I'm Going to Eve!

[Sovek]

Well... it's a flyby, and totally a fluke. I've been playing around with a solar powered Ion driven probe, to go into a close solar orbit, or at least a flyby (much like Scott Manley). Finally got the thing out of Kerbins SoI after a few periapsis kicks and starting burning retrograde to bring down the periapsis. I got to tweaking around with Mechjeb and wondered if I could actually intercept Eve, sure enough, I can. So, After some node fiddling, I've got it down to a 1.5Mm flyby, and it will even take some dV off of getting closer to the sun.

Here it is, the probe, the shuttle that launched it and the encounter. First time going to Eve, hehe. I might have a Laythe Flyby as well on my probe that I'm sending to Laythe, without hitting Jool.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Sof]

Getting an Eve flyby with mechjeb

Wow, so hard

[Captain Sierra]

Getting an Eve flyby with mechjeb

Wow, so hard

-rep

to the OP, can you tune that to get a slight aerobrake? a very minor aerobrake might be able to increase your gravity assist and sling you down inside Moho orbit. IIRC, Eve's atmosphere starts at somewhere over 100km. a quick aerobrake through at no deeper than 95km might do the job, but be sure to quicksave before attempting it.

[nubcaker]

Getting an Eve flyby with mechjeb

Wow, so hard

Pretty sure he said he used MechJeb to see IF he could intercept with Eve.

No need to be an arse.

[zekes]

U Wot M8?

This:

Built this:

STOCK. Try it.

[davieholgate]

U Wot M8?

This:

http://i.imgur.com/zNJrxVk.png

Built this:

http://i.imgur.com/iXbWYda.jpg

STOCK. Try it.

What planet is that behemoth going to?

[TMS]

The douchebaggery is strong in this thread.

Any ion-based mission is an achievement IMO.

[Demon_82]

I never had patience for ion powered probes, any use of them wonders me xD

I also never had patience for the people that wander around the forum waiting to read "MechJeb" to state how better they are for not using it.

[Sovek]

Getting an Eve flyby with mechjeb

Wow, so hard

Way to be an arse, the only thing I use mechjeb for is either quick turns to vectors, numbers and for the shuttle, KILL ROT during roll and upper portions of ascent, and quick node creations. In no way did the craft fly itself. If there were rep points on this forum, I'm pretty sure you'd be negged quite hard. Just because I use Mechjeb doesn't mean it controls everything. Oh, and Mechjeb only created the node to get my Pe into Eve's SoI, I still had to make a node and manually tweak it to actually get the intercept.

-rep

to the OP, can you tune that to get a slight aerobrake? a very minor aerobrake might be able to increase your gravity assist and sling you down inside Moho orbit. IIRC, Eve's atmosphere starts at somewhere over 100km. a quick aerobrake through at no deeper than 95km might do the job, but be sure to quicksave before attempting it.

It's possibly, anything below 1.5Mm and it says I'll smash into Eve, I'll need to fine tune the approach once in Eve's SoI. Almost 400 hours playing KSP and its my 3rd successful attempt at interplanetary probes. I gotta say, Ion drives are pretty darn cool.

U Wot M8?

This:

http://i.imgur.com/zNJrxVk.png

Built this:

http://i.imgur.com/iXbWYda.jpg

STOCK. Try it.

I'm unsure what you are getting at... Yeah, I have B9 and KW rocketry, doesnt make it any less hard. And the shuttle is being used for all sorts of missions, it could build a big station like that if I so desired, but I don't.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Sovek

[CalculusWarrior]

Agreeing with Captain Sierra here, perhaps try tweaking your Eve periapsis when you get closer? In my experience, the deeper a periapsis is, the more it affects your final trajectory. I'm not sure about aerobraking (never tried that on an interplanetary trajectory myself) but since you have Mechjeb installed, perhaps you could get it to show what your trajectory will look like after the maneuver is complete, and see if that gets you closer to where you want to go?

[Immashift]

Well... it's a flyby, and totally a fluke. I've been playing around with a solar powered Ion driven probe, to go into a close solar orbit, or at least a flyby (much like Scott Manley). Finally got the thing out of Kerbins SoI after a few periapsis kicks and starting burning retrograde to bring down the periapsis. I got to tweaking around with Mechjeb and wondered if I could actually intercept Eve, sure enough, I can. So, After some node fiddling, I've got it down to a 1.5Mm flyby, and it will even take some dV off of getting closer to the sun.

