(OLD) The Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge:land Kerbals on all moons and return in one big mission

[NecroBones]

With Tylo, it seems that most of the challenge is around engineering it to have a minimum of 6km/s of dV (to handle both landing and ascent), while maintaining enough TWR. My successful landings there used some onion-staging, built around a pair of LV-T30 engines (and smaller engines on the radial boosters). It works pretty well, as long as you pay attention and actually drop the radial tanks at the right times.

Laythe on the other hand, I love the fact that it has oxygen in its atmosphere. The necessary dV for re-orbiting is pretty easy if you use air-breathing engines in the lower atmosphere. So even though it has the same surface gravity as Tylo, you can get away with a much lighter lander (and use parachutes too).

[Oafman]

May i also suggest the use of hyperedit for 'simulation'? that way you won't spend an eternity to send your landers for testing, just warp them into orbit and perform your tests

Well, I quite like the idea of going into the unknown. Building the best ship you can, based on a bit of research re. dv requirements etc, then committing it, without knowing for sure if it will work.

That also opens up the possibility of having to think up solutions to when it doesn't work as well as you want, which as we all know is the most rewarding thing in KSP. I just got a lander which only had a total of 4.5km/s back up from Tylo. I started to realise it might not be enough on the way out there, so I hatched a plan to use its tug for the first 350m/s of deorbit burn, drop the lander, frantically burn the tug back into some sort of orbit, then immediately switch to the descending lander and try to get it down safely. It was all pretty hair-raising, and it took me a bunch of F9s to get it right, but it was a huge amount of fun.

If I had tested the lander beforehand with hyper edit, I would have just made sure it had 5k dv before I sent it, missing out on the seat-of-the-pants landing.

[Alchemist]

You can always run some Tylo landing simulation in Kerbin's orbit: just start at 100 km orbit, get to zero velocity at 70 km, then climb back to 100 km orbit. Not only check for delta v and TWR (even with some reserve), but also the actual chance to feel how well controllable it will be during landing (something I forgot to consider when doing it myself - barely pulled the actual landing in the result)

[Kadrian]

Jool 5 Run - writeup:

Hi folks, this is my attempt. I can confirm that this challenge is everything but trivial, but challenges are ... well ... meant to be challenging.

The basics: Version 0.23.5, single launch, basic Launcher-Traveler-Lander-Setup with no refueling (unless you count docking the lander and transferring fuel from the traveler). Science was stored in six modules that were exchanged between moons, crew- and EVA-reports were stored in a science module. Different pilot for each moon, so I guess this is the Jebediah-class. I scored 17271 Points, which pisses me off since I wanted the high-score...

I used KER for info (mainly delta-v, surface speed and terrain height during landing) and Kerbal alarm clock, the rest is stock. I used hyperedit to test the lander, but of course not during the run. I tried to keep the resources window open, but with all the docking and switching between ships I might have missed it in a few shots.

I anticipated some small hiccups and was prepared to do my Kerbin-return on ion engines with nothing but the science modules and the Kerbals, but I had enough delta-v left to return with the last stage of the lander, although I am not sure if I received any science points for that, since it was docked to the traveler stage during landing.

All at all, the ship could have saved some mass on the science modules, but I am a symmetry freak since it makes flying those 40 min burns a lot less troublesome.

Mission was fairly straight-forward:

Get into orbit above Kerbin, fly to Jool, aerobreake, get in orbit around the moons, do science and drop as much weight as possible early on. This meant going in the order of Tylo (drop first lander stage during descent), Vall, Laythe (drop second lander stage during ascent), Pol and Bop (not the other way around because of increasing inclination).

Problems:

The ship is huge. My PC isn't a racecar but it's fairly decent. Still, the vast amount of struts (which all get modeled as Newtonian springs) slowed down my launch to about 1/3rd realtime and the rest of the flight to about one half (until the lander was first undocked). The ship spins during launch because of some deformation in the upper engine stage, but it's nothing that can't be controlled.

