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

[Teutooni]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, making a JOOL-5 always takes time and skill, even with let's say fuel cheating. So I appreciate your mission and checking it again I liked some of your solution. (at first I just took a glance at it)

So, sorry if I was too harsh at first. And I don't really know Interstellar so maybe it's not so easy to make it work as it seems at first.

Btw I already landed on Tylo with a 1.0-1.2 TWR lander so yeah, I know, it's a long hard road down there, and you need luck too to avoid high mountains at the end.

In my own list the biggest achievement what I did was to land on Duna and getting back to space with an ion lander which had a TWR lower than 1.0. The trick was that I braked to zero very high above the highest point which was high enough that a 0.97 TWR was enough for a stable slow descent, and enough for a very slow but sure ascent. It was very easy to overspeed and crash (more than 10 m/s in the last km ). I was trying the best path/speeds for hours to make it right at the end, and I spent 4000+ m/s for landing and getting back. Good ol' times!

And yeah, I agree, it must be impossible to make an SSTO, I mean Single Stage to JOOL-5 (SSTJ5) with the allowed mod. Kasuha already made it with a spaceplane, that was something too!

I may have been a bit over defensive. There are some amazing designs here that accomplish much more difficult things than my SSTJ5. No matter how you look at it, 700kN of thrust at 4000s ISP is massively OP compared to any stock engines, poor TWR or no. But that's the thing with the mods I'm using, they alleviate the rocket equation but add several extra layers of realism and challenge. Reentry heating and g-force limits, aerodynamic failures (as in your plane can get completely torn apart at high speeds), life support and managing many different fuels and heat. I found it a bit silly having a kerbal survive a straight-down laythe reentry at mach 15 completely unprotected in an external seat (not to mention sitting in said seat for years without food, oxygen, water or heating). To each his own.

I like the ion lander, looks like a butterfly or something. I was going to ask how would it even be possible to get any altitude with TWR<1, but come to think of it, I have seen it before in some of my VTOL prototypes. I thought it was the wings, but your lander doesn't seem to have any? Or did it have TWR>1 for a short time with battery power? Can't remember how much energy ion engines need but IIRC 6 small solar panels aren't enough to run 100%?

[Ziv]

Yeah, Kerbal Space Program and reality doesn't meet sometimes. But it's fun that you can choose to survive a reentry in a seat or (with mods) to bring heavy life support and to make your ship torn apart at high speeds, etc... that's really cool. Different kind of challenges.

The trick behind the TWR<1 is the high altitude. At "sea level" if it's 1.00 then you are not going to leave, but at 8000+ meters on Duna about 0.95 was enough to leave (very slowly at first ). It is because the more far you are from a planet's surface the lower it's gravity force get.

[sdj64]

So, I checked them, Tantares has some parts which has advantage over the stock parts, like:

- TST Crew module, it is very small in size (half than the mk1?!), weights only 0.9 tons and can hold two Kerbals

- ALN Descent capsule, which is also too small, and with 1,6 tons and 3 Kerbals

- and most of its engines are also overpowered to the stock, and usually are too smalls at the same time

so Tantares is prohibited.

SXT also has some questionable parts which may give advantage:

- Kerlington Model 35 'Bonny', it's only 0.35 tons and can hold a Kerbal, and putting rules on parts (no space use of this part) would make it too complex

- I yet checked the smaller liquid engines only and they seems to be okay. The small jet engine maybe can give too much dV on a very small aircraft

- there are some crew module which can hold too much Kerbal with a too small part weight

- it's still a pre-release and many of the parts are not finished yet

so I don't allow this mod yet neither, but this may be good later if it will be closer to stock in terms of TWR, thrust-by-fuel, Weight-to-Kerbal or part sizes.

Btw I liked many of the parts in this pack so this is definitely a worth to check later!

Fair enough, with your stance on SXT and Tantares. Could have probably used a lander can instead and only took 1 kerbal down to each moon, made up for different engines, etc. The Bonny would be really funny looking on a space mission, but I see your point. A seat can hold a Kerbal too, at only 0.05 tons (but I don't want to argue, it's fine). I might go ahead with some planet factory planets first, if I can get that mod working well enough. I might change the mods around later on.

