Jool 5 mission

[technion]

Hey guys,

I did a Jool 5 mission a while back, and wanted to try a completely different process this time. I sent a different Kerbal to every moon, and brought a lot of science kit. That said, we didn't completely meet the "Jeb mode" criteria, so I guess it's just a "normal" run.

That said, what I'm doing different this time is two major mods:

Deadly re-entry

FAR

DRE has a huge impact on this mission. We need to haul tonnes of heatshields the entire way there just to haul them back, and the return can't simply crash into Kerbal. More importantly, everyone aerobrakes at Jool - but I couldn't.

FAR also had a significant impact on what I could do on Laythe. It took several attempts at a lifter that didn't just flip over. It also meant my original launches couldn't be asparagus staged.

The first thing we lifted was the Tylo lander. Thanks to new parts, there was no weight issue including it on the original launch. FAR, however, simply didn't give me an aerodynamic method of doing so.

The launch process. Due to FAR, there's no asparagus here. The outside four all feed to the inside, but we need to be out of the atmosphere before they drop or it just flips.

Here we can see the Tylo lander, with a supply of fuel to manage a rendezvous with the mothership.

[technion]

This meanwhile, is the mothership. It has the entire rest of the mission.

There's a whole heap of those small boosters to get it moving on take off.

Dropping SRBs.. needed to add in separatrons to make that safe.

Lifter stage depleted.

This thing was a counterweight - except it wasn't. The rocket is properly weighted without it. It wasn't however, aerodynamically symmetrical, and I had to put this on without a nosecone to make it fly straight.

Coming in for dock.

The completed rocket. I didn't plan on still having fuel in the outside tanks, so there's an extra bit of mainsail power we can start our ejection with.

[technion]

Now here's what I'm talking about. What good is packing 2km/s of fuel for the ejection, if an insertion is going to cost you 3km/s?

The ejection manoeuvre didn't seem perfect, but it did the job.

Now this is new... direct capture to Tylo. People talk about the efficiencies of heading straight to Laythe, but then, if DRE is just going to make the ship explode, you might aswell hit Tylo. The capture burn was surprisingly acceptable.

I packed T30's on the outside tanks, once it just the middle one, it's nuclear power. This is going to be a slow capture. Still, that's manageable. The 45 minutes ejection estimates when the whole transport was nuclear was completely unmanageable.

Getting in a Tylo orbit, Jool in background.

[technion]

I still hate Tylo. If you think you've hit this without quicksave/restore... you are my hero. It's also a mission I really would struggle with without KRE's surface altitude readout.

Bringing it down slow.

Obligatory.

This was actually how I planned to gather this science. I could reach the material bays, but not the goo cannisters. If you decoupled the material bays, they exploded, and the canisters were easily harvested.

Coming in for pickup.

[technion]

This rocket featured a minimal transport tug to take care of the three smaller moons. This was supposed to go to Vall, but I slightly messed up the intercept, and ended up at Pol....

I tried to get every intercept on a good incline.

No shots on the ground.. so here's one of a landing.

As per a bug thread I made a while back, no matter what, the built-in dock system would also claim I was on target, if I was pointed an engine instead of the actual docking port. Navyfish to the rescue.

Back at Tylo, wow that's a bad intercept with the mothership. But this small tug has the dv to meet up.

This dock was incredibly hard - again, I had to use Navyfish' mod to pull it off.

Success. Now we can refuel, swap kerbals out and pick up another science pack from the mothership.

[technion]

Mission repeat, at Vall.

On the ground. Vall used a lot more lander fuel than I expected.

Docked all over again with the mothership back at Tylo orbit.

One last time, at Bop. Same lander and small transport.

Touchdown.

Just carrying the science back to the mothership, after three cycles of land and transport, the small carrier is done.

[technion]

The whole mothership has to haul itself to Laythe. It's asymmetrical but surprisingly manageable. Having used that entire orange tank to be captured by Tylo, I got nervous about fuel here. Turns out there was plenty though.

I have no idea what this intercept was meant to look like.

Laythe orbit established for the mothership. Dropping the Laythe lander now.

This is why I use jets on Laythe. Not because it's cool, but because trying to land on actual land is a huge pain. I hated trying to actually target ground in previous missions. Deorbit, then just fly to the nearest island. Due to the low atmosphere, DRE didn't make much of a fuss.

Coming down.

[technion]

Somehow I missed the ground shot again. The science labs on the side decoupled on launch.

Flying this with FAR was quite difficult. Because there were no actual wings, it had to go straight up until the air thinned out, to avoid the standard issue of flipping. Here, the top component comes in for transfer to mothership.

[technion]

Back at Kerbin - look at the capture burn. Due to DRE, this had to be done this way, the approach was way too fast to survive anything else. So, that's 1700dv more than more people needed, and I needed it on the part that can usually be smallest.

Look at the G-force when that heat shield pops. The inflatable heat shield handles just about any amount of heat - but look at that G force when it hits atmosphere. Approaching any faster than this would have killed them.

Kerbals with habitat coming down.

Mission complete. I didn't put a huge amount of effort into gathering every piece of science possible.