Moho Apollo Style

[Jouni]

I had never landed on Moho before, and never used any gravity assists, so this felt like a good opportunity to try them. I also decided to use the Rockomax parts, as this is about going to Moho Apollo style, not SLS style.

This is the entire rocket, powered by 7 Mainsails. Launch mass is a bit over 930 tonnes.

The second stage uses 7 Skippers.

The third stage is basically one second stage module with some additional fuel. It's used for three burns: LKO circularization, Kerbin escape, and setting up gravity assist from Eve to Moho.

After setting up the Eve gravity assist, I turned the command module around to face the lander, jettisoned the third stage, and set the third stage on collision course with Eve.

This is the actual Moho ship, with three kerbals and a bit over 41 tonnes of mass. With 12 ion engines, the ship has almost reasonable TWR for interplanetary travel. Far away from the Sun, it relies on its immense (and flexible) battery banks, while the solar panels provide enough power for the engines near Moho. The small RCS fuel tanks are empty, as they are used only as convenient attachment points for the ion engines.

The first Moho encounter was from a bad angle, so I chose to use it just to lower the Sun apoapsis. Two orbits later, I got a better encounter, approaching Moho directly from retrograde.

After entering Moho's sphere of influence, I first burned a couple of tonnes of extra fuel from the lander. (I could have burned more, but I was playing it safe.) After that, I used the ion engines at the sustainable 50% thrust all the way to the periapsis (the orientation of the ship was a bit bad for the solar panels), where I switched to 100% thrust.

I put the ship to a highly elliptic orbit, with periapsis at 12 km and apoapsis at 9000 km.

The terrain was surprisingly hilly, so I had to search for a good landing spot for a while.

Ultimately the landing wasn't any worse than on Mun.

Building the lower stage of the lander around a stack decoupler was a good idea. The upper stage definitely looks like a lander can.

There was a lot of fuel left in the lander, so I used it to set the ship to a 1000 km circular orbit. With ion engines, you want a relatively long orbital period for accurate escape burns, but you still don't want to miss the launch windows.

The lander can was now just extra weight, so it was better to get rid of it.

Then it was time to return back to Kerbin.

After two aerobraking passes, I got the ship to a 110 km orbit around Kerbin.

I had to wait for a couple of hours, before the orbit passed over an ocean at daytime.

The total duration of the mission was 2 years and 88 days Kerbin time.

Let's see the score:

Basic goals: 50 points

3 kerbals: 10 points

2-kerbal lander: 10 points

Two-stage lander: 20 points

Launch escape system: 10 points

Lander behind command module during ascent: 20 points

No damage to the lander: 10 points

Docked lander after ascent: 10 points

Deorbited lander: 5 points

Planted a flag: 3 points

Ocean landing: 5 points

No nukes: 15 points

Total: 168 points

[Moar Boosters]

Nice work Journi! It seems much of the community lacks the bravery to take on this challenge!

First I was wondering how you did it with such a small rocket, but then I noticed the ion engines.

I've added my my final score, I think it's 211 out of a maximum possible 231. I lost 5 for failing to do a water landing, and 15 because my rovers were rubbish and kept flipping upside down.

I think there should probably be penalties for leaving space junk in places the apollo missions didn't. I left a gigantic third stage in orbit around Kerbin. It was supposed to end up in solar orbit, but didn't quite have enough juice to get there, and I also left some fairings in orbit around Moho as well.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Moar Boosters

[Space Viking]

I begun this challenge three days ago, and I must say it was pretty tricky. Great work for those who managed it or will! I'm also sorry for what happened to you, esinohio.

Given the time I had perfecting the mission, I went for a rather high-achieving goal of fulfilling all conditions and maximizing end score. So that's about everything except from bringing additional rovers, which is an implementation I don't like anyway. I guess that makes a total of 233 in score? I don't have much time for elaboration right now.

Anyhow, here's how my mission was:

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[esinohio]

Shew! Finally out of the prison that is ICU. They let me play on a laptop but won't let me have my phone... weird. Good news is I can use my full left hand to type again! woot! Still have to hunt and peck since I'm all bandaged on the right hand but I'll take it. I'll be sure to adjust the rules and update the leader board when I can concentrate through the pain med haze a bit more. Darn stuff zonks me straight out!

Trust your best friend of 25 years to be the first to make light of a rotten situation. He's calling me OctoEric now in honor of being two fingers down! Hmmm does it still count flipping him the bird with that hand?

[Jasonden]

Fun challenge! Here's an entry:

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Self-score calculation (subject to revision by OP): 50+10(3kerbal)+10(2-lander)+20(2-stage-lander)+20(LM behind CM)+10(no landing damage)+10(dock in Moho orbit)+5(ascent module disposal)+3(flag)+5(splash)+15(no nukes)+20(4 science packages)+5(rover)+5(kerbal rover)+15(10km from lander)=203

[Jasonden]

Nice work Journi! It seems much of the community lacks the bravery to take on this challenge!

An idea to maybe expand participation -- give a +20 bonus for no MechJeb use instead of prohibiting it. Not sure if it will help, but it might.

[cantab]

I'm working on mine. Decided to take an approach which I think is in the spirit of the challenge - I first built a Saturn V style Mun rocket. 41 tons to trans-Munar injection, so performs similarly on Kerbal scale to the Saturn V.

Can it get me to Moho? Preliminary investigation suggests yes, just. If not I'll simply 'stretch' the launcher a bit.

