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

[SSSPutnik]

How massy is the lander?

My ship is drive-fuel/probe/power-lander (small lander can).

Doodson Kerman is going crazy after over a year by himself but he is obsessed with mission completion.

[SSSPutnik]

[SSSPutnik]

OK, finally managed this! Level 1 only. I think I will actually redo the mission again, bigger and better next time.

Apart from the running out of fuel fiasco and the hard time landing on Pol, (lander kept bouncing and tipping over!) it wasn't too hard really.

Mods used: MechJeb, (though a lot of manual maneuvers too), KW Rocketry and Chatterer.

Screenshots below show major mission milestones. I worry for Doodson's sanity, that was a long time to be by yourself!

Mission breakdown:

Launch primary inter system drive.

Launch and dock tug section.

Launch and dock lander with pilot.

Leave Kerbin SOI

Enter Jool SOI and aerobreak around Jool.

Visit moons in this order:

Tylo-Laythe-Vall (Dumped main driver system at Laythe after emptying it of fuel), Laythe now has a nice radioactive moon.

Head for Bop, ran out of fuel after matching orbital inclination

Send fuel, aerobreak fuel section and dock with lander and tug section.

Get to Bop, land.

Head to Pol, mission complete except for getting home.

Arrival home was unexciting except for aero braking at about 8000ms

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Edited December 30, 2013 by SSSPutnik

[Ziv]

SSSPutnik: nice job, congratulations!

Hmm, your Tylo lander is extremely big! And I wonder how did you manage to land on 6 legs without collapsing them on Tylo (and causing the Spikes to touch the ground)?!

Yeah, I guess you should have made the lander in two: one bigger engine add-on for Tylo and Laythe, and a smaller upper stage for landing on other moons. And this way you would waste so much fuel to move this huge weight around the smaller moons. Maybe next time, if you are planning an other mission!

Edited January 6, 2014 by Ziv

[SSSPutnik]

Lander was large as partly wanted a universal lander.

Never had problems with the legs, didn't break any. I did use i-beam to move them lower to stop the aerospikes hitting the ground. Also the side tanks are higher than the central tank (which doesn't have an aerospike).

(Also, at touchdown most of the weight is gone).

It was indeed a problem at first, but I performed a lot of drop tests at the launch pad till I got the position right.

Repacked chutes after Lay the for use back at Kerbin. (Chutes positioned close to lander can so I can simply click EVA and be in range of all of them for repack to work without clambering all over the place).

I landed heavily at Kerbin, you'll see the legs are buried a bit.

Actually improved the lander a bit with lights and an extra SAS unit, (current version is a pig to turn).

Cheers.

Edited December 31, 2013 by SSSPutnik

[Blue]

Here's the plan.

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After 48 Launches (43 of which were rendezvous missions, and 6 of those were so delicate that they took longer than 40 minutes) the Unicorn Fleet is prepped for the mission. Presently I'll be launching my crew of eight, and departing for Jool. I'll see what I can do for recording the more exciting bits.

[SSSPutnik]

Sorry, great work in this, BUT, its a single ship to Jool only... Only refueling allowed.

Great graphics!

Edited January 5, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[Ziv]

Sorry, I was away for some days.

Wow Blue, that's a really extensive expedition! SSSPutnik is right, the challenge is about sending one single ship with all the crew, landers, science (optional), etc. But keep us updated and if you finished all the missions I will put your name/pictures somewhere under the official contenders!

[SSSPutnik]

My second expedition underway now. Five crew. Three man lander. (This ones got a double stage for Tylo Ziv).

Major design flaw though, it kept breaking during landing, too high a thrust ripping docking port from decoupler, had to set MechJeb to max thrust of 19ms.... Lots of F9s....

[Ziv]

Hm, yeah, docking ports are not so strong... especially when they are vertically positioned. show us pictures too!

[700NitroXpress]

Hehe, that's not good! Hm, I'm not sure how to decide because only refueling supply missions are allowed but that sucks if I say: no, sorry, you can't, you should start to redesign your mission from zero and start again... if you can manage that with a low-weight and simple, one launch solution from Kerbin then it may be accepted (but I will add this rescue mission to the informations about your mission)...

By the way I checked your videos but they are too long to watch them normally and it was hard to find the crucial points in the long streams. Maybe you should do a "general public's cut".

Ok, I'm back after the holiday break. I can send the rescue lander out to Tylo in one launch from Kerbin and it will get my man back into orbit. Right now I just want to see if I can finish the mission after the rescue, and then I'll try it again after some redesigning. As for the videos, I think I'll keep doing these long ones to finish out the series and then for the next attempt, I'll cut a real short one together for a submission.

[Bobnova]

This may be a bit ambitious given that I've yet to land on any Joolian moons, but I think I'm going to take a whack at this

We'll see how it goes. Mostly posting as a reminder to myself and a challenge to myself.

[SSSPutnik]

Most of the moons are pretty easy other than Tylo and Pol, (too much and too little gravity).

I'd like to try this with stock parts rather than using the massive fuel tanks I'm using now.

