The Jool Atmosphere Challange

[Hellothere!]

Some atmospheric anomalys have been detected deep inside Jools atmosphere. Of cause the kerbals want to lauch a mission to get some scientific data.

Rules:

1. Send a mission into the Jool system. It doesn't have to be single launch and you are allowed to dock parts in orbit. However your orbiter has to be fully assembled once it leaves Kerbins SOI, so no adding parts and/or refueling inside the Jool system.
   
2. Send a daring Kerbal (inside a capsule not in a seat strapped to the outside of your craft) and some science stuff (at least on experiment of each kind) as deep into Jools Atmosphere as possible. Perform some experiments there. Afterwards return to orbit.
   
3. You may play both in career and sandbox mode.
   
4. The Kerbal and all scientific data (in career mode) have to return to Kerbin in the same mission.
   
5. There will be a stock and a modded category. However even the modded category has some restrictions. You are fair to use most balanced mods like for example b9, also nav helpers like Mechjeb or physics enhancers like ferram. (people with only optical enhancers like Kerb-paint can still send in for the non-mod-sections) However some mods would make this far too easy. For example anything involving lighter-than-air-flight (zeppelins/balloons) is banned. You may also not use some "magically" powerful and yet efficient thrusters or jet engines that somehow work in Jools atmosphere. In general you are not allowed to use any mod-parts that would make it possible to exit Eve with an ssto. Everything else should be fair. However I might ban some other things so beware
   
6. Scoring works like this: Generally the Person with the lowest reached altitude wins. However if you cannot beat somebody else in altitude (for example because he did the almost impossible and got right over the surface) you can still try to beat him by bringing in more Kerbals or having a lighter craft (at the lowest point in atmospere).
   
7. To make an entry please send in a picture of your orbiter when entering Jools SOI, one in map view when entering the atmosphere, one at your lowest point, one when leaving the atmosphere and one with the Kerbal/s back on kerbin. Please also tell me about all mods used, the weight of your craft at the lowest point and if played in career mode the science gained. If you want to you can also send pictures of your launch stages or a Video.
   

Edited May 21, 2014 by Hellothere!

[Whovian]

Perhaps scoring should instead be done by the total science data obtained in Career mode? Just a suggestion.

[Hellothere!]

Well the problem with that is that some persons might already have done experiments in in Jools atmosphere their saves. Additionally since there are only different science points for upper and lower atmosphere we would only get two different scores in the end. Also this challenge is mainly about how deep you can go into Jools atmosphere without beeing unable to come back. The science stuff is rather there to prevent some super small lightweight crafts and to give the task a little sense

[goduranus]

They should make a part that lets you burn oxidizers to fly in Jool.

[VR_Dev]

So this doesn't qualify because I didn't return it home, but some people in this thread might find it interesting/gain some idea's from it. I built this a long time ago as a proof of concept that you could return from deep below jools "surface"

Notice the true altitude is in the negatives. I did a bunch of science down there, but like I said, didn't return it home.

Once you get too low the ship disappears. I believe I went lower than this too. Obviously I was using the kethane mod, but because such low thrust is needed a nuclear engine could probably give you a fair amount of hover time.

Sorry if this post is out of place, I just figured it was somewhat relevant to people who love Jool as much as I do. And could potentially spark some cool ideas for your challenge.

I also found a way to "condense" kethane out of Jool's atmosphere allowing permanent bases, the problem is you can't save the ship there. Here's my thread for that

[goduranus]

I would imagine for stock you'll need something that uses angled wings, torque wheels, and RTGs for power.

After some testing I found that two bladed ones work better, but doesn't look as awesome for screenshot.

If you build something like this and it drifts all over the place, consider adding a dihedral to improve stability, though I haven't tested this on rotating wings in KSP.

Edited July 15, 2014 by goduranus

[Hellothere!]

Well that might actually work, although it isn't how I originally meant the challenge. The main question with this is whether it can carry a ship with enough fuel to reach orbit up to the point where atmosphere starts to get to thin. Good luck with your idea. By the way, are there any recordings on if you can use this for an eve ssto? Just because I'm interested...

[gm537]

By the way, are there any recordings on if you can use this for an eve ssto? Just because I'm interested...

Check out the Eve SSTO thread, but short answer is 'no'. Some people have tried and basically been unsuccessful for the reason you note that even once you have left the atmosphere you need to have a lot of dV.

[Pecan]

They should make a part that lets you burn oxidizers to fly in Jool.

That would a "rocket engine" ^^.

[TJPrime]

That would a "rocket engine" ^^.

I believe he means that you use hydrogen intakes (assuming Jool is made of some proportion of hydrogen and not all Chlorine) and use just oxidizer from the ship itself. It's like jet's on kerbin, only instead of using liquid fuel from the plane and oxygen from the air, it's the other way around.

Now that I think about it, I'll put that on the suggestions.

[Oafman]

Once you get too low the ship disappears.

-250 metres

[gm537]

I believe he means that you use hydrogen intakes (assuming Jool is made of some proportion of hydrogen and not all Chlorine) and use just oxidizer from the ship itself. It's like jet's on kerbin, only instead of using liquid fuel from the plane and oxygen from the air, it's the other way around.

Now that I think about it, I'll put that on the suggestions.

Well actually you ought to be able to make a rocket using Chlorine as the oxidizer and hydrogen as the fuel (or even kerosene) now given the ISP is fairly bad, but in jet form it would probably still be decent. Regardless this is kinda off topic. Let's make some giant rockets and fly to Jool!