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

[Alpheratz]

I'm trying to make a massless recovery system to bring down a kerbal from orbit around Kerbin. Do you think this is possible? Or maybe a recovery system with only one wing?

[Right]

I'm sure this question has been asked/answered before... but is Game Mode: Science acceptable for Jebediah's level?

EDIT: Answer is yes. Thanks Cmdr. Arn1e.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Right

[Xannari Ferrows]

I've finally completed the mission! Just so you wont have to go hunting around for the link only a few posts below this, here's a reminder link for you:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/106273-Xannari-s-Jool-5-attempt%21

Enjoy!

[BlackTalos]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if a few people could have a look at what i'm about to send on the challenge, as i'd like to finish this mission and then upgrade to 0.90 to start over.

Here's the current status of the ship:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

http://imgur.com/a/a9pde

Out of the prohibited mods i have:

- Infernal Robotics

- KSP Interstellar

- Station Science

But i do believe i've not used any parts from the Mods.

I also have DMagic Orbital Science, but i am gunning for the "Standard" or low-tier version of the challenge, even if i clear other tiers. I therefore do not think that all the extra science would come in play?

If i could get confirmation of the legality / infractions so far i would greatly appreciate it before leaving SOI

Edited January 7, 2015 by BlackTalos

[InterCity]

Maybe that was asked before, but is mechjeb allowed? I know that it's cheesy, but my piloting is helpless at best :/

[redsh]

Maybe that was asked before, but is mechjeb allowed? I know that it's cheesy, but my piloting is helpless at best :/

This even stated in rules

- MechJeb is permitted. Also any helpful mod is accepted which doesn't add parts and doesn't change the physics (information mods, alarm clocks, enhanced navballs, docking cams, texture replacers, clouds, protractor, fuel balancer, chatterer, etc).

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

I'm sure this question has been asked/answered before... but is Game Mode: Science acceptable for Jebediah's level?

This challenge pre-dates the current career mode, so yes! (Jebediah's level is currently scored on science points brought back after the successful mission)

[Himynameisjake]

I'd hate to see how much some of the Jebediah's level missions cost (especially my own lol)

[kookoo_gr]

Welp, my grand tour mission cost me 6.090.747 funds so there's a start

[Ziv]

Da Plan

The plan was to launch a single ship that would fly to Jool, areobrake around Jool, manoeuvre into orbit around each of Laythe, Vall and Tylo in order and land the lander on each them returning to the mothership in orbit of the moon. To land on Tylo the lander has attachable engines to increase delta-v.

Then take the lander to Bop from a Jool orbit to avoid having the change in the inclination of the mothership's orbit to intercept Bop.

Move the mothership into orbit around Pol and land the lander on Pol.

And finally return the main ship to Kerbin.

What actually happened

The plan was followed except that we found ourselves on an intercept to Laythe so didn't need to areobrake around Jool. Everything else went according to plan.

Pictures

Ship and lander: http://imgur.com/a/MeXmw

Launch: http://imgur.com/a/6Dgpw

Transfer: http://imgur.com/a/cZupt

Laythe: http://imgur.com/a/veVCU

Vall: http://imgur.com/a/TzWjI

Tylo: http://imgur.com/a/CfOtb

Bop: http://imgur.com/a/YxdvH

Pol: http://imgur.com/a/GWCDC

Return: http://imgur.com/a/vsTB7

Modules

The only module we used was KerbalEngineer.

Scansat and Mechjeb are installed but were not used for this mission

Conclusion

We landed on all the Jool moons and made it back alive but like the real life moon landings some people will never believe it happened!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations, you have finished the Jool-5 Challenge on Level 1!

Yeah, forgetting a ladder can ruin your mission but you were lucky that you were able to get back into the pod from the legs with the help of the jetpack. But I had to build your lander to test if it was really possible. And it was, so nice save of the mission.

Your additional engines for Tylo had a unique solution with that structure which stayed on the top of your lander, that looks funny but I guess it had a nearly zero mass, so it's all right like that.

And yeah, at Tylo, going from an eccentric orbit to a low orbit can cost about 900 m/s so going down and back can be 1800 m/s, something what many people does not consider...

Nice stock solution, thank you for participating, and I'm sorry about the long delay before reviewing this mission!

- - - Updated - - -

Here's my entry for the Jool5 Challenge - Level 3

Wernher Von Kerman: Jeb, we need to do a Jool5 mission. But there's a problem, we need to go with something that will look like it'll actually fly. You know how those conspiracy nuts are about the Mun landings.

Jeb: Well, we do have 3 old spaceplanes and a carrier left over from the last war... how about we use those, and do the mission Hollywood style?

WvK: Excellent! get on it!

http://i.imgur.com/jqkYtnm.jpg

- Which game versions did you use? 0.25.2 and 0.90 (upgraded partway through)

- What mods did you use, if any? KER only.

- How many Kerbals are on the mission? 5.

- How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbal? 10 (1 carrier, 3 landers, 5 refuelling, 1 crew transport)

- Did you needed a refueling mission? Yes. (Lander refuelling on the surface of Tylo)

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

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

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

- Any additional note or description?

