Jool Express: Voyage of the Rothbard (with pics)

[Dkmdlb]

I decided to put together a big-time science/exploration mission to Jool. I wanted to test some ideas for ship, probe, and lander design. The last time I tried something big like this I gave up because the part count brought my computer to a crawl and it was too frustrating. To avoid a repeat, I downloaded NovaPunch for the purpose of reducing part count. I figured I could make some savings in fuel tanks and related structures by using some of the 3.75 meter parts and larger engines.

The primary goals for the mission were:

-Land 2 manned landers on Laythe and rendezvous on the surface.

-Land an unmanned probe on Pol and Bop

Secondary goals were:

-Land an unmanned probe on Vall

-Put an unmanned probe in suicide orbit around Tylo (how low can *you* go?).

Here is the first auxillary drop tank and the propulsion module early in the build. Those two NovaPunch LV-Ns put out as much thrust as 10 stock LV-Ns, and using them represents an 80% savings in part count over the stock engines.

I used Procedural Fairings for aesthetic effect, and it worked well until I needed to send up a fuel tank with 4 probes mounted radially. Any number of jokes could be made here:

And here is what was hidden underneath that bulbous catastrophe:

The final ship required 9 launches and 8 dockings, plus a couple of refueling trips, so the actual number was higher. It is crewed by 7, weighs some 500 tons, carries 4 probes and 4 atmospheric landers (which were themselves another experimental design). I ended up having to send a separate interplanetary ship for the 4 lander pilots because the part count was getting too high. I was looking at something like 2 fps. I figured that it would be easier to rendezvous in Jool orbit for crew transfer after I ditched the 4 probes (each with about 25 parts or so).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Rothbard:

Preparing for Jool Transfer:

And burning. It took a couple of trips around Kerbin to complete the burn, at something like 0.15m/s^2 to start.

The first auxillary tank was dropped after the Rothbard reached Kerbin escape velocity.

Arrival at Jool:

Aerobraking:

The Rothbard had enough fuel to do an unassisted circularization burn, but gravity assists were used for efficiency's sake. On one particular Vall flyby, Jeb decided he needed some excitement and so dropped the entire ship down to 10km (less than 5km true altitude and the lowest point) at nearly 2km per second. Bill doesn't seem to mind (maybe he didn't notice), but Bob does not look happy.

Jool is such a beautiful place. It's hard to look anywhere without seeing something worth pressing F1 for.

That's all for part 1. In the next post: the probes are launched to Laythe, Pol, and Bop.

[Scorpi15]

I wonder if you'll find any [formerly] living creatures on Bop *wink*