How to get a satellite in orbit around jool? How to land on eeloo and return?

[jamgoth]

Please note, and I have landed on Dres and returned, I'm okay at KSP, but most of my missions revolve around Kerbin and it's two moons, I've occasionally went to the other planets, but no matter how hard I try I never seem to be able to get to Jool and Eeloo. Any tips?

Edited November 28, 2013 by jamgoth

[Kasuha]

Getting to Jool or Eeloo is about the same as getting to Dres, except your ejection burn is longer so you need a bit more fuel in your rocket.

Now the question is what method have you used so far to get to other planets and what can be improved on it.

The most naive (yet effective) method is escaping Kerbin SOI, then burning at solar periapsis till your orbit touches the target orbit, matching orbital inclination with your target and then adjusting the orbit at point where they touch to get an intercept.

Just recently I made a complete Eeloo mission with what was basically three and half Jumbo fuel tanks, six atomic engines, lander can and some RCS fuel. The lander managed to land on both poles before it docked again with fuel it left in orbit. You can see the whole ship here:

Note that it is actually overengineering, other people can get to Eeloo and back with much smaller ships. I just like to use this design because it's pretty universal.

[jamgoth]

Could that ship get you anywhere? I mean, there would be problems trying to get to Eve and back on that ship, but otherwise, is it possible to land on any moon in that thing and back?

[Johnno]

Manned mission to Eeloo and back; 2 kerbal lander with rover (which had 2 surface experiments as well), unmanned probe lander, polar orbit satellite.

Edit: Forgot I actually had an album. Swapped solo pic for album.

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Edited November 20, 2013 by Johnno

[Kasuha]

Could that ship get you anywhere? I mean, there would be problems trying to get to Eve and back on that ship, but otherwise, is it possible to land on any moon in that thing and back?

It can go to any planet in the system. It can land on and then return from anywhere except Laythe, Tylo, and Eve (and Jool and Sun and the lander won't get to orbit from Kerbin surface). Of course when going to extremes (Moho, Eeloo) you may need to be careful about fuel or just pack one more orange tank. Notice they are all docked together so it can be reconfigured during flight or drop empty tanks on collision courses when needed and possible. That RCS tank has a probe core and can act as a tug for pulling parts around or just reorienting remaining fuel tanks in orbit for rendezvous after landing.

[jamgoth]

How much fuel did you have left, out of curiosity?

[Kasuha]

How much fuel did you have left, out of curiosity?

Regarding the Eeloo mission:

- more than one tank was used on ejection burn. I navigated the ship on crash course with Eeloo, released the tank after crossing the SOI and then braked from distance to get on ~60 km orbit

- ran the second tank almost empty on parking burn.

- ran the lander almost empty on the two landings. After that and fuel transfers, lander was full, one tank was empty and one tank was about three quarters full. I decided to take the empty tank with me to Kerbin

- after ejection burn the remaining tank was almost empty, too. Lander still full of fuel. As long as there were only a few corrections needed on the route the two tanks were crashed into Kerbin in that state

But I used launch window planner to get to Eeloo. If I didn't do that I probably couldn't afford to carry all those empty tanks with me. In previous missions I was simply dropping them in space as soon as they ran dry. That's why the strange design with tanks at bottom - so I can drop them without stopping engines.

The lander alone is strong enough to return from almost any planetary orbit back to Kerbin if full of fuel. Maybe on low Jool orbit it'd have problems.

[technion]

This is what I don't understand about these missions. If I was to go to Eve, I'd use something like Kasuha's rocket. And, reading his report, most of those three and a half tanks were needed to do the job. Then I see Johnno, and you seem to have a lot more engines (weight), a much bigger lander, and a rover, and basically one orange tank. How can you haul so much on so little?

[DrMonte]

There was a thread a few days ago about LV-N usage 1 vs 2 or more and here I see 6-9 I'm perfectly fine with 1 everywhere I go.

I would suggest to think of FL-T tanks and asparagus design if cosmic waste is not a problem.

[Kasuha]

This is what I don't understand about these missions. If I was to go to Eve, I'd use something like Kasuha's rocket. And, reading his report, most of those three and a half tanks were needed to do the job. Then I see Johnno, and you seem to have a lot more engines (weight), a much bigger lander, and a rover, and basically one orange tank. How can you haul so much on so little?

It's simple. You spend a lot of fuel on accelerating the remaining fuel you take along. When you add fuel tanks, you get diminishing returns.

If you do all necessary calculations (or let a tool do these for you) you can eventually take much less fuel - only as much as necessary.

My design is not very fuel-effective. For instance the lander goes always all the way there and back including landing on Kerbin in one piece. And I don't like the idea of calculating my ship's delta-v. I know the ship can do it with three tanks so I send it with three tanks and carry some fuel all the way there and back. It's not like it costs me more money or something.

[Xiphos]

Does anyone use the skipper engine for interplanetary transfers? Since it came out, I haven't used a NERVA since.

I made a ship that went to jool, and used a skipper to transfer. (Skipper used equivalent of an orange tank, +- a few hundred L I don't remember 100%) lander and return portion of the ship equaled an orange tank.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Xiphos