* KER seems to have serious issues calculating dV for my ship designs oh well. I've tried to keep the resource panels open as well as showing the state of the main tanks on the carrier after each transfer. (seriously, the lowest estimate was about 450ms, the highest over 10k. I think this is mainly due to the use of disconnected fuel tanks on the carrier, and lots of xenon gas reserves for the ion lander. )

* I'd suggest looking at the full album on imgur at full resolution if you need to read anything.

The Plan:

- Orbital assembly of Carrier and landers, then refuelling

- Carrier brings lander to the Jool system and goes into orbit around Laythe

- Laythe lander lands and returns from Laythe, and docks with carrier

- Ion lander has about 4500ms dV when fully fuelled with Xenon and LFO. This should be enough to go to Vall, Bop and Pol, land and return to Laythe orbit.

- Ion lander goes to Vall, lands and returns to Laythe orbit (docks with carrier and refuels)

- Ion lander goes to Bop, lands and returns to Laythe orbit (docks with carrier and refuels)

- Ion lander goes to Pol, lands and returns to Laythe orbit (docks with carrier and refuels)

- Carrier then moves to low Tylo orbit (20km)

- Tylo lander lands and is refuelled by a fuel rover on the surface of Tylo.

- Tylo lander re-orbits and docks with Carrier

- Carrier returns to Kerbin. Landers return to KSC. Shuttle picks up last crew member and returns to KSC

1 - Assembly - Carrier launch

Asymmetric ships are _really_ hard to fly. It's stable enough while full of fuel, but a handful when empty. Also the CoL is way ahead of the CoM. So basically the easiest method is to fly straight up until we are in space, then turn eastward and accelerate.

http://imgur.com/a/kXEfL

http://imgur.com/a/kXEfL

1 - Assembly - Spaceplane launch

Spaceplanes are flown into orbit and docked with the carrier

http://imgur.com/a/GYbBQ

http://imgur.com/a/GYbBQ

1 - Assembly - Refuelling

I had to design a larger tanker so that I could refuel the carrier's 9x Kerbodyne 14400 tanks in a reasonable number of launches. The resulting rocket flew suprisingly well, and was easily able to deliver a 288t (3xKR14400 tank) payload to orbit.

http://imgur.com/a/wEOpy

http://imgur.com/a/wEOpy

1 - Assembly - Crew delivery

There are only 4 Kerbals on the carrier, we need 5 for the level 3 challenge (although with hindsight it would have been easier to just send them up on the initial launch with Jeb...oh well). This shuttle is a modified Von Braun Ferry.

http://imgur.com/a/JCZAy

http://imgur.com/a/JCZAy

1 - Assembly - Transfer to high orbit and last refuelling

An interplanetary burn on an 800 ton vehicle with 6xLV-Ns will take a long time. The original idea was to go to a higher orbit and accept the oberth losses for much less tedium. All tanks are topped off

http://imgur.com/a/WcEan

http://imgur.com/a/WcEan

2 - Kerbin to Laythe

We are off!

So yeah, a 1 hour burn time is not going to happen. Light the KR2Ls!

http://imgur.com/a/UhHXY

http://imgur.com/a/UhHXY

3 - Laythe

So the Laythe lander didn't fly anywhere near as well as it did on Kerbin. Dropping the (partially full) drop tanks helped, but the margins for making a safe landing on the water were very thin. Bob taxis to the shoreline and has a _very_ cold swim to get ashore (although the lander is fully amphibious, the ladder only extends to the top of the floats, so he can't get back in if the lander is on land. Bob plants the flag and gets back in the lander. takeoff and ascent is normal and he rejoins the carrier.... and discovers that the high-speed landing has torn off the docking port on the bottom of the lander. There's no way to dock or refuel. Oh well. We abandon the lander in Laythe orbit and spacewalk back to the carrier.

http://imgur.com/a/dolCP

http://imgur.com/a/dolCP

4 - Laythe to Vall

On the first test of the ion lander, it turns out that although it is possible to fly the lander to Vall, land, and return to Laythe orbit, it is extremely tight on fuel (and takes forever to pump up the orbit using ion on the way out of Laythe...). So we fly the carrier to Vall and will do the Vall landing from orbit. We have about 3 full tanks remaining on the carrier.

http://imgur.com/a/BlOxh

http://imgur.com/a/BlOxh

5 - Vall

The landing is uneventful, being well within the capabilities of the ion lander. Bill plants the flag and returns to the carrier.

http://imgur.com/a/kHwJk

http://imgur.com/a/kHwJk

6 - Bop

I totally forgot to take pictures of the trajectory out to Bop and back again. Hopefully these pictures will give some idea of the fuel consumption. As Bop has low gravity we can use the rapier for the initial transfer burn. Ions will be used for course adjustments and the return to Vall and rendezvous with the carrier. This is the first full long-range flight for this lander. Joedo does the flying this time.

