the great Science missions thread

[mach1]

So, since science is the big deal to unlock new parts and progress in the game i think it could be interesting to collect into one discussions all the missions we have succesfully done to collect science in order to give suggestions to others on how to collect a lot of science in an efficient way.

I just finished a Mission on Minmus and i collected 1852 science:

MINMUS ( 1852 science gathered )

here's how i've done. I've brought up first a Docking station and two probes with one launch. The Dockin is intended to hold up to 4 science probes plus one wich is part of the docking for a total of 5 probes.

Than a second launch brought up two more probes and some fuel to refuel the station.

each of the probes is unmanned. Can perform a landing and a take off and they are designed to be used both on minmus and mun. The scientific tools embedded on the docking station can perform science in orbit.

i than land the probes on different biomes and collect data with all the instruments i've packed on. Probes take off, and performs a rendez vous with the station orbiting around the moon. Once they're docked the bottom part of the probes with engine and gears get ejected in order to save weight.

once all the 4 probes have performed their experiments and have been docked back to the station it's time to go home

once on a safe path towards kerbin the engine get ejected so gravity will pull back the precious load.

the shape of the dock keep it in balance and protect the probes during the reentry phase

and here is the precious payload safely on the ground

not bad for a single mission to Minmus

Edited April 11, 2014 by mach1

[Mitchz95]

My Minmus expedition was more or less the same, except it made use of a single lander that was cleaned and refueled after each landing. It was manned as well to take advantage of EVA reports and surface samples.

I don't remember the exact science profit, but I think it was in the 2500s.

[Zylark]

Did mine manned as well.

0.23.5 made me start a new career, so I wanted to get up to speed really fast and methodical in order to get to the good parts and move on to other planets.

So basically got myself into orbit a couple of times, with crew and goo. Plenty of EVA and crew reports over various Kerbin biomes. Got myself the Science Jr pod, and went off to do two fly-by's of Mun and Minmus. Again, with brave Jeb, goo and now the Science pod. One high orbit, one low orbit for each moon. And plenty of EVA and crew reports. Unlocked (amongst others) the termometer for more science in the next missions. also did a couple of landings on Kerbin to collect some material samples, surface samples, goo and temp. And the EVA and crew thingie.

Next up two landing missions to both Mun and Minmus. Jeb, goo, Science jr and temp and even more EVA and crew reports. So after about 8 launches, I had my precious nuclear engines, the seismic detector and various other bits and bobs to get serious with the science collecting.

Made myself a lander out of a core containing a docking port, lander-can and fuel storage. Bolted on three small fuel tanks to the side, each with a docking port on top and a nuclear engine below. Four docking ports on top, means four Science jr pods could attach at a time. Each with one goo, temp and seismic instruments. And two radial parachutes plus docking port top and bottom for easy transfer.

Launched it to Minmus, did four jumps on the surface collecting plenty of science. Then returned to Kerbin Orbit, sent up a science Return Vehicle with three matching docking ports to the Landers' ports atop the engine fuel-tanks - and more chutes than strictly speaking necessary. Transferred all the Science pods but the central one in one docking. Jeb EVA'd over to the Return Vehicle, taking the surface samples with him and then proceeded to land the Return Vehicle very safely. Plenty of science points gained.

Enough to start building my space stations. First one in three easy steps in Kerbin Orbit. Docked the Lander (now under Bobs guidance) there and deposited the last (central) science pod for a later return to Kerbin. Next built a very similar station around Mun orbit, where I sent up two Science pods with the first module and four Science pods with the second module for it. Then sent up the Return Vehicle together with three more Science pods. The return vehicle met up with the lander again, transferred over its three Science pods and the Lander proceeded to do three jumps on the Mun surface after a brief stop at the Mun station to stock up on fuel.

After this followed an elaborate process of changing out used pods for new ones, requiring quite a few dockings. Twice. For a total of nine landings on Mun for this mission. And naturally, the Return Vehicle picking up the used pods for a return to Kerbin from the Mun Station.

