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

[SSSPutnik]

How did you tip your craft back right way up on Tylo?

[teh_orph]

Ha, cheers! Seriously no-one else has done it on ion?

I was considering leaving two-thirds of the team just drifting but figured it'd be more fun to rescue them...and much more important than the main mission goals. Of course I couldn't collect them until I had new chairs. That would have been my opportunity to really change the replacement craft but I would have counted that as cheating in the spirit of things to swap it out for something smaller knowing I was only going to Vall, Bop and Pol. The extra solar panels were something I wanted from the start, and the ion drives had not yet been used so didn't think it would be too bad to add them on. After rescuing them and docking with the original craft stealing some fuel for the pleasure of all those plane changes ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/donuni9r0dulvvp/71%20yes%20we%20need%20to%20land%2C%20then%20dock.PNG ) didn't seem too bad

Well done on making this challenge - I learnt many useful things. I might

do it again - maybe this time with a pod for one and they can take turns.

How did you tip your craft back right way up on Tylo?

My very first version of the craft (which I have not shown here) highlighted that I had insufficient torque, and also failed to add air intakes. So I aborted that version and restarted, I added a big SAS unit on the top. When I landed and the craft fell over, as you see in the picture, I had so much torque that I could literally stand the rocket up after it fell over with just a small puff of the engine.

This paid off at Bop/Pol where I managed to land on a slope just fine - also my landing legs were not long enough to touch the ground due to the size of the atomic engine.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xka4u0irrvcrhkb/96%20landed.PNG

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2h9783a195udqr0/101%20landed%20on%20bop.PNG

This was awesome on Minmus - it fell over on landing, despite the surface being completely flat.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pfcped4qwzc5f1k/131%20landing%20on%20minmus.PNG

When I hit the T button the lander just hung there at 20 degrees to the ground standing on just one leg! Massive torque is amazing.

[SSSPutnik]

To do ion you need to use nuclear landers which are tricky to land due to low TWR.

Also, unless you are doing the low mass challenge, not much point. My heavy launcher can get 300+ tons to orbit...

Edited February 28, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[Kasuha]

... lots of image references ...

I'd definitely suggest you to give imgur a try. You don't need to register there and it's rather easy to post images or even whole albums from there on these forums in a convenient way.

[Ziv]

...aaand prepare for.... the Kethane JOOL-5 Challenge!

[Ziv]

SCIENTISTS HAVE FOUND A NEW RESOURCE: KETHANE! Edited March 1, 2014 by Ziv

[Speeding Mullet]

Wow, a 4 man lander sounds very ambitious! Good luck, hopefully we will see some great engineering and flying solutions at the end!

I'm pleased to say I've finished this, will be writing the mission report up and posting a link in here. 4 man lander as promised!

[SSSPutnik]

Hey Ziv, great work on the Kethane challenge.

Questions:

1) LLL mod, is it ok? Parts are balanced, your objection previously was the shape of the engines.

2) SSTO - can it drop parts, landers etc?

3) The nuke penalty is interesting. I'm not against it, but what's the reasoning?

4) Is FAR mod OK?

I like the multiple launch penalty.

Alternatively you could do just a tonnage penalty?

[Ziv]

Hey Ziv, great work on the Kethane challenge.

Questions:

1) LLL mod, is it ok? Parts are balanced, your objection previously was the shape of the engines.

2) SSTO - can it drop parts, landers etc?

3) The nuke penalty is interesting. I'm not against it, but what's the reasoning?

4) Is FAR mod OK?

I like the multiple launch penalty.

Alternatively you could do just a tonnage penalty?

Hi,

1, Hardest question of all. LLL is best for big Expedition-like missions but have a lot of part which have advantages to the general stock parts. But NovaPunch has a small nuke too... and with LLL parts it would look very different. But it's fun to play. So it can give many advantages but can be big fun... hard decision. Okay, let's do it, it's allowed!

2, Good question. No, it has to be a fully reusable one.

3, Just to make people think about points, fuel weights, etc... it's just a little trap. But at the end most of the people will use it anyway, I guess.

4, Yes, FAR can be used.

Hm, yes, good idea with the tonnage penalty! And so you doesn't have to optimize launches into big ones.

[SSSPutnik]

Yeah, I was just going to rip out my 320t to LKO launcher.

[Ziv]

hehe, why?

[SSSPutnik]

I meant just lift one big ship, less loss of launch points but still decent size. But with mass penalty ...

[Speeding Mullet]

OK I've finished writing up the report. Here is the link to my entry

I took 6 Kerbonaughts, and 4 landed on each moon in the system.

I had to refuel once. I kinda sent a whole new back end out so I hope I still qualify. I refueled on reaching Bop (4th moon)

0.23 Vanilla apart from minimal use of mods. Where mods are used they are only dead weight.

Two launches were needed to boost the ship up, and one extra to fill it with kerbonaughts as I forgot to launch it full!

