Land on Eve and return to orbit with fewest engines.

[Galane]

Alan Aerospace Recycling and Packaging has been busy attempting to perfect a manned Eve lander that can return to Eve orbit. We're getting closer and closer to that goal and have perfected two rovers that can land without parachutes. One carries a pair of heavy Kethane drills, the other carries a heavy Kethane converter, a Kethane tank and a pair of KAS winches and fittings to connect to the drilling rover and the still in development manned lander. (Also known as doing productive things while waiting for the Duna to Kerbin return window.)

The AARP board has voted to call upon outside contractors for proposals for a vehicle which can land on Eve and return to orbit, then be capable of docking with a vehicle to return to Kerbin. AARP will be sharing our one way down Eve rover designs with any other company that wants to have a look at them. (Our chief engineer and head janitor says he'd be pleased if the design included his RockoOKTOClampo combination decoupler and Clampotron docking port.)

Any engines you want to use, as long as they burn fuel, so nothing super exotic. (Specific ones that should be disallowed?)

At least one Kerbal must make the trip.

No wings or any parts that do the infiniglide glitch. Rocket, not spaceplane challenge.

MechJeb allowed.

FAR disallowed.

Any other parts packs allowed. (I'm thinking Hooligan Labs airship pack is going to be a necessity.)

Points are simple. 1 point per engine used directly in the descent and ascent, lowest score wins. Tie breaking will be decided by whomever lands at the lowest surface altitude.

Descent and ascent scored separately then added together so the lowest possible score is 2 by using only one engine, unless you manage to land or ascend without using engines then the lowest possible score is 1 - unless you can build a ship capable of landing then returning to orbit without using any engines to score a 0.

Landertrons count 1 point each, same as any other engine. Dropping engines on the way down or up or on the surface is also allowed. Engines on the ship but never fired don't count. (Not that it's expected to carry the weight of engines you won't use but never know what people will do.)

If the ship has to refuel on the surface you can simulate it with hyperedit, unless you really want to go to the extra effort of landing a refueling system (AARP will provide our rovers for this on request) or putting it on the ship. Any additional equipment landed to service the ship on the surface doesn't count toward the points.

Getting to Eve may be done using hyperedit but the ship should be designed to be mounted on a booster for launch from KSC and flight to Eve. Ships may be assembled from pieces in Kerbin or Eve orbit.

Here's AARP's Eve surface refueling rovers. https://mega.co.nz/#!vdtT1LIT!WsM8Zn-fdSGS4loOoIAdo0TOjs46GXXw_z9yO85Z_Z0

Requires KAS, ReStock and Kethane, possibly KSPX. Feel free to use any bits of their designs. The wheel alignments and heights were manually edited in a craft file of an earlier rover built in .21 and I saved that girder and wheel combo as a subassembly. Very handy for rover building. The drill rover has a pair of small Kethane scanners.

Land your lander on a Kethane deposit, follow with these two. After touchdown, jettison the engines and fuel tanks. It's a good idea to do that a ways away from anything you don't want damaged. They're built to be launched from Kerbin then stacked with the drill rover on top of the convert rover. The docking ports are on decouplers so they can be dumped during the landing to save weight.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Galane

[Kasuha]

My Eve lander (not built for this challenge) uses 20 engines to return from sea level and it could manage returning from 7 km (highest peaks) with no more than 8. So are there any restrictions on height from which the lander must be able to return?

Also, if I carry engines down but don't use them in descent, do they count for descent phase?

Edited December 31, 2013 by Kasuha

[Sirine]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60867-Kethane-scenario-Rescue-Mission-for-Jebediah-from-the-Eve-Kethane-Base

Above have a good Kathane Craft.

[Galane]

My Eve lander (not built for this challenge) uses 20 engines to return from sea level and it could manage returning from 7 km (highest peaks) with no more than 8. So are there any restrictions on height from which the lander must be able to return?

Also, if I carry engines down but don't use them in descent, do they count for descent phase?

No restrictions on height from which it must be able to return. If you want to do something like using airship parts to lift to a high altitude before lighting the ascent engines, that's OK, but then the engines used to get on up to orbit count in the points.

In the event of a tie in the engines used points, returning from the lowest altitude wins. Probably should be from the lowest altitude at which the engines are lit, so lifting to 26KM with gas bags then lighting up would be behind lifting directly from any point on the surface using the same number of engines.