(Lander doing pod-swap at the Mun Station)

After the last rotation of pods and following jumps on the Mun surface, the Lander met up with the Return Vehicle for an easy transfer of three pods in one go, plus change crew with Bob having done the landings now returning to Kerbin in the Return Vehicle taking the surface samples with him. Jeb once more took control of the Lander, guiding it back to Kerbin Station, picking up the last pod from the previous Minmus mission and returned with a Crew Return Vehicle with the pod attached.

Now, on to Duna. Packed up my ship, the Duna Discovery with six science pods - now with Gravioli detector. Three each for Duna and Ike. High orbit, Low orbit and Surface.

(Duna Discovery topping off its' fuel tanks. 42 days until launch-window, giving plenty of time to attach a Jumbo drop tank at the rear and fly up its four man crew)

Edited April 12, 2014 by Zylark

[mach1]

how do you exactly do a mission like mine, manned? I mean, once i collect a specimen or an EVA report on a biome, shouldn't i bring it back to kerbin everytime? how do you handle that?

[Geschosskopf]

how do you exactly do a mission like mine, manned? I mean, once i collect a specimen or an EVA report on a biome, shouldn't i bring it back to kerbin everytime? how do you handle that?

This is what the Mobile Lab is for. You build a station in a 50-60km polar orbit at Minmus that has 3 main parts: A collection of fuel tanks, a Mobile Lab, and a lander with 4x Goos, 4x Materials, and 1x everything else. You need at least 2 Kerbals to run the Mobile Lab. The Mobile Lab also needs a probe core, some electricity, and enough parachutes to land safely on Kerbin (4 blue chutes hanging out radially on struts will work fine).

Because all this is in a polar orbit, it will eventually pass over every biome. When a biome you haven't hit yet comes into range, put 1 Kerbal in the lander and send it down there. When it gets back to the station, have the Kerbal carry all the data from the lander into the Mobile Lab, then stay in there with the other Kerbal to use the Mobile Lab to rearm all the Goo and Material experiments on the lander. Refuel the lander from the tanks on the station. Repeat until you've hit every biome or get really bored with the repetition. Then send the Mobile Lab back to land on Kerbin. Profit.

There are a couple of tricks to doing this. 1st off, you really want the station's orbit to cross the daylight side of Minmus. Thus, you usually have to do its inclination change once at Minmus instead of on the way there with the 1st station module. Set it up so the station's orbit is fairly close to the west edge of the daylight so you'll have several months to use the station before its orbit ends up along the terminator. Then you'll have to wait a few weeks before the other side of the orbit gets into daylight, and several months to use the station again.

Then you have to rendezvous the various other modules to the core. If you've never rendezvoused with a highly inclined target, the only thing to worry about is matching planes with the target, after which it's the same as normal. It's really not that hard to do. The main thing is to make sure you get to Minmus going around it in the same direction as the station. So launch the new module as normal and then, while in LKO waiting to do the transfer burn, watch the station on the map to see if it's going under or over Minmus as you look at it. Then just do the transfer burn (or a midcourse tweak) to go under or over Minmus the same way. Once you get to Minmus, you'll definitely be out of plane with the target but at least going in the same direction.

The final plane change is a bit different than normal. Forget about ascending and descending nodes. Instead, eyeball on the map where your orbit crosses the target's orbit and put your node there. Then pull the up or down handle as needed to line your orbit up with the target's. After this, it becomes just another coplanar rendezvous. The only remaining issue is that because you're in a polar orbit, you sometimes run into the inability of the camera to rotate past the poles when trying to set up your rendezvous burns.

[Zylark]

how do you exactly do a mission like mine, manned? I mean, once i collect a specimen or an EVA report on a biome, shouldn't i bring it back to kerbin everytime? how do you handle that?

Umm, no. Crew and EVA reports can be transmitted back to Kerbin for no science loss. Just strap an Antenna onto your Lander craft. Do bring some good amount of power though, as transmitting data eats electricity fairly fast. Crew reports are easy enough, just collect and transmit. For EVAs' your Kerbonaut need to re-enter the craft first, then you review reports on your command pod, and from there transmit your EVA report.

A little "trick" here, is that to get all the "whilst flying over" EVA reports, you don't actually have to fly over anything. Just land at a new biome and do a quick EVA doing nothing but holding onto your command pod, take an EVA report, and re-enter the pod to transmit it.