Here's my ship right now. Going for a more clean sci-fi ish look, it has a hangar for storing landers and a small SSTO for Laythe. (plane on the left is just for crew transfer from Kerbin.)

[kookoo_gr]

Ok, i have started my Grand Tour, Jool - 5 mission/Jedediah level. So far all the modules that will take part in the mission are being docked into one large ship, the lag is there but it will reach its height when the Eve lander will reach the main ship. Here is a small preview of the main ship, it still needs 3 more modules for the mission plus one more, a utility module that will remain in Kerbin orbit for the safe return of some of the crew when the mission is complete.

[Overfloater]

So... Grand tour of "Jeb" difficulty level is what everyone does now? o - o

I think mine is ready too.

Aside from everything, what could possibly go wrong??? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lifter suffers from a minor case of floppy rocket syndrome, but with careful enough piloting staging can go smoothly.

- Added an additional couple of branches to the transfer-asparagus of the main ship, so it should cover the outer solar system.

- Added a spare capsule - this time the universal-lander will visit Pol & Bop in one flight.

- Eve transfer flies unmanned and parks itself at Eve, after that serves as a fuel depot - from there the main ship continues to the inner solar system.

- The one main ship flies to all bodies with all of it's 5 crew members. Gonna be a bit cramped in there! Q . Q

[Vaporo]

A work in progress of my Jool-5 attempt:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[SuperSecret]

Here's my entry. It dates back to April 2014 (it was done in 0.23.5). The only mod used was Kerbal Engineer Redux (only while building it). It was done in a single launch, and landed one Kerbal on every moon.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Laie]

A work in progress of my Jool-5 attempt:

I don't want to interfere if you enjoy big launchers... but you *are* aware that not everything has to go up in one launch, are you?

It has to be one ship that goes to Jool, but you may assemble it in Kerbin orbit.

[Vaporo]

I don't want to interfere if you enjoy big launchers... but you *are* aware that not everything has to go up in one launch, are you?

It has to be one ship that goes to Jool, but you may assemble it in Kerbin orbit.

But where's the fun in that? Seriously, I could probably easily reduce the weight to a quarter and the part count by a half if I tried, and I know for a fact that there is waaaaaay too much fuel in the launch stage. I end up having to drop the last three of those KW tanks because the engines on them are too uncontrollable to use for circularization.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Vaporo

[Gravaar]

Did someone say big?

- Which game versions did you use? 24.2 64 bit

- What mods did you use, if any? mechjeb only

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

- How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where? Heaps but I took my own fuel tank so NONE

- Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey? yes 2 hitch-hiker storage

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

- Share the delta-V informations too, if you tracked it! will work it out later

Mass on launch pad :- 25978.700 TONS

Crew capacity :-11

Crew count :-8

Part count :-1112

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Jeb drove there and back

Orson done TYLO

Tando done LATHE

Hanby done VALL

Bob done BOP

Bill done POL

Matgas and Calsy were in the LAB

Left in JOOL orbit Fuel Farm with :- LF 12088 units

:- OX 14774 units

:-MONO 2058 units

Edited October 6, 2014 by Gravaar

[totalitor]

Can anyone help me? I have uploaded images to IMGUR and now I want to show you how I did my grand Jool trip.

There is a link how to do that

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/36010-Introducing-the-Ability-to-Embed-Imgur-Albums!

...but if I do that like it says it is not visible here like that. I tried to do that and after that anyone can change my settings...form that page. I just don't get it.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

There are many codes, I used wrong code. I just found the right one and now all works.

Edited October 10, 2014 by totalitor

[Superfluous J]

Can anyone help me? I have uploaded images to IMGUR and now I want to show you how I did my grand Jool trip.

There is a link how to do that

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/36010-Introducing-the-Ability-to-Embed-Imgur-Albums!

...but if I do that like it says it is not visible here like that. I tried to do that and after that anyone can change my settings...form that page. I just don't get it.