http://imgur.com/a/OApkq

http://imgur.com/a/OApkq

7 - Pol

Much easier to get to than Bop, I did run into some issues with the lander exploding above the surface and the log claiming I had crashed into Pol. So the actual landing shown was done on a ridgeline above 3100m where this effect was occuring. Fortunately the low gravity made for easy flying and easy transfers. Jorlan takes the controls this time.

http://imgur.com/a/U6CU4

http://imgur.com/a/U6CU4

8 - Vall to Tylo

As originally planned, the Tylo landing will take place from as low an orbit as possible, in this case, Pe is around 20km. We move the carrier into position. The initial transfer burn didn't take too much dV, but the insertion burn at Tylo was a little over 800ms. I made a mistake in making my periapsis too low, so that meant I couldn't use an extended braking burn on the LV-Ns, so the KR-2Ls were used for the second and last time of the mission. There is approximately 2 tanks worth of fuel left in the carrier. This should be plenty to return home (the lander was already fuelled up at Kerbin)

http://imgur.com/a/M6Kd9

http://imgur.com/a/M6Kd9

** 0.90.0 upgrade arrives **

9 - Fuel Rover to Tylo

The Tylo refuelling mission has been sitting in LKO since the start of the mission. Now we need the rover in Tylo orbit. It turns out that a 27m burn time on the LV-Ns of the transfer stage is going to be ... annoying. In this case, I can flip the lander/transfer stage vehicle and use the LV-T30s on the skycrane as they have a much better TWR (and we have enough fuel, as it doesn't look like I will need to refuel the carrier.) The rover arrives in Tylo orbit.

http://imgur.com/a/zEifS

http://imgur.com/a/zEifS

10- Tylo landing

The crew wakes up with a massive hangover after drinking Jebs munshine at the 0.90 release party, and promptly discovers that everybody except Jeb has forgotten how to fly a spacecraft. Fortunately this isn't a mission-ender as everybody except for Jeb has already done their landings, *and* there's an advanced probe core on the carrier. Jeb gets into the Tylo lander. This one is modified from the standard version with slightly larger drop tanks and extra VTOL thrusters to cope with Tylo's strong gravity. It turns out that the fuel lines from the drop tanks don't seem to be working after the upgrade. A load and save of the lander in the SPH solves this.

Our best, (and only!) pilot, and general all-around top gun - Jebidiah takes the controls for this one.

After several attempts a successful landing is made (on fumes!)

http://imgur.com/a/ISTcF

http://imgur.com/a/ISTcF

10- Tylo fuel rover landing

A fuel rover seemed to be the most interesting way of refuelling the lander without adding extra mass to the lander or carrier. The skycrane has about 3300ms dV, and there's some fuel left over in the transfer stage, so the landing is a bit easier this time. Just need to be careful not to break the wheels of the rover, as they can't be repaired. Also, we need to get close to the landing site of Jeb's lander, so the drive on the surface to reach it isn't too long.

http://imgur.com/a/J4cbl

http://imgur.com/a/J4cbl

10- Tylo refuelling and return to orbit

After an eventful drive through the mountains, the fuel rover eventually reaches the lander. It turns out that due to vernor use on the transfer stage, we are short some fuel (with hindsight I should have checked this, as there was fuel remaining on the skycrane which could have made up the difference). Never mind, hopefully we have enough fuel to make orbit even if there isn't enough for rendezvous with the carrier. In true Apollo style, Jeb accidentally knocks over the flag as he manouvres for takeoff. ...There's enough fuel to make orbit, and we didn't get burned by the decoupler bug during the climbout. (yay!) There isn't enough fuel to rendezvous with the carrier, so it has to come and get us. (at this point I am _really_ glad I added a probe core). Docking is successful. Tylo complete!

http://imgur.com/a/djZWU

http://imgur.com/a/djZWU

11-Tylo to Kerbin

So it turns out the the 0.90.0 upgrade has done some damage to the carrier. The fuel lines aren't working. after a load/save in the VAB, on closer examination, they have dissappeared completely (!). However, we can still use the LV-Ns by manually transferring fuel to the FL-T400s that are directly connected to them. If we get Jeb to hold course on the manouvre node, we can rotate through them filling each in turn before they run out. The plan, then, is to escape Tylo orbit into a high Jool orbit that doesn't intersect with any of the moons, warp to the transfer window and then head home, as it looks like we have more than enough fuel. The plan works, and we arrive back in Kerbin orbit some 15 years after leaving on the mission...

http://imgur.com/a/kaG74

http://imgur.com/a/kaG74

12- Kerbin orbit to KSC

The carrier isn't designed to land, so we need to send a shuttle to pick up the crew (with an extra pilot to bring back the ion spaceplane). This goes uneventfully, and the crew arrives safely back at the KSC.

http://imgur.com/a/W196K

http://imgur.com/a/W196K

Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 3!

Haha, your aircraft-carrier ship looks pretty cool!

Wow, I see you wanted to avoid accidental stage collision during decoupling, really impressive solution!

And I really appreciate that you documented all the launches really well.

