can this little probe do it?

[WhiteWeasel]

Simply put, I am putting five of these on my ship and deploying them around the moons of jool. Assuming a stable, circular orbit, between laythe and vall, and start deploying them from there, could they have enough DV to do it?

Edited June 13, 2013 by WhiteWeasel

[Awaras]

With two xenon tanks each? Heck, you could probably get them from Kerbin to Jool by themselves.

[WhiteWeasel]

With two xenon tanks each? Heck, you could probably get them from Kerbin to Jool by themselves.

Well, they are fairly light, 1.4t or something each. I guess thats good enough, thanks!

[GJames]

I quickly built one with a Kerbal Engineer circuit (which adds a ridiculously tiny amount of weight) and it has around 4400m/s of dV. In other words, plenty. It could probably get out to Jool and slow itself down enough to get into a stable orbit even without aerobraking.

One problem might be the amount of electricity you get once your out at Jool, but as long as you leave plenty of time to do burns then you should be good.

EDIT: You might actually be better off using a small liquid fueled engine instead. With a bit of tweaking you can get a probe with 3300m/s dV with a thrust to weight ratio that is nearly 50x better. That would definitely help with the longer burns, but just a thought. I'm planning a similar mission as well.

Edited June 13, 2013 by GJames

[WhiteWeasel]

I quickly built one with a Kerbal Engineer circuit (which adds a ridiculously tiny amount of weight) and it has around 4400m/s of dV. In other words, plenty. It could probably get out to Jool and slow itself down enough to get into a stable orbit even without aerobraking.

One problem might be the amount of electricity you get once your out at Jool, but as long as you leave plenty of time to do burns then you should be good.

EDIT: You might actually be better off using a small liquid fueled engine instead. With a bit of tweaking you can get a probe with 3300m/s dV with a thrust to weight ratio that is nearly 50x better. That would definitely help with the longer burns, but just a thought. I'm planning a similar mission as well.

It takes only one gigantor solar panel to power an ion engine, with a little bit to spare. At jool the sun is half as strong so I have two, liquid fuel might be better, but I love Ions.

[GJames]

It takes only one gigantor solar panel to power an ion engine, with a little bit to spare. At jool the sun is half as strong so I have two, liquid fuel might be better, but I love Ions.

So do I, but some of those burns...

My Kerbol Escape probe used one ion engine and has still got 3000m/s dV left as it cruises out of the solar system, should actually be enough to turn around and get back to Kerbin if I wanted to...

[WhiteWeasel]

So this could definitely make it to jool.