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

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Sorry for new post straight after the last one, but seperate thing; Only just noticed the title has changed from 'mission' to 'misson' somehow! was Ziv playing around with the editor I wonder?

[parzr]

I've been playing 0.24 now and really like the new career mode with contracts and funds. Nice addition to the game. This made me start to think about doing another Jool-5 challenge in my new career. There is a lot of incentive for both the Jedediah level and the Kethane variant to use career mode with science, but this mission is going to cost a lot of funds to launch. In the spirit of the new contracts system, treating this challenge as a contract, how much of an advance of funds do you guys (especially Ziv, its his challenge after all) think is fair?

I had the same basic thought. So after getting a few biomes on Mun and minmus on a shoestring budget (trying to save) and getting 90k roots, I copy pasted my 9k ton mother ship into my game and was informed that I could not afford its 600k price tag. Edited July 20, 2014 by parzr

[Ziv]

Sorry for new post straight after the last one, but seperate thing; Only just noticed the title has changed from 'mission' to 'misson' somehow! was Ziv playing around with the editor I wonder?

I opened this challenge with CAPITAL letters until the ":" and this was changed by an admin later (I guess, because it was not me ). I was looking for a way to change it but didn't find any. I would correct it if somebody shows me how to do that.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

Hi guys, sorry for the delays, I had a lot of work. I still didn't have much time to play with 0.24 so I'm still not sure about the contract thing. I will also check the new missions tomorrow! See you soon!

[Superfluous J]

I opened this challenge with CAPITAL letters until the ":", this was changed with an admin later (I guess, because it was not me ). I was looking a way to change it but didn't find any. I would correct it if somebody shows me how to do that.

Edit your first post, then go in to advanced mode. You should then be able to edit the title.

[MiniMatt]

Can't believe I haven't found this thread before! It's a gold mine!

Thus far my singular attempt to put a small satellite around Jool ended in a savage kraken attack shortly after entering the system. Naturally, therefore, my next attempt should be a massively complex, expensive, and ambitious mission to plant a flag on every Joolian moon & plunder their secrets for science.

Early on in the design I realised knowledge was lacking so turned to the good folks in Gameplay Questions who furnished me with their customary wealth of help and who also pointed me in the direction of this thread.

The result being I'm now just about ready to depart (as soon as the Kerbals over on my career save figure out how ion engines work):

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Will be a five-kerbal science led single launch, hopefully not requiring any refuelling or rescue and, with judicious use of quicksave, fatality free Mods are limited to kerbal engineer.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Cheers for the update, Ziv, I'm sure we are all looking forward to the next update to the challenge!

I am SO CLOSE to finishing... just got the Pol report to do, and get my Kerbals home with all this lovely lovely science, so expect the final entry from me around the weekend sometime Then I will probably do a persistant file edit to turn that save into a Science Sandbox so I can prepare my examples for my Infrastructure 'holidays' challenge

MiniMatt; nice work so far! Some advice though; you don't need to build the science modules into each lander; you can have one do-everything science module that can dock, and the Mobile Processing Lab can both store AND reset your experiments, saving a fair bit of weight on the entire mothership

And yeah, the resources linked on page 1 are invaluable! I ended up finding most of them myself before Ziv posted the links (or I simply missed them somehow) but both the Delta-V maps and Jool Aerobrake graphs are two of the most important things to have on this kind of long, time-eating missions

- - - NOT Updated - - -

Edited July 23, 2014 by Cmdr. Arn1e

[Ziv]

Edit your first post, then go in to advanced mode. You should then be able to edit the title.

Yeah, it worked! thanks!

[MiniMatt]

Cheers for the update, Ziv, I'm sure we are all looking forward to the next update to the challenge!

I am SO CLOSE to finishing... just got the Pol report to do, and get my Kerbals home with all this lovely lovely science, so expect the final entry from me around the weekend sometime Then I will probably do a persistant file edit to turn that save into a Science Sandbox so I can prepare my examples for my Infrastructure 'holidays' challenge

MiniMatt; nice work so far! Some advice though; you don't need to build the science modules into each lander; you can have one do-everything science module that can dock, and the Mobile Processing Lab can both store AND reset your experiments, saving a fair bit of weight on the entire mothership

And yeah, the resources linked on page 1 are invaluable! I ended up finding most of them myself before Ziv posted the links (or I simply missed them somehow) but both the Delta-V maps and Jool Aerobrake graphs are two of the most important things to have on this kind of long, time-eating missions

Thanks for the best wishes Arnie And best of luck for the final leg of your mission! I'm only taking one "lander" with one set of science modules - different landing gear/engines/wings are then docked onto this lander for the different moons; the Habitation/Science module in the middle is just the hitchhiker can and mobile lab - as you say, I'll be transferring the science plundered from Joolian shores to this mobile lab after visiting each moon, then landing the hab/lab module back on Kerbin.