I had to land twice on Bop because the lander can still contained the crew report from Pol, so I got two surface samples from there. Should have done the same on Pol...

Other than that, I am willing to answer questions, but I am pretty sure the Imgur-Gallery is pretty self-explanatory. Be aware that it contains about 200 images.

Cheers

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[Fendleton]

Kouston, we have a problem...

turns out that I have designed my Tylo lander to have plenty of fuel to get off Tylo, but not enough fuel and TWR to land with any hope of Bill surviving... so have had to go back to the drawing board on that one too, considering Fendleton's suggestion of using SRB's...

Keep in mind that SRBs will only work to boost TWR in the early stages of the flight. By the time they burn out, you need to also have positive TWR or you'll waste the delta-V you got off them.

(Plus I'm not sure that my lander will actually work still)

[Norcalplanner]

Chapters 1 through 5 of my Jool-5 Challenge Mission Report are up. Final wrap-up post to come soon!

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84687-Jool-5-Challenge-Report-by-norcalplanner-and-KABOOM-%28picture-heavy%29

Edited July 2, 2014 by Norcalplanner

[Ziv]

Thank you for recognizing my mission for your Jool-5 challenge! This mission is the pinnacle of my KSP career and I had a lot of fun (and frustration) planning and executing it and therefore, I am honored to be the second entry in the JEBEDIAH'S LEVEL + GRAND TOUR category . Ziv, your challenge, and all the amazing entries that have been submitted, have been an incredible source of inspiration for me, and I'm sure for a lot of other people as well. I know I've said it before, but I would have never embarked on this mission, or my previous grand tour if it weren't for your challenge.

That being said, I'm looking forward to your low-mass mission! I love to see all the creative ways people can hyper-optimize their vessels and flight plans to create ridiculously efficient and compact missions.

One last thing, in the OP, you stated that I gathered "49,981" science points when in reality I only gathered 42,981 science points. In addition, in the mods listed, you said I used Mechjeb where I actually used KER. I'm sure this just a simple mistake, but I'm just pointing it out.

Thank you! And I'm happy that this challenge made my intention come true.

Yeah, I enjoy KSP very much and it's a lot of fun to share and compare our plans and missions!

yeah, the MechJeb/points were my mistakes, I corrected them!

I think I will finish my minimal mission in 2-3 days!

Edited July 2, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

Hmm. What kind of power is needed to get into orbit from Laythe? The lander for that mission is the only thing I haven't built yet.

But remember that you will need to get your lander from the mothership to the ground, and from orbit to back again.

My first, not 100% optimized mission had a dV map like this there:

3. from Mothership to Laythe intercept: 250 m/s

4. Laythe 60km orbit: 940 m/s

5. Laythe landing: 800 m/s (from orbit to a landing path, then parachutes + braking)

6. Laythe ascent back to 60km orbit: not sure (I think at least 3000 m/s)

7. Laythe orbit to Mothership: ~950 m/s

[kookoo_gr]

It appears that i will out of commission for some time (now that the update is right the next corner), it seems that my HDD is busted thus loosing all of my designs for my grand tour The worst part being that i may have also lost important arduino programs that i made and i forgot to make backups

[Ziv]

Jool 5 Run - writeup:

Hi folks, this is my attempt. I can confirm that this challenge is everything but trivial, but challenges are ... well ... meant to be challenging.

The basics: Version 0.23.5, single launch, basic Launcher-Traveler-Lander-Setup with no refueling (unless you count docking the lander and transferring fuel from the traveler). Science was stored in six modules that were exchanged between moons, crew- and EVA-reports were stored in a science module. Different pilot for each moon, so I guess this is the Jebediah-class. I scored 17271 Points, which pisses me off since I wanted the high-score...

I used KER for info (mainly delta-v, surface speed and terrain height during landing) and Kerbal alarm clock, the rest is stock. I used hyperedit to test the lander, but of course not during the run. I tried to keep the resources window open, but with all the docking and switching between ships I might have missed it in a few shots.

