Eve in a single mission

[technion]

Hey guys,

Here I am doing something I never thought possible - Eve and back in a single mission. This is also the first time I've performed this with both FAR and DRE installed. Both of these made the environment on Eve an absolute nightmare.

As always, I host my images on an experimental SSL server, so feedback about whether they load is appreciated.

Here's the rocket sitting there.

I liked having a large amount of small SRBs. They only needed to run a few seconds for the TWR on the main lifter to get > 1.1.

Dropped the lifter, burn to Eve. I can't tell you how much more interesting these missions are now I don't have 45 minute LV-N burns.

This is the deorbit. Step one of dealing with DRE, is to actually burn off as much of your speed as possible during the descent, before hitting the thicker parts.

Despite being covered in heat shields, you can see various parts kept overheating. I had to keep making slight turns and rotations to keep things from exploding.

You would think that I would drop the heat shields the moment we cleared the atmospheric burn. Actually, they worked pretty well as aerobrakes. If they dropped before the parachutes, the rocket would be going too fast and the parachutes would break off. All my chutes expanded at different levels. We dropped the shields once two sets opened.

Touchdown. Daytime.

[technion]

This here is the reason for the first mission failure. The process of decoupling science modules and having them parachute down didn't work under Eve's gravity. They just dropped and exploded on the rocket. In this version two, each science module had a probe core and a small engine. They could decouple, fly a little bit and parachute down.

One gathered science in the atmosphere, one was for the surface.

Both landed.

Obligatory.

I don't understand what happened here because the ladder doesn't clip like this on Kerbin. It took a few minutes of jumping and grinding to get over that tank.

[technion]

Here's the launch. The whole thing is a disaster really.

You have to launch at full throttle or for some reason the rocket won't clear the bottom landing framework from the decoupler, and you'll carry it into liftoff. But you have to throttle back straight away or FAR will immediately flip the rocket. I really feel like it should have had fins, but you can't add fins without having them burn up during entry, even with the seven heat shields I carried the whole way from Kerbin. There are six SAS modules to keep things in check, and while that only just does the job, the rocket can be supersensitive to controls.

FAR has a terminal velocity readout, but the rocket will turn upside down if I get anywhere near it. FAR encourages you to start turning earlier than the stock game, but I found it very difficult. The prograde marker has a habit of turning itself to nearly flat with the horizon when you're only 20KM off the ground and the Ap is nowhere near the 100KM it should be.

Most of the ascent looks like this. You can note the speed vs the Terminal V, and the lowered throttle. Any more and there's a flip.

Yay! Things finally get easier at about this height, when the smaller parts of the rocket kick in.

Circularised.

[technion]

Here's the cool part: The top stage of the rocket was an ion driven unit with 2500 dv. Hopefully enough for the trip home.

Coming back in.

This is another part that rook about 15 tries. FAR REALLY wanted to turn this over. If it succeeded, the parachute burnt up thanks to DRE. I don't understand what the proper solution is. Placing a drogue chute on the top just creates a chute that will burn up thanks to DRE. Trying to put anything else that made drag at the top ignores the fact this was the top of the launcher and was already very happy to flip.

Touchdown. One panel survived - I felt an urge to top of electricity before finishing.

Science.

Edited June 7, 2014 by technion

[Wallygator]

Nicely Done!

Images load well.

I've got a few kerbals stranded on Eve - might need to borrow some of the design ideas you show here.

[Pipcard]

That's an actual command pod, not one of those exposed command seats, and you launched this with one rocket? Amazing!

[NERVAfan]

Yeah, this is incredible.

[technion]

That's an actual command pod, not one of those exposed command seats, and you launched this with one rocket? Amazing!

I've done several Eve missions in the past using command seats and probe cores. As much as I complained about this mod configuration, the good thing about FAR is that an aerodynamic top on a lander can somewhat offsets the extra weight, whereas a command seat on a pod is just an aerobrake for the launch.

I actually tried this mission a while back and as far as I'm concerned it wasn't feasible prior to the NASA parts - all missions this size only just made Kerbin orbit, then a tug had to go up and dock.

Nicely Done!

Images load well.

I've got a few kerbals stranded on Eve - might need to borrow some of the design ideas you show here.

Thanks!

I did a rescue mission a while back, and the catch was definitely the need to drop a rover, and be prepared for a drive. It's very difficult to do a precision landing in this atmosphere, and no one wants to walk a Kerbal 60kms.

[Superfluous J]

Very nice! Similar to my Eve mission though I did 2 launches. It was totally unnecessary though and I could have fairly easily gotten both the lander and transfer stage up in the same craft. Woulda reduced wobble on the interplanetary burns too

I'm not a DRE/FAR player, though, so my method of entry (straight down at about 5km/s onto the planet's tallest mountain) would have killed my guy for sure

[technion]

I'm not a DRE/FAR player, though, so my method of entry (straight down at about 5km/s onto the planet's tallest mountain) would have killed my guy for sure

5km/s isn't as unmanageable as it sounds with DRE. With a standard landing capsule, if you can shave it down to 4km/s it can safely aerobrake to capture, and after 1-2 orbits it'll be fine to come down. What's terrible is landing on Eve. You can't "just put a heatshield" on anything capable of the ascent.

[Superfluous J]

5km/s isn't as unmanageable as it sounds with DRE. With a standard landing capsule, if you can shave it down to 4km/s it can safely aerobrake to capture, and after 1-2 orbits it'll be fine to come down. What's terrible is landing on Eve. You can't "just put a heatshield" on anything capable of the ascent.

You missed the "straight down" part. I literally aimed at that mountain (with the lat/long tool in KER) and just came straight down on it. I didn't check but I wouldn't be surprised if I was in the several dozen G's for several seconds while coming down. Aerobraking over several passes works great, but then you have to do WORK to land exactly where you want, and I'm naturally lazy

And I assume you can "just put a heatshield" on your ship and then when lifting off, leave it on the surface?

Edited June 8, 2014 by 5thHorseman

[technion]

You missed the "straight down" part. I literally aimed at that mountain (with the lat/long tool in KER) and just came straight down on it. I didn't check but I wouldn't be surprised if I was in the several dozen G's for several seconds while coming down. Aerobraking over several passes works great, but then you have to do WORK to land exactly where you want, and I'm naturally lazy

And I assume you can "just put a heatshield" on your ship and then when lifting off, leave it on the surface?

Haha yep, straight down won't go down well with DRE !

Heatshields work like decouplers, you can see where I came down on Eve with nine of them (I know I said six earlier), then had them staged to just drop off once I was running slow. The small ones were 0.4T each, the weight sure adds up when you try taking them to Jool.

That said, I actually didn't have a heatshield on my return to Kerbin, that was most of the reason I had to approach it so gently. I believe it would have dealt with my "flipping over with FAR" problem also, due to the weight. But that weight is exactly the reason trying to push it from Eve to Kerbin under ion power was never going to happen.

[peadar1987]

I did a minimal-mass Mun mission I feel is a tiny bit relevant. No command module, just a booster in orbit around the Mun with a docking port on it. Heat shield and decoupler behind the docking port, so once the burn for home was done, I fired the decouple and had a heat shield ready to go.

Never gotten off the surface of Eve though, my carefully-crafted lander just keeps flipping on ascent. Pesky FAR!