And just as you're almost on your way home, I'm just setting off - I'll remember to lean out the window and wave at you as we pass

In contrast to the care and planning taken with the mission ship, my launcher to get the whole kaboodle into LKO in one shot was rather slapdash. The new SLS parts introduced in 0.23.5 have made me lazy and I just kept throwing MOAR BOOSTERS at it till it worked - a 1,500 ton 360 part monstrosity on the launchpad LESSON LEARNT: You will always need more struts and more SAS torque than you thought.

But I'm now in a 105km kerbin orbit, with a whopping 400dv left in the launcher stage to give a handy shove toward Jool. A 2,000m/s intercept with the jolly green giant has been luckily stumbled upon - estimated burn time showing as 2m 47s - but with the four-fifths of the burn being on 6 nukes rather than the mighty S3 engine I'm going to guess at around 10m and press the big red button early.

EDIT: Ooops! Not nearly early enough - another 16 minutes of burn time on the nukes to get through the remaining 1,600m/s! Going to have to do this over the course of three orbits I think

Edited July 24, 2014 by MiniMatt

[Oafman]

But I'm now in a 105km kerbin orbit, with a whopping 400dv left in the launcher stage to give a handy shove toward Jool. A 2,000m/s intercept with the jolly green giant has been luckily stumbled upon - estimated burn time showing as 2m 47s - but with the four-fifths of the burn being on 6 nukes rather than the mighty S3 engine I'm going to guess at around 10m and press the big red button early.

I find these kind of split burns tricky to judge. I guess you could go into the VAB, remove the boosters, and then see what acceleration you have from the nukes (assuming you have a mod to tell you), and then work it all out.

But what might be easier is to make the 400m/s burn with the big rockets on the orbit before, then you'll be able to ditch them and see exactly when you need to start burning with the nukes on the next orbit around to complete your departure.

[MiniMatt]

Yep, gets rather complicated rather quickly!

After numerous f5s looks like overall burn time is going to be around 17 minutes. Just completed first burn for six minutes which left me with 1150m/s to intercept (at c. 11 minutes on the now nuke only powered craft). That first burn has left my Kerbin orbit within a mere 50m/s of system escape, so next lap will be a big burn, hopefully don't dive too deep into the Kerbin atmosphere

As for working it out, Kerbal Engineer gives a TWR, and whilst working it out should be just about within the realm of my mathematical abilities, I've adopted a finger in the air "that feels about right" attitude to much of this mission

Individual landing scenarios are worked out properly (Tylo is going to be cutting it fine) but figuring intra-system DV taking into account dumped Laythe/Tylo stages is something I've winged somewhat.

Worst case scenario, after last moon visited, I can dump the main landing stage (which also forms two of the six mothership nukes) and come home on four, saving 5 tons. Can also dump the lander module with it's associated science parts (as all will be saved in lab), saving another couple of tons. Absolute worst case scenario, there's always the ion tug

EDIT: INTERCEPT! In four years and thirty-four days time, five brave kerbonauts will enter the Joolian system. 290m metre periapsis, so I'll bring it closer & try to tweak a Jool-aerobrake-into-Laythe-aerobrake-into-Laythe-orbit or similar partway into the journey.

Kerbal Engineer reckons mothership has ~5,500dv left - out of that fuel must come Vall, Bop & Pol landings and Tylo ascent (Tylo descent & Laythe are staged seperately). Working on ~4000dv for intra-system travel, ~2000dv for return, factoring in dumped Laythe & Tylo stages & fuel sucked for afore mentioned landings, I'm..... quietly, recklessly, confident.