I anticipated some small hiccups and was prepared to do my Kerbin-return on ion engines with nothing but the science modules and the Kerbals, but I had enough delta-v left to return with the last stage of the lander, although I am not sure if I received any science points for that, since it was docked to the traveler stage during landing.

All at all, the ship could have saved some mass on the science modules, but I am a symmetry freak since it makes flying those 40 min burns a lot less troublesome.

Mission was fairly straight-forward:

Get into orbit above Kerbin, fly to Jool, aerobreake, get in orbit around the moons, do science and drop as much weight as possible early on. This meant going in the order of Tylo (drop first lander stage during descent), Vall, Laythe (drop second lander stage during ascent), Pol and Bop (not the other way around because of increasing inclination).

Problems:

The ship is huge. My PC isn't a racecar but it's fairly decent. Still, the vast amount of struts (which all get modeled as Newtonian springs) slowed down my launch to about 1/3rd realtime and the rest of the flight to about one half (until the lander was first undocked). The ship spins during launch because of some deformation in the upper engine stage, but it's nothing that can't be controlled.

I had to land twice on Bop because the lander can still contained the crew report from Pol, so I got two surface samples from there. Should have done the same on Pol...

Other than that, I am willing to answer questions, but I am pretty sure the Imgur-Gallery is pretty self-explanatory. Be aware that it contains about 200 images.

Cheers

http://imgur.com/a/xb6Cx

Kadrian: congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Jebediah's Level!

wow man, that's a HUGE ship!! It's so big that when you were aerobraking at Jool it's upper part didn't get hot because it was out of the atmosphere... (picture)

And this is the biggest lander I've ever seen for this challenge!

I usually like good optimization with mass/fuel but I like how your main ship look like a real big exploration vessel.

Question: how did you turn back your lander from upside down position during descent to Laythe?

Yeah, I saw you went for the maximum science and that's strange that it's "only" 17271 points... maybe you gathered science during hyperedit testings before the real mission?

Anyway, nice mission with the huge lander... not the most optimized on mass but unique and good looking solution for sure! Thank you for participating!

[Ziv]

Chapters 1 through 5 of my Jool-5 Challenge Mission Report are up. Final wrap-up post to come soon!

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84687-Jool-5-Challenge-Report-by-norcalplanner-and-KABOOM-%28picture-heavy%29

Hi, is your final wrap-up post coming? The mission log seems complete, ain't it?

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Re-designed and seemingly much better Tylo lander on its way to Jool... finers crossed!

Congrats to those who have completed, well done

Sneak preview from my next update, which I will get round to doing soon:

Bob on Vall

[Kadrian]

Kadrian: congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Jebediah's Level!

wow man, that's a HUGE ship!! It's so big that when you were aerobraking at Jool it's upper part didn't get hot because it was out of the atmosphere... (picture)

And this is the biggest lander I've ever seen for this challenge!

I usually like good optimization with mass/fuel but I like how your main ship look like a real big exploration vessel.

Question: how did you turn back your lander from upside down position during descent to Laythe?

Yeah, I saw you went for the maximum science and that's strange that it's "only" 17271 points... maybe you gathered science during hyperedit testings before the real mission?

Anyway, nice mission with the huge lander... not the most optimized on mass but unique and good looking solution for sure! Thank you for participating!

Thanks for moderating the challenge and accepting the entry.

Good job spotting the upside down Laythe lander , shows you really put in the effort. Triple symmetry is no fun with staged parachutes, so I used the small "breaking" chutes at 2500m (lower tanks) and the big ones at 300m (upper tanks). If I had mounted the big ones on the bottom tanks, the ship would have gone down nicely and then turned on the last 300m. Once all of them were deployed, I had enough time to spend some monopropellant and "real" fuel to keep the nose pointing up.

Real fun part was Bop though, I basically practiced rocket skiing down the mountain, still glad the struts held. They are the better landing legs.

And you might be right, the mission was anything but fuel efficient. Could have done with half the weight in science packages, probably would have kept the whole design below 10 kT

Next time (should there be one) I will definitely land 3 Kerbals per moon. I think those surface samples can make the difference.