Here it is, the probe, the shuttle that launched it and the encounter. First time going to Eve, hehe. I might have a Laythe Flyby as well on my probe that I'm sending to Laythe, without hitting Jool.

Well, you've done better than I did on my first attempt to get there. I remember trying to go to EVE, watching it from something like 45 million KM out as it sailed by, because I had absolutely ZERO idea how to aim for a planet before you get there.

Anyway, I'm assuming this was your first interplanetary attempt? If so congrats, cause like I said you did better than I did my first time round. Also props for designing a working shuttle before going interplanetary. I still haven't come up with a great design all my own, and I've had this game since like, hmm.. .17?

Here's my first flyby of Eve in career mode. The ship used had two more tanks top and bottom, they were shed halfway through the voyage there once they were empty.

I also used the same design to go to Duna, again shedding the other two tanks before arrival:

This is of course only to give you an idea of how little you actually need to go interplanetary. Ions and nuclear powered stuff is fun, but you don't actually NEED it. Both these missions the vessels returned and had enough fuel to burn for a few minutes while descending back to Kerbin.

Also:

-rep

to the OP, can you tune that to get a slight aerobrake? a very minor aerobrake might be able to increase your gravity assist and sling you down inside Moho orbit. IIRC, Eve's atmosphere starts at somewhere over 100km. a quick aerobrake through at no deeper than 95km might do the job, but be sure to quicksave before attempting it.

Aerobraking is fun, and saves piles of fuel. My last aerobrake of Eve was at something like 61km, but that was a 200 ton behemoth I needed to slow down coming in from Moho.

This thing, actually

Just remember to fold your panels in before you try it Eve loves swallowing your ship up if you come down too low, but like Sierra said, quicksave before your adjustment burn and you're fine, so long as you don't mind the idea of quicksaves. If you wanna calculate what PE you need for aerobraking, might I suggest this: http://alterbaron.github.io/ksp_aerocalc/

Just plug in your values when you switch SOI to your target planet. Use it with a giant bag of salt though, because I've found it can be off a bit, especially with modded parts (drag values), so aim a little higher than it says.

I think my fourth mission in career mode was a flyby of Eve, then a flyby of Duna with a craft I attempted to land with but realized I'd never have the fuel for it. Flybys are more fun in a way. Easier to do as well, since if you don't plan to hang around you don't need the delta-V to slow down. Good drive-by science. Maybe try doing what Scott Manley did and launch a probe that hits a bunch of stuff on the way out.

I must link it:

EDIT - After reading one of your responses OP. You said you got a 1.5M periapse and then anything you did further would make you hit the planet proper. The way I usually deal with that, is get it as close as possible, like your 1.5M on leaving Kerbin SOI, and then if I can't refine it more, wait till maybe half the trip, and try to refine again. As you get closer, your movements do less and less, which you can use to get a really refined trajectory. For example Jool has such a huge SOI, I got my PE to about 800km and waited till I actually had my encounter to lower my PE for aerobraking. Used barely any fuel to do, and was easier than futzing with nodes for half an hour.

Way to be an arse, the only thing I use mechjeb for is either quick turns to vectors, numbers and for the shuttle, KILL ROT during roll and upper portions of ascent, and quick node creations. In no way did the craft fly itself. If there were rep points on this forum, I'm pretty sure you'd be negged quite hard. Just because I use Mechjeb doesn't mean it controls everything. Oh, and Mechjeb only created the node to get my Pe into Eve's SoI, I still had to make a node and manually tweak it to actually get the intercept.

Honestly the vast majority of people really don't care if you use MJ. I personally dislike using it to plan EVERYTHING. I really enjoy the look of the readouts, and the fact that I can create a giant custom one with all the info I need on one screen. Plus, if I absolutely need autopilot, it's there. Like if I really need to go to the bathroom in the middle of launching something, or just really can't be bothered burning for 15 min on one of my motherships, so I can just tell it to point at a node, and walk away. That, IMO, isn't the cheaty bit. The cheaty bit is when you go to it for everything from launching to intercepts to everything else. Even then though that's your prerogative.

