To the other hemisphere and back

[samstarman5]

I am sure Jeb is with me on this one, as right now everyone\'s done it all with the Mun. The Mun is cool and all, but I say, 'What about Kerbin?'

Well, what about Kerbin? I am sure everyone\'s seen the other hemisphere of that beautiful planet, but never returned to tell the tale.

So here is the challenge: Land on the opposite side of Kerbin from KSC, and then launch from there and return back to within sight of KSC. The Mun is easy since it has less of a well to get out of, but launching from Kerbin again in the same mission I think bears some scrutiny. Especially if we are going to have other planets to explore in the (hopefully near) future.

Requirement: Rockets only. No spaceplanes or oversouped mods. The more stock parts, the more karma.

Bonus Points: On both trips between the hemispheres, you make a swing around the Mun.

Double Bonus: Instead of a swing around the Mun, you make one Kerbol orbit.

Feel free to share ideas and anything to spice up the challenge.

[Guest ThatCrazyPilot]

That\'s easy. I pass though.

[White Owl]

With spaceplanes, this challenge is so easy it\'s trivial.

Launch, go suborbital, reenter, land. Launch again, point the nose at KSC, go suborbital, reenter, land.

[Tim_Barrett]

Especially since C7 parts are so cheaty in the first place...

Stock or balanced mods may be a different story. That should be the challenge

[Tosh]

Especially since C7 parts are so cheaty in the first place...

Even with \'cheaty\' C7 it may be quite a problem to land still heavy plane (still carrying fuel for suborbital flight!) in an arbitrary point. And to takeoff afterwards... in one piece.

[Key of door]

I have an idea!

Orbit

Drop a command pod with a parachute,

Return

[samstarman5]

I have an idea!

Orbit

Drop a command pod with a parachute,

Return

But how is Jeb supposed to pick up hot chicks from the Korient that way? He\'s not Santa Claus! (Besides, the only gifts he likes to drop are smoky debris bits)

[Tim_Barrett]

Even with \'cheaty\' C7 it may be quite a problem to land still heavy plane (still carrying fuel for suborbital flight!) in an arbitrary point. And to takeoff afterwards... in one piece.

Not to mention that a few wings can hold up all of that weight to a very gentle glide.

VTOLs are also a good way to land but since this requires a much larger plane, that might not be too effective.

[Tosh]

Not to mention that a few wings can hold up all of that weight to a very gentle glide.

VTOLs are also a good way to land but since this requires a much larger plane, that might not be too effective.

They can. But even 30 m/s landing/takeoff speed cannot be considered as \'safe\'. Just hit one of tile borders (which are hardly visible from above) -- and you\'ll end up gluing your landing gear back to fuselage

A matter of luck and nothing more.

VTOLs seem more appropriate for this mission. Even a monster with 5 fuel tanks requires only 3 to 4 heavy RCS ports (of course C7 ones).

[White Owl]

I don\'t know why everybody is in love with all these enormous spaceplanes. I\'m pretty sure my tiny XCART-4 design could do this, and that thing has only two fuel tanks. If I got rid of the RCS tanks and replaced them with a half-size fuel tank, I\'m 100% certain this would be possible.

[khyron42]

I don\'t know why everyone thinks this is a flight simulator. =P I\'m trying this with stock parts right now.

[Spoot Knight]

Because making aircraft for all the wrong reasons is fun.

Which MFS doesn\'t let you do at all and X-Plane does to an extent (Tossing them into space or trying to fly them in Mars).

[iamwearingpants]

I don\'t know why everyone thinks this is a flight simulator. =P I\'m trying this with stock parts right now.

Because planes look and crash 20% cooler than rockets!

And when you\'ve been playing since 0.7.3 stock parts get kinda boring.

[samstarman5]

I don\'t know why everybody is in love with all these enormous spaceplanes. I\'m pretty sure my tiny XCART-4 design could do this, and that thing has only two fuel tanks. If I got rid of the RCS tanks and replaced them with a half-size fuel tank, I\'m 100% certain this would be possible.

I\'ve seen your vids(which are great by the way). But your land to crash ratio is rather high.