Only engines that are in use count for descent or ascent. So un-lit engines on the way down don't count for descent but if they're lit on the way up they count for ascent.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Galane

[tavert]

Interesting challenge. I have a design that should be able to do the launch from high altitude with one aerospike and one 48-7S, and shouldn't need any engines for the landing. What about deorbiting, does that count as use of an engine?

[Kasuha]

I tried a lander with single Skipper and lander with single Mainsail, both capable of unpowered descent (except deorbiting burn) but I'd need much finer throttle control than my eyeballing to have chance getting them to orbit.

With 48-7S I guess I could make it even manually. With monopropellant in the pod I think all other conditions of the challenge can be met by mounting a few RCS ports and a docking port. As long as I'm not wrong expecting that "RockoOKTOClampo" is not mandatory.

I don't see any particular conditions at which the descent is supposed to start mentioned in rules so I assume that suborbital trajectory is acceptable.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Kasuha

[tavert]

You're not going to get enough dV with just one engine, even if it's all drop tanks and max amount of fuel to get to TWR=1 in Eve's gravity. At least not launching from the ground with stock parts. Depending how heavy the balloons from the airship mod are, you could probably even manage a 1-engine SSTO, pick between T30, Skipper, or Mainsail depending on how big the craft is.

Is docking strictly required? With a Kerbal in a seat or on a ladder, Eve designs can be pretty small even with only 2 engines. It does the job of getting a Kerbal back to orbit, then he can switch to a return vehicle via EVA.

Edited January 1, 2014 by tavert

[Galane]

The lander should be able to make it back to Eve orbit then be capable of docking to a transfer vehicle to return to Kerbin. The combo decoupler/clampotron, not required but AARP plans to use it for mounting the lander for launch then flipping the lander around to dock to it for the return.

See AARP's Duna mission. The Eve mission will be similar but with the Eve refueling rovers launched separately then docked on top of the manned lander. For mining Kethane on Gilly there will most likely be landers on top of the side boosters.

[tavert]

Hm, alright. I never use the large decouplers since they're too heavy. Small decouplers and/or small docking ports is pretty much all I use, and my designs are lighter because of it. I think my lander should have enough fuel margin that I can afford to add a small docking port on the last stage.

You do know you can use the stock docking ports as decouplers, right? You can right-click on a docking port and decouple whatever part was attached to it, whether or not that other part is also a docking port. Seems like the only thing you get out of making a custom part for it is having the decoupler in the staging list.

Edited January 2, 2014 by tavert

[Galane]

One of my attempts. Imagine four Cirrus gas bags on top. I was able to (just barely) get this back to orbit after lifting it to around 26KM with the bags. Not a design practical to stack other things on top of, with the lift bags on top. Sixteen landing legs still not enough to keep the engines off the ground. If the suspension is locked they just poke into the ground.

Later I'll post a pic of another design I've tried.

Three Cirrus bags and three LV909 engines. Gear lowered manually but MechJeb waited almost to impact to do the burn. Hit at 9 meters per second, broke four of the legs, fell over and blew up.

Previous version with only two Cirrus bags and without the side tanks and LV909 engines.

Edited January 2, 2014 by Galane

[ttnarg]

You're not going to get enough dV with just one engine, even if it's all drop tanks and max amount of fuel to get to TWR=1 in Eve's gravity.

Mmmm intressing maybe some kind of winged craft using a single LV-T30 with TWR<1 then ditching the wings and some emty tanks when you get some hieght.

Any one know how I can hack kerbins stats to that it like eve so I can do some tests?

[Kasuha]

Rocket, not spaceplane challenge.

Imagine four Cirrus gas bags on top.

So... what are Cirrus bags anyway? Rocket parts?

[ttnarg]

Wings are out but airship mods are fine?

Thats a shame I can unterstand not wanting to use an infiniglide glitch and it not as if we can use jets on eve (no oxygen) shame we cant use wings to take out with a low TWR. oh well I guess I'll leave this challenge to others.

[Galane]

The (formerly) Hooligan Labs airships to other planets mod. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53961-0-22-Hooligan-Labs-(now-under-new-managment)-Featuring-Airships-Subs-and-more

[tavert]

Mmmm intressing maybe some kind of winged craft using a single LV-T30 with TWR<1 then ditching the wings and some emty tanks when you get some hieght.