I bought a huge long range comms dish with me, built into the heat shield. Also present was a robot drone and an orbital tug.

On launch there was space for 14 Kerbonaughts, so six were accommodated in comfort.

[zeppelinmage]

For the record, I'm still working on this. Between RL commitments and an underpowered AMD chipset, it's just taking me a while.

Today I finally got my "rescue" craft into Joolian orbit. Next step: rendezvous with the "broken" lander to transfer the Kerbal.

[SV-ESK]

yes, you need to bring back the lab to keep it in balance somewhat..

Please add this to first post.

It seems my mission fail on it. Need to restart with reconfigured ship.

2)Is Extreme Eva allowed to jeb level? (Land scientific instruments normally, collect data, go back to orbit in eva)

Edited March 1, 2014 by SV-ESK

[Ziv]

OK I've finished writing up the report. Here is the link to my entry

I took 6 Kerbonaughts, and 4 landed on each moon in the system.

I had to refuel once. I kinda sent a whole new back end out so I hope I still qualify. I refueled on reaching Bop (4th moon)

0.23 Vanilla apart from minimal use of mods. Where mods are used they are only dead weight.

Two launches were needed to boost the ship up, and one extra to fill it with kerbonaughts as I forgot to launch it full!

I bought a huge long range comms dish with me, built into the heat shield. Also present was a robot drone and an orbital tug.

On launch there was space for 14 Kerbonaughts, so six were accommodated in comfort.

Speeding Mullet: Congratulation, you have finished the JOOL-5 mission!

I liked the Long-range communication dish! I think you shouldn't start with Tylo because you wasted a lot of fuel to brake and go out from there. It's nice job with the four seats at Tylo... yeah, landing a hitchhiker unit would need a big rocket!

Also, respect for the no space debris rule. It's hard to do at some circumstances! And nice memorial for the rescue mission at Bop. And the synchronous jumps on Bop and Pol! And did you really circumnavigated Pol with EVA only?

Good job, thank you for participating!

[Ziv]

Please add this to first post.

It seems my mission fail on it. Need to restart with reconfigured ship.

2)Is Extreme Eva allowed to jeb level? (Land scientific instruments normally, collect data, go back to orbit in eva)

Hm, you're right, it's not in the rules. When I added it I thought it needs a Lab to bring them back, I'm sorry about that. I added it to the first post.

Extreme Eva: Hm, you mean for Bop/Pol? Good question... well yeah, why not? I think the samples fit in the backpack.

[SSSPutnik]

The main reason I like LLL is the parts look cool, it has different textured tanks, some with black heat tiles etc. Also rectangular tanks and square tanks are useful.

Last question, spherical tank mod, can we use those? (They look cool too and make for interesting designs). Sorry for all the questions.

PS: you penalise on ISP>799 (Nukes). Does this specifically exclude ion engines or just nukes?

Edited March 2, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[dualmaster]

Minimalist challenge completed! 50.969 tonnes.

I made 3 major mistakes:

1.) I misread the mass for the current leader, thus ended up .050 tonnes heavier than the leader (didn't realize it until half way through the mission). A little frustrating since I could have easily been less given:

2.) I brought waaaaayyyyy too much fuel. I had at least 4 tonnes too much.

3.) I forgot solar panels on my last stage. This forced me to keep my last lander attached, which could have been used for more landings (as it was it was just dead weight the entire trip).

Mods: MechJeb (only used for checking delta v stats)

Landing order: Laythe, Vall, Tylo, Bop, Pol, Duna (had to do something with all that extra fuel!)

Unique features: Separate lander for each moon, no RCS or docking ports

For landers, I used a command chair with a small probe to provide SAS. Since the lander weight consisted mostly of fuel, I decided against a reusable lander in favor of separate ones. This eliminated any need for RCS or docking ports. I don't know if it actually saved weight overall but it was certainly easier to not have to dock after each landing. It also allowed me to fine tune the delta V of each lander for the specific landing. My Tylo lander in particular was nice - good TWR on the landing stage made the landing very easy. The ascent stage was minimal and had plenty of delta V. My Laythe lander was actually the worst. I didn't use a parachute and my lander wanted to tip over. Fortunately I happened to land on a high spot at 3500m because I didn't quite make orbit during takeoff. Jebediah had to jetpack it to make it back to the main ship.

With so much extra fuel I decided to land on Duna on the way back. It took me a whole bunch of quick loads to get the landing right (I landed a very tall ship that rested directly on my nuclear engine). Eventually got it though. I returned to Kerbin with over 900 delta V still in the tanks. I could easily have landed on Minmus with the right aerocapture maneuver, but I was growing tired of it at that point so I just landed.