What is the link to your imgur album?

[Exile]

Hi all

This is my first challenge. I wanted to explore the Jool system more, and I figured this would be a good way to do it. It was very much 'seat of the pants' without any real testing before I set out.

So, here is my entry. I went with 'form over function' with the design and I wasn't concerned with efficiency as I had plenty of delta-v to spare. I also took the opportunity to land at Duna and Mun on the way home - both unplanned - but the aerobraking nodes I used made it too tempting not to try.

- Which game versions did you use? 24.2 64 bit

- What mods did you use, if any? KW and B9 (I think I only used a decoupler from KW, everything else was stock) and Mechjeb installed for information. Some other mods were already installed but not used (IR, TAC Fuel Balancer etc.)

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

- How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where? All fuel taken with the craft. Lander and transfer stage docked and transferred fuel three times (over Tylo before and after landing, and again after Pol landing).

- Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey? No. Jeb did it tough alone in his little tin can Mk1.

- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? Two rovers to scout for a good landing spot. I only used one at Laythe

- Share the delta-V information too, if you tracked it! Lander had approx. 6100 delta-v and was re-fuelled three times. Not sure how much delta-v the transfer stage used.

Please note a couple of things:

1. I may have bent the rules slightly with the intakes. They slightly overlap (clip) with each other. There are two intakes each on 6 cubic struts: one intake fixed to the top node, and one intake rotated 180 degrees and fixed to the bottom node. As I said, I went with form over function and so bent the rules a touch here because they looked really good mounted that way.
   
2. The delta-v stats showing in Mechjeb at the start of the trip are not accurate because I had the engines on the lander pointing retrograde and Mechjeb counts those as pushing against the craft. Therefor the actual potential delta-v was much higher.
   
3. I had a game crash as I landed at Laythe and had to reload
   
4. And yes, I know how bad my manoeuvre nodes were. I wasn't trying to be efficient, I was just trying to prove the concept and the ability of the craft to make the trip
   

Javascript is disabled. View full album

So there you go. It was a fun trip and I think I will do it again with more planning and aim to complete it on 'Jeb' level.

Matt

Edited October 8, 2014 by Exile

[Ziv]

Hi everybody, sorry for the delays, these days are very busy but I will review the new entries soon!

[LABHOUSE]

Where did the leaderboards go I want to base my ships off the low mass leader.

[kookoo_gr]

I finally assembled my ship at Kerbin orbit and the expression, "Holy Lagballs Batman!" is the best suited for this ship. 1411 parts and 831.43 tons in orbit, don't ask me about ÃŽâ€V because the staging is all wrong and i will now after i disconnect the various ships for the Grand tour. Now all i need is to transfer two last crew members and a refuel tank for the Jool-5 drive unit and i am set for liftoff.

[Thunderous Echo]

Some people think not creating debris is impressive.

I made 6 pieces just during Minmus orbital insertion (3 fuel tanks, 3 unneeded landing gear).

EDIT: I am ashamed to have broken my philosophy. I just accidentally crashed a drop tank onto Eve. It will not bear the gift of immortality.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Thunderous Echo

[totalitor]

My Great Jool journey:

Finally I did it, took a while. It would be easier if I just build a huge ship with plenty of fuel but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to keep the ship reasonable so the launching mass is 547 t. No jets, only rockets.

I wanted to use only one lander. I choose Rockomax 48-7s engines and I did use chair on the lander. Tylo was the hardest moon, so I left that to last one visited. Only there I decoupled the lander's empty tanks.

It was difficult to choose on which order should I visit moons. But I think Laythe should be visited first. Aerobraking is great to save fuel.

Between Kerbin and Jool a kerbal stays on pod but when visiting Bop and Pol he uses only chair. Is this within the rules?