[regex]

An idea to maybe expand participation -- give a +20 bonus for no MechJeb use instead of prohibiting it. Not sure if it will help, but it might.

The rules might have to be changed anyway if Moar Boosters' entry is considered valid; there's a MechJeb module on his craft.

[cantab]

Agreed, it could maybe do with a tweak. MechJeb can be used just for the info. Engineer Redux is info only but requires the part, and I'd normally use it though I suppose I can reckon my dV manually. But then there's the submod to Engineer that puts it on all pods by default, and probably similar for MJ.

[regex]

MechJeb can be used just for the info.

There's no way to enforce that, you either allow MechJeb or you don't.

[esinohio]

In the brief moments of lucidity here I made a quick change that was suggested to the rules. I removed the duplicate points for the nukes. As for the Mechjeb when I use it for a challenge or something I only have the part installed pre-launch for the deltaV calculations then remove it. I think regex was correct about enforcement of that. That being said I think one poster was correct in that strictly forbidding that part might be putting some off from trying. So if everyone thinks its ok, adding a bonus for non Mechjeb equipped flights sounds great to me. I don't like leaving that completely awesome entry Moar Boosters submitted hanging out there though because of my problems getting these rules updated in a timely manner so I'd say that one should count penalty free.

If you could shoot me your score in a PM as well that would be great. Focusing on numbers is a bit beyond me for the moment

[regex]

As for the Mechjeb when I use it for a challenge or something I only have the part installed pre-launch for the deltaV calculations then remove it. I think regex was correct about enforcement of that.

Well, not sure if you were acknowledging this, what I really meant is that you can't enforce not using MechJeb as a flight-aid in a challenge while allowing it only for information, so the best policy is to either ban it outright or allow it outright. A lot of people, me included, use aids in the VAB (like Engineer) and ditch them before flight. Anyway, I don't have a horse in this race and I don't really want to see Moar Boosters' entry invalidated, my point was that the rules should be clarified.

So if everyone thinks its ok, adding a bonus for non Mechjeb equipped flights sounds great to me.

I'm okay with this.

[Moar Boosters]

The rules might have to be changed anyway if Moar Boosters' entry is considered valid; there's a MechJeb module on his craft.

I have the module, but I don't use any of the autopilot features....... so I'm only half cheating.

The 3 windows you see open are the ones I use....... vessel info, orbit info, and surface info. I just like looking at the numbers. Really I guess I should switch to kerbal engineer, but I'm used to the mechjeb interface now.

I certainly have no problem with a point deduction. I do challenges for the fun, not for the scores.

[Death Engineering]

Hi esinohio, I like the way you've written this challenge! Reading through the posts, was sad to hear about the injury but glad you're on the mend.

Some rather massive vessels making this run down to Moho.. certainly not for the faint of heart (i.e. CPU)! Subbed to thread!

[Pockrtplanesairways]

Nobody said anything against onion staging.

[cantab]

"Saturn 5 style launch vehicle: 3 stages to LKO."

I'd take that as counting out asparagus, onion, bamboo, or kumquat staging.

[cantab]

Well I've built a ship for this and took it on a shakedown run to the Mun. Which hasn't gone well, but that's mainly due to pilot error: the actual ship has the odd niggle but no major issues. Now I just need to get my Kerbal back to the lander, get the lander pointing back at the sky, and test the ascent stage and upper orbital stage (I used a two-stage CSM).

Might be a while before my actual challenge entry, since I believe I've got a wait for a good Moho window.

[Remkeau]

This is my first challenge entry here, so let's see how it adds up. I actually had already started this mission before stumbling across this thread, so I would have done some things differently, ah well. (And as far as I see I already abided to the basic rule set, correct me if I'm wrong)

Brave Neilnie, Greglie and Wehrvis are going to Moho in the "Bryyo 3-A Interplanetary Explorer - Moho Edition", because, why not.

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So I think for scoring it's gonna be:

Basic 50 points

3-kerbal mission +10

2 Kerbal Lander +10

2 stage lander with separate ascent stage (descent stage stays on Moho) +20

Perfect Landing with no damage to Moho Lander +10

Dock Moho lander and Command Module before leaving Moho SOI +10

Plant at least one flag +3 (Only a single flag counts for the 3 points, no cumlative flags for more points)

Splash-down on Kerbin (Water landing) +5

No SRBs. -10 points for using SRBs in your ascent vehicle.

Adds and substracts to a total of 108 points. I'm happy enough

Edited May 3, 2014 by Remkeau

[Mike the Mechanic]

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So, this is my entry. I think I got all the basic and additional mission points. I also brought two rovers, drove one of them 10 km, deployed 4 packages spaced 2.5 km away from each other and deployed a satellite. I even bothered to have some habitation space and a total of 5 stages I'm super proud of this one, it took a lot of time to get it right (and not fall apart on the launchpad).

(Edit) I suck at creating imgur albums and especially at adding correct titles, I am sorry for possible confusions

Edited May 6, 2014 by Mike the Mechanic

[cantab]

OMG thanks. I'm fine now though.

But wait...when did I even say I was sick on the forums

[Mike the Mechanic]

OMG thanks. I'm fine now though.

But wait...when did I even say I was sick on the forums

I know, I confused you with esinohio, who got into a car accident - anyway, as stated, I am terrible at writing posts :S

Wait - yeah, that was totally intentional - the message goes to you too cantab - get well soon everybody

Edited May 6, 2014 by Mike the Mechanic

[Transits]

Now do Eve Apollo Style.

That's probably asking a bit much.