Any one know how I can hack kerbins stats to that it like eve so I can do some tests?

The horizontal launch trajectory you'd need to make it work with TWR < 1 would increase the dV cost quite a bit. I've only ever seen one successful stock spaceplane launch from Eve, and it took even more asparagus stages (dropping both engines and fuel tanks) than a vertical launch. I'm all for giving it a try even if not for this challenge, it would be interesting to see the result if you do succeed. You could maybe use Hyperedit to make Kerbin's atmosphere and gravity resembly Eve's, but at that point you may as well just Hyperedit yourself (or edit your orbit in the save file, change REF to 5) to the real thing.

[Galane]

Dev builds of MechJeb 2.1.1 are up to #153 today but one person reports exploding* issues on Mun landings with #153, but not with #152. I'm going to try both with landings on Eve, first with my rovers that I know can land there with success.

*The Stayputnik exploded around 100~150 meters then the rest crashed. A second try had the lander fall through the Mun surface then explode.

[ttnarg]

1 engine ideas

Airship:

A LV-T30 with lift 5 FL-T400 Fuel Tank and a Mk1 lander can has a TWR of 1:1 at eve sea level. With that you can see up a small aspague stage ship that will get you at most 15k from sea level. But lunch that from high up where the air is thin then it should have no problem reaching orbit so stick some airship parts and you do fine with just one engine. I have not used the airship mod but I guess that it will help the the landing. (not that landing anything that small on eve it a problem. The thick air helps when landing.)

RocketPlane:

I'm not use good with aircraft but I think you could take of with one with a TWR of 1:3 so that meens 5 x FL-T800 for the plane stages and 5 x FL-T400 for the rocket stages.

2 engine ideas:

Stock rocket.

5 FL-T400 Fuel Tank aspague stage ship works for the upperstages. The lower stages you use the you use a main sail with 7 core aspague stage ship. I think you can use the 9 ton tanks which should give you TWR of 1:1 but maybe you have to swap out 2 of the tanks for the 4.5 ton ones. Also you could try using more then 5 FL-T400 on the upperstage yes you would have a TWR<1 but you would of just go a kick from the mainsail so while you would be slowing down for a short time it should not be a problem. No idea if this will work but I cant think of anyway to get more delta-v with 2 engines on eve.

I have not had time test much yet. But thats my thinking so far. might try some ideas tonight.

[Surefoot]

The challenge would be more interesting with FAR (so no asparagus or very limited in that regard), and a requirement of landing one hitch hiker module and bringing it back to orbit (so more than just an external seat). And no silly balloon stuff, these are not rocket parts.

[1096bimu]

Any other parts packs allowed.

MechJeb allowed.

1 engine, it does burn fuel, just the NovaPunch aerospike, nothing exotic. No debug console or other cheats used.

Except my quantum entanglement super conducting super colliding zero point energy hyperdimentional ultra high speformance teleporting reaper tech resource generator. which is obviously allowed as stated by the OP.

[Galane]

1 engine, it does burn fuel, just the NovaPunch aerospike, nothing exotic. No debug console or other cheats used.

Except my quantum entanglement super conducting super colliding zero point energy hyperdimentional ultra high speformance teleporting reaper tech resource generator. which is obviously allowed as stated by the OP.

Infinite fuel without the infinite fuel debug cheat.

[Galane]

A ship found on the Spaceport, with some non-essential parts removed and others added. Capable of landing on Eve then lifting to around 19,000 meters before lighting the engines.

The core section makes it to orbit with fuel to spare plus two more small stages. Now I have a baseline to build a successful lander.

Edir: Per the challenge this scores a 7 on descent and a 7 on ascent.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Galane

[DJEN]

1 engine, it does burn fuel, just the NovaPunch aerospike, nothing exotic. No debug console or other cheats used.

Except my quantum entanglement super conducting super colliding zero point energy hyperdimentional ultra high speformance teleporting reaper tech resource generator. which is obviously allowed as stated by the OP.

-snips-

Keep on your good work.

[DrMonte]

I think you should keep it to stock parts.

[Galane]

All stock parts? Go for it! I just posted my ready to go to Eve assembly, but my computer just isn't capable of handling it. Too many parts in one ship.