[FAR] Jool base + Laythe

[Surefoot]

Hello all, this is a retrospective of the construction of my Jool base, and Laythe exploration mission that went on between v0.21 and v0.22.

Goal was:

- To build an permanent, orbital fuel base around Laythe, that is manned and has large docks for bigs ships, and an articulated boom with a small dock for small ships. Key is "refuel", so it has to have a big capacity... that will have a few consequences, the first being:

- To build a fuel cargo able to refill the Jool base, and come back to Kerbin. That means pushing a payload around 700t and having enough fuel to get back.

- To land a hitchhiker capsule on Laythe, and a rover next to it

- To land a SSTO jet plane on Laythe (that took off from Kerbin) and use it to explore remote parts, also to bring crew to the hitchhiker module

- To map Kethane resources around Jool to prepare for future resource mining missions

One key point is i am using FAR. That means, aerodynamics apply, so no ridiculous asparagus designs, aerobraking becomes a death trap (and when successful, the result can be quite random at first, see later for more comments about that), and wide loads become next to impossible to put in orbit. AoA and ascent profiles become much more important now. This makes this mission a lot more interesting !

To help me in this mission, i am using a few mods, since designing aerodynamic stuff with the stock parts becomes very limited very quickly. B9, Novapunch, IonElec, Procedural wings & fairings are there to help. So stock-like part mods and procedural stuff.

In hindsight, i used IonElec for the inline RTG's, but these are awfully heavy, i am now finding other solutions with the stock RTG and solar panels that are much lighter overall (still in this mission report, i used the inline generators). The bigger ion engines are nice for kethane probes though.

I also use some quantum struts to prevent wobble on docking ports, that is now mostly unnecessary thanks to KJR (but that whole mission was pre-KJR).

First, the foldable rover design, fits in a fairing shell that is shed after re-entry:

Launch from Kerbin:

In orbit:

Arriving at Laythe with its nuclear tug:

More about it later

[Surefoot]

Coming now is the whole preparation for the parts transfer to Jool and Laythe, in Kerbin orbit. 6 ships, including 4 nuclear tugs and 2 "space shuttles" (cannot land, they are space bound only). I will talk about the fuel cargo and SSTO in separate posts.

Shuttle cargo takeoff (it's technically a SSTO but once in space it stays there):

Jool base core in orbit:

and there, attached to its tug:

Moving off to Jool:

Other parts (fuel tanks, control modules):

This is the articulated boom with the small dock port, for space planes mostly:

Docking the hab module for the Jool base:

[Surefoot]

Now the fuel cargo. That required a new design, with the engines pushing a huge payload. Using 6 NERVA engines there (made bigger ones since then, but that one did the mission):

Here, refuelling in orbit to prepare for the big jump (orbiting that stuff required using its own fuel..)

Ready to go:

Going:

[Surefoot]

And finally the SSTO jet. That one required a lot of flight testing, aerodynamics tuning, so it could fly reliably and perform re-entry with no issue:

Test flight and landing at north pole of Kerbin:

In orbit, departing from Kerbin:

[Surefoot]

Now the big transfer, a lot of ships going off during the same launch window...

First, crowded orbit:

Departing....

Almost everyone gone

Last one to go !

During the transfer... the distances seem small but that's huge empty void between each ship.

Last corrections before insertion !

Aaand here we go:

[Surefoot]

Aerobraking time ! With FAR, that means doing the whole thing at gut feeling, since no calculation can give you the result ahead of time.

So to tune the result i make use of aerobrakes, and AoA adjustments. Then on map view i check the resulting apoapsis reduce and when satisfactory, i release the brakes and hope i didnt go too low... Required a few tries before success !

That one was braking in reverse (since there i adapted my nuke haulers design to account for this kind of behavior):

Shuttle aerobraking:

And the fuel cargo (braking such a monster required diving quite low in Jool atmosphere, also going off Aoa for more than 2° meant total destruction):

Resulting elliptic orbits, give me breathe time for taking care of other incoming ships:

As you see it was quite epic, some of them managed to encounter Laythe directly on first approach so they went there directly:

[Surefoot]

Arrival at Laythe (with another aerobraking session for some of them):

Edited January 3, 2014 by Surefoot

[Surefoot]

Jool base assembly time !

Aaand all done :

(attached to one of the tanks is the landing module, more on that just after)

[Surefoot]

Now landing the hitchhiker module:

Went fot the 3-lake area, nice view with Jool just over the horizon:

Landed and ready :

[Surefoot]

Now the SSTO jet going down from orbit then landing near the HH module:

[Surefoot]

The rover landed without any problem, the shell container and foldable wheel system was flawless:

Transferring kerbals to the rover, to bring them to the HH module:

And there, total success (apart from some missing panels that disappeared upon game reload...):

[Surefoot]

As a bonus, exploring the north pole of Laythe:

It's totally black ! What kind of material could that be ?

Also deploying a kethane probe around Jool moons:

There we are, i learned a lot with that mission, took me a few weeks total to do it. Now my nuke haulers are radically improved, and my fuel tankers are reaching 1700t ! Thanks to everything i learned during that huge trip. Loved the views from Laythe, and loved the Jool aerobraking sessions.

[KeithStone]

I love this write up! Your ships look amazing, I love the combination of B9 and toroidal tanks you have in there. All of your ships and stations are very sleek!

[Taki117]

Question, what part mods are you using? I see B9 and Toroidal tanks, and mybe Infernal robotics, but are there any others?

[Deathsoul097]

from what I can see he's also using novapunch, RLA stock-a-like, Ion/Hybrid electric pack, ProcWings, ProcFairings, Mechjeb and possibly a couple of others.

[Surefoot]

@KeithStone: thanks mate ! The sleek design is a direct consequence of playing with FAR and thus adhering to aerodynamic rules. They have to fly well in atmo, or face unplanned disassemblies or various backflips that are nicely acrobatic but not efficient

@Taki117, Deathsoul097: As stated in first post, i use mostly B9 and Novapunch plus Talisar's Toroidal pack (these 3 make up most of the builds part wise), the Ion/Hybrid pack (which i'll demise from now on, it was not useful there actually), Procwings and fairings (obviously for the SSTO jet and all rocket fairings), Mechjeb and PreciseNode, some quantum struts (now KJR pretty much obsoletes them), MagicSmoke / Infernal robotics for the foldable rover wheels and shuttle bay articulated docks, and of course the most important mod being FAR. There's also my first use of Kethane (the probe deployed in last picture). Since then i have added KJR, the memory saving mod, Stretchytanks, and the TACFuelBalancer (and playing a bit with KW to see if it adds anything valuable for me). Also inserting multiple ships in Jool orbit in rapid succession was only doable thanks to KerbalClock, that mod should become stock really...

For my current endeavours the procedural parts pretty much replace all wings, fairings and tanks from all other mods. I still have to use the Qstruts in one place: the foldable rover wheels, since otherwise the hinge is not strong enough and will collapse when the rover hits the ground.

With that i'm doing now a complete Grand Tour, powered by Kethane, with one reusable lander (with the exception of Eve where i use an alternate lander for obvious reasons) - that includes Moho and Tylo. Also with the limitation of playing with FAR. I'll make a mission report on that shortly

Edited January 4, 2014 by Surefoot