EDIT 2: Recklessly confident indeed HAVE ARRIVED! Have arrived from a clearly odd angle as I'm coming in very fast. Very very fast. Looked up that very useful chart linked on page 1 for aerobrake height. Guessed at around 3,500m/s speed so narrowed my periapsis down to 118,000m altitude. I'm now at 200,000m altitude, just about to enter the atmosphere, and I'm travelling at 9,762m/s. That's ~0.00003c. This is why we quicksave

EDIT 4: Or maybe not so bad after all - dumped into an orbit that looks perfect for a Vall intercept. Yeah, sod the quicksave, lets roll with this. Let's get the mothership into a Vall orbit then maybe tug the lander down to Laythe.

EDIT 5: Or maybe not Vall - just expending the 2.4dv needed to raise my Jool perapsis out of the atmosphere gives me a Laythe intercept on the very next lap I tells you, this mission is blessed

Edited July 24, 2014 by MiniMatt

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Cheers, I shall get Jeb and Co. to wave back!

Current status; rendezvous of a tanker with the main Jool SaR Ship (I have swapped out the engines for one of the Tanker Trucks with permission from Ziv), once I have transferred the fuel over it *should* be a simple matter of leaving Tylo's SOI and going back to Jool's, then setting course for home and burning when necessary!

(He says, omitting how many RL hours this might take... that'll be in the final report!)

[MiniMatt]

Screw Laythe My very first f9 of the mission. (edit: correction - we're ignoring the ones spent trying to perfect exit burn from Kerbin right? I mean Kerbin quicksaves aren't real quicksaves....)

Turns out that Laythe is very particular about it's aerobrake height. Gargantuan Goldilocks that she is, not too little and not too much periapsis, but just right - for my craft at my angle and my velocity it turns out a 23km periapsis followed by about 70m/s dv of inclination correction (to add to the 70 or so I begrudgingly spent to correct inclination from Jool) is just right.

I'm in orbit around Laythe! Mothership reports 5,433dv of fuel available. Mission control remains recklessly confident.

PS. Loving the high space around Jool flavour text you get from the junior science bay doors

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

*Sigh* Wish my current objective was going so well, ended up targeting the wrong ship part and ended up rendezvousing with the highly inneficient Skipper engines... *shrug*

Hopefully enough fuel left to rendezvous AND get my brave explorers back...

[MiniMatt]

Fingers crossed for you! Remember there's more DV locked up in the RCS fuel than you might think

[DeepSpaceDutch]

"The result of the first Jool-5 mission...."

Completing the Jool-5 Challenge was the drunken bet, made after many Kodva's, between Wernher von Kerman and Kergei Korolev. 1 billiongazillion Funds were the stake.

Both sides launched two unsuccessful missions, the first of which stranded two brave Kerbals and a broken lander on Tylo. Talking about the second mission was highly discouraged by the Koviet government.

It was Wernher's turn again and after many hours thinking on the toilet (among other things) he had the gut feeling the third time would be the charm.

The first mission was virtually successful, when overlooking a crashed lander and an extravagant underestimating of fuel requirements that is. The infrastructure seemed solid though, it just needed some more "Oomph"...

The plan:

• First, launch a big ass Drive-section with 4 orange tanks, 4 nuclear engines, a few extra fuel tanks and some other bits and bops. Also equip this beast with 4-way docking for that sweet feeling of rigidity.
  

• Secondly, launch an almost identical Secondary Drive-section (minus some bits and bops like a Probe) with a generously over-fueled tug attached to it.
  

• With the focus of a Ninja 4-way dock the Secondary Drive-section to the bottom of the Primary Drive-section. Use the copious amount of fuel in the tug to top off the Primary Drive-section. Tug and admittedly a lot of fuel get dumped in the Kerbin atmosphere afterwards.
  

• Then launch the Fuel Storage, essentially a stripped down Secondary Drive-section; only 4 orange tanks, a X200-32, 4-way docking and a fueled-up tug. Ninja-dock this to the bottom of the Secondary Drive-section. The tug remains, waiting to top off the Lander.
  

• Launch a Lander, designed to land/ascent from the inner most moon (Laythe) to outer most moon (Pol) in ascending order. To tackle Tylo make sure that a lot of weight can be jettisoned along the way.
  

• Fuel up the Lander from the last tug, ditch tug and get on with it.
  

• Don't bother with math, winging it has always been your style.
  

The downlow:

A 2nd Level contestant.

- Which game versions did you use?

• 23.5
  

- What mods did you use, if any?

• Mechjeb for information and the occasional Smart A.S.S-ing
  
• LazorDockingCam because it just looks so cool (and is mighty handy)
  
• That awesome mod with those Environment enhancements. Maybe it's EnvironmentEnhancement? I don't know, probably. Heck if you're reading this you probably already know it
  

- How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbal?

