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I'm Going To Tylo!

The Jedi Master

By The Jedi Master
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The Jedi Master

The Jedi Master

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So, with ARM coming at some point in April, I wanted to finish off 23.0 with a bang. So I got to brainstorming. VTOL? Not big enough! Landing on Moho? Not big enough (and Moho hates me)! Returning from the surface of Eve? Too big...

At this point, I got it: Landing on and returning from Tylo! Very challenging, to be certain, but achievable. And, as I am not the type to hide my biggest achievements, I decided to post a thread about it. I'm going to take you through the journey of the Brianna 1, from construction to landing to return to Kerba Firma. And it will be AWESOME!

Now, if anyone has tips on Tylo missions, please post them!

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nadreck

nadreck

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So, with ARM coming at some point in April, I wanted to finish off 23.0 with a bang. So I got to brainstorming. VTOL? Not big enough! Landing on Moho? Not big enough (and Moho hates me)! Returning from the surface of Eve? Too big...

Well, I just put my prototype EveLander into LKO (a 3 stage device that I calculated should be able to get into orbit as an SSTO without staging, but ended up having to put 4 solid boosters to make up the difference between theory and practice) I also think that this EveLander could land and take off easily from Tylo, I will certainly give it a try if I can get that far before .23.5 comes out. Right now I have to refuel my EveLander, attach a nuke booster or two send a refueling and support armada with it and give it a try. Then while that is on the way I will launch a version without the aerodynamic nose cones and parachutes and some of the 48-7S engines, assemble a much more extensive armada in orbit, including one or two of my rapier wingless airbreathing SSTO's (for Laythe), and send of a Joolian expedition.

My rough test of my EveLander was to launch the 2nd/3rd stage combination and get my Mk1 lander can in to munar orbit, then take the full vehicle, launch it to 1500 meters land it on chutes with just a little engine work back as KSC then relaunch with the remaining fuel to 10,000 meters altitude at 50 m/s near the ground to 150m/s at 10,000 meters on the first stage only, the objective with reducing the thrust to simulate was to simulate having to boost for a prolonged time through the thick of Eve's atmosphere.

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Random Tank

Random Tank

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I just over-fuel when I travel to Jool, then use Skippers (or Vesta's on KW when modded) to boost me out. Its slightly lower Gravity than Kerbin doesn't make much of a difference, but the no atmosphere does! A lot of people use NERVA's, but I don't use them, it's more of a challenge! Also, taking SRB's with you to boost your launch can help.

For me, landing is more difficult than taking off again; that's why I like the high thrust engines for Suicide Burns. (ISP can go die!)

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sciguyCO

sciguyCO

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I designed a lander for a "Grand Tour" of the Joolian moons. The mission profile was to use a single landing vessel to visit them in order of descending delta-V required for landing + takeoff, so Tylo (since it doesn't have an atmosphere to help with landing) was the first stop.

Here's what I came up with. Though that must not be a screenshot of the final configuration, since it doesn't have the parachutes used on Laythe and struts appear to be missing. It's intended to land, obtain science, then return to the mothership for refuelling and scrubbing of the goo / science bay with the mobile lab.

A few design notes:

  • All seven tank stacks use the Rockomax 48-7s engine.
  • It's designed for a single staging event on each moon, so the KER numbers aren't completely accurate. It required some hand-calculation to make sure it would work the way I wanted, but I'm landing on Pol tonight to finish the tour so I got most of it right. Tylo was truly the biggest hurdle of the bunch though.
  • My Tylo landing was planned with a 5000 m/s delta-v budget (using the numbers from this map). This led to some problems, but were eventually surmounted.
  • The tanks are asparagused in 3x symmetry: the 3 "tall" tank stacks feed into the 3 short stacks which feed into the center tank.
  • The tall tanks are intended to last until just before touchdown before being jettisoned (hence the lack of landing legs on those).

The Tylo landing was eventually successful, but I did resort to quite a few "training simulations" (i.e.: quicksave / quickload). The mothership handled most of the de-orbit burn, putting periapsis at about 6km, releasing the lander, and then boosting prograde to re-circularize. My first landing used way too much fuel; the three outer tanks were about half empty and I grossly underestimated how long they'd last on ascent, leading to losing TWR too soon. Even moving fuel from the center out didn't help. I originally thought staging those outer tanks as an "abort plan" for Tylo launch would be sufficient (scrubbing my Laythe visit), but the loss of thrust made that problematic, and would've required also scrubbing the Vall visit. I knew my problems were piloting, so I kept at it.

The next attempts were with a "constant altitude" descent profile; keeping my retrograde marker on the horizon line by thrusting slightly up to increase time spent killing horizontal velocity. However, a couple of hills on the descent path kept popping up leading to unexpected lithobraking.