Given how this mission went, I think a 45 tonne ship is possible.......not sure I have the patience to give it another go though. It was a good challenge though and I learned quite a bit about making efficient transfers.

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[Speeding Mullet]

I think you shouldn't start with Tylo...

And did you really circumnavigated Pol with EVA only?

Good job, thank you for participating!

Thanks Ziv, great challenge well administered, thanks for creating it!

I went to Tylo first my thinking being that I wouldn't have to lug the whole fuelled lander around the system with me, saving Delta-V over all. That's why I dropped down to Laythe second, because it uses the second most fuel I guess.

Yes I Eva'd Pol! I set of with far from ideal eva fuel too, so I had to lithobrake the last few meters

[SSSPutnik]

Really nice job dualmaster. Amazingly efficient.

Generally I'm not keen personally on exposing Kerbals to unknown moon environs in just a command chair. I'm tempted due to the low mass, but so far I've always use a cabin of some sort,

[technion]

There have been some amazing ideas here and designs I'd never have thought of. I still can't get over these minimal challenges - people seem to manage Tylo landings with far less than I ever did in several efforts at playing around.

[Justy]

For a non-kethane, level 2/3/Jeb effort, are the Kommit Nucleonics FTmN atomic engines acceptable? Here are the advantages it gives me over a similar design with stock engines:

• simplified on-orbit assembly
  
• decrease mass at Kerbin departure by 3 tons (about 0.8% of the ship)
  
• 17% more thrust - initial TWR increases from 0.19 to 0.22
  
• improves total dV by ~2%
  
• reduces parts count by more than 50 pieces, the main driver for the request.
  

Pictured here is the structural test article, "Majestic," representing the ship as it might look after orbital assembly. It stands at the Royal Kernadian Space Force top secret research facility just off Hwy 1 in Kernwall past the Jeb Horton's, you can't miss it. Majestic has 12 LV-N engines installed, but these are actually SKIDU power reactors borrowed from the Brews and Picklejar nuclear powerplants who would really like them back so they can turn the lights back on. The advantages list above comes from replacing the engines with three Advanced SKIDU reactors packaged as FTmN-280 engines.

The habitats are lightweight, but there's nearly twice as many of them as necessary (24 seats for 14 crew: 4 dedicated to running the ship, and five 2-man lander teams). The KSO external tanks have a slightly worse mass fraction (87% fuel) than Jumbo64s (89%). BUT THEY LOOK COOL. And is a bunch of shuttle external tanks carried to orbit and assembled into a giant cluster not what man dreamt of when first he gazed upon the stars?

[SSSPutnik]

Very cool.

For Kethane challenge I am thinking of making my main ship the lander. Return craft is ion powered and stuck on the top.

[Ziv]

For a non-kethane, level 2/3/Jeb effort, are the Kommit Nucleonics FTmN atomic engines acceptable? Here are the advantages it gives me over a similar design with stock engines:

• simplified on-orbit assembly
  
• decrease mass at Kerbin departure by 3 tons (about 0.8% of the ship)
  
• 17% more thrust - initial TWR increases from 0.19 to 0.22
  
• improves total dV by ~2%
  
• reduces parts count by more than 50 pieces, the main driver for the request.
  

Pictured here is the structural test article, "Majestic," representing the ship as it might look after orbital assembly. It stands at the Royal Kernadian Space Force top secret research facility just off Hwy 1 in Kernwall past the Jeb Horton's, you can't miss it. Majestic has 12 LV-N engines installed, but these are actually SKIDU power reactors borrowed from the Brews and Picklejar nuclear powerplants who would really like them back so they can turn the lights back on. The advantages list above comes from replacing the engines with three Advanced SKIDU reactors packaged as FTmN-280 engines.

http://i.imgur.com/6du51oNl.png

The habitats are lightweight, but there's nearly twice as many of them as necessary (24 seats for 14 crew: 4 dedicated to running the ship, and five 2-man lander teams). The KSO external tanks have a slightly worse mass fraction (87% fuel) than Jumbo64s (89%). BUT THEY LOOK COOL. And is a bunch of shuttle external tanks carried to orbit and assembled into a giant cluster not what man dreamt of when first he gazed upon the stars?

Hi, thanks for the question, that's good that you asked that before going on the mission. I downloaded the FTmN engines and they look good, but they have a lot of advantage against the stock nukes, especially in fuel efficiency (fuel consumed for a given thrust), but their Isps are better too, have lower mass/thrust ratio, and they have 2.5x better vectoring ranges. And yeah, dealing with the number of parts is in the Challenge too, so this would give you too much advantage and wouldn't be fair with those who made it on stocks, so I can't allow it, sorry.

But they look pretty cool and if you want to use them anyway then go for it. If you finished the mission I will put your name in the Mixed Solutions!

If you will skip these engines the Habitat modules and the new orange tanks are accepted in the challenge.