I did it this way:

1. Launch.

2. Transfer to Jool.

3. Aerobraking on Jool's atmosphere, ap to Laythe's orbit.

4. Transfer to Laythe.

5. Aerobraking on Laythe's atmosphere. Kerbal moves to lander.

6. Undocking the lander.

7. Lander lands to Laythe.

8. Lander up to orbit.

9. Docking with the mothership.

10. Transfer to Vall.

11. Refueling the lander. Undocking.

12. Lander lands to Vall.

13. Lander up to orbit.

14. Docking with mothership.

15. Refueling the lander. Undocking.

16. Transferring the lander to Bop (the mothership stays on Vall's orbit).

17. Lander lands to Bop.

18. Lander up to orbit.

19. Transferring the lander to Pol.

20. Only kerbal lands to Pol with EVA. The lander waits on orbit.

21. Kerbal up to orbit and meet the lander.

22. Transfer to Tylo.

23. Transferring the mothership to Tylo.

24. Docking with the lander.

25. Refueling the lander. Undocking.

26. Lander lands to Tylo.

27. Lander up to orbit.

28. Docking with mothership.

29. Kerbal moves to mothership.

30. Leaving the lander on Tylo's orbit.

31. Transferring the mothership to Kerbin.

32. Landing to Kerbin.

- Which game versions did you use? ---24.2.559

- What mods did you use, if any?---Mechjeb was used.

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

- 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? ---no.

- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? ---no extra stuff.

- Share the delta-V informations too, if you tracked it! ---19123 m/s delta-v at the beginning.

It was fun and exhausting at the same time. Good luck to anyone who is trying this!

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited October 10, 2014 by totalitor

[totalitor]

kookoo-gr, may the force be with you. You will need it.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

All these new parts! and the ability to tailor your earnables production (so if you end up with too much of one thing and not enough of another, you can use the Strategies to help balance things out...) I have put my efforts on hold for this challenge while I work out even more things, and I should end up with a decent budget for the Jool-5 mission this time, with some very interesting craft, I hope!

[Thunderous Echo]

Part Two.

There is nothing to be said the video does not say, except for the BTS, which will exist soon.

[ola]

I'll have a stab at Jeb's level, using a life support mod. It'll be crazy fun!

[Thunderous Echo]

MpsxatlC8

[Ziv]

Here's my entry. It dates back to April 2014 (it was done in 0.23.5). The only mod used was Kerbal Engineer Redux (only while building it). It was done in a single launch, and landed one Kerbal on every moon.

http://imgur.com/a/VTtWA

SuperSecret: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 1!

Nice minimalistic design in overall. There are some inconsistency in your album's order, there are some random picture in wrong place in the timeline. I was thinking about that you could skip the Vall lander as it is almost the same as the remaining of the Tylo lander, but maybe your ship would be unbalanced with the non-symmetrical placement of the docking port. How did you dock with that small lander by the way? Wasn't the Kerbal's head in the way?

Edited October 13, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

Did someone say big?

- Which game versions did you use? 24.2 64 bit

- What mods did you use, if any? mechjeb only

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

- How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where? Heaps but I took my own fuel tank so NONE

- Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey? yes 2 hitch-hiker storage

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

- Share the delta-V informations too, if you tracked it! will work it out later

Mass on launch pad :- 25978.700 TONS

Crew capacity :-11

Crew count :-8

Part count :-1112

http://imgur.com/a/JLsQ0

Jeb drove there and back

Orson done TYLO

Tando done LATHE

Hanby done VALL

Bob done BOP

Bill done POL

Matgas and Calsy were in the LAB

Left in JOOL orbit Fuel Farm with :- LF 12088 units

:- OX 14774 units

:-MONO 2058 units

Gravaar: Wow, that's a HUGE ship! Your space tug is huge too!

You gave me some hard time to understand your fuel flow as you didn't post pictures about the refuelings at the main ship around Jool! Can you please show me some and about how your fuel was drying out in the main ship? Because the bigger the ship the more usually it will face some fuel problem during the mission...

Also, can you please tell me how was you able to get back into the pod on Laythe and Tylo? Because this (and this) kind of ladder placement doesn't really work to climb on the top of the wider fuel tank .... or does it?

Edited October 13, 2014 by Ziv