I really enjoyed your hidroplane solution for Laythe, I guess there was no spaceplane landing on the water yet in the history of Jool-5!

For Vall, I'd like to have seen the last moment before touchdown to show the people how it is possible (turning in the last moment, or just drop it very slowly). But I know it's possible.

But after Vall landing you end up a lower orbit with inclination and with xenon only I would like to see how you got back to the mothership.

And I also have to see how you get back from Bop because I know you had some ion but for a big ship they don't give you too much dV. And as I see you let your mothership in Vall orbit and the lander was in a different orbit so that might needed a lot of deltaV... by the way if you go out into a Jool orbit between Vall and Tylo then you can redock to the main ship much easily, without all the fuss with the orbits and inclinations.

Your landing on Tylo with the plane is incredible! Nice one, and I love your refueling rover idea very much too! This is something new, again.

Cool unique ship design, thank you for participating! And sorry for the slow review!

[Batz_10K]

- - - Updated - - -

Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 3!

Haha, your aircraft-carrier ship looks pretty cool!

Wow, I see you wanted to avoid accidental stage collision during decoupling, really impressive solution!

And I really appreciate that you documented all the launches really well.

I really enjoyed your hidroplane solution for Laythe, I guess there was no spaceplane landing on the water yet in the history of Jool-5!

For Vall, I'd like to have seen the last moment before touchdown to show the people how it is possible (turning in the last moment, or just drop it very slowly). But I know it's possible.

But after Vall landing you end up a lower orbit with inclination and with xenon only I would like to see how you got back to the mothership.

And I also have to see how you get back from Bop because I know you had some ion but for a big ship they don't give you too much dV. And as I see you let your mothership in Vall orbit and the lander was in a different orbit so that might needed a lot of deltaV... by the way if you go out into a Jool orbit between Vall and Tylo then you can redock to the main ship much easily, without all the fuss with the orbits and inclinations.

Your landing on Tylo with the plane is incredible! Nice one, and I love your refueling rover idea very much too! This is something new, again.

Cool unique ship design, thank you for participating! And sorry for the slow review!

Thanks Ziv!

Let's see if I can answer some of those questions...

The ion lander isn't that heavy - about 12 tons fully fuelled and a little over 6 tons with just xenon on board (you get about 1900ms on ion without rocket fuel, so there's plenty to make it from Bop to Vall and rendezvous in Vall orbit. TWR on ion without rocket fuel is about 0.7 so it's not too bad. (unless trying to make a burn on the dark side...) Also, the plane and orbit changes in Vall orbit aren't too bad as it doesn't have anywhere near as much gravity as Kerbin, Laythe or Tylo. (also I didn't want to move the carrier around too much as I wasn't sure how much fuel I was going to have left...)

I should have included this with my original posting - here's a copy of the save folder for this mission - There are quicksaves for most of the major milestones through the mission, and you can fly the planes if you like (and carrier if you are crazy)

http://1drv.ms/1tOALxg [OneDrive]

Planes are called:

TFNG-T (Tylo version)

TFNG-I (Ion version) (don't use the other one included in the save, it was for testing)

TFNG-Float (Floatplane)

Action groups are: (common to all planes)

1 - Toggle intakes

2 - Toggle Rapier AirBreathing/ClosedCycle

3 - Toggle Rapier on/off

4 - Toggle VTOLs on/off

8 - Toggle ions on/off (Ion version only)

9 - Toggle solar panels (Ion version only)

By default they have enough fuel to make Kerbin orbit, but you need to refuel before trying to land somewhere else..

I had a lot of fun doing this challenge - I think the hardest part was coming up with a way of landing a small spaceplane on tylo (as they were never designed to land there) and coming up with a way of getting the rover onto the surface of Tylo (the original method used the skycrane as the landing stage with the spaceplane sitting on top... it worked but looked really strange, and I had nowhere to put the skycrane on the carrier)

Cheers

[SSSPutnik]

I'm trying to make a massless recovery system to bring down a kerbal from orbit around Kerbin. Do you think this is possible? Or maybe a recovery system with only one wing?

I've actually de orbited a Kerbal and had him survive landing. May have been with FAR installed. May have also been 99.9% luck.

[Ziv]

Thanks Ziv!

Let's see if I can answer some of those questions...

The ion lander isn't that heavy - about 12 tons fully fuelled and a little over 6 tons with just xenon on board (you get about 1900ms on ion without rocket fuel, so there's plenty to make it from Bop to Vall and rendezvous in Vall orbit. TWR on ion without rocket fuel is about 0.7 so it's not too bad. (unless trying to make a burn on the dark side...) Also, the plane and orbit changes in Vall orbit aren't too bad as it doesn't have anywhere near as much gravity as Kerbin, Laythe or Tylo. (also I didn't want to move the carrier around too much as I wasn't sure how much fuel I was going to have left...)

