First Career Mission to Eve and Gilly

[narhiril]

After landing all over the Mun and Minmus and completing most of the tech tree, I decided to try my hand at sending a large-scale manned vessel to Eve with several objectives.

-Assemble an interplanetary vessel in orbit.

-Transport crew to Eve orbit for fantastic views and !!SCIENCE!!

-Drop probes on Eve, in both the ocean and on land for !!SCIENCE!!

-Take surface readings and samples from Gilly for return to Kerbin.

-Plant a flag on Gilly.

-Return the entire crew and Gilly lander safely to low orbit around Kerbin.

-Leave no debris, only the two Eve probes and flag.

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Crew (I don't like them all having the same last name, so I change it up, but keep "Ker" in all of them):

Bill Kerman - Pilot, Mission Commander

Johannes Kerpler - Navigator

Elwood Proker - Flight Engineer

Herla Othker - Co-Pilot

Neddy McKermick - Flight Surgeon

Orson Kerbbs - Planetary Geologist

Selleth Kerdub - Aphid Lander Pilot

Melville Kerman - Poet (Jodi Foster kept bugging us to send one, so we did).

--

Engineers at the KSC designed a number of modules to be assembled in orbit to form a fully operational vessel for this task.

-A command module, with comms equipment, scientific instruments, and cockpit for three Kerbalnauts.

-A habitation module, with a solar array, batteries, two observation decks, and space to house six Kerbalnauts.

-A payload module, with several docking ports and attachment nodes for probes and/or landers.

-A propulsion module, with a huge fuel capacity and sixteen LV-N nuclear drives.

-Two "Gnat" class lander probes.

-One "Aphid" class lander.

The modules were assembled in orbit (four launches), crew and payloads were brought to it (two launches), and the vessel was filled with rocket fuel (four more launches). The ship's modules were docked together with Clamp-O-Tron Senior docking ports and then welded together with KAS mod's EVA struts for stability.

Dubbed the "KSS Serapis," our interplanetary voyage was finally ready to begin!

Mods used:

Kerbal Attachment Systems (KAS)

Chatterer (for radio communications sounds)

Kerbal Alarm Clock

Aviation Lights (b/c awesome)

--

Fueling up for the mission.

Kerbin escape burn in progress.

After a very long flight, we approach the purple world of Eve. Here is the ship lining up for an aerobrake maneuver.

The KSS Serapis, silhouetted over Eve.

Observation deck shot of Eve, 1 of 2.

Observation deck shot of Eve, 2 of 2.

After braking in the upper atmosphere of Eve, we performed a very short burn to pull the periapsis out of Eve's atmosphere, leaving us in a highly elliptical but stable orbit. At this point, we detached the two "Gnat" probes. We wanted to land one on Eve's surface and another in one of Eve's oceans. The way the planet was currently rotated, the ocean probe was sent first. After safely deorbiting and deploying its parachutes, it landed safely.

Eve Probe Alpha, splashed down.

Unfortunately, the solar arrays on this probe mysteriously broke after a few days, so it's no longer functional, but it did survive long enough to send back valuable temperature, pressure, and gravitational scans from Eve's oceans. After waiting for two more orbits, Eve had rotated enough for us to aim for a huge mass of solid ground with our second probe.

Eve Probe Beta, landed safely.

With both Eve probes landed and no lander capable of mustering the kind of dV necessary to return from Eve's surface, the KSS Serapis performed two burns to set up an encounter with Gilly.

The ship over Gilly, with Eve visible on the right side.

Gilly from the observation deck.

Orbiting Gilly.

Once we were in a stable orbit around Gilly, Selleth Kerdub and Orson Kerbbs climbed aboard the Aphid lander and undocked from the main spacecraft.

The Aphid descends towards Gilly's surface

Gilly's surface from the lander, about 4km up.

Landed, Selleth descends the ladder to the surface.

Success! The two Kerbalnauts took a full compliment of scientific readings, EVA reports, crew reports, and surface samples before planting their flag and balsting back off to rendezvous with the KSS Serapis for the return home. There were concerns that the 3k fuel left in the tanks would not be enough to get back to Kerbin, but luckily, we were flying two probes and ~7k fuel lighter than when we left Kerbin. It turned out to be enough to get home and even get to a stable, low orbit.

Leaving Gilly.

The Aphid lander was re-attached to the nose of the KSS Serapis, crew transferred back to the habitation module, and we waited for several weeks as our transfer window came around.

A passing glance at Eve from Bill Kerman's seat as we prepare to burn our engines towards Kerbin.

Our trajectory, leaving Eve's orbit and encountering Kerbin.

Entering the Kerbin system - our first glimpse of home.

Getting closer...

Aerobraking over Kerbin.

With the last of our fuel reserves, we put the fully intact KSS Serapis back into a stable orbit around Kerbin and began the process of returning the noble crew back to Kerbin's surface. Currently, two of them are down safely with the Aphid lander, while the rest await an orbital transporter to ferry them back down.

Mission status: SUCCESS

[cyagrdner]

Recently i did something similar, had the entire thing in orbit of Eve. Landed and realized i had no transmitting device. Their still stuck there. Cheers to your success though:sticktongue:

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Since you can't change surface samples from capsule to capsule yet, I recommend bring your lander down, or transmitting the data, for !!SCIENCE!!

[narhiril]

Final update: All eight crew members are now back on Kerbin safely, and the ship has been moved to a parking orbit at 1k km. I brought the lander down by itself to get the full !!SCIENCE!! reward from the landing on Gilly.

Currently, I am assembling another ship in orbit. Target: Duna and Ike.