What I'm a fan of is newer players using MJ to see how to do something. Like if you can't get anything to orbit, you install MJ, and actually WATCH WHAT IT DOES, as it pilots your ship to space. Then you can reacreate what it did yourself. It's honestly how I learned. I learned how to dock (roughly) by watching ORDA do it for me back in the beginning. Best sort of tutorial I could get IMO. Better than watching a video.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Immashift

[Sovek]

R.E. the Areobraking, keep in mind I'm using FAR so things may not work quite according to what everybody is used to. If I dip to say 50KM Pe in Kerbin's atmosphere, I WILL just skip off back into space, its also possible I could skip off at a 35km Pe if I'm going fast enough, so 95km may not be enough.

However.... this has inspired another Ion probe lander, with about 4.5 km/s dV and a whopping .5Kn of thrust. This WILL be descending into Eve, and includes a heat shield, just gotta aim for anything that is not liquid metal.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Sovek

[Immashift]

R.E. the Areobraking, keep in mind I'm using FAR so things may not work quite according to what everybody is used to. If I dip to say 50KM Pe in Kerbin's atmosphere, I WILL just skip off back into space, its also possible I could skip off at a 35km Pe if I'm going fast enough, so 95km may not be enough.

http://i.imgur.com/yVLNqjp.jpg

Well bear in mind when you aerobrake your intention isn't to land. Your intention is to get back into space. The point of an aerobrake is to create a stable orbit around the body. So let's say I'm attempting to reach stable orbit of Eve. I come in at some stupid velocity like 8KM/sec. Orbital velocity is what, 2800 at 150km or something? Upon reaching Eve, my trajectory is hyperbolic, meaning I come close, and then shoot back out into interplanetary space. By aerobraking, I shed enough velocity that my highest point (apoapsis) of my trajectory is no longer in interplanetary space, but within Eve's SOI, so I therefore don't escape and can circularize the orbit, do science, have a picnic in the lander, blah blah...

So skipping off the atmosphere is what you want with an aerobrake. But you want to come down deep enough that you slow down to orbital velocity. You can get real fancy with it too. I sent out a basic space station to Laythe, and to do it I did an aerobrake around Jool at about 162KM, and ended up at a perfect encounter with Laythe, refined it to 30km periapsis or something, aerobraked at Laythe, and ended up in orbit around Laythe, having spent a total of like 2% my fuel to do those maneuvers. The whole point of an aerobrake is to let the atmosphere of your target do the thrusting your rocket engine would otherwise do.

Granted with FAR it would be a bit different, but I don't think FAR changes THAT much for aerobraking.

It's just one of the tools you'll really learn to love using if you end up messing around out of Kerbin SOI a lot. Being able to aim at Jool, and really not care how fast I come in, is great. Course if they ever get around to adding damage due to friction, I'd be sort of screwed.

With Kerbin, I find I have to come down to maybe 25-30km to get a proper orbit. 50 is just too thin an atmosphere. It depends on where I'm coming from though. I know with my shuttle/bus thing I send to Jool and back virtually every day now, I have to dip down to 27km for it to slow down enough to have a 100KM orbit at the end of it, which is where my station is.

[Sovek]

FAR does does change it a bit, cause the atmosphere is far less umm, "soupy".

I know how Areobraking works, I just don't know how FAR will mess with it.

[Immashift]

FAR does does change it a bit, cause the atmosphere is far less umm, "soupy".

I know how Areobraking works, I just don't know how FAR will mess with it.

Guess it's just trial and error then. I'd make a quicksave right before I refine my approach, and then see how much I had to tweak what I came up with to get it to work with FAR.

Now I'm really curious how much FAR messes with that. I'd love to try it, but unfortunately my main computer went kaput and I'm awaiting new parts tomorrow

I wanted to attach a massive heat shield to the vessel I use for my grand tour. I think it would look awesome aerobraking at Eve Course now I'm scared what it would do to the drag values

Here's a part of that ship I was testing with. Can see how huge the heat shield is. It folds up too.

EDIT: Waaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiit. Sovek, are you using the B9 engines' VTOL mode on your shuttle to vector your thrust to keep it stable? Cause that's freaking genious! I must try it!

