275 ton stock grand tour

[magnemoe]

Finaly done with an new huge project. An stock (except mechjeb) grand tour ship.

Goal is that Genebree will plant his flag everywhere except sun and Jool.

On top is the Eve lander, drop tank for the deobit burn below, main ship is orange and gray tank, with two orange tanks in nuclear asparagus.

The rocket sticking out is an service module who docked the two dock tanks who can be added to the second stage you can see at the back, they also have modules with spare monoprop.

An second dock tank is in the back. I will use the service module going to Mun an Minmus before the Eve burn. Leaves in in Leo in case I come home dry.

This second stage is the key to the mission as only it will visit all the targets, the first stage act as an carrier for the extra landers and the fuel and will not go everywhere.

Plan is to have the fist stage only stop at Eve, Duna, Laythe and Tylo, it has 8000 m/s dV so it should be enough, will use it until it runs out of fuel after Tylo.

Only second stage will visit Moho, Dress and Val, if has 7000 m/s dV but use far less fuel than the main stage so I save a lot using it for the expensive trips.

In front an large drop tank for balancing the first stage and bringing extra fuel. over it is the Tylo lander, it uses the 3300 m/s lander just behind it as an upper stage.

I have an small lander on top of the first stage for use on low gravity moons and the Kerbin landing. Should have added more docking ports as it will be a lot of transforming on the ship like using one of the docking tanks to balance the Tylo lander after Eve where I decople the second stage.

[Mach56]

.But since you use mechjeb I think you should add that to the title. When I saw it I thought it was 100% stock. And with Eve you need alot more delta-v than that, it will use most of it on ascent. And don't forget Gilly, Bop, Pol and Ike

[magnemoe]

.But since you use mechjeb I think you should add that to the title. When I saw it I thought it was 100% stock. And with Eve you need alot more delta-v than that, it will use most of it on ascent. And don't forget Gilly, Bop, Pol and Ike

Can not add everything in the title, mechjeb is an autopilot an good pilot can do the same or usually better but I'm not an very good pilot. Yes and it give real time dV calculations who will be very important.

Eve lander on top is 60 ton, has tested it unmanned and it work. if uses 6 aerospikes in aspargus, as first stage and 7 of the new 20 Kn inline engines in asparagus as second. More than 12 km/s dv but a bit low twr.

Gilly will be taken after the Eve landing while waiting for Moho transfer. Not sure if I will use the large lander or the small an second stage.

Ike will be handled the same way as Gilly while waiting for Dress.

Bob an Pol is after Tylo, I like to do Bob first as you can not get an minimum cost transfer burn from Tylo to Pol and plane change to Pol is cheaper out in the system.

However this depend a bit on the first stage. As I need to do three dockings to go from first to second stage I can not do this during an time critical burn.

[BryceSchroeder]

I have no problem with Mechjeb or other parts that provide control or information but have no substantial effect on the ship being considered 'stock' for the purpose of the title. The only situation I can think of where I'd object to that terminology is if it were a very small probe being made without a probe body because it is using mechjeb for control.

[magnemoe]

I have no problem with Mechjeb or other parts that provide control or information but have no substantial effect on the ship being considered 'stock' for the purpose of the title. The only situation I can think of where I'd object to that terminology is if it were a very small probe being made without a probe body because it is using mechjeb for control.

I did that with an mistake, had four ketane mapping satellites I would put around Jool's moons, mechjeb acted as an probe core but without probe or any torque modules it was impossible to rotate.

Anyway, did Mun and minmus, had to replace the two landers as I had mounted the rover seat off center, this did not show up on the unmanned tests.

Used the large lander to Minmus, and the small lander together with the service module to Mun, topped up monoprop from service module and waiting for Eve burn.

[magnemoe]

Quick update here, Eve landing was successful, yes parachutes did not work out, they worked mostly in the test but here they became a mess and I had to jettison them all but managed to do an powered landing and reached orbit, landed at 5.5 km height and started gravity turn at 20, where the atmosphere is much like Kerbin at 7 km.

Went to Gilly with the 3300 m/s lander before I fueled it up and went to Moho with the second stage, LVN, three 320 liter tanks, an 180 liter docking tank who was dropped after burning out from Eve.

Currently on my way back to Eve, 180 m/s dV left to circulate, started with over 7000 m/s.

Next up is Duna where I will send the main stage directly to Jool while the upper and a lander do Ike and then Dress before meeting up at Laythe.

[Dkmdlb]

Pics! Can't wait to see what you do in the Jool system.

[magnemoe]

Ariving Eve

Landed on Eve

Yes the braking shutes seperated from lander and so many of the normal parachutes broke I had to eject them.