Now, surface samples is another matter, they do need to be brought back to Kerbin if you want to get the full science for them. These get stored in the command pod of your Lander craft as you re-enter it. You can store plenty of surface samples in your command pod. But what if you don't plan on returning your Lander craft to Kerbin surface you say? If like me have a dedicated Return Vehicle? Good news is, you can transfer science reports stored on one craft to another. Do an EVA from your Lander, whilst still holding onto your Landers' command pod, right (or was it left?) click it and you get an option to collect reports stored on that pod. Do that, and then move your Kerbonaut over to the Return Vehicle and enter that. Your surface samples are now stored there.

As for MobileLab, don't bother until you start to plan a Jool mission. You'll still lose science by using it, but by the time you start thinking about Jool it doesn't matter much. For Jool, a MobileLab is not as heavy as all the Science Pods you'd need if doing it without science loss. Plus you don't actually have to drag the MobileLab back to Kerbin with you, saving plenty of precious dV.

Edited April 12, 2014 by Zylark

[Geschosskopf]

As for MobileLab, don't bother until you start to plan a Jool mission. You'll still lose science by using it, but by the time you start thinking about Jool it doesn't matter much. For Jool, a MobileLab is not as heavy as all the Science Pods you'd need if doing it without science loss. Plus you don't actually have to drag the MobileLab back to Kerbin with you, saving plenty of precious dV.

You don't lose any science using the Mobile Lab, at least if you don't use it to transmit. But transmitting should never be done at all except in a few very special cases:

• Crew and EVA reports
  
• The 1st surface sample from a place, followed by returning the 2nd in the same trip
  
• If the ship is unable to get home and you want to salvage at least some data (Eve lander probe, for instance)
  

Otherwise, everything should be returned. But the thing is, most experiments don't capture all the possible points if you only return 1 copy of them. Surface samples require 2 returns from the same place to get all the points, although 1 transmission followed by 1 return will get about 95% of those points. With Goo and Materials, however, returning 1 copy gets about 70% of the available points, 2 is about 85%, 3 is about 95%, and 4 gets them all. So with them, you need to return 3 or 4 copies. I prefer to return 4 because I like 4x symmetry better than 3x. This is why I say your lander needs 4x Goos and 4x Materials. Everything else you only need 1 of.

Now, as you can see above, you quickly get into diminishing returns. Returning 1 copy of an experiment gets you the majority of its points so if you're willing to leave 10-20% of the points on the table, feel free. But over the long run up the tech tree, those missing points add up, which translates into having to do more missions to complete the tech tree. And seriously, it gets to be a real grind after a while, so I try hard to avoid ever having to go back somewhere I've already been.

This is where the Mobile Lab comes in. Mobile Labs have the virtue of being able to hold multiple copies of Goo, Materials, and surface samples from the same place. Capsules do not. So if you only have a capsule, you can't get all the available points at a location, meaning you'll either have to waste time going there again or just do without those points which you'll really miss later when nodes start getting expensive. OTOH, if you have a Mobile Lab, you can cram everything you pick up into it and bring it all home at once.

But this in the end is just a matter of taste. The Mobile Lab doesn't save you any landings on Minmus; you still have to land and return from every biome. What it saves you is spending time launching and transferring that number of separate landers. With the Mobile Lab, you can totally pillage Minmus with 3-4 launches: station core, lander, returnable Mobile Lab, and maybe a resupply of fuel. You still have the repetition of all the landings but you trade the repetition of identical launches, transfers, and returns for the repetition of docking with the station and transferring data to the Mobile Lab. It's really a grind either way. But I think you get more quality play time by using the Mobile Lab because less of your time is spent getting to and from Minmus and more on actually acquiring points. Plus, the payoff when you land the Mobile Lab with all the science from Minmus at once is IMHO more enjoyable than bringing back a single landing and realizing you still can't unlock that 1 node you really want so have to do it all again.

[Ziff]

how do you exactly do a mission like mine, manned? I mean, once i collect a specimen or an EVA report on a biome, shouldn't i bring it back to kerbin everytime? how do you handle that?