I should have included this with my original posting - here's a copy of the save folder for this mission - There are quicksaves for most of the major milestones through the mission, and you can fly the planes if you like (and carrier if you are crazy)

http://1drv.ms/1tOALxg [OneDrive]

Planes are called:

TFNG-T (Tylo version)

TFNG-I (Ion version) (don't use the other one included in the save, it was for testing)

TFNG-Float (Floatplane)

Action groups are: (common to all planes)

1 - Toggle intakes

2 - Toggle Rapier AirBreathing/ClosedCycle

3 - Toggle Rapier on/off

4 - Toggle VTOLs on/off

8 - Toggle ions on/off (Ion version only)

9 - Toggle solar panels (Ion version only)

By default they have enough fuel to make Kerbin orbit, but you need to refuel before trying to land somewhere else..

I had a lot of fun doing this challenge - I think the hardest part was coming up with a way of landing a small spaceplane on tylo (as they were never designed to land there) and coming up with a way of getting the rover onto the surface of Tylo (the original method used the skycrane as the landing stage with the spaceplane sitting on top... it worked but looked really strange, and I had nowhere to put the skycrane on the carrier)

Cheers

Yeah, it's all right! This was the first mission where I was thinking about to ask for the craft file for the Tylo landing but double checking it I realized that it is possible but needs some very cool piloting and action groups to toggle different engines. Awesome!

[Krovster]

Congratulations, you have finished the Jool-5 Challenge on Level 1!

Yeah, forgetting a ladder can ruin your mission but you were lucky that you were able to get back into the pod from the legs with the help of the jetpack. But I had to build your lander to test if it was really possible. And it was, so nice save of the mission.

Your additional engines for Tylo had a unique solution with that structure which stayed on the top of your lander, that looks funny but I guess it had a nearly zero mass, so it's all right like that.

And yeah, at Tylo, going from an eccentric orbit to a low orbit can cost about 900 m/s so going down and back can be 1800 m/s, something what many people does not consider...

Nice stock solution, thank you for participating, and I'm sorry about the long delay before reviewing this mission!

Thanks for putting the effort into evaluating my solution.

I expect I will be back soon for a Jebediah level mission or a Kethane version.

[astrobond]

Hi Ziv and All

Here is my Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge Mission !

I need to add the cool badge to my signature xD

(I Made a kind of Jool 5 Mission a long time ago, but not for a challenge, without enough pictures, and i wanted to try again in carreer mode with the 0.90 KSP version)

So:

- KSP 0.90 version

- Only mod used: Kerbal Engineer Redux

- 6 Kerbals are on the mission

- One launch

- No refueling mission

- 1 Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey

- 6 satellites

- delta-V in KER window

- Some more description in the Two Imgur Albums (Jpeg) images Titles

I think this mission could be OK for the JEBEDIAH'S LEVEL version 2 ?

The Plan:

Make a ship with MK-1 Lander full science parts for a "light" and low final cost mission, using a SSTO reuseable lifter, reuseable MK-1 lander with specific modules for Laythe and Tylo.

The Mothership will be used to travel from Kerbin to Jool and back with low twr, and between each moon from Laythe to Pol.

The lander will refuel and stock sciences experiments in the Mothership Lab, and the Lab will also be used to refresh the Mystery Goo and SC-9001 when needed.

The Mothership will also bring a Hitch-hiker's Storage and 6 Satellites that will be launched in orbit of each Moons, to make easy money with the "Science data from space around..." missions xD

Result:

- Ship Price: 753796$ (with 526112$ for the reuseable SSTO Lifter)

- 173.5 Tons (with the lifter, 107.3 Tons in LKO)

- The only bug of the mission was the Jool Sat One that was not launched at a good orbit, so was ejected from the Jool System, maybe by Tylo gravity, to finish in a solar elliptic orbit

(and of course, the next "Science data from space around..." mission was:... "Science data from space around Jool" lol xD )

- Total cost of the mission after refund of SSTO lifter and Ship landed on Kerbin: 142639$

- Total Science Points when landing Kerbin: 13061 (could be better, i made mistakes...sending datas to finish KSP missions)

- A lot of stress and fun, hopefully there is F5 and F9 keys

- Note to myself:"don't take pictures of the kerbals with the Flag window text opened... they are not saved xD", hopefully the Flags are on each moons to proof they all walked on the moons

Here are the almost 300 pictures in two albums:

Jool 5 Challenge Part 1

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Jool 5 Challenge Part 2

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Fly safe with Jeb !

[Ziv]

Firstly; what a great challenge, I went outside my comfort zone, learnt so much, and had a lot of fun with it.

I decided to limit myself to atmospheric rated cans for atmospheric landings, and to EVA only for short range transfers. At first I was thinking to avoid jets (because I'd never flown them), but since they make such a huge mass difference i decided to go for it.

The craft is all stock parts. version 0.25, mods used: Better Atmospheres, Kerbal Engineer, Enhanced Nav Ball, EVE, MJ, SelectRoot, Trajectories, Kerbal Alarm Clock. mods loaded but not used: KAS, Procedural Fairings, RCSBuildAid

Design iterations:

• First I made a 2 stage ( jet + vacuum / circularise ) Laythe craft. Re-did it with rapier only, eventually realized that a "push me pull you" turbo jet coupled to my ion lander would do the job.
  
