Lightest Laythe Sample Return

[Jack wooster]

Challenge is to land the QBE pod on Lathe take a sample using the Antena as a drill, and then return the pod to KSC with the smallest possible ship, using stock parts plus mechjeb.

So far I have managed 62.37 tonnes.

3.4KM off Target!

[tavert]

Ooh, I'm totally on this. Any reason for the QBE probe specifically? I think an SSTO with a jet and a nuke will be optimal here since the jet gets you back into Laythe orbit too. I might even bring a Kerbal along in a seat, for chute-repacking purposes.

[Jack wooster]

Ooh, I'm totally on this. Any reason for the QBE probe specifically? I think an SSTO with a jet and a nuke will be optimal here since the jet gets you back into Laythe orbit too. I might even bring a Kerbal along in a seat, for chute-repacking purposes.

I chose the QBE because it's nice and boxy to store your samples in for return to Kerbin.

Kerbal on a seat, ahh what times we live in!

[tavert]

Fair enough, that was my best guess. We now have a good answer to the mass of a Kerbal, 0.09 tons. So including the seat, it's actually heavier to bring a Kerbal than to bring another small chute. I got a 6.61-ton SSTO out to Laythe, but turns out even 2 small chutes weren't enough to land safely without some help from the engines. And I'm not sure if it was carrying enough fuel for return... I may have to try again using wings for gliding landing instead. I seem to remember some people flying fairly small 1-man ion planes to Laythe, I'm personally not patient enough for ion missions but I wonder if that would actually win in weight.

Edit again: found the link to the ion Laythe plane I was thinking of, if anyone's curious: http://imgur.com/a/Yu3m2#0

Edited May 26, 2013 by tavert

[Jack wooster]

Wow! that ion plane is small, I too have trouble with ion missions as the burns take so long, or you need multiple goes at them. Although I did use ion drive to return from Laythe as by then the payload only consisted of the pod and a parachute.

[numerobis]

I once flew a round-trip single-stage plane with 3 crew, 3 hab modules, and a rover. It weighed in at about 45T on liftoff; it was powered by 4 jet engines and an LV-N. Unfortunately, it never went home: I miscalculated and intercepted Kerbin's orbit precisely opposite where Kerbin was, because there's more than one pi in a circle.

I had a save but got bored of flying it (the part count was pretty high).

In any case, that implies we should be able to get much smaller rockets than 62T... Game on!