This was the best I could come up with back in .22. It had the same problem every shuttle had before tweakables, as fuel got spent, the COM changes and your thrust gets messy. I gets up to gravity turn height and then you're screwed.

When I get my comp put back together the first thing I want to do is create a shuttle capable of delivering modules the size of an orange tank to orbit. That's gonna be a challenge I think.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Immashift

[Sovek]

EDIT: Waaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiit. Sovek, are you using the B9 engines' VTOL mode on your shuttle to vector your thrust to keep it stable? Cause that's freaking genious! I must try it!

I cannot take credit as it being my idea, I got it from someone else on the forums, forget who, long time ago. But yes, yes it is. Do note that you have to configure how much it vectors (I use 1 degree per vector setting) or else things will go spinning. You'll also need action groups so you can change it. With FAR, its nigh unflyable without SAS and if you want to do any sort of roll while the SRBs are going, KILL ROT function from mechjeb is the only way to keep it stable. However, you cannot keep KILL ROT on, you need to switch back to SAS once your roll is complete and go back to once you pass about 20km.

[Immashift]

I cannot take credit as it being my idea, I got it from someone else on the forums, forget who, long time ago. But yes, yes it is. Do note that you have to configure how much it vectors (I use 1 degree per vector setting) or else things will go spinning. You'll also need action groups so you can change it. With FAR, its nigh unflyable without SAS and if you want to do any sort of roll while the SRBs are going, KILL ROT function from mechjeb is the only way to keep it stable. However, you cannot keep KILL ROT on, you need to switch back to SAS once your roll is complete and go back to once you pass about 20km.

Well that idea is still ingenious. I'll definitely do it. I really dislike the look of engines pointing off at an angle while in space, so that's the perfect solution.

Generally I had the VTOL motion bound to something so I could manually control the vector. Also makes gravity turns easy because you can just rorate the engines a bit more to offset COM and boom, shuttle starts turning without you actually inputting anything with WASD.

I also have this thing against gravity turns with SRBs going. Usually they fight against the roll torque too much and all you can do is push it 5 degrees anyway.

Unfortunately I think it comes from me running out of SRB fuel during my gravity turns, trying to ditch them while turning, and smashing into them with the butt of my rockets...

My tests of my compact grand tour ship express why I hate SRBs This ship is finicky. Sometimes it ditches them fine, and sometimes.. this...

Here I tried introducing a roll to see if it would help push them away on jettison.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Immashift

[Sovek]

I cannot say how this thing flies without FAR, but due to FAR, I start a 90 degree gravity turn right away and stay that way all the way up to 20km. SRBs will burn out at T+60, and with FAR, thats about 10km up.

If you wanna look at how I built mine, I took out all the AIES parts and its left with KW, B9, Mechjeb (cant get that off without some considerable work)

http://www./view/3s8o32rh4mqc82m/Ares.craft

As I stated, I cannot vouch for how well it performs without FAR, and may not even make orbit without FAR. but... feel free

[Immashift]

I cannot say how this thing flies without FAR, but due to FAR, I start a 90 degree gravity turn right away and stay that way all the way up to 20km. SRBs will burn out at T+60, and with FAR, thats about 10km up.

If you wanna look at how I built mine, I took out all the AIES parts and its left with KW, B9, Mechjeb (cant get that off without some considerable work)

http://www./view/3s8o32rh4mqc82m/Ares.craft

As I stated, I cannot vouch for how well it performs without FAR, and may not even make orbit without FAR. but... feel free

I'll grab the file. Can't test it till tomorrow cause like I said comp is in pieces right now. Just working off a crappy laptop that cringes if I try to launch KSP, so I gotta wait

Definitely gonna install FAR though. I've been holding off because I keep wondering how much it'll mean changing all the craft I regularly use.

[Tidus Klein]

Just started using FAR not to long ago, and I can say that it makes getting to orbit stupidly easy for me

Just don't pull up too hard on most planes you will die!

It takes some serious piloting skill to pull out of most stalls, other than that its great for rockets especially when you have proc farings installed. I have a ship that can go to Duna and back with tons of fuel left that I can almost SSTO from Kerbin with an altitude of 90.000 just 500m/s short

Far is hard to learn but once you do you'll love it!

[Astronaut]

Getting an Eve flyby with mechjeb

Wow, so hard

PRO FACT: NASA uses MechJeb