• The command chair saves weight but presents challenges; a radial mount causes off center COM, but axial mount caused me build challenges mounting a docking port above it. At one point I had a design where the pilot leaving the chair would explode the vehicle. Mesklin's craft showed one way to handle it, and on my ion lander I put a couple of solar panels on a boom to counter-weight the radial pilot.
  
• My intentions for a modular Vall then Tylo lander foundered since the docking port weight required more fuel, which required more ... so I trialed specialized minimal landers, and finally discarded the Vall lander after I realized how to do an ion landing (it just needs enough time/height to slow down).
  
• Parachutes are heavier than I thought; a passive Laythe required 3, a 1 parachute landing with a little jet at the last minute saved 300kg.
  

The flight plan:

• Kerbin turbo jet ascent. Once the jets deliver less thrust than ion flip the craft around and circularize on ion. I must be missing something about jet piloting since I needed way 'too many' intakes... still at least it got up.
  
• Many periapsis kicks at an odd angle timed so that the final escape and Jool encounter burn could be done half before Kerbin PE and half after (oberth++), tweaking the PE tunes the final escape angle. It seemed to work ok, but I miss-timed the burns little so 'could do better next time'.
  
• Laythe direct aero-capture. Used the Traj mod, didn't quite deliver for the aero-capture in this case, but was fine for Laythe landing and eventually Kerbin aero-capture later - so probably operator error. I came in pretty 'hot' and narrowly avoided impacting, I had to ion at apoapsis to establish an orbit. Reconfigured the ship so Tylo lander and Xe cache can be left in orbit and ion lander is coupled direct to capsule.
  
• Laythe ion de-orbit, single parachute descent leaves 11 m/s, burp the jets at the last minute for a soft landing, plant the flag - woot!
  
• Laythe turbo jet ascent, again flip over and finish with ion, rendezvous with the Tylo lander and Xenon.
  
• Laythe periapsis kicks to near escape, wait till the craft orbit and Laythe orbit prograde line up then escape. The minimal escape 'wants' to be near Tylo orbit, burn so the Apoapsis is out of Tylo SOI.
  
• Circularize out of Tylo SOI and leave the capsule & 700 Xe for the return trip, take most of the Xe with the landers.
  
• Low delta v Tylo intercept & circularize. Straight forward landing and ascent plan. Unfortunately ( since the probe core torque is so low and I miss-oriented the craft ) the landing was messy; exploded a drop tank and broke some cubic oct struts off the landing legs. Still any landing you can walk away from is a good landing so I persisted. I had to push the remaining drop tank debris clear of the lander for a clean liftoff. Probe torque could not produce an UP heading, and I couldn't jam some rocks under the lander, but I managed to wrestle it into an only mildly eccentric orbit. Ion lander and Xe came to the rendezvous.
  
• Again periaptic kicks and wait for the craft prograde and moon retrograde to line up for the escape.
  
• Vall went all to plan. Leave Xe in orbit, land, woot, ascend, rendezvous with Xe. To land Vall the ion lander needed a 700Xe tank.
  
• Periaptic kicks and wait to escape out to Pol followed by some inclination and periapsis tweaking to get an encounter, capture, & inclination zeroing. Took a half full tank for landing - still a huge 'safety buffer'. Inefficient but successful suicide burn to what looked like a fairly flat area. Leaving the command chair set the craft sliding down a loooong hill and I had to chase it down and stand in front of it to stop it. Oh Kerbals! Burn UP, then east to get a nice orbit & rendezvous - wish I'd put a probe core on the Xe cache
  
• rinse and repeat for Bop, including wishing for probe core on the Xe cache.
  
• Rendezvous with the capsule, closest first encounter I could get was 34km (compared to a few hundred meters at the moons). Great to get a visual and finally see the capsule again, it had power so perfect. The cache had Xe remaining and it seemed silly to discard it, but I was not looking forward to another docking with the passive cache. In the end I docked the ion to the capsule, decoupled the Xe cache, let them drift far enough apart, flipped the ion + capsule end over end, the Cache had not picked up any spin so it was easy to dock to.
  
• wait 'some time' for a Jool Kerbin transfer window then one big burn for home encounter, some inclination and periapsis tweaks in flight, Traj to tune aero capture (worked perfectly to prediction). Since I had plenty of Xe decided to circularize and try for a KSP landing, ended up just out of sight but in walking distance.
  

http://i.imgur.com/a2xNJP9.png

[imgUR]fBvl6[/IMGUR] http://imgur.com/a/fBvl6/#0 not sure what I've done wrong on the embed...

Next time:

• learn to fly jet to orbit more effectively:
  
• it looks like I use 'way too much fuel' (ha)
  
• it looks like I need 'way too many intakes' ( 300 kg of intakes ...)
  
• eccentric orbits - the escapes would be easy, but do they save fuel? how much less convenient would they make rendezvous?
  
• probe core on the Xe cache!
  
• Pol / Bop ion lander doesn't need full power - hmm what can I do with that...
  
