Eve scientific Mission

[gilflo]

Mission and ship design

Our mission from R§D was to land on Eve and transmit or recover scientific data.

For that we studied a ship able to give 11500DV on take off from Eve. A Kerbal would land here, collect datas, then fly back to Kerbin in a MK1 lander can, retrieving all the science datas to our base.

Here is the ship using only the KW rocketry Vesta VR-2 which is an old engine studied from the VR-1. I created it and furnished this engine to our base. The VR2 is 600 kg only for a thrust of 120 and an ISP of 350 ASL and 400 in vacuum.

We intended to land at around 5000m on the top of a cliff surrounding the caldeira of what should be an old volcano submerged by sea. So we would get some margin for take off and I thought that 2 VR2 at 5000m were better than any aerospace which is quite heavy for a thrust of 175. So the ship was built on this base.

Here it is from below

and from above

Landing weight on chutes only is around 220T on 40 gears. There’s also 4 material bays, each equipped with a mysterious Goo and a sensor array ay the top to analyse atmosphere.

Gears, Chutes and sciences stuff are all ejectable to give a take weight around 165 T

During EVA, the Kerbal will collect all the sciences datas.

Barometers, temperatures, gravity and seismic datas will be available on the lander can.

The lander can is equipped with 2 parachutes to land at Kerbin.

We will use Mechjeb, and manual engine throttle during last 50m on Eve landing to perform a 0,5m/s landing on Eve, because the material bays are very near from ground and could break if the landing is not performed on a perfect flat ground.

Whatever I tried I was not able to get 11500 DV with a take off weight less than 165 T

710 parts with 11 stages.

Launcher and shuttle to Eve

The last stage will be refueled, once in orbit around Kerbin. It is built with 3 Rockomax Jumbo 64 tanks plus 3 Rockomax 200-X32 fuel tanks with 3 mainsails engines. This will be the Shuttle to Eve and it will also give us DV to de-orbit for landing. Cost of the total including Eve Lander is 1.420.000. quite a big price, and not a so big reward from R§D: 236000 !

Here is the ship on launch, 2015T

From launch to Eve orbit

Last stage at 50000m, 406T to push on a 614km orbit, easier for warping before travel to Eve.

Refueler and its launcher.

It’s a big KW Rocketry 136.75T tanks that contains 11664L of fuel able to fill more than 4 rockomax jumbo tanks. It is design to fly back to Kerbin to retrieve some funds.

it is fitted with RCS and docking port and will manoeuvre to dock on top of Eve lander.

Cost for this launch is 566.000

Rendez vous and Refuelling

Eve Lander with its shuttle is in orbit

Using docking port alignment mod from Navyfish.

Refueller is sent back to Kerbin

Aerobraking for Eve orbit.

Eve Atmosphere begin around 87 km. Aiming a 72.3 km periapsis will give us an orbit around the planet without using any DV.

Then about 5 orbits later, apoapsis will be between 300 and 200 km we will set the periapsis between 78 and 85 kms for a last orbit giving us a periapsis around 120kms. We use minimum DV

Our first landing on Eve

We orbit at 102 kms searching for a landing site over 3000m above SL.

As we overfly this part of the planet mechjeb gives us an an altitude of 5000m for the edges of what looks like the caldeira of an old big volcano!

We decided to land on the top of the cliff. We got around 650DV left to de-orbit the lander and it should be enough…

We perform the scientific experiments in atmosphere near Eve: Material, Bay, Goo, Temperature, and gravity, then we dive in the atmosphere performing the tests in High and low atmosphere, adding atmosphere analysis and barometric pressure.

End of atmosphere breaking around 22000m

At 10000m above ground, manual opening of chutes and separation of shuttle

Speed slow down to 130m/s and we can see the top of the cliff were we will land

The vessel mass is now 225T

Gears are deployed at 5000m above ground, speeed is 88m/s

At 2500m above ground, the 16 MK25 chutes fully deploy and slow down the ship to 28m/s

Here we are at 1200m

At 500m the 192 MK2 - radial chutes will open to slow the ship at 5m/s

We can see we are going to land on moderate slope. I will adjust manually the throttles on the last 50m to get a touch speed less than 1m/s to avoid breaking the material bay with its goo and sensor on the up side that will touch the ground first.

Here landing is completed and I used 80% of the power in the last few meters.

Nothing is broken

Eve EVA and datas collection

Ladders are deployed.

Bill going out of his can!

First step on Eve ground. We can see the slope. Bill admires the sea in the caldeira on the right background!

Materials bay are very near from the ground so that Bill can collect datas without any effort.

Here, Bill climb on the top of the material bay to download atmospheric sensor datas

.

Then he plants a flag, takes a ground sample and climb back to his can with 12 experiments for Kerbin base.

Take off to a 100km orbit

Auto pilot is engage. Profil is a turn at 27.5 ams with a shape of 60%

Ejection of science stuff and chutes

We loose 50T.

TWR comes to 1.52

Ejection of gears at 8m. We loose 9T more, Weight is now 166T and TWR 1.6

53m/s at 263m above ground

2500m true 7500m ASL: Bill can see the caldeira in background

At only 10000M ASL (5000m true) and we are at 113 m/s , vessel mass is now 79T

At 17000m ASL vessel mass is 1/4 of the take off weight! Speed is 177m/s. Bill is not sure we are going to do it!

25000m ASL, speed 269 and mass 28T

76000m over the Caldeira. After separation of last stage we got 2500 DV left and now Bill is sure we will make it. Speed is now 1734 and mass 11T

Separation of last stage

72DV to perform the orbit. We did it!!!

Docking and refueling

Bill did not find the good inclination for the departure to Kerbin, we are not sure to make it even with 1700DV left and he prefers to dock on the space station we launched here on a previous mission

Aligning orbit with space station

1000m from rendez vous

Perfectly aligned at 60m

Docking completed. refueling can begin, it will not take a long time, we only need 360L

[gilflo]

Return to Kerbin

Undocking after refueling

Inclination has been changed to 5°.

Bill uses Protractor to set course to Kerbin

Mid correction

Approaching Kerbin periapsis

Periapsis is 45km

Kerbin orbit established

Atmosphere breaking

5000m over base

Opening chute, separation of tank and engine

Near landing

Below 22m

A sudden explosion throws the lander can away, but it is not destroyed.

Bill is alive

Success of the mission: cost 1.500.000

[technion]

One of the harder missions in the game - well done.

How many legs did you use? I can never seem to avoid them breaking in Eve.

[gilflo]

Well, I used 8 M-Beam 200 and 5 gears on each, total is 40 gears.

With science Bay near the ground like I did, you can touch down at 5m/s and nothing breaks.

But notice that all beam are struted many times on each tank.

There's more than a hundred struts all around the ship.

[Cydonian Monk]

Most impressive. Reminds me... one of these days I need to go rescue the poor nameless kerbal I stranded on Eve....

[technion]

Most impressive. Reminds me... one of these days I need to go rescue the poor nameless kerbal I stranded on Eve....

Can I highly recommend.. send a rover first. I went through this mission a while back and there's nothing more annoying than trying to walk a Kerbal very far. And on Eve, just picking up and lander and flying 10KM and relanding isn't quite what it was on the Mun