I got my Ion Jool

[WhiteWeasel]

When I first got this game I was immensely fascinated with the Ion engines. So the story is that when looking at the stock rockets in the VAB, I saw the 'Ion powered space probe'. My reaction is was :"Ah sweet! future tech"!

Ok that is a sad-dinky piece of probe. It can't even hold it's charge beyond 10% thrust! What were the devs thinking?! I Decided to make something my own. And we now have the bad A.S.S. ones we see today.

We know of my first day (of having the full game, not ksp in general) and getting there with my old Tri-on Satellite

Old thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/29914-Day-1-and-already-conquered-Jool-Pic-Hvy

In my new .20 save when it came out, I decided to do a total design overhaul. More solar panels to account for the weaker sunlight, an additional engine, making it a quadrion satellite. To keep the weight low I scrapped all but one 'emergency' tank, but those extra gigantors make up for it by being able to thrust at/near 100% with the ions continually. It went to jool ok and is orbiting the big hunk itself, except for the retrograde orbit and stuff.

My deep space splitter multi-probe from the spacecraft exchange (With craft. file go get it and give some feedback!): http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/35878-MLAS-Presents-The-Deep-Space-Splitter

Now with the big cheese out of the way time for the moons.. I decided to send a series of small Ion probes to each moon of jool, sending a quadrion satellite for each one would be grueling, have to do a jool mission 5 times over. So I went and made a single ship containing a cluster of probes, and these small, light, and awesome little probes that could were born. Also when designing the transfer stage, I noticed being tall made your rocket unstable, and I did not want to sacrifice fuel, so I came up with the weird middle bit, only as tall as a FL-t200, but with 4x the capacity.

These probes are specifically engineered for a trip to jool, one for each moon. Carrying two gigantor solar panels to make up for the half strength of the sun at jool, even then able to burn a 100% with no charge loss in correct position. Has Plenty of xenon gas for maneuvers, an avionics package for looks-with the bonus of flight assistance (.2t lighter than a small cone too!), and four batteries that keep through the night. However they can be modified for closer worlds by taking off the extra solar panel and replacing it with some other part that will be of use, or adding very light parts such as communotrons, dishes, or other useful small mod parts. They can also be mass deployed and heavily cover a single body instead, or deployed on your voyage and hit other planets as well. Their biggest advantage is the small weight and parts count for the DΆthey offer. So small, they barely weigh down a ship... with subassembly, you could add one or more of them to your jool destined ship and have a free satellite(s). Or you could add even more to a ship that launches them by themselves and mass deploy two or three for each moon!

Destination arrival in chronological order:

If curious the parking orbit of the main ship was between tylo and vall, but after conquering tylo, vall, and laythe, was soon to be found on a collision course with tylo after several orbits, and was moved between tylo and bop, farther away this time.

Tylo:

Vall:

Laythe:

And to prove that these Ion engines can stand up to the big boys, It can even save itself from a collision course, and even then it still didn't use up the first tank! (I had already done some of the burn so it was even worse before the pic)

It even areobrakes like a 'real' probe. (Liquid engines can **** **!)

Pol:

Bop:

Edited June 16, 2013 by WhiteWeasel

[WhiteWeasel]

Anyone like my jool adventure?

[Scotius]

I salute your patience. I've tried to do some deep-space ion probe missions, and failed miserably trying to send my creations to Duna-Ike system. Now, looking at your report i feel i gave up ions too soon. Oh well...

[WhiteWeasel]

I salute your patience. I've tried to do some deep-space ion probe missions, and failed miserably trying to send my creations to Duna-Ike system. Now, looking at your report i feel i gave up ions too soon. Oh well...

Well they do stand up to physics warp really well. x4 no problems with the little probes.

[Odo]

........Respect.

[Geschosskopf]

I've never messed with ion engines because I know nothing of how to fly with continuous thrust. How do you do the navigation and how does it differ from burn-drift-burn?

[Rage097]

I almost got to jool...

[WhiteWeasel]

I've never messed with ion engines because I know nothing of how to fly with continuous thrust. How do you do the navigation and how does it differ from burn-drift-burn?

Really it's the same, you just stay on your nav ball target a lot longer.

Edited June 17, 2013 by WhiteWeasel

[oggylt]

Wow really good job, ion probes is the future! we just need to research better generators

[FlamedSteak]

I've put almost identical ion probes in polar orbit around Jool, and another in a skin scraping 6k orbit around Duna. I wanted to go to 5k, but would have crashed into the highlands.

It was fun, but it took forever, so I don't think I'll do it again.