• exactly how much could you do with EVA? how do you even astrogate...
  

Again awesome challenge, thanks for bringing together all the inspirational flights.

Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge within the Low-Mass category!

Nice one! Those clouds look beautiful! I really loved how you solved the Laythe landing, with the ion part pulling off the pod and jettisoning the jet. Very unique solution!

That was strange that you went outside of Tylo and started your landings from there, fuel-wise I would have dropped the pod between Vall and Tylo, but I guess that didn't make too much xenon fuel mass difference.

Nice landing at Tylo too, with the "usual" ion lander rescue at the end.

The ion lander with the boom balancing Jeb is an other unique engineering solution. What was your TWR for Vall?

Everything else looked good too, nice one, welcome in the highly valued Low Mass club!

- - - Updated - - -

Here's my entry for the Jool5 Challenge - Level 2

- Game version: V0.90.0.705 Beta (however, I didn't use any SLS parts).

- What mods: No mods used.

- How many Kerbals: 2 Kerbals that landed on all the moons.

- How many launches: 1 ridiculously big one (8075 T, 1152 parts on the pad at launch).

- Did you need a refueling mission: Nope.

- Did you bring a Living Quarters: Nope, but each Kerbal had a stately Mk1 Lander Can for most of the trip.

- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc: Well, there was a Laythe rover...

- Share the delta-V information too, if you tracked it: Uh, well, I have lots of pics that show fuel levels during the mission, hope that's good enough.

- Any additional notes or description: The mission starts with one big launch that must have used every orange tank and Mainsail engine in existence. After launch, nine LV-N Atomic Rocket Motors take Bill and Bob to Jool. A very lucky aerocapture delvers the mission to an orbit around Jool with apoapsis that was perfect for Tylo interception. Note: I did make a 3 or 4 attempts at this capture, aiming so low each time that a catastrophic Jool landing was inevitable; this one just happened to be perfect, which was blind luck! Anywho... After Jool aerocapture, the mission proceeded to Tylo interception. Around Tylo, Bill and Bob migrated to the Rover section, and the Rover section separated from the Main section. The Rover section then orbited and landed on Tylo, and Bill and Bob planted a flag. The Rover section then launched from Tylo and proceeded to land on Laythe, where Bill and Bob planted another flag. At this point, the autonomous Main section landed on Laythe roughly 10 km from the Rover section. Bill and Bob drove to the Main section, boarded, and launched. They then landed on Vall, Bop, and Pol (in that order), planted flags, and then headed home for a landing near the North Pole of Kerbin. Side note: there were no in-space dockings or rendezvous.

- If I had to do it again...

1) I'd put more solar panels on the ion-thruster part of the Main section so I could run my four ion thrusters at fulll thrust at Jool.

2) I'd put four Rockomax 24-77 on the Vall-lander part of the Main section: I had to waste a bunch of fuel to get the mass of the Main section low enough (under 26 T) before I attempted to land on Vall so that the thrust from the single LV-N Atomic Rocket Motor I had would be enough to overwhelm Vall's gravity (waste of fuel = bad design).

Click here for 100 pics from the mission!

http://i.imgur.com/4ITYohil.png

http://i.imgur.com/KWiEHI1l.png

http://i.imgur.com/UnQxQ8ol.png

http://i.imgur.com/MMSZZedl.png

http://i.imgur.com/P9nhm3Tl.png

http://i.imgur.com/nGJryn6l.png

http://i.imgur.com/4MoryxEl.png

http://i.imgur.com/Ngu6DRql.png

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

Wow, why did you used only orange tanks and mainsails for the launch? Back to the old times?

I really loved your (huge) Tylo lander with the rover on top, using it as the last stage and going directly to Laythe, landing there with parachutes, and roving around while the main ship lands there too. Funny and unique!

And you had some crazy orbits sometimes!

Nice parachutes decoupling on Laythe and funny ladder solution to get them back into the ship.

Then for the rest it becomes a staged one-ship only mission which is a really nice planning in terms of making the mission easier and quicker. I also notice there were no docking in space, in fact the rendezvous on Laythe surface was the only one "meeting" of mission parts, so that's a pretty amazing thing! Well done, thank you for participating!!

- - - Updated - - -

Has it really been so long? I started this project 4 months ago and now I finally have something to show for it...

Behold! My grand-tour adventure has begun! Hopefully it isn't too cringe-worthy...

More details here...

Now, while I initially set out on this project as a Jool-5 Kethane entry, the project has mutated into something way different. And I've learned a lot along the way. For instance, I've learned how to build functioning planes in FAR (not to say I'm that good at though), I've learned how to build an Eve lander with FAR and DRE (a lot harder than it sounds), I've learned how to "mod" parts to make things more interesting/reduce part count and I've learned how to record, edit and create videos.. I didn't know any of this before I began this adventure... So I guess its time to thank Ziv again for the inspiration and for hosting the one of the most legendary KSP challenges... I don't expect you accept this mission when its finished, or even look at it. I just want to let you know that you inspired me to do something crazy that I would have never thought of on my own.

