Jebediah's and Kirk's Evian Adventure

[Death Engineering]

This is my third trip to Eve for a return-landing attempt. My first attempt was way-early in my game experience, and was therefor a miserable failure. Well, the landing went fine but I didn't even get to a 10K altitude (it didn't help that I landed it on the beach and thought "How hard can it be?"). My second attempt, with more power, was still unsuccessful. This was time for some over-engineering!

Even though I know this mission can be done with a single launch vehicle, I instead opted for a Kerbin orbit rendezvous. The first launch delivered the Eve lander, the second delivered the interplanetary transfer and return vehicle and the third was to top up the tanks after the lander and transfer vessel were docked, and to ferry up a small lander for a Gilly landing.

Of course, I had to test the Eve lander from LKO to test the staging and get used to flying an ascent vehicle that shed an immense amount of mass during the flight.

Here, Jeb and his rover make sure that a descent and ascent on the ladders are possible. Even with 6 drogue chutes and 6 main chutes, the landing was rather harsh and a long burn to slow down was required. Eve has more gravity, but an atmosphere so thick you can cut it with a knife so I don't anticipate needing to burn the engines much (or at all) to make a soft landing. At least, I better not need much of a burn! Even with mostly aerospikes (and one vectoring engine for control), the Kerbin test landing consumed both of the drop tanks! This lander would require at least 50% more chutes to slow it down enough to land without a burn on Kerbin.

Here are the three launchers on the pad, illuminated by the remote launch pad lighting system. All launches were done in sequential Kerbin days so that each launch would align with the previous launch's orbit. Rendezvous and docking would take place after all three were in orbit. This strategy worked well but was probably not entirely fuel efficient as it meant I needed to place all three at different altitudes and far enough apart to give time to align them up in orbit. No matter, though, as the final launch carried more than enough fuel to top everything off after docking the Gilly lander to the bottom of the transfer vehicle.

In orbit, fully fueled and crewed, the entire vessel was 542 parts and 268T, as seen here in the initial burn towards interplanetary space. Taking advantage of the Oberth effect, I took three orbits around Kerbin before the final escape.

A low, 60km pass through Eve's soupy atmosphere provided some pretty scenes with Kerbol casting a long shadow across the main fuel tank as the three ships blazed through the sky. After just one pass I was brought to a 117km apoapsis. A few orbital adjustments and a quick circularization and I had the vessel parked at a low 100km orbit; I didn't want to be any higher than I needed to in order to ensure a successful Eve orbital ascent.

Time to pick out a landing site. I brought along three lander probes to scout altitude on the Eve surface. My first landing, beach side, was only 1km up. The next probe was lost due to pilot error (chute tore and the probe tumbled to its death).

However, the last probe was on a 5200m plateau right below my orbital path. Perfect! However, the light was falling away from this location, so it was time to undock and land this monster.

With only the drogue chutes deployed, the descent speed was dropping quickly - I knew that I'd make it down with little to no burn once the mains were out. Landing site only a few kilometers away, I knew I was on the best chance I'd had so far for a successful Eve orbital return! Main chutes deployed and speed dropped quickly to 16 m/s, and still 5km of altitude to drop.

As soon as the mains fully opened at 500m above the surface, it was time to jettison the rover which dropped on its own chute. It came down within 5m of the lander, but broke a wheel on landing. No worries, Jeb brought along his toolkit!

Purple haze fills Jeb's cabin.

Touchdown!

With a pocket full of Eve sand for analysis by the smartest (?) Kerbal scientists it was time for the obligatory Eve sunrise shot just prior to takeoff. Move the rover to a safe distance to be controlled from KSC and then climb aboard for the "big moment".

Will Jeb make it back to orbit? Will Kirk care if he doesn't? The conclusion in tomorrow's post!

Edited July 3, 2013 by Death Engineering

[Death Engineering]

Having completed their primary objective of landing on Eve, Jeb attempts to return to Eve's orbit to rendezvous with Kirk waiting on the mother ship.

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