• 4 launches were needed in the following order: Primary Drive-section, Secondary Drive-section, Fuel Storage and Lander
  

- How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where?

• No refueling
  

- Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey?

• I honestly forgot...but Jeb and Bill were quite cozy in the Mk2 Landercan, for something like 3 years...
  

- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc?

• This mission was not for science nor any other practical or meaningful reason. It was all about the cheese.
  

- Share the delta-V informations too, if you tracked it!

• Stupid me forgot to screenshot the delta-V of the individual launches, but the complete craft before the ejection burn from Kerbin was;
  

Weight: 656t

Parts: 260

Stage Delta-V: 9815 m/s*

*Actually a bit of a meaningless number, along the way we ditch the Fuel Storage and the Secondary Drive-section. Whenever the fuel left in those modules is less than the fuel spent in the modules above the remaining fuel is transferred and the module is ditched. Also during the Tylo ascent a big chunk of the Lander is jettisoned.

Link to album: http://imgur.com/a/CvaS4 (still adding descriptions, being a bit lazy after hours of KSP)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited July 24, 2014 by DeepSpaceDutch

[MiniMatt]

That's amazing DeepSpace (thinking of you folks, re MH17 btw)

edit: Landed on Laythe!

Edited July 24, 2014 by MiniMatt

[DeepSpaceDutch]

That's amazing DeepSpace (thinking of you folks, re MH17 btw)

Thanks MiniMatt! Much appreciated

edit: Landed on Laythe!

Congrats! But beware, Tylo can be a showstopper, I learned that the hard way...

[Ziv]

I think my entry doesn't count because on my first refueling mission I sent a new mothership return vessel and a new tug/orbiter.

But I did land one Kerbal on each moon and even got Jool atmo science. And it was 16 videos and it was a lot of work

5thHorseman: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge! Yeah, changing the main ship disqualified you from the main levels, but I will link this mission to the Mixed Solutions.

I liked your Laythe lander, looked chaotic. Hm, but I think the high eccentric orbit for the main ship is not a good idea, it's just not safe. Also, you had to spend more dV to get from the moons back to the ship. And wow, you had a lot of parts and a lot of docking!

Nice job, thank you for participating!

[Ziv]

Can't believe I haven't found this thread before! It's a gold mine!

I'm happy to hear that, that was my intention with this Challenge! Welcome on board!

Maybe I suggest you to change your tug from ion to nuke otherwise it will be VERY slow. If you want to use it for Tylo too then it will almost don't move the ship at all. Did you test it with the landers on it?

Edited July 24, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

http://i.imgur.com/2JMICy5l.png

"The result of the first Jool-5 mission...."

Completing the Jool-5 Challenge was the drunken bet, made after many Kodva's, between Wernher von Kerman and Kergei Korolev. 1 billiongazillion Funds were the stake.

Both sides launched two unsuccessful missions, the first of which stranded two brave Kerbals and a broken lander on Tylo. Talking about the second mission was highly discouraged by the Koviet government.

It was Wernher's turn again and after many hours thinking on the toilet (among other things) he had the gut feeling the third time would be the charm.

The first mission was virtually successful, when overlooking a crashed lander and an extravagant underestimating of fuel requirements that is. The infrastructure seemed solid though, it just needed some more "Oomph"...

The plan:

• First, launch a big ass Drive-section with 4 orange tanks, 4 nuclear engines, a few extra fuel tanks and some other bits and bops. Also equip this beast with 4-way docking for that sweet feeling of rigidity.
  

• Secondly, launch an almost identical Secondary Drive-section (minus some bits and bops like a Probe) with a generously over-fueled tug attached to it.
  

• With the focus of a Ninja 4-way dock the Secondary Drive-section to the bottom of the Primary Drive-section. Use the copious amount of fuel in the tug to top off the Primary Drive-section. Tug and admittedly a lot of fuel get dumped in the Kerbin atmosphere afterwards.
  

• Then launch the Fuel Storage, essentially a stripped down Secondary Drive-section; only 4 orange tanks, a X200-32, 4-way docking and a fueled-up tug. Ninja-dock this to the bottom of the Secondary Drive-section. The tug remains, waiting to top off the Lander.
  