[Norcalplanner]

Hi, is your final wrap-up post coming? The mission log seems complete, ain't it?

Ziv, it should be up in the next few hours.

Edit - it's now up. I'm pretty sure this was a Level 2 effort, but I await your verdict. :-)

Edited July 3, 2014 by Norcalplanner

[Rakaydos]

My single stage Tylo landing is complete. (using the Stock Engine Rebalance mod to buff the Mk55)

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Next up, Mothership slingshots Val to Laythe. The lander, however, makes a 3 moon detour.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Disaster!!!! My PC has folded due to the excessive heat both externally and internally... got my fingers crossed that it will work again when cool enough, but looks like I might be on an unintended break too... luckily I have spare PC's, but none as good as my main gaming rig

Update: I'm back into windows...

Edited July 4, 2014 by Cmdr. Arn1e
can't spell, heat is getting to me too >.<

[Patupi]

Disaster!!!! My PC has folded due to the excessive heat both externally and internally... got my fingers crossed that it will work again when cool enough, but looks like I might be on an unintended break too... luckily I have spare PC's, but none as good as my main gaming rig

Update: I'm back into windows...

Best of luck. I've been there, still demoted with a partially working system after my old comp folded. Hope you have better luck than I did Arn1e

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Best of luck. I've been there, still demoted with a partially working system after my old comp folded. Hope you have better luck than I did Arn1e

Thankfully it *seems* to be o.k now... got a big fan pointing at one side with the case side off, it had some sort of wierd BIOS issue... reset to optimum, tested, reset and changed necessary settings like Legacy USB KB support... and the mission to put a new Tylo lander in Tylo orbit continues!

[Thorium]

This may sound stupid and the answer is probably obvious, but am I allowed to quicksave and load it? I couldn't find information about it in the description, so I think I am allowed, but is that right?

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

This may sound stupid and the answer is probably obvious, but am I allowed to quicksave and load it? I couldn't find information about it in the description, so I think I am allowed, but is that right?

You are right, quicksave/loading is fine... otherwise a LOT of people would be finding this a lot harder than it is!

[Norcalplanner]

You are right, quicksave/loading is fine... otherwise a LOT of people would be finding this a lot harder than it is!

I used it a half dozen times, although two of them were not my fault.

[Norcalplanner]

So here's the final after action report and critique of the challenge, my ship design, and some of the mods I used. Full photos and captions which grew increasingly witty as I progressed are found in the link in my sig.

- - - - -

CHAPTER 6 - POST MISSION EVALUATION, OBSERVATIONS, AND CRITIQUE

I. Thoughts about the Jool-5 Challenge:

I liked it. It’s ambitious, but not overly so, and I think that most players who’ve made it successfully to another planet and back should eventually be able to complete it. It gives people an incentive to explore more of the Kerbol sytem. Thanks go to Ziv for coming up with the idea in the first place, and for creating the nifty graphic for putting in people’s signature lines.

II. Observations about the KSP program and mods:

1. MechJeb is five parts helpful, one part infuriating. While it was great at maneuver planning and performed very well on Laythe, Vall, and Tylo, it screwed up (or tried to screw up) landings on Pol, Bop, and Kerbin.

2. KW Rocketry is great. The tanks and engines are just a little better than stock, which gives designs using KW parts a bit of an edge without seeming horribly overpowered. This trip reinforced my admiration for the Vesta engine, which performed very well. Its high TWR, low weight, and Isp of 400 is one of the primary reasons my lander had so much delta V.

3. Poles and/or high altitude EVAs can be glitchy. I’m still not sure what happened on Pol, but I’m pretty sure the "anomaly" I was investigating on Bop was a graphic glitch at the north pole where the textures come together. I’ll be staying at least 10 degrees away from all poles in the future, and will limit EVAs to more reasonable altitudes.