The key to this is that Kerbals can take data from experiments and store them in a command pod, one experiment type per biome you explore. You land a pod with a Kerbal, get your EVA and Crew reports, transmit those back. Take your surface sample, goo sample, materials sample, temp readings, ect.. Then fly that lander back and dock. Have the kerbal get out and 'Take Data' from each experiment, then go to the command pod and get back in. All that data will get stored there for FULL science value. A science lab can reset those experiments now that you've taken the data from them, but it requires two kerbals to operate so keep that in mind.

I run a lander for this that has 2 materials and 2 goo, and 2 landing pods. This way 2 kerbals can collect separate samples and store them in separate pods. (Since you can't store more than one experiment of the same type from the same biome.) When I dock back to the science lab, One sample goes into the lab , gets processed , and then transmitted to Kerbin. The second sample gets put directly into the other command pod for returning later for full science value.

[Zylark]

Thanks for the info Geschossekopf and Ziff. Now my parameters for the Duna science mission have changed a bit, as I'm going to fly up a Lab and two more Science Jr pods to my ship before departure. Though I won't change my lander or anything. I've already planned a second mission to Duna to set up some Kethane mining operation - both for making roundtrips with a simple shuttle possible and for using Duna Orbit a pitstop for future Jool and beyond missions. Why my ship, the Duna Discovery got two Kethane probes attached already.

So on this first trip, I'll do pretty much as planned with the difference being the Science Lab and two more Science Jr pods for taking second (and third, fourth?) samples as I get ready to land the Kethane miners on Ike and Duna.

edit:

Okeydokey, all set to go to Duna, with the last-minute addition of the Science Lab.

From left to right:

stage 1: Jumbo drop tank - will be discarded when empty

stage 2: Science Lab with two tricked out Science Jr pods - for later use and will remain in Duna orbit

stage 3: Lander - got roughly 1800dV fully fueled up and plenty of chutes, should be enough. Will remain in Duna orbit

stage 4: Hub - got two Kethane probes attached and a couple more docking ports on the sides. Will remain in Duna orbit and serve as the beginnings of a station there together with the Science Lab and Lander

stage 5: The Duna Discovery ship itself. Contains six Science Jr pods that will be returned to Kerbin together with the four man crew.

Now due to the sudden addition of the Science Lab, some rearranging will have to take place whilst en-route to Duna. Once the drop-tank have been discarded with and I'm coasting to Duna, I'll disconnect the Hub from the ship, rotate the entire construction (Hub, Lander and Science Lab) 180 degrees and reattach it all to the ship with the Science Lab end of it. Then disconnect the Lander with Hub from the Science Lab, do another rotation and connect the Hub to the Science Lab. Resulting in the Lander riding Tail-End-Charlie and ready to drop off for, well, landing.

Just crossing my fingers my estimate for needed dV to do the de-orbit burn and ascent burn with the lander works out fine. After the de-orbit burn I should have enough chutes on the thing to just need a tiny bit of engine thrust for the final stage of the landing.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Zylark
added update

[technion]

But this in the end is just a matter of taste.

I'm finding that's the golden rule of science in general. You can choose to invest in rockets like this to clean up minmus. Or you could head to Duna, do nothing special but land and gather science from the surface, and gather a similar amount of science. It's about how you prefer to play.

[Zylark]

Since I decided to go get some more Mun-Science, I now got to snap a picture of my Science Return vehicle as it is transferring over some fresh Science Jr. pods (w. goo, temp, grav, seismic and baro instruments - though the last one is kind of useless for Mun) to my Lander. Once the Lander have done three jumps on Mun, they'll meet up again, transfer over the used pods and surface samples from the Lander to the Return Vehicle.

Have some 20 days and change until the Duna mission is a go, and a few Munar biomes still to land on, so back to Mun for some more science. I need it to unlock some good Jet engines I intend to use for my Duna Kethane Truck...

[livesinacardboardbox]

I'm still early in my career mission, but I launched a single ship with a cluster of manned vessels to visit each biome on Minumus in one go. Though since I have yet to unlock docking ports, I have to return them one by one.

