Kron series (Kron 6 end of mission) - temporary halt of program

[_Augustus_]

I think you should go with Slate, and maybe perhaps, if you have any knowledge on planning and doing (Sort-of) complex interplanetary trajectories, do a Jool flyby while heading to Sarnus.

Yeah, Slate is like Tylo with mega big mountains.

BTW Nicholander what happened to Kerbol+?

[Drakoflame]

If you choose to do a Kron 4 (seeing as 3 is either Eve or Slate), and go to Stella, here is a little something to help *plop* http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100798

If your doing this in science/career mode, they are unlocked in the Experimental Rocketry node. I think it would be interesting to see a probe to first, only to have it "accidentally" go to close to the closest planet (forgot its name >n<) and crash. If you use hyper edit or something along with the Kerboom mod or whatever its called that lets you destroy parts, you can make part of the ship "survive" the "crash", giving reason to sending a manned mission out there to investigate what happened! And, if there's some sort of mod that adds a probe core that can be picked up with KAS, use that so you can bring the probe back as a "piece of history"!

[lajoswinkler]

I think you should go with Slate, and maybe perhaps, if you have any knowledge on planning and doing (Sort-of) complex interplanetary trajectories, do a Jool flyby while heading to Sarnus.

If I go to Slate, first, then later going to Eve, it will be less interesting. Going to Eve is not that awesome anymore. Everyone saw it. It is still interesting, but I'd like a slow buildup of interest.

My current plan is to dump a probe on the shores of Eve, then send a Kerbal to pick up a part(s) of it and return to Kerbin. This is insane enough. It will probably require a rover. I do these things manually; MechJeb is out of the question. Also, Deadly Reentry, even though it's not difficult, makes going to Eve a very demanding task because of the atmospheric density.

When I go to Slate, I'll try to use Jool flyby as a gravitational slingshot, but can't make any promises. These things often cause more problems than they solve.

If you choose to do a Kron 4 (seeing as 3 is either Eve or Slate), and go to Stella, here is a little something to help *plop* http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100798

If your doing this in science/career mode, they are unlocked in the Experimental Rocketry node. I think it would be interesting to see a probe to first, only to have it "accidentally" go to close to the closest planet (forgot its name >n<) and crash. If you use hyper edit or something along with the Kerboom mod or whatever its called that lets you destroy parts, you can make part of the ship "survive" the "crash", giving reason to sending a manned mission out there to investigate what happened! And, if there's some sort of mod that adds a probe core that can be picked up with KAS, use that so you can bring the probe back as a "piece of history"!

I'm in sandbox mode. Thanks for the suggestion, it's similar to what I've been planning for Eve, although I don't know how to pick up probes.

How far away is Stella-Barry system? I've never used Planet Factory CE, only the original one I still like the best. It might be possible to reach them using nuclear propulsion. I'd rather use something realistic, but if it turns out to be impossible or extremely difficult, I'll have to use this warp thingy.

Anyway, I'm not doing the third mission very soon. I'm quite tired and don't have the time for it, but I will continue this, so thanks for the support.

[Nicholander]

I really do like this, when do you think you'll continue?

[lajoswinkler]

It will take at least one week before I start planning it more thoroughly.

[_Augustus_]

Please eventually do an interstellar mission...

[lajoswinkler]

By the way, I've set up a target for one of the future Kron mission to Sarnus system. Kron 3A. A chemical propulsion probe brought a tiny lander without any propulsion and threw it on Hale. The lander ejected a hook and caught the surface of this object which is even smaller than Gilly. After some yo-yo action, the thing locked itself in place, took some readings and turned itself off. Some future Kerbal will probably do an extreme EVA to retrieve an instrument of it.

banner b, banner c, banner d, banner e, banner f, banner g, banner h, banner i, banner j, banner k, banner l, banner m, banner n, banner o

One of the instruments was broken, but either way there wasn't enough charge in the battery for all of the experiments.

Edited April 1, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[lajoswinkler]

One more probe (Kron 3B) was sent as a target, this one on Ovok. It is an ion engine powered, active tether type probe.

Half way between Jool and Sarnus, light is so low the solar panels are just a dead weight, so I've jettisoned them.

It took several brakings some 150 km above Sarnus' atmosphere to slow down enough to start planning a rendezvous with Ovok, and it was a success.

It took less than 25 m/s to turn this orbit into a polar one.

Glowing of the stones reminded me of the first time I went to Minmus.

KAS hook was used, again. Landing site was rim of one crater.

And now the probe lies in the icy fluff of Ovok, bombarded by the ionizing radiation around Sarnus.

There's enough energy in its RTG units to keep it alive for a long time, but by the time Kerbals visit it, they will he very depleted (RTG decay mod).

