Jool Limbo - How low can you go?

[KerikBalm]

A pretty basic challenge:

Get as low as you can in Jool's atmosphere, and then get back to orbit.

People say an Eve ascent is hard... but they haven't done a Jool ascent.

4 catagories:

Stock Aero............FAR/NEAR aero

I............................ II .............. Lowest EVA

III...........................IV.............. Lowest altitude

Lowest EVA: your kerbal has to get out of the pod so it can make an EVA report, and be able to re-enter the pod. No EVAinst at mach V and having your Kerbal blown off into the abyss, this catagory should favors descent via parachutes

Lowest altitude: Open-class so to speak, whil it may not be usefull in stock due to the soup model, in NEAR/FAR, you can, if you want plunge to a low altitude at really really high speed, so that you've got some KE saved up to get back to orbit.

Rules: SpacePlane+ allowed, as it is nearly stock (and even nearer so once .25 is out), FAR/NEAR allowed obviously. No other part mos allowed (mechjeb, kerbal enginner, etc, are fine). I don't care how you get to jool orbit, but if you hyper edit yourself there, you must start at less than escape velocity.

No ladder/kraken drives or infinigliders/ misc. abuse of physics - massless part spamming excepted.

No part clipping.

All Kerbals must have a pod, no external chairs...

If you make it to 0 altitude, then the one to get to zero altitude and back to a stable orbit with the lightest craft at 0 altitude wins

Leader Board:

I

II

III

IV

[DevoidLight]

Interesting idea. How did your attempt go?

[KerikBalm]

kerbal fell off the ladder and plunged into the abysss

also, be sure to add an action group to cut parachutes.... i need to get hyper edit

[SkyRex94]

I can submit an entry immediatly:

Look into my Signature and view my Jool 5 Report:

lowest was around 119000m, yeah not everybody had a capsule, but at least Jeb was in a Mk1Lander ( maybe count it as a One Man ship and without EVA)

[goduranus]

Like with the other Jool altitude challenge, I would say that the way to go with winning this is to use a helicopter.

Parachute it to zero altitude, then cut chutes and begin spinning until the atmosphere is thin enough to use nuclear engines efficiently. Then burn to orbit with a nuclear engine.

[cantab]

My record is 86.7 km, on an aerocapture from a forty km/s approach. That made heavy use of mods though, principally Near Future, so it's not eligible. It might be possible to try something similar with stock parts, of course using a much smaller payload and maybe needing a bit more patience with the departure burn.

Picture if interested: https://flic.kr/p/oKBCqv

[Heimdall5008]

I'm trying just this for my Jool mission. My plan is to get an EVA in lower atmosphere (and not sacrifice Jeb). So I have to solve this problem somehow.

I have a plane that should be able to enter low atmosphere do all the science and came back out of the atmosphere. Just orbiting does not work as planned... I will see in my sandbox game before I start the "real" mission in career.

[Himynameisjake]

just put Jeb on a chair and you're golden.