Return of second ship from the cluster:

[Geschosskopf]

I'm finding that's the golden rule of science in general. You can choose to invest in rockets like this to clean up minmus. Or you could head to Duna, do nothing special but land and gather science from the surface, and gather a similar amount of science. It's about how you prefer to play.

it also depends on what tech tree you're using. If purely stock, then you don't have to be very obsessive about gathering every single science point before moving on to something different. Which is rather relaxing and avoids a lot of grinding. However, if you're using some mod tech tree, then you really start becoming a science hoarder. I just started a new game with tons of mods I normally don't use, just to be able to converse intelligently with their addicts, and the tech tree is pretty brutal. Hence, my above stuff on the Mobile Lab.

I need it to unlock some good Jet engines I intend to use for my Duna Kethane Truck...

FWIW, jet engines do not work on Duna because there's no oxygen in the atmosphere. The Kethane-burning jet does work, and would move a ground vehicle just fine (being designed for Eve, it has serious issues as the main propulsion for aircraft on Duna). However, outside the relatively flat canyon bottoms, it's not a good idea to move more than about 30m/s on the surface of Duna. For that, wheels do just fine.

[Zylark]

FWIW, jet engines do not work on Duna because there's no oxygen in the atmosphere. The Kethane-burning jet does work, and would move a ground vehicle just fine (being designed for Eve, it has serious issues as the main propulsion for aircraft on Duna). However, outside the relatively flat canyon bottoms, it's not a good idea to move more than about 30m/s on the surface of Duna. For that, wheels do just fine.

Hmm, ok. Thought the Kethane Jet would be great for my Duna Kethane Truck, which by the way isn't wheeled. By truck, I mean a ship designed to haul stuff to and from wherever. Come to think of it, only things with wheels I got are base modules. The wheels are just for getting the modules into proper position not for zooming along the surface. Like here with my Mun mining operation:

The Mun Kethane Truck is in the background. The three nuclear engines it got is barely enough to lift it off the surface of Mun when fully loaded, so for Duna I'll need something with more oomph, yet have good fuel economy - like bolting three Jets to the side of my existing Kethane Truck design in-between the nuclear engines.

[Geschosskopf]

Hmm, ok. Thought the Kethane Jet would be great for my Duna Kethane Truck, which by the way isn't wheeled. By truck, I mean a ship designed to haul stuff to and from wherever.

.....

The Mun Kethane Truck is in the background. The three nuclear engines it got is barely enough to lift it off the surface of Mun when fully loaded, so for Duna I'll need something with more oomph, yet have good fuel economy - like bolting three Jets to the side of my existing Kethane Truck design in-between the nuclear engines.

Hmmm. Well, what are you going to use the kethane for? Kethane on Duna should stay on Duna, being used only for refueling things that are also on the ground there. To refuel ships orbiting anywhere in the Duna system, you should get the Kethane from Ike. From low Duna orbit, it takes less fuel to go to Ike, land there, and come back to LDO than it does to land and return from Duna.

As to the Kethane Jet, it works very differently from regular jet engines (besides its ability to operate without O2). Regular jets are limited by altitude with performance falling off gradually as you get higher until they eventually flame out. The Kethane jet, OTOH, is limited by speed. The amount of KintakeAir it produces with its integral intake (and this is the ONLY source of KintakeAir) stays essentially constant regardless of altitude. However, should the speed of the vehicle ever exceed some critical value (which varies with the throttle setting), the KintakeAir instantly goes to zero and won't come back until the speed gets back below this critical value (which again varies with throttle position).

The bottom line is that the Kethane Jet likes to run at full throttle and low speed, which of course work against each other on most planets. The fact that high speed causes flameout makes the Kethane jet particularly useless as a space launch engine. The only thing it does reliably and well is flying on Eve, where the thick air requires both power to overcome and still imposes a slow speed. In Duna's thin air, ship speed increases very quickly and the engine soon cuts out. This limits the Kethane jet to use as a VTOL thruster or for boost-glide aircraft.

[Zylark]

Ok then. Was thinking going for making Ike a fuel source first anyway - don't think I got quite the available dV on my Base and Station building ship (got trusses down the side with RCS nozzles at the end to make docking and landing easy when handling big stuff that doesn't have RCS installed - like base and station parts) to build a Base on Duna quite yet either way.