• Launch a Lander, designed to land/ascent from the inner most moon (Laythe) to outer most moon (Pol) in ascending order. To tackle Tylo make sure that a lot of weight can be jettisoned along the way.
  

• Fuel up the Lander from the last tug, ditch tug and get on with it.
  

• Don't bother with math, winging it has always been your style.
  

The downlow:

A 2nd Level contestant.

- Which game versions did you use?

• 23.5
  

- What mods did you use, if any?

• Mechjeb for information and the occasional Smart A.S.S-ing
  
• LazorDockingCam because it just looks so cool (and is mighty handy)
  
• That awesome mod with those Environment enhancements. Maybe it's EnvironmentEnhancement? I don't know, probably. Heck if you're reading this you probably already know it
  

- How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbal?

• 4 launches were needed in the following order: Primary Drive-section, Secondary Drive-section, Fuel Storage and Lander
  

- How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where?

• No refueling
  

- Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey?

• I honestly forgot...but Jeb and Bill were quite cozy in the Mk2 Landercan, for something like 3 years...
  

- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc?

• This mission was not for science nor any other practical or meaningful reason. It was all about the cheese.
  

- Share the delta-V informations too, if you tracked it!

• Stupid me forgot to screenshot the delta-V of the individual launches, but the complete craft before the ejection burn from Kerbin was;
  

Weight: 656t

Parts: 260

Stage Delta-V: 9815 m/s*

*Actually a bit of a meaningless number, along the way we ditch the Fuel Storage and the Secondary Drive-section. Whenever the fuel left in those modules is less than the fuel spent in the modules above the remaining fuel is transferred and the module is ditched. Also during the Tylo ascent a big chunk of the Lander is jettisoned.

Link to album: http://imgur.com/a/CvaS4 (still adding descriptions, being a bit lazy after hours of KSP)

http://imgur.com/a/CvaS4

DeepSpaceDutch: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 2!

Hahh, that's an odd-looking and really simple lander! I actually like it. And I see you went on the simplicity way everywhere: mothership+lander, and getting into orbit everywhere. Good idea with the staging on Tylo.

I liked the funny comments too, I hope you finish commenting all the pictures!

[Superfluous J]

5thHorseman: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge! Yeah, changing the main ship disqualified you from the main levels, but I will link this mission to the Mixed Solutions.

Sweet! It was really fun. Even if I hadn't won anything it was worth it just for how much I learned (and how much fun I had).

I liked your Laythe lander, looked chaotic. Hm, but I think the high eccentric orbit for the main ship is not a good idea, it's just not safe. Also, you had to spend more dV to get from the moons back to the ship. And wow, you had a lot of parts and a lot of docking!

Those two things were really my downfall. Next time (and oh yeah there will be a next time) I'm parking at Tylo and being done with it. Also, no orbiters (so MUCH less docking shenanegans), because in a rewatch of the end of my series I found that "orbit around tylo" superceded "orbit around [anything else]" so I didn't get the unique "orbit around" credit for Pol, Bop, Vall, and Laythe. Oh well, live and learn.

No way I'm changing my Laythe lander, though. In fact, I'm landing that way everywhere (with atmosphere) from now on I gotta figure out how to do that on Eve.

[MiniMatt]

Maybe I suggest you to change your tug from ion to nuke otherwise it will be VERY slow. If you want to use it for Tylo too then it will almost don't move the ship at all. Did you test it with the landers on it?

Testing would imply a degree of professionalism and forward planning alien to my space program

It's about to get it's first outing as my Laythe lander has succesfully returned to orbit with not quite enough fuel to make the dock with the mothership....

edit: gahhh! bugs! http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87971-Right-clicking-seems-broken Fingers crossed eventual fix doesn't kill the save.

Edited July 25, 2014 by MiniMatt

[DeepSpaceDutch]

DeepSpaceDutch: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 2!

Awesome!!!

I liked the funny comments too, I hope you finish commenting all the pictures

Working on it

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Just had a MAJOR panic... I thought my persistant file had died! Argh!

Decided to try one more time, but selected a different craft... lo and behold, it worked! now back in control of the main ship...

Final refuel procedures are underway (would have completed last night, but everything froze >.< probably leading to todays issues...)

Hopefully next post will be: Completed, just writing up final report

EDIT: Oh, FFS, now ALL the docking ports are bugged

EDIT 2: Persistant file edit sorted it, turned out to be the quicksave bug

Edited July 25, 2014 by Cmdr. Arn1e