Finally, I got a successful landing. There were a couple close calls with hills, I think I skimmed one at about 300m above terrain while still going ~1500 m/s. And it was a hard landing, all six landing gear broke but the engines survived and the gear was repairable. A flag was planted, EVA report and surface sample obtained. I moved fuel from the center tanks into the outer ones (to keep all four engines fueled), and orbit was achieved. Rendezvous was handled with the last fumes from the tanks and RCS. I then refueled the lander, scrubbed the science parts, and took the remaining stages to Laythe, then Vall, then Bop, then Pol. I currently have over 100 science reports in the mothership's command module (with "landed on Pol" yet to do), no idea how many science points will be rewarded on return to Kerbin. It's a moot point, since I've already finished off the tech tree. But this has been my most ambitious mission in KSP to date and it feels damn good to be close to finishing it off.

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Kasuha

Kasuha

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Now, if anyone has tips on Tylo missions, please post them!

You don't look like an inexperienced player to me. If you need help, why don't you ask about things you actually need to learn?

Maybe you could at least tell us if you're playing stock or what set of mods you use. Or is that a thing to decide yet, too?

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The Jedi Master

The Jedi Master

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You don't look like an inexperienced player to me. If you need help, why don't you ask about things you actually need to learn?

Maybe you could at least tell us if you're playing stock or what set of mods you use. Or is that a thing to decide yet, too?

Fact: You can play for a year and a bit and still suck.

As for mods, I will be using MechJeb, and MechJeb only.

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Guest

Guest

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As for mods, I will be using MechJeb, and MechJeb only.

Oh, if that's the case then just make sure you have enough TWR and delta-V for Tylo, MechJeb'll get you to the ground just fine. Don't really need any other "tips" in that case...

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Jouni

Jouni

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In my experience, Tylo landing is mostly a bigger version on Mun landing. The velocities are higher, the lander has to be bigger, and the gravity is less forgiving, but if you can land on Mun, you can land on Tylo with a bit of practice.

The hardest part is the actual landing, but even that's not as hard as landing on Eve. There are no parachutes ripping the lander apart, and if you manage to land at 5 m/s on level ground, the lander most likely survives in one piece. Of course, you can make everything harder by trying to be efficient. It's easy to build a multi-stage lander with at least 8000 m/s of delta-v, but if you insist on using a single-stage lander or otherwise limit the amount of delta-v available, you're forced to use harder and more efficient landing techniques.

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Guest

Guest

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That's the thing, I suck at construction as well...

Making landers is simple. For Tylo I'd add a can + RCS + fuel + engine making sure it had a Kerbin TWR greater than 0.9, then a decoupler + fuel + engine(s) making sure it had a Kerbin TWR greater than 0.9, then call that my "return stage" with some 4km/s delta-V total (I think that's about right, should cover rendezvous as well). Then I'd just asparagus the **** out of the outside of it, adding tanks and engines to make another 4km/s + Kerbin TWR greater than 0.9, plus a few landing legs. Strap that to an interplanetary tug and !BAM! Mission go! You don't even need a docking port, just get the last lander stage close enough to the tug so your Kerbals can float over.

It's even easier if you get rid of the can and go for lawnchairs.

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Random Tank

Random Tank

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Making landers is simple. For Tylo I'd add a can + RCS + fuel + engine making sure it had a Kerbin TWR greater than 0.9, then a decoupler + fuel + engine(s) making sure it had a Kerbin TWR greater than 0.9, then call that my "return stage" with some 4km/s delta-V total (I think that's about right, should cover rendezvous as well)

That's a good point actually; if you've got a ship that'll get to about 50km height on Kerbin, it'll definitely make orbit on Tylo...

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Kasuha

Kasuha

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This is my lander, the Blaster Mk.1, based on Scott Manley's design.

http://i.imgur.com/R2JceKa.png

I'd suggest to remove all that monopropellant. And I definitely suggest against using the mainsail. If you watch Scott Manley's next video where he shows his later attempts, there is much nicer lander using LV-Ns with a comment "I should have used this instead".

Personally I have good experience with 48-7S. It has better TWR than Mainsail and is not that fuel hungry. You can build way smaller return module with them.

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Moar Boosters

Moar Boosters

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Here's the report from my Apollo style Tylo mission.

I guess much of it won't be that useful if you're building a standard efficient ksp rocket, but the lander design is probably something you could copy.

2 stages, the radial tanks are for the descent, and then they're left at the surface. All you need for the ascent stage is a 2 man lander can, the second smallest fuel tank, and a poodle engine. Even with the dead weight of that decoupler (It was supposed to be a blue one), it was enough to get into low Tylo orbit to rendezvous with the return craft.

People have designed smaller more efficient landers using Nervas, but I havent really experimented with that. This is a proven design, and lighter and more compact than the Manley design you copied.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55392-Tylo-Apollo-Style-because-asparagus-is-for-wimps!

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