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

[Mr.Rocket]

Progress Report: Refueling mission sent, first re-fueler has reached the Taurus, not sure if the others will be able to, but that's exactly why i sent three Jeb landed on Tylo, and made it back to the Taurus:

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Only refueler A has made it so far, not sure if i need the others. Fuelers D, and E did not even go to Jool, but are in Kerbin Orbit. This is not part of the submission yet, i will post the mission in full when i finish

[SSSPutnik]

Mein eyes! They burn! Seriously though, good work.

[Mr.Rocket]

Thanks

The Tylo landing actually went very smoothly, better than expected, only two quicksave reverts, one because i accidently staged twice, and two because i landed at the wrong angle and broke an engine. Plus, it goes quickly when you're falling at 2 kilometers per second Not sure if i will use the other refuelers though, they got into highly inclined orbits and that take alot to fix

[SSSPutnik]

Low orbits at 2kms around Tylo are scary. If I had an occulus rift set...

[kookoo_gr]

Made it to Bop and Poll. Upon landing at Poll a 5.7R earthquake hit and everybody ran for their lives. Things are still restless with all the aftershocks. will continue when possible.

[zeppelinmage]

Phew! Finally got the mothership together, landers and all. Next step, ejection burn to Jool. But that'll have to wait a day or two - I have some other projects that must take precedence.

[kookoo_gr]

FINISHED!!!

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Stock parts only for Jeb level entry. Mods used kerbal alarm clock, KER, steam gauges, enhanced navball, docking port alignment indicator. Science gathered 11156, one refuel, multiple launches for ship construction. Will do it again sometime with better planning.

[SSSPutnik]

Well done, I think, unsure how you got to Tylo orbital speed on RCS... You're short about 400ms!?

Edited January 28, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[kookoo_gr]

By dumping the rocket engine the mass decreased considerably thus increasing the TWR of the lander can. Finally i lowered the orbit of the mothership because having a circular low orbit means less ÃŽâ€V to spend in order to land and take-off. That's why later on i landed on Poll using RCS. KER will not show any info on RCS TWR and ÃŽâ€V. Also at takeoff i was aiming as low as possible in order to increase horizontal speed and aiming for the about 15Km Ap. It was a big gamble and it worked the first time to my surprise.

Edited January 28, 2014 by kookoo_gr

[SSSPutnik]

Well done. Suggest next time, build long, but not THAT long

[SSSPutnik]

Just about to deorbit mission over Kerbin with 6 guys hanging onto landers ladder!

Wish me luck!

Back, they don't all fit. For posterity, you can only fit 5 on a ladder comfortably and you can't time warp when on ladder.

Edited January 28, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[SSSPutnik]

Dismal failure... Despite pushing up, Kerbals started flying off the ladder. Lander made it, but main ship impacting actually crashed the game! Screenshots coming...

[SSSPutnik]

Leaving Jool system.

Well, this doesn't work...

Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!

OK, let's just get into Kerbin orbit.

Greenhouse shields up, solar panels retracted, let's go!

Aerobraking. Periapsis set to 30km.

Nice orbit around Kerbin. Home, but no way to get more than one Kerbal down Bummer. Rescue ship KSC control please!

[SSSPutnik]

Mission highlights:

Laythe aerobraking:

Laythe ascent:

Tylo:

Fuel housekeeping:

Vall Blooper:

F9 and back in action !

Amazing angled Bop landing. Had to pump fuel to bottom of lander to keep it upright.

Poll spire shot.

Looking back wistfully at the lander. Going home soon. But the Jacuzzi beckons!

Osperus II cockpit shot, with fresh coffee. With window wiper for rain and aerobraking fire.

Osperus II main ship launch blooper, "Uh, is that us?"

Edited January 28, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[Mr.Rocket]

Well, I have good news and bad news. Good news: Bob managed to land on Vall. Yay!

Bad news: The Vall lander was supposed to have 10 km of delta-v. At least that's what it said in the VAB. Now, it appears to only have just over 5 km of delta-v when i actually need it. It can make it to Vall orbit, and possibly to Laythe if it aerobrakes, but that would be close. The biggest problem is, it was supposed to be able to return to Tylo orbit where the mothership is, refuel, go to Bop, come back and refuel, then be used for Pol. With just over 5 km of delta-v, i'm not sure it can do that, it certainly can't make Tylo orbit from Vall. On the surface of Vall it only has over 2 km of delta-v. Any ideas?

[SSSPutnik]

You should be able to make Tylo orbit with that much deltav, at least some sort of orbit, it's really easy to get captured by Tylo.

Suggest backup save, make a save and have a play around. Make sure you wait for a good transfer window.

By the way if you are seeing different DeltaV in VAB to in actual space I would ditch the plugin. They should be the same.

You could sit there till Vall and time of day correct and do one burn to Tylo maybe from ground.

Edit: Stupid tablet autocorrect.