OMG, that will be huge! I mean, that's already huge!!!

And looks incredible too. I'm very excited about how it will unfold!

I didn't have time yet to check this video but did now. Awesome. Keep us updated sometimes!! And it will definitely have a room in the Hall of Fame!

Maybe only one thing for the videos: 25 mins can be too long for most of the people. I suggest you to make short teasers (less 1 mins) before them with the main stuff introduced for those with less time!

- - - Updated - - -

Now the Modular Rocket Systems and the SpaceY mods are permitted!

Edited January 11, 2015 by Ziv

[Lou]

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

Wow, why did you used only orange tanks and mainsails for the launch? Back to the old times?

I really loved your (huge) Tylo lander with the rover on top, using it as the last stage and going directly to Laythe, landing there with parachutes, and roving around while the main ship lands there too. Funny and unique!

And you had some crazy orbits sometimes!

Nice parachutes decoupling on Laythe and funny ladder solution to get them back into the ship.

Then for the rest it becomes a staged one-ship only mission which is a really nice planning in terms of making the mission easier and quicker. I also notice there were no docking in space, in fact the rendezvous on Laythe surface was the only one "meeting" of mission parts, so that's a pretty amazing thing! Well done, thank you for participating!!

Thanks for continuing to run this challenge, Ziv! I really enjoyed it!

Edited January 11, 2015 by Lou

[DBowman]

Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge within the Low-Mass category!

Nice one! Those clouds look beautiful! I really loved how you solved the Laythe landing, with the ion part pulling off the pod and jettisoning the jet. Very unique solution!

That was strange that you went outside of Tylo and started your landings from there, fuel-wise I would have dropped the pod between Vall and Tylo, but I guess that didn't make too much xenon fuel mass difference.

Nice landing at Tylo too, with the "usual" ion lander rescue at the end.

The ion lander with the boom balancing Jeb is an other unique engineering solution. What was your TWR for Vall?

Everything else looked good too, nice one, welcome in the highly valued Low Mass club!

Thanks Ziv!

It felt a little odd going outside of Tylo - but the Laythe escape seemed to 'want' to go there and I was comfortable putting the pod away from all the inner moon SOIs so I budgeted fuel for it.

re the Vall TWR I pulled up a quick save to check; just prior to Vall de-orbit the ion lander had about 600 Xe and TWR of 1.25, on the ground prior to ascent it had 358Xe and TWR 1.32.

[Cupcake...]

Here we go again!

Cupcake...

[Thunderous Echo]

Guys, I have some bad news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5F2B04KOsU

It seems that Pol is broken in 0.90.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Thunderous Echo

[Stratzenblitz75]

Guys, I have some bad news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5F2B04KOsU

It seems that Pol is broken in 0.90.

Interesting.. If this is true, then I guess this makes the Jool-5 challenge impossible with 0.90...

However, I doubt that your results completely reflect stock KSP, since Lou and redsh both did this mission in 0.90 and they didn't appear to have any problems with Pol.

Perhaps you have a corrupted install? Or maybe the collision issues only appear in certain areas... I do remember having collision issues with Pol on my grand tours, but they only happened when I was in map mode. When I wasn't in map mode, there appeared to be no issues.

I'll have to see for myself! If there is "phantom terrain" on Pol then perhaps I make a "floating" base...

[redsh]

Same bug exist in 0.25. If you exploded, just try again in other place or try descending slower (not sure about last).

[Batz_10K]

Interesting.. If this is true, then I guess this makes the Jool-5 challenge impossible with 0.90...

However, I doubt that your results completely reflect stock KSP, since Lou and redsh both did this mission in 0.90 and they didn't appear to have any problems with Pol.

Perhaps you have a corrupted install? Or maybe the collision issues only appear in certain areas... I do remember having collision issues with Pol on my grand tours, but they only happened when I was in map mode. When I wasn't in map mode, there appeared to be no issues.

I'll have to see for myself! If there is "phantom terrain" on Pol then perhaps I make a "floating" base...

I had the exact same issue on my Jool-5 challenge... (gave me quite a surprise when my lander suddenly exploded). I ended up working around the problem by landing on a mountain ridgeline above 3100m. Interestingly it was in 0.25 just before I upgraded to 0.90.

[Lou]

It seems that Pol is broken in 0.90.

I ran into the same thing (no pun intended) the first time I tried to land on Pol in my Jool-5 attempt (Ver 0.90.0.705): I crashed into phantom ground way above the apparent ground. That attempt was near a big mountain ridge, so I reloaded and tried again (successfully) further away from that ridge in a fairly flat area. My guess is the data used to render the ground and the data used to detect collisions with the ground have some sort of unintended offset at Pol... Or, you know, maybe it's ghosts.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Lou
Added exact version ID

[Stratzenblitz75]

Well, it looks like Pol is more broken than I thought. Definitely going to hinder my efforts to explore it...

Still, we need to see if we can land anything on this "phantom terrain"! Hopefully, it doesn't just instantly destroy any vessel that comes in contact with it.