4. Even though LV-Ns are the most fuel-efficient thing around, the KR-2L on the tanker stage is still a heck of an engine. Vacuum Isp of 380 and 2500kN of thrust in a single 6.5 ton part is hard to beat, especially if part count is a concern. I figure I can get the tanker stage down to about 15 to 17 parts, as long as it retains the KR-2L. If I switch to LV-Ns, the part count for that stage will jump up to at least 40.

5. Detailed textures on parts are great. I’d like to offer a big thank you to those part designers who include rivets, paint, and other visual cues on their rocket parts. Having these cues and reference points in the VAB makes rocket assembly easier and more accurate. This is especially important when it comes to attaching struts, which can induce wobble or rotation if not placed evenly.

6. Orbital height really matters. As I noted in one of the photos, the delta V for orbital capture around a moon without an atmosphere is greatly reduced if the orbit is higher up. The tanker stage saved a lot of fuel by parking in a 1,000 km orbit around Tylo instead of a 100 km orbit as originally planned.

III. Critique of the ship design:

1. The Explorer’s design had a lot of fat. Without radically changing the design, I think I can cut out about 5 or 6 tons from the lander, and 6 to 8 tons from the Explorer mothership. Part of these changes involving going from 8 LV-Ns on the mothership down to either 6 or 4, and removing two Vestas and shortening the side stacks a bit on the lander. The lander in particular was overpowered, being able to hang on to the two extra empty side stacks while ascending from Tylo.

2. Refueling those three monster lifter stacks while in orbit around Kerbin was overkill. [but it sure looked cool. - Ed.] With a lighter lander, mothership, and tanker stage, and a slightly modified lifter, I think that a revised Explorer should be able to make orbit with a single mostly full center lifter stack. That single stack can then handle the majority of the interplanetary transfer duties without any refueling.

3. I should convert the tanker stage to use LV-Ns, probably eight of them. If I do, I’ll likely need some supplemental regular engines to complete the initial transfer burn to Jool in a single orbit, which is a non-negotiable mission requirement as far as I’m concerned. Initial thought is to put on 2.5 m side drop tanks tanks with Vestas or some other efficient engine attached, then drop those engines once the initial burn to Jool is complete and/or the side tanks are empty.

4. The side drop tanks on the Explorer mothership were too big, and need to be either reduced in size or eliminated. With conversion of the tanker stage to LV-Ns, it makes more sense to have the fuel stay in that stage as long as possible for more efficient transport.

5. I brought along way too much monopropellant. At the end of the trip, both the tanker stage in orbit around Tylo and the Explorer mothership back at Kerbin had over 2/3 of their monoprop left. Although the part count will increase slightly, I should put in a few of the .75 ton cylindrical tanks and ditch the 3.4 ton inline tank in the Explorer. The lander should switch from the .55 ton inline tank to one or two of the small spherical tanks. Only the tanker stage will retain the big inline tank with 750 units of RCS fuel.

6. If I want to reuse ships, I need to use more docking ports instead of decouplers. The Explorer’s main drive section is still perfectly useable, but there’s no way to re-attach a command capsule to a decoupler that I’m aware of. I haven’t used KAS all that much yet - if it’s possible for Kerbals on EVA to remove the decoupler from the drive section and put on a 2.5m docking port instead, the ship may yet come back to life. Otherwise, it will lie dead in its parking orbit for the foreseeable future.

7. I need to put one or two more reaction wheels on the tanker stage, and/or use the RCS thrusters more. Watching the ship slowly turn was majestic in a Stanley Kubrick sort of way, but it added a lot of unnecessary real-life time to the journey.

8. I’ve decided that any future journeys of more than a month’s duration must carry along at least one Hitchhiker container for additional living space. I think even the stoutest Kerbal would go a little stir crazy after being cooped up in a 3-person command pod for more than a year.

9. Science was lacking on the lander. No material bays or goo canisters made it down to the surface of any of the moons; only massless detection gear was attached to the lander. If I do something like this again, I’ll try to make some modular science packages docked radially around the mothership that can be pulled off by the lander, taken down to each moon in turn, and then re-attached to the mothership.