Returning from to Eve from Moho. Yes I'm a bit low on fuel Had to wait four Moho years to get an cheap enough launch window, the low fuel it's mostly calculated, I did plane shift in deep space as its cheaper than doing it in low orbit, I just left enough to get into an orbit so the main ship could do the rest of the orbital adjustments and land.

Ariving Duna, has landed and is in process of docking with main ship.

The upper stage will continue to Ike and Dress with the small lander before meeting the first stage at Laythe.

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Jool system is critical, or more do I have enough fuel left at Tylo to fill up the upper stage and continue.

Will dock and refuel second stage around Laythe, dock the small lander to the Laythe first stage who will land on Laythe, after getting back I will dock small lander to first stage and move large lander to second stage who will stop at Val before meeting first stage at Tylo. Here the large lander will be docked to the Tylo decent stage.

Tylo decent stage uses two 50 kN engines, has two 180 liter drop tanks who will be used for braking, land on the 360 liter 2.5 meter tank who is decopled after burned out so large lander reach orbit.

The second stage has 7000 m/s dV it should be enough to reach Pol, Bop and Eeloo before returning, question is only if I have enough fuel at Tylo. I have one orange tank left, used the 720 liter on top. Need around 1300 liter to fill up the first stage, Tylo lander and the large lander.

[magnemoe]

Short update, Did Ike after Duna here I got one of the far to common eclipses and waited to not run out of power.

At Dress Genebree almost fell off the seat.

Meanwhile the first stage has arived at Laythe and waits until second stage catches up.

Here you can also see details for the Laythe and Tylo lander. Yes, the Laythe lander is kind of overkill, however i did not want to build the large lander to do Laythe ssto so I made an first stage for the small lander.

Fuel situation look better than expected, I will have enough fuel at Tylo to continue.

[magnemoe]

The Laythe landing was interesting and not everything worked out as planned.

First I did not take the first stage into an low orbit to save fuel. I instead dropped the Laythe fist stage and did an aerobrake with it. it has an probe, however it only have bateries no solar panels so I had to cirulate it roughly before I run out of fuel.

Other issue was that the first stage was unstable in atmosphere and wanted to turn front first only solution was to land with mechjeb who is not desirable on Laythe as it wastes fuel.

After Laythe I met up with the first stage who continued to Tylo while Genebree went to Val.

Last docking between first and second stage.

One decopling who did not work as expected )

I tried to use two radial decoplers against each other to avoid having it stick out and possible unbalance the lander. instrad it broke apart the top of upper stage, did not matter as it was only used to deorbit the Tylo lander.

Edited August 12, 2013 by magnemoe

[magnemoe]

Plenty of fuel left after Tylo

Tylo to Pol burns.

Going to the lander. Should have added an ladder up.

Bop orbital insertion between the mountains.

Landing on Bop was a bit messy, as I was in an slope, should be an better way to get height over ground with seats than turning the landing autopilot on and off all the time. Mechjeb tend to mess up landing on low gravity worlds.

Even the flag planting became an mess

Eeloo burns.

[magnemoe]

Eeloo and back.

I burned out in solar orbit, then towards Eeloo, was so far from Jool I found this was cheaper as I could do an Hohmann transfer at the orbital plane crossover.

Pretty cheap transfer but the wait times was very long.

To long to sit in an small pod but its lots of room outside it

Dropping the side tanks at start of burn, imagine they have been at Moho.

An small adjustment burn.

Almost back

Landing

[magnemoe]

Summary: an to long mission, do not think I will repeat it, however it show that an stock grand tour is very possible.

Thing I would do different if I repeated it.

First an better Eve lander, mine had to low TWR, this would reduce the weight of the overall mission a lot.

Drop the small lander, weight difference is small and its no problem of using the large with just a bit fuel, I would also use two of the inline 20 kN engines on struts as they have far better isp.

this will give me 4000 m/s instead of 3300 m/s. Drop the Laythe stage, rather use an small tank to dock below the lander for deorbit and braking.

Make an docking port on the Tylo lander, dock it with upper stage to take it down to an lower attitude.

With the 4000m/s lander I could simply use two 180 liter tanks, two 20 Kn engines on the top one, use this for deorbit and braking, drop the last one at 300 meter and land and take off with lander.

Going from Tylo and back to Kerbin after Pol, Bop and Eeloo was surprisingly cheap.

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More radical changes would be to use the lander with an simple nuclear drive stage to take me to Moho and back. perhaps don't stop at Laythe with main stage just drop an tank with probe core and small engines to get it into orbit and continue with main stage to Tylo. use an part of this tank for Laythe braking and landing.

[StevenLawyer]

Here's my single launch, no refuel, stock grand tour ship that includes a reusable lander for all planets except Eve (Eve is a separate one time use lander) with reusable rover and reusable probes (you're not going to land on a planet without first sending an unmanned probe, are you?). I finished the mission with fuel to spare.