Landing a Joeke on Laythe

[Tarmenius]

So, after playing KSP for more than two years, I finally decided that it was past time to do a round-trip to Laythe. I'd only ever returned a Kerbal from beyond Kerbin's SOI once before (from Duna), and the prospect of returning one from a Joolean moon had always felt particularly daunting to me. I would likely need to construct a large, part-heavy ship powered by LV-N’s which would then require long burn times in addition to the hours-long process of actually getting to one of Jool’s moons. I imagine it would have felt like work.

When the ARM parts were released, I recognized that they could give me an opportunity to perform the mission using fewer in-game and real-life resources. I had wanted to do this mission for some time, of course, and over the previous couple of months I’d developed a number of reliable SSTOs; one of which was built specifically to be taken to Laythe, in anticipation of this. When the transfer window to Jool was near, I designed a rocket to be placed underneath the Laythe SSTO and ferry it there (and hopefully back). Here’s how the mission went:

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I was rather surprised to find that I had taken more fuel than I needed to get back. I fully expected the SSTO to have to finish the transfer burn back to Kerbin, which is why I designed the transfer stage to be docked with instead of including a pod and leaving the SSTO in Laythe orbit. Future missions will probably be done the latter way.

And while this mission was returning to Kerbin, I decided that I then had the capability to return from anywhere (except Moho and the surfaces of Eve and Tylo, of course). So, naturally, I made a trip to Gilly and back, though I didn’t really document it beyond a few key images from the landing. While I don’t think I’ll be doing any more missions of this type very soon, when it’s time, my next targets will be Dres and Vall (the last place I have left to visit).

Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment on this or offer advice about the trip to Vall, for when I finally decide to tackle that goal; I hear it requires more power and delta-v than people expect.

[KingPhantom]

nice plane...... i'm to dumb to build something like that. it looks that easy to reach jool... but i failed everytime with a lander for duna... yes duna... the easy one

[The Destroyer]

A seven year journey? Was that in kerbal days?

[wasmic]

A few tips:

1: when going to Laythe, do an aerobrake directly at Laythe and skip the Jool aerobrake. It's much safer, as you won't risk getting too deep into Jool.

2: When returning from Laythe, it's possible to go back to Kerbin at any point in time, for only 1000-2000 m/s of delta-V. You just have to eject from Laythe at the right time, and you won't even need a transfer window to get back to Kerbin. Therefore, the gains from doing a Jool oberth burn are most likely very small.

Otherwise, it's a nice album. I did a Laythe return mission in two smaller launches, but due to a miscalculation, I ran out of fuel just as I landed on Laythe and had to send a rescue mission.

[Tarmenius]

nice plane...... ... but i failed everytime with a lander for duna...

Thanks! Are you getting to Duna relatively easily? For the lander, I'd recommend a combination of drogue chute and powered-landing. Its atmosphere is too thin to use parachutes exclusively (unless you have a lot of them).

A seven year journey? Was that in kerbal days?

It sure was.

1: when going to Laythe, do an aerobrake directly at Laythe and skip the Jool aerobrake. ...

2: When returning from Laythe, it's possible to go back to Kerbin at any point in time, for only 1000-2000 m/s of delta-V. ...

Wow, I hadn't considered leaving Jool out of the equation entirely. I'll have to try that next time I head that way, thanks.

[KingPhantom]

Thanks! Are you getting to Duna relatively easily? For the lander, I'd recommend a combination of drogue chute and powered-landing. Its atmosphere is too thin to use parachutes exclusively (unless you have a lot of them).

i think the lander is not the problem... i posted in a duna thread about the problem. i rebuild the show stock rocket of that thread... but i dont get it into LKO... dont know what i'm doing wrong....

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62864-Duna-science-mission?p=1158248#post1158248