Mission to Jool

[DunaRocketeer]

I'm currently playing out a mission to Jool, hopefully landing on Vall and returning home without refuelling. We'll see how well that goes...

My most powerful launcher right now lifts a shade over 37 tons, so this is an orbital assembly type strategy:

The lander doubles as the interplanetary propulsion module to save weight:

The complete asembled vehicle in Kerbin orbit, almost ready to burn out of here

One last thing: Kerbonauts!

I couldn't design the lander/propulsion segment with an escape system, so the crew ferry up to the spacecraft on a seperate vehicle:

So that's it for now, next time, the trip out to Jool!

[DunaRocketeer]

The relatively heavy spacecraft requires several burns to exit Kerbin's SOI:

But eventually it breaks free of the home planets gravity:

After a long coast out, the Joolian system looms large:

And a firey aerocapture puts us in orbit around Jool

I hope the next post will get me up to the point of landing on Vall!

[DunaRocketeer]

After aerocapture, the spacecraft performs an engine burn that brings it into an ancounter with Vall:

Upon establishing an orbit around the icy moon, the two Kerbonauts separate their spacecraft and manoeuvre towards a landing:

Touchdown! The crew plant flags, deploy their rover and beging their surface mission.

[DunaRocketeer]

The mission continue with some surface exploration and science experiments on the surface of Vall. The rover covered a good 40km of varying terrain, the crew collecting surface samples as they went:

After a successful surface mission it was time to hitch the rover back under the lander, retract the ladder and head back into orbit.

The crew begins the manoeuvres that will get them out of Vall orbit:

The big tank, its propellant spent is just dead weight now, and so is cast off:

Heading home!

The last part of this mission should be completed tomorrow, hopefully getting the ship and crew back to the space station around Kerbin, ready to be refuelled for another adventure.

The ship should really have a name if it's being used more than once - any ideas?

[KingPhantom]

great rocket design!

it looks so easy...

i dont know how to aerobreak. i dont go deep enough or too deep...

[Oafman]

great rocket design!

it looks so easy...

i dont know how to aerobreak. i dont go deep enough or too deep...

Try this calculator: http://alterbaron.github.io/ksp_aerocalc/

[WooDzor]

also.. auto save is your friend. I always promise myself to write down the working altitudes, but I end up being so chuffed with myself i managed that i forget. same thing with the ideal orbital angles(not the word) of planets :-/

Prolly why I don't own a real space agency and I am only allowed to play KSP

BTW nice mission!

[DunaRocketeer]

Aah I didn't know about an aerobrake calculator, all those poor Kerbals sacrificed to find the right altitude

Hope to get this mission wrapped up tonight, and since the propulsion/lander/hab module/rover is reuseable, I reckon it'll send it off to eeloo next.

Thanks for the comments

Edited June 18, 2014 by DunaRocketeer

[DunaRocketeer]

After a long fall sunwards (and the resulting insane velocity build up, I've only returned one mission from Jool before, so never noticed...) we finally sight home, aerobraking once again to get us into orbit:

The crew ferry spacecraft once again launches to pick up the two returning kerbonauts:

And finally, mission completion! The crew return to Kerbin, safely splashing down into the ocean after years of travelling trough deep space!

That was fun, going to do another mission with the same spacecraft again soon, probably to Eeloo (I've never sent a Kerbal out that far before, only flybys with ion probes. I think it'll be an easier mission than this one due to not having to do as many engine burns.