Edited January 29, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[kookoo_gr]

Try these for size

first f5 this may take some tries to get the most of your ship. Vall has a maximum height just below 8000m so i would aim for a Pe of just above 8000m 9000mm would be nice. Just after take off turn sideways and keep the yellow marker above the horizon to kill vertical speed. Also using some RCS to get into orbit would a good idea ta save fuel (see my Laythe/Tylo ascent i had the same problem with KER at VAB as you). for getting to Tylo. At Pe, which should be kept as low as possible, fire the engines or RCS in order to increase the orbit until you leave Vall. Once out of Vall orbit the gravity of the planet should push you all the way out to Tylo. If your orbit intersects Tylo you should get some sort of close encounter, just wait until that encounter gets as close as possible and adjust it until you get a Pe at Tylo down to 13Km, it may be scary but it's safe. At Tylo capture you'll save some ÃŽâ€V also.

Best of luck

[SSSPutnik]

Here you go Ziv.

http://imgur.com/a/Tdsia

I've gone a little bit "misson reporty" on this, writing quite a bit of commentary for the pictures, so I hope people will click to see the album in imgur.

Vaebn, did you actually land your two guys? Actually, I just checked, the mission design just says "come back safely". Given the mission seems to start in Kerbin orbit, no landing required back at Kerbin!?

Edited January 29, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[Vaebn]

The Lander is capable of an one way trip down to Kerbin (or Eve for that matter). I simply don't like doing so because it can't reach orbit again.

After it has been assembled, the ship is meant to be something that is "parked", in Kerbin LEO, and when the time for a mission comes "departs" and then "returns" to it, in one piece.

I actually had the Lander section, not from this challenge, but from a personal game objective of mine to do a ship that can visit the entire system in such a way. I simply noticed that if I launch a "stretched" version of the external tank, I could do the Jool-5 thing too. Kerbin <-> LEO crew transfers however were always presumed to be done with an SSTO shuttle.

If you absolutely, positively, want to see some screenshots of the Lander land on Kerbin, now that someone can edit fuel levels, a Lander based return from that mission can be simulated...

[Vaebn]

Btw, here's an interesting variant of that Lander:

Features:

- Tylo LV-N SSTO, which means it can also be used as the ship's main propulsion section.

- Parachutes for Laythe / Duna

- Reusable Pressurized Rover! ^^

I might be redoing the Jool-5, for the "a rover on each moon" cookies. KSP+mechjeb is kinda of an ideal game to play windowed and with no sound on when doing something else, which is how I play it. However it does compete strongly for the processor with 3ds Max, which I use a lot lately, so this time I might take it a bit slower, rather than an all in one post.

[SSSPutnik]

After it has been assembled, the ship is meant to be something that is "parked", in Kerbin LEO, and when the time for a mission comes "departs" and then "returns" to it, in one piece.

Nope, mine ended up parked at end of mission too.

I play a lot that way too. If you use 3DS, don't suppose you could make a crew cab with internal cryosleep capsule that can be manned then gotten out of?

Edited January 29, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[Ziv]

kookoo_gr: congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge! Your main ship was obviously too long but for some reason I liked as the side tanks arrived. That emergency save with RCS at Tylo was a nice solution!

Some days ago I was trying a Level1 low-mass version. My TOP SECRET lander had more then 7000 m/s deltaV but with low TWR it was wasting the fuel too much and when out of fuel my periapsis was still hitting a big mountain. The lander itself didn't have RCS so my Kerbal went outside and literally PUSHED the ship to a higher orbit. And I realized that his suit is always refueling inside the pod so this could be a kind of cheat...

I also liked your refuel ship: minimalism at its best. And using RCS for the Pol landing is pretty cool!!! For the science points, only the recovered instruments/samples counts, no transmission.

Good job!

Edited February 5, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

SSSPutnik: congratulation, you have accomplised the JOOL-5 Challenge! Again. This time in a special, spectacular way! I like how the LLL mod looks like but it was a little bit too far from the stock so I will put this into the special solutions (but this doesn't mean this is not good)! Hm, can you please collect all your posts for pictures/infos about the mission for linking for the Hall of Fame? And so I will review it in more details too!

Oh, and don't worry about getting the Kerbals back to the surface of Kerbin. Although I expect the landing of the science stuff + Kerbals but I can make exceptions: Vaebn's concept was a reusable ship which stays in orbit and the crew would be transfered with an SSTO shuttle. It would be capable of landing and I liked the idea so I accepted it. And your mission was more like an Expedition than a cost-effective all-in-one solution... it was soo Expediton-wise that there was no solution for coming back. But if you build a rocket/shuttle for getting back the crew I can accept this one too.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Ziv

[SSSPutnik]

Ahh I can get the crew down OK, I could use the lander and land one by one, relaunching from space center with same lander for realism. But I can't be bothered, will just send a larger craft up, dock and transfer.

It certainly wasn't a low mass, on the cheap trip, I mean I stuck stuff on just because it looked good or to make it look more like a real expedition trip. ( ie the greenhouses and centrifugal habs).

But it performed really well, no refueling and accomplished all the mission objectives.

I must say, the LLL parts DO make it a lot easier to construct craft, even though the parts are scaled performance wise.

Mission 2 and yes, mission 4 will use stock parts.

Mission 2 currently on pause.

I'll make a nice single post for you of mission 3.

[Ziv]

Okay, if you don't want to spend time on landing the crew then don't worry about it. Yeah, I really liked the greenhouses and the centrifugal habs! Yeah, the LLL parts are a very different style, although yes, they are performance wise. Okay, looking forward to your post about mission 3!

I won't have internet for 2-3 days (moving house), but I'll be back soon!

Edited January 30, 2014 by Ziv