IV. Evaluation of myself:

1. I used MechJeb too much. This is my first career save with MechJeb installed, and I leaned on it too heavily. It took some of the fun out, and I spent more time than I anticipated just watching the screen as MJ did its thing. For future landings, I might let it go so far as to do the initial de-orbit burn, but then I’ll turn it off and take the lander in manually. For docking, I’ll probably let MJ get the initial orientation correct with the lander perpendicular to the target docking port (which I’m not great at), then do the approach and translation myself.

2. I’m developing a grudging respect for LV-Ns, and will use them more in the future, but I still don’t like them. They’re heavy, awkward, and weak. Ships using them tend to have much higher part counts, which increases lag. Transfer burns can take a really long time, and may need to broken up into multiple orbits (which I hate). And I don’t like the engine sound, which is coarser and raspier to my ear. (I also dislike the sound of the 48-7S, but that’s a different topic.) All of those negatives are offset (barely) by their phenomenal Isp of 800. I also feel like I have to impose some real-life limitations on their future use that many other players do - no atmospheric operation, no staging where they drop into an inhabited atmosphere, etc. I’m thinking that once I get KAS figured out I’m going to go back to Vall to retrieve the two drop tanks in orbit, which each have an LV-N attached, and de-orbit them into the crushing depths of Jool’s gravity well.

3. I need to trust the aerobrake calculator more. Twice I added a bit of additional height as a safety margin for aerobrake maneuvers, and both ended up not being orbital captures. If I add a "safety margin" for aerobraking in the future, it’s going to be only a few hundred meters of periapsis height.

4. I need to be smarter about fuel use. The lander headed down to both Laythe and Vall with full tanks, and ended up burning more fuel just to bring the unused fuel up into orbit again.

5. Shifting around fuel manually is only interesting the first few times you do it. After that, it becomes a chore. I need to try out TAC or some other fuel management mod.

6. I’ve concluded that I cannot keep track of multiple ships in hyperbolic orbits while performing planetary operations. If I ever launch multiple ships again during a single transfer window, I’m going to wait until all ships are in stable orbits at the target location before doing anything. Starting the Explorer’s mission with trips down to the surface and plotting transfers to other moons while the other two ships were still inbound ended up being a bit of a disaster.

7. Kerbal Alarm Clock is great, so long as I remember to use it EVERY TIME. Forgetting to activate it a few times led to undesired results, especially with the two follow-on ships.

8. The roleplaying aspects just sort of manifested themselves as I was writing captions for the photo albums. The Kerbals started to develop distinct personalities, especially Wilman. This turned into an unexpected outlet for creativity, and ended up being fun.

9. I liked my over-the-top acronym for the space organization launching the rocket (KABOOM), and I may use more acronyms on future reports and/or career saves. Next on the list is the National Association for Development of Impressive Rockets, or NADIR.

10. I spent too much time flying this mission and writing up the mission report over the last week. It’s time to put the game down for a while and spend more time with the family. When I do pick it up again, if I try another big challenge (such as the kethane variant of this challenge) it will be stretched over a much longer real-life timeframe.

[kookoo_gr]

Disaster!!!! My PC has folded due to the excessive heat both externally and internally... got my fingers crossed that it will work again when cool enough, but looks like I might be on an unintended break too... luckily I have spare PC's, but none as good as my main gaming rig

Update: I'm back into windows...

Welp, my laptop seems to be fried too, will know for sure at Tuesday (when the update will be released according to my bad streak of luck) and i am working on an old laptop for my day to day use, no more KSP for a couple of weeks. Hope yours keeps working.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Norcalplanner, nice finishing report

Welp, my laptop seems to be fried too, will know for sure at Tuesday (when the update will be released according to my bad streak of luck) and i am working on an old laptop for my day to day use, no more KSP for a couple of weeks. Hope yours keeps working.

It seems to be o.k for now, not entirely sure what exactly went wrong, apart from just getting far too hot! got the extra fan on standby, just in case...

[Kokanee]

My submission for a 2nd level Jool-5 challenge;

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