But at some time, as you say, a minor little Kethane operation need to be set up there to handle ships coming and going and doing some nice Rover action. Perhaps recreate something like the Mars One planned colony like in the image below. Just instead of those dirt-mounds in the background imagine orange jumbo-tanks and replacing those puny solar-panels with something more, uhm, substansive

But first, getting there with a simple lander and do some science. Will report as the mission progresses.

edit: The interim Mun mission whilst waiting for the Duna window...

With 23 days to go until the window for Duna opens, as you know a revisit of the Mun was warranted. Still some biomes to check out there. After picking up the fresh Science pods it was off to Munar orbit, and hook up with the Refinery there to fill up the tanks. Going to need plenty of dV to cover three different locations in one go.

Yes, a darkside docking - but that is why those tiny batteries are there with their little green lights. Make for perfect docking guidance in the dark. Of course, Mech-Jeb and its' Smart A.S.S. doesn't hurt either.

After stocking up on fuel, it was time to do a serious plane-change. Heading for South-West Crater which is located quite down low on that old ball'o'cheese. Of my initial 4400dV, a healthy chunk will go right there.

Made it down with about 3600dV to go. Sent off a crew report to make KSC know all is fine and dandy. Then did a quick EVA whilst still hanging onto the Lander. Re-entered and sent off that report as well. Then a proper EVA to the surface, and pick up a sample of it whilst there. Turns out, Mun is not made of cheese - who knew? After returning to the Lander all the various science gathering instruments got to do their thing. Materials, Goo, Temperature, Seismic action and Gravity measurements. All done, and time for a skip and a jump to the next location - East Crater.

Got there just in the nick of time as the sun was setting fast. Now, the Lander do have downward pointing lights on it, but I think the engineer responsible for building it got his 1kW lamps and 100W lamps mixed up, because they're not very bright. Not seeing the surface before being some 50 meters above it is a bit more exciting than I prefer. They must have been low on coffee that day at KSC when assembling the Lander. All the rest of the design is pretty much spot on. Big wide spread on the landing-legs so that rough ground isn't really a problem. Set up in a triangular configuration for best stability with a really low center of mass - at least when the main tank is full. Four legs is all fine and well on flat ground back at the launch-pad or by some bases set up on locations selected for their very level terrain, but not optimal for a exploration vessel like this.

Either way, seems like Wehrfred Kerman will be spending the night here at East Crater before heading off to the Twin Craters at first break of dawn. In the crew report back to KSC, Wehrfred did mention something about only having about 2.2k dV left, roughly 40% fuel to go and having some doubts as to making another jump on the surface and make it back to Mungstad Refinery Station.

By dawn, the course was set for the Twin Craters. KSC is not too worried about the dV situation and do not share Wehrfreds concerns in the least.

At arrival, all the usual was done, various reports sent, science gathered. View is still by and large a variation of grey and black. Wehrfred muttered something about 1000 dV, no snacks and being on his last diaper. The toilet facilities of the mk I Lander Can leaves a bit to be desired. If anyone visits the Twin Craters again, they won't like the smell. Or they wouldn't if one could smell in a vacuum at least.

Sayonara Twin Craters and Mun. Just a quick pit-stop to the Refinery Station, and then back home to meet with the Science Return Vehicle and transfer over all the science that by now Wernher von Kerman is getting a bit anxious to get his hands on.

Made it back to Mungstad Refinery Station with a measly 90dV to spare - about 2% of max fuel. KSC replied that it was all in the mission profile, no need to whine about "close call", "luck" or anything like that. Everything is under control - trust us!

Docked perfectly with the SRV, lock on all three contact-points. Picking up the surface samples, and heading over for a nice little ocean landing. The Science Return Vehicle do have landing-legs, but a splashdown is always preferable to say hitting the side of a mountain or something silly like that.

End of this mission. Roughly 1400 science returned plus a couple of hundred in reports radioed in to KSC during the mission. And about 13 days to go until the Duna Window opens up and a slightly more up-scale mission gets going.

Until then, KSC is pondering the option of sending off a couple of unmanned probes towards Eve and Moho for some fly-by's. Perhaps even to Kerbol - the sun itself. KSC it seem have gotten their mitts on some fancy new propulsion device. They're all going on about ion this and xenon that.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Zylark
additional extra