, the 4 3meter fuel tanks will have been emptied and dropped, as well as the RCS tanks at the foward end

Or I could end up with a bunch of orbital debris, I did ask Jeb if he wanted to pilot the thing but he said not even he was that crazy

Boris

The heffalump launches tonight!... maybe even live on IRC

[itsme86]

little question: why retract the solar pannels? there is no drag to brake them or do I miss something?^^

I think it's so the 0.12 TWR doesn't tear them off from the G forces when he fires up the engines.

Cool tanker BTW. Looks like a lot of design effort. Wouldn't mind seeing your lifter!

[Pbhead]

I did try launching a 6 LV-N drive section, but its too heavy to get into orbit using my heavy lifter

what?

so you gave up?!?

NONO!!!!

You are supposed to: ADD MORE BOOSTERS!!!!!!!!

[Blackbird]

what I am realy interested in now is the fuelflow. You got a lot of sections with a lot of dockingports on there and i wonder if you tested it and if it drains every tank the same so your center of mass stays in line with your thrust because it often doesn't work for me ;(

[Boris_T_Roach]

Only the LOX engines seemed to want to drain everything... so they were dumped pretty smart'ish, any ways , as promised yesterday, the Heffalump made it to Jool today, sadly the mission to put it into a decent wide orbit did'nt go as planned.

The aero braking at Jool went in, losing 2000Dv to achieve an orbit with an AP between Laythe and Vall, but the pe was at 200Km and in any case ended up with a Laythe intercept with a Pe of -30km

Throwing a manuver node up and fiddling with the settings put me into a nice orbit with aero braking at Laythe , so the plan to orbit Jool was dropped and we're now in a nice stable 135km high orbit at Laythe

It has 4 full orange tanks and 5 full 3 meter RCS tanks left, should be enough for my Laythe shuttle(still in development) to get up and down about 6 or 7 times

Boris

<<currently building the laythe manned station, as well as planning the mk 2 heffalump... with extra boosters