I don\'t know why everyone thinks this is a flight simulator. =P I\'m trying this with stock parts right now.

Thanks(But technically, KSP is a flight sim, just with ballistics more in mind). I look forward to seeing how you do!

[khyron42]

So far, all I\'ve managed is really annoying explosions on the far side touchdown... but I haven\'t given up yet!

[sarkun]

I have a craft (stock + legs) that is capable of taking off, orbiting, landing, taking off and going into orbit again, but as it relies on aerobraking to kill most of the velocity, my chances of landing in a visual distance to KSC... are slim probably needs more boosters.

[boolybooly]

Well I only use stock parts at the moment for beta testing, so I thought it would be tricky which is why I had a go... and to make it more interesting I went for two full 300km+ (100x time acceleration) orbits and landed on the day side both times.

I tried my biggest lunar lander and failed because I could not get into orbit with a three tank T45 with ASAS, so learning from that failure I modified the lander stage so that it would work on Kerbin and created the following seven stage monster which will drop a three stage orbiter/lander onto the far side from a 300km orbit using a four stage lifter.

I relied on atmospheric deceleration to land the first time and retained the first lander stage to use as landing gear, hovered using second lander stage engines over a flat patch sacrificing the first stage engines on the lander when landing so that the second and third stage engines could remain functional for lift off. Then I took a few screenies, made a lift off to orbit again, waitied for the KSC to go day side, increased apoapsis so that it was 500km over KSC and then retro burned at apoapsis to drop straight down over KSC. I had just enough fuel to adjust reentry point and hit KSC terrain with the capsule and spent third stage of the lander.

Please see screenies attached below.

[samstarman5]

Awesome achievement. Too bad Jeb didn\'t look ready to go out and find any exotic female kerbals to bring back.

[boolybooly]

Thanks samstarman5, interesting challenge, trickier than it sounds. It all hinges on the high drag at low altitude on Kerbin which means you dont need as much retro on the Kerbin landing as you would on the Mun though you do have to be very careful about drift on touch down. Was fun.

[khyron42]

Congratulations!

My attempts were getting ruined by the horizontal drift, so I was working on a hybrid parachute/powered landing using chutes to kill all horizontal movement first. I haven\'t given up yet!

[boolybooly]

Chutes are an idea, I forgot about those, playing on the Mun. Could save a lot of fuel if used the right way. They are handy if you dont want to hover, if the velocity drops to zero they vanish. Which means that if you are looking for flat terrain you have to spot it from quite high up and get vertically over it at 500m+ and then drop onto it in one go.

I know what you mean because I did try chutes before on outer stages to decelerate atmospheric reentry on Kerbin before decoupling the outer stage to let loose a hovering lander stage. But that was before fuel pipes and T45s.

Manoevuring a hovering rocket to eliminate drift without chutes is very tricky, I practiced quite a lot as part of some other challenges which include landing at the KSC in the rules. I found having a T45 engine in the mix makes it easier, since if you get the thing vertical (not easy to do) you can cancel gentle drift with WASD, it just uses a lot of fuel to get a good landing (I gather some people also use RCS) and if you are not lucky with the landing site terrain it can break the mission.

The mission above I lucked out by hitting the edge of a high plateau, Kibet!

[RC1062]

I have a crazy suggestion. Why not make the challenge \'Launch, fly to the moon (but don\'t land), return to Kerbin, launch again and repeat.\' Though I suppose this would be easier with docking which is how we would do it in reality...

[Technical Ben]

Well, as I\'ve been making a rocket capable of this in the 'multi orbit' thread, I\'ll give this a go too. Stage 1 of project 'Hydra' will be complete soon.

[samstarman5]

I have a crazy suggestion. Why not make the challenge \'Launch, fly to the moon (but don\'t land), return to Kerbin, launch again and repeat.\' Though I suppose this would be easier with docking which is how we would do it in reality...

That is one of the bonuses for added challenge. It is a legit maneuver if you use this challenge as practice for when other planets appear.

[Technical Ben]

Oh, forgot to mention, nice one boolybooly! Your design is much more elegant than mine.

I\'ll try and get it uploaded soon.