Have you landed on Tylo?

[Caelib]

I've been playing for quite some time, but I never actually tried landing on Jool's moon Tylo. This weekend, I decided I would attempt this feat. I had no idea it would be so hard ... after a lot of trial and error and two complete redesigns of my landing craft, I was able to land safely.

I am curious, how many people have actually accomplished this? In my experience, this is by far the most difficult body to land upon.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Caelib

[Xacktar]

I got to orbit around it... but knew I had nowhere enough fuel to land, heh.

[stringyquark]

I've landed, still haven't left.

[bsalis]

I landed on Tylo a couple of times many versions ago... but only landed, never returned to orbit.

More recently I have done a landing and return to orbit. I attempted it once I realised I could do it in a single stage. Since I make everything reusable around the Jool system.

[Caelib]

I've landed, still haven't left.

Yeah ... good luck with that It may be technically possible, but I don't know if it's ever been done before.

[Skorpychan]

Not yet, but I intend to do Jool all as one big lump, hitting up every moon and the big J itself, taking plenty of fuel and kerbals to do it with.

It's going to take a LOT of fuel, and probably one hell of a lot of missions as well.

[Spartwo]

[RogueMason]

No, I've never tried... until now.

That said, I need to replace the transfer stage; this one is too wobbly for comfort. The lander is based on Scott Manley's Tylo lander from his Tylo or Bust mission.

The vehicle is currently unmanned and will be revisited by a cruiser that I'll be sending out to the planets.

[Captain Sierra]

? In my experience, this is by far the most difficult body to land upon.

Land on: yes. Take back off from: no. That title goes to Eve. Tried to build an Eve ascent lander, failed.

Voted no and never tried because I have terrible luck with Jool and have yet to get a successfull mission to Lathe, putting Tylo out of the question.

Now that I think, I did actually lithobrake land on Tylo before, but it was not a proper mission, rather some TWR tests with hyperedit in the process of building a Tylo lander. This was interrupted by .22.

[RocketPilot573]

Yes, 4 times, two of which were manned landers that successfully returned to orbit (actually, the Kerbals had to use their jetpacks, the landers failed to make it...).

[Kenobi McCormick]

Yup. Landed there once, waaay back in 0.17. Drove to one of the easter eggs. Haven't been back since. No real reason to go there, to be honest, there's absolutely nothing there. Tylo's far more useful as a great big billiard ball used to pingpong yourself into Laythe's atmosphere than it is a destination IMO.

[Epthelyn]

Almost.

I ran out of fuel and hit the surface at 200m/s. That's pretty quick, but being Tylo it's really quite close too

[SkyRender]

I've landed there a few times. It is a royal pain to do so, mostly because the margin of error is very slim and the penalty for slipping outside it quite drastic.

[Kasuha]

Landed and returned. Descent stage was alright, ascent stage was overkill. But it worked.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Kasuha

[Superfluous J]

I landed with only one problem: I was tricked by its surface into acting like I was landing on Mun. A quick F9 and retry though got me down no problem.

It was a probe so no return, but I'm not that scared of it.

[Moar Boosters]

Yup. I've done it a couple of times, always used a 2 part lander.

[maccollo]

Built a single lunch serial staged Tylo rocket for the 3 man capsule. Flew the mission about 4 times.

[EndOfTheEarth]

I hope to get there eventually, but the big thing stopping me is that up until now the places I have targeted have had Mun-gravity or less (except Duna, but for that I had chutes to help) which means that I know that my landers are only guaranteed to work under those conditions. When I build a new lander, I like to test it under conditions similar to wherever I'm going (my Ike lander was tested on the Mun first, etc.) and so I've had difficulty developing a high-grav no-atmo lander for visiting places like Vall, Tylo, Moho, or Laythe.

[The Destroyer]

I did it back in 0.17 with the ballprobe mod. I didn't even know 'twas hard

[The Jedi Master]

I put a probe in a polar orbit of Tylo entirely by accident once. Usually, I just look at it in the tracking center, wistfully thinking, "I'll go there some day, just like Scott Manley..."

[Landge]

In version 0.22 I built a Curiosity rover style landing craft I named George.

First I made some field tests learning to land on Kerbin without using parachutes.

Liftoff and a nice view of the Mun setting behind the Jagged Mountains.

Coasting up to 5000 m then freefall before throttling up to slow descent.

Judicious throttling to keep descent near 10 m/s or less before releasing George a short distance above the ground.

With George on the ground the sky crane rockets away to crash land in the distance. Unfortunately it looks like it's headed towards the Space Center! Heads up guys!

The rover will sit on top of a modified Deep Space Fuel Tanker of mine. The same design that has made many trips to Jool and her moons before.

Here are both unmanned (left) and crewed Rover Outpost (right) to give you some comparison. The Rover Outpost was designed for long term missions in mind and has the capabilities to return to Kerbin with the rover. So far it has been to Mun and Minmus (numerous times), Duna and Ike (twice), Dres (once), Pol, Bop and Vall (all in one mission w/numerous orbital refueling in between), and Eeloo (once) and returned to Kerbin. If I can figure out how to refuel the Outpost on the ground I think it could take off from Laythe or Tylo to make orbit.

Here is the modified Deep Space Fuel Tanker with George sitting on top.

After 275 days travel, George is in a 100 km orbit over Tylo.

From a 2000 m/s orbital velocity we'll need to bleed some speed.

Only by constant throttling and controlling pitch (and several reloads) was I able to slow down enough to make a safe landing.

Gravity is so strong letting off the gas even for a minute would start George to plummet. But as fuel dropped so did the weight and less thrust required.

Jettison the sky crane.

Doing science! This is interesting. Hollow spaces on Tylo?

The surface of Tylo is like Mun before the terrain overhaul. The higher gravity makes driving around on the surface very responsive With George's low CoG and wide wheelbase I could get 25 to 35 on the flats. 45 to 55 m/s down hill before wiping out.

Could a Kerbal crew be next to visit? We'll see.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Landge

[Lord_Zord]

Yes I did and got back of it too.

In fact, the latest episode in my youtube series is me doing just that.

[Scarecrow88]

Landed and returned with a single stage lander that had jettisonable external fuel tanks to lighten the load on the way back up.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Here is my proof!

[Merinsan]

I've landed, still haven't left.

Same. Though officially it was a very small permanent colony. I probably would have sent a vehicle to return them, but a new version came out and I started a new save.

I've also killed a few Kerbals trying to land there.