My final 0.23.5 mission - Jool Expedition & Manned Laythe Landing

[DoctorDavid]

So with the imminent release of KSP 0.24, I decided to finish off my career save with an ambitious mission. I'd sent manned missions to Duna and Eve so I decided why not send one to Jool? I also decided to land on Laythe as it looked like a very interesting moon to land on.

I began by assembling a ship in 200km Kerbin orbit.

The crew was as follows:

Wilkin Kerman - mission commander

Doodman Kerman - pilot

Obbles Kerman - co-pilot

Sherhat Kerman - chief scientist

Bartny - assistant scientist.

A course to Jool was plotted and the burn began.

Here's the crew waving goodbye to Kerbin.

After a wait of over a year in game time, the Jool Expedition Cruiser arrived at Jool. I set up a burn to bring the ship in for a 119km or thereabouts aerobrake.

Here was my first good view of Jool itself.

Getting a better view of Jool's weather systems here.

The aerobrake in its violent glory!

The ship was captured into Jool's SOI albeit at an awkward angle.

2001 references FTW!

I now maneuvered the ship into a Laythe intercept and aerobrake.

Finally, Wilkin Kerman transferred to the lander module and the little remaining fuel was used to go down to Laythe. Unfortunately, I misjudged the burn and the lander was headed straight to the ocean. So I tried to reload the quicksave, but I pressed F5 instead of F9. Woops.

Amazingly, the lander survived. I will leave you with a picture of Wilkin Kerman having a nice refreshing swim.