[700NitroXpress]

Here's my Vall and Tylo landing, also the rescue mission to get Charlie off of Tylo. I'll retry this challenge again with a new setup later.

[Speeding Mullet]

My entry is taking a lot longer than I thought.

I upgraded to 0.23 then got stuck in a krut while trying to get my head around a 4 man 5 moon lander.

I'll also have to remake my main ship so I will be delayed for some time and will post my completed entry totally out of the blue and with glorious kanfare perhaps months from now!

Happy flying in the meantime.

[technion]

I've just completed this challenge.

It was done in .23 career mode, but didn't completely meet the rules for Jebediah mode.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65421-Jool-5-tour

[Ziv]

700NitroXpress: Welcome back! Yeah, I'm happy that you didn't let your Kerbal die on Tylo! I LOVE your rescue lander's design!!!! But yeah, you should always check for the ladder or if they can reach the seat easily... )

Hm, so did you finish all the landings? Can you please collect all the pics/videos for a post into the Hall of Fame?

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Bobnova:

This may be a bit ambitious given that I've yet to land on any Joolian moons, but I think I'm going to take a whack at this

We'll see how it goes. Mostly posting as a reminder to myself and a challenge to myself.

Don't worry, I was the same when I started this Challenge! But if you are planning the mission and the ship well then it will be a success and big fun. You can find deltaV and other informations here, those will help! Good luck, and keep us updated how you progress!

Edited January 9, 2014 by Ziv

[700NitroXpress]

700NitroXpress: Welcome back! Yeah, I'm happy that you didn't let your Kerbal die on Tylo! I LOVE your rescue lander's design!!!! But yeah, you should always check for the ladder or if they can reach the seat easily... )

Hm, so did you finish all the landings? Can you please collect all the pics/videos for a post into the Hall of Fame?

Yeah, he's safe, now I just have to rescue Bob when I exit the system. I'm going to do Bop and Pol today so that will finish it. Then I just have to land them on the KSC runway.

[Blue]

It's kind of unfortunate that I'm disqualified, I think. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to the rules.

Even so, I'm still doing my crazy-huge mission because it's fun doing such highly ambitious things.

My 5 spacecraft departed today from Kerbin. Each had to undergo multiple burns, each time increasing their Apoapsis until it was just shy of escape, then on the final approach to Periapsis I had enough momentum to do the long hard burn to depart for Jool. Each ship had to accelerate for more than half an hour.

I'm still recording the interesting bits (I hope).

[700NitroXpress]

Bop and Pol landings completed, on the way back to Kerban, I ran out of fuel. I just finished sending out a refueling ship and now the Jool V ship is headed to rescue the stranded kerbal and then return home.

Jool V refuel ship docked in an orbit around the sun.

Edited January 12, 2014 by 700NitroXpress

[Kasuha]

Okay - I finished this challenge too. Hopefully I did not miss any of the rules. This was the most epic mission I have ever done in KSP. I'll post images when they're uploaded, there's 200+ of them. Might take a while and will require multiple albums.

In the meanwhile:

- trying Jebediah's Level, crew of five (landing crew two Kerbals every time) + required science from all moons

- multiple launches (8), one ship docked together in Kerbin orbit, reconfigured as needed during flight

- zero space debris

- no refuelling

- final landing in three separate pieces (science module, lander/engine, crew capsule)

- total science 8524 (64 + 2786 + 5674)

No mods used, all designs were guesswork. In the end I returned with fuel to spare. Elliptic parking orbits are amazing.

Edit: pictures

1/ Launches and orbital assembly

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2/ Transfer, Tylo, and Laythe

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3/ Vall, Pol, and Bop

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4/ Return to Kerbin and Science summary

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Edited January 13, 2014 by Kasuha

[Ziv]

Bop and Pol landings completed, on the way back to Kerban, I ran out of fuel. I just finished sending out a refueling ship and now the Jool V ship is headed to rescue the stranded kerbal and then return home.

http://i.imgur.com/lUXUt80.jpg

I don't get it, if you were heading back to Kerbin then what Kerbal was stranded en where? Or the one in space? (sorry but I don't have time to analyze these very long videos )

[Ziv]

Blue: don't worry about the rules (except that you will be added only onto the Mixed Solutions list ), your huge multi-ship Expedition will definitely worth its place on the first page! So keep us updated, I'm curious how you will progress, especially with the huge rover-base at Tylo!!

Kasuha: great job, congratulations!! I see your first images, keep them coming and let me know when uploaded all then I will check it and if all looks by the rules then I'll add you to the Hall of Fame!

Edited January 14, 2014 by Ziv

[Kasuha]

Kashua: great job, congratulations!! I see your first images, keep them coming and let me know when uploaded all then I will check it and if all looks by the rules then I'll add you to the Hall of Fame!

If you do, please do so using my correct nick.

I might need to split the upload to two days, it's very late and Imgur is not very fast. I'm at half uploading the second album (102 images).

[SSSPutnik]

Ziv - My second mission is almost complete.

(Had to refuel again dammit).

Regarding mods :

Would LLL and B9 be OK?

Also globular fuel tanks. None of the parts seem cheaty.