These Are the Voyages: A Longterm, Ion-Only, System Tour

[JordanL]

Well... this is the first time I've done one of these. Most of the time, I simply don't like my creations enough to really show them off, but this time... this time I spent almost two days putting together the first leg of this mission.

Now, let me describe the craft.

Click the images to go to the big versions!

I used some SRB's to get it to about 15km. Everything else for the entire mission will be Ion Engines.

Eight giant SRBs were used. The "bridge" is at the front of the "top" nacelle, and the other three are topped with Xe generators.

This is how I always design my ships. They end in a Sr. Docking Port stacked on top of a battery on top of a monopropellent tank. Then I use four symmetric radial structure pieces to put quantum struts on them. When I dock, the other ship will have the same structures lined up, and the quantum struts will hold the two ships together rigidly.

The RCS ports I'm using are curved and animated. When they are turned off like in the previous image, they recess into the ship, but when they turn on, the jump out. They're also curved to follow the shape of the ship.

Liftoff! Glow strips mark the ship. Green is the command nacelle (topped with the Mk3-9 module), Blue is an engine only nacelle, and Red is the interior side of a nacelle.

Mun was directly overhead when I launched.

Getting up at a few thousand meters now... the first boosters will be gone soon.

Now we're on the second set of four boosters. This set should take us to almost 20,000 meters.

Well into our gravity turn now, the last boosters are done.

And for the rest of this craft's life, these Ion engines will be all that power it.

Since they don't leave visible exhaust, even at full throttle this craft looks peaceful. You can see the sun about to rise behind me, but I'm going to outrun it.

Onward... finish that boost burn!

For the circularization burn, I turned off the more powerful Ion engines to allow the ship to more carefully burn at the maneuver node. I have them in actions groups. 7 turns the large ones on, 8 turns them off. 9 turns the small ones on, 0 turns them off.

Just finishing the circularization.

And already on the other side of Kerbin.

The only thing left is to deploy the radiators for the generators. (Toggle action group 1)

So... what should I name it?

I still have between 3,000m/s and 5,000m/s delta-v left, depending on the engine configuration I use. I can also refuel the Xe if I have to, and the "Xe intakes" will slowly replenish it as I go.

What should I do with this ship? I think I should try to make an Ion engine lander and dock it to take with me. I plan to visit every body in the Kerbol system with this vessel.

Edited June 14, 2014 by JordanL

[arsmith]

This looks like a great ship for a Grand Tour. Can you get an Ion lander to land and take off from the tougher spots like Eve and Tylo?

As for names... How about Endurance? It's got a pedigree as an exploration ship name and fits in well with the "replenishes its own fuel" idea.

[JordanL]

This looks like a great ship for a Grand Tour. Can you get an Ion lander to land and take off from the tougher spots like Eve and Tylo?

As for names... How about Endurance? It's got a pedigree as an exploration ship name and fits in well with the "replenishes its own fuel" idea.

Not bad.

I don't think I'll be able to make an Eve-capable Ion lander that takes a Kerbal to the surface. I can try though.

I am making an ion-only spaceplane though, for use on Eve, Laythe, Duna, Jool and Kerbin.