Operation Muxinggong

[ScholarBeardpig]

Jool. The Green Planet. How applicable, then, is the Chinese name of its human equivalent - Muxing, literally 'the tree star.' It is green, jade green, emerald green, leafy green, verdant as the misty forests of old Yunnan.

I must conquer it. This is my destiny. After reading the inspiring work of the noble Arbitre, I have decided on my general course of action.

I will build The Muxinggong. It will consist of the following:

1. A fully-operational space station, hosting 3 Kerbonauts.
   
2. A booster system that can bring it safely to Jool orbit.
   
3. Five (5) autonomous landing probes, one for each moon and one for Jool itself, fully-kitted with all available sensor suites.
   
4. An external fuel storage system to provide liquid fuel, oxidizer, monopropellant, and electricity to any other ships that might come docking.
   
5. A detachable vessal, for 3, that can return to Kerbin from Jool.
   
6. 
   

A vessel of this magnitude will have to be assembled in orbit. I have 40 days to do it before my transfer window to Jool arrives. It must be ready by then.

In this thread, I will document my descent into madness as I prepare my largest space project ever.

Please enjoy.

[ScholarBeardpig]

We should probably start with a little background.

I have logged about 70 hours in KSP since I purchased it on Steam, and fooled around a bit with it back in the day when it was free and there was no Mun. I managed, at long last, to do an orbital rendezvous between two ships, all by hand, and decided that it was the hardest thing ever and it was time for Mechjeb, where I remain to this day. I am currently in Career mode, and have been diligently filling out the tech-tree for some time. My position on it is as follows:

I managed to luck out, as it were, pretty early on in the tech tree with the invention of the Shenqiang-3X rocket. When packing an unmanned, sensor-jammed drone, this hideous thing has enough delta-v - something like 7,700 - to reach virtually any planet in the solar system. I've landed it on Minmus, Eve, Dres, and several times on the Mun, done a close-in flyby of Moho, and cruised around Jool with a high-space stopover at Laythe. This one design has gotten me a lot of mileage. We've actually been through a few generations of probes, but the 3X rocket, with its 4 stages, nine solid boosters, and tri-adaptor has served me very well for a long time.

That probe at the top, along with the last stage of the rocket, is the solid core of my plan. I want to send one of these - packing every instrument but the Mystery Goo, which I hate because you have to double it - to each of Jool's moons, and then another one to immerse itself in Jool proper. If I was a comparatively sane man, then I would simply launch them one at a time and target each moon specifically - but I am not a sane man, and have no desire to be. Here's a closer look at the probe:

This probe will be necessary but not sufficient. For one thing, it's only packing around 1,300 delta-v, which is not enough to go from low Jool orbit all the way to Pol and Bop. Each probe will have to be designed specifically - the anatmospheric probes won't need as many sensor suites, and the Jool descender will need more on-board juice because it can't deploy panels. The one you're looking at was designed for Laythe.

My ultimate intention is to get all five of these probes, engines in and noses out, attached to a Rockomax HubMax. They'll have to be taken up one-by-one into orbit. Sadly, these probes are too long to stick them atop my launch vehicle, so I'm thinking I'll need to graft them onto the sides and pop them off with either a docking bay or a radial decoupler.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:

1. What sort of probes will I need for each planet?
   
2. How can I get them attached to the central delivery body?
   

[ScholarBeardpig]

Oh - let me put up an addendum to my prologue. I would prefer to do this last part 'as I am,' and make it the capstone by which I finish out the tech-tree. I have no doubt in my mind that I'll be able to nab the final 1,452 science needed to clear the lot with this mission. But if there's something I really need - and I don't feel that there is - then there's a bit more 'free science' I can lock up without really trying; I haven't sent all my instruments to either Minmus or Eve, to say nothing of mining a bit more on the Mun or investigating Ike or Gilly. I could even rack up more science on Mun or Minmus without missing my next transfer.

But, if at all possible, I would prefer not to do this. In theory, an SSTO spaceplane could be useful in getting stuff into orbit, but I've never messed around with spaceplanes and would have to learn everything from scratch. Otherwise, I don't see the other tech elements as really being useful to me - on a planet without biomes, a rover is no more useful than a stationary probe, and I don't need those super-sized probe cores.

[ScholarBeardpig]

Well, after much thought, I put together my array of probes. Let's take a peep!

This is my probe for Bop and Pol, by which I mean, 'here is the model of probe, one of which I will send to Bop, the other of which I will send to Pol.' Both moons have similar profiles, so I can use the same type of probe for each. It lacks atmospheric and barometric sensors, and has only 4,051 vacuum dV. The Cheat Sheet says that I'll only need ~3700, so that should do me in a pinch. I'll go into my initial descent orbit with the nuclear thruster, and then switch to RCS for the final descent. I am, however, thinking that my descent might be a bit rough, so I'm keeping the RCS tank on until the end, for lithobreaking. This probe will probably not stand upright, considering Bop and Pol's evil topography.

Next is Tylo. Tylo's got a much more gravity, so I'm relying on two stages to get me down. Both stages use the largest mid-gauge fuel tanks, which seems like a good idea - the first engine (nuclear) to boost me into an intercept, and the second (909) to get me safely down. Tylo needs 6,200 dV, and this guy's got 6,500 - we should be fine. However, because of the high gravity, I'm expecting another hard landing, hence not even bothering with solar panels - they'll just shatter. All I really need to get down safely is the core and the instruments on the core.

And here's Val. Val's kind of an intermediary step between Bop and Tylo, so the probe (which is essentially the same) just needs less Delta-V to get it down. Because there's less gravity, we'll give it solar panels - it might come down in one piece! I took the Vall probe up into orbit to practice non-linear docking, and it worked out pretty well - I now have confidence that I can dock these guys one they get into orbit.

And here's Laythe. Notice the parachutes, notice the atmospheric sensors. Because of the chutes, I can just take it into the atmosphere and flick them on. I dropped the probe onto Kerbin from a million meters, and it performed perfectly even without using any brakes. I also learned valuable information about how the Seismic Scanner cannot be used while in water, so I'm going to have to shoot (chute? ha ha) for land.

This may be the most ill-made probe of them all. It has no engines, because I'm counting on just using my RCS to boost me into Jool's upper atmosphere and aerobrake from there. You can't see it from this angle, but it actually has two docking ports - one at the bottom, and one on the other side of the materials bay. I'm still debating how to attach 6 probes - my best guess is that four of them will be on a Rockomax Hubmax docked from the sides, facing forward, and that one will be docked at the tip. But that leaves me with one left over...

Anyway, I'm quite happy with my probes. All of them are correctly action-grouped, and once I get them up and over, they'll be in good stead to go from low Jool orbit and get to work.