[Drakoflame]

lajoswinkler , to respond to your question of how far away is Stelly, its roughly 2.5 Tm away form Kerbin (found using Remote Tech and pointing an antenna at it, only to find that nothing in the mod can reach it without a prob floating in intergalactic space...)

You COULD reach it with Chemical, but it would require insanely efficient engines with massive ISP's, as well as would require the ship to be build in Neidon's orbit (if you use OPM). You could also "cheat" and install Extra Planetary Launch Pads and set a launchpad up on Eeloo (which, with OPM, is probably the closest planet, at the correct phase angle) and then mine Eeloo for rescourses, and build up a new rocket in Eeloos orbit (which could be preferable due to no atmosphere and low escape velosity). My reccomendation would be to send a probe first on a high speed colision coarse with one of the planets, having it doing a few aerobreaks in one of the gas giants, before turning into a pile of scrap on the surface~

Edit: ohy, I forgot to say, you can use Kopernicus (well you could, unless _Augustus_ still has his mod available for download, or if Stella is compatable with the new Kopernicus)

Edited February 5, 2015 by Drakoflame

[Nicholander]

Yes! SARNUS!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for the manned mission!

[lajoswinkler]

lajoswinkler , to respond to your question of how far away is Stelly, its roughly 2.5 Tm away form Kerbin (found using Remote Tech and pointing an antenna at it, only to find that nothing in the mod can reach it without a prob floating in intergalactic space...)

You COULD reach it with Chemical, but it would require insanely efficient engines with massive ISP's, as well as would require the ship to be build in Neidon's orbit (if you use OPM). You could also "cheat" and install Extra Planetary Launch Pads and set a launchpad up on Eeloo (which, with OPM, is probably the closest planet, at the correct phase angle) and then mine Eeloo for rescourses, and build up a new rocket in Eeloos orbit (which could be preferable due to no atmosphere and low escape velosity). My reccomendation would be to send a probe first on a high speed colision coarse with one of the planets, having it doing a few aerobreaks in one of the gas giants, before turning into a pile of scrap on the surface~

Edit: ohy, I forgot to say, you can use Kopernicus (well you could, unless _Augustus_ still has his mod available for download, or if Stella is compatable with the new Kopernicus)

I think it would be much better to use a bielliptical transfer because Kerbin is relatively very close to Kerbol in comparison to Stelly. Using nuclear thermal rockets, it might be possible to launch this ship with a centrifuge there and return home. But before this, Sarnus mission has to be done, and by the time I do it, Urlum will get satellites.

- - - Updated - - -

Kron 3C probe was launched on a pretty tiny rocket, but as I went with ion engines, this was pretty straightforward. Target was Eeloo, now existing as the third satellite of Sarnus.

This is a really small probe relying on one RTG unit and a decent battery. All the way to Jool it used solar panels which were jettisoned after that.

TWR was decent enough to significantly lower the number of passes through periapses in order to break. I would use aerobraking, but Sarnus has a buggy atmosphere. That's one of the things which will delay the actual manned mission.

The probe now rests in the creamy dirt of Eeloo. Next probe, Kron 3D, will land on Slate.

[lajoswinkler]

Kron 3D was launched towards Slate.

Lander was pushed using a nuclear thermal module.

Now it's in Slate's polar orbit, waiting further instructions.

[Tommygun]

I've crash into Hale 8 times, does that count as landing?

Nice mission reports.

I'm planning on a trip to Stella with TAC life support and DeepFreeze cryonic crew storage mod.

I haven't decided what kind of engine from KSP Interstellar to use.

I don't want it to be too fast like the Alcubierre Drive, so I'm thinking antimatter, Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster or a Vista engine.

I'm tempted to send a probe out with a solar sail, but I don't think the mod can work with two stars.

[lajoswinkler]

It's a crash landing so... I'd say it's a start.

Thx, and thx for the tip about DeepFreeze. I didn't know that thing existed and I'm now considering to use it on missions to much more distant targets. Centrifuges are for 1-2 years of travel. Going to Urlum and beyond calls for something much more serious.

[Zuqq]

Nice mission reports. Theres some beauty shots in here. You're ships are much more elegant than what I can design, especially for such large missions!

Very much looking forward to the next installment.

[lajoswinkler]

Slate is rotating very slowly so it's almost perfectly tidally locked to Sarnus. It took a while to observe any analyze the whole surface. Not knowing about the biome map, I've decided to land on a dry river bed.

Fuel leftovers were used for lowering the periapsis below the planet's surface.

After several burns the lander touched the ground at almost 0.5 m/s.

Later I've remembered you could see biomes so I've decided to use the rest of the fuel to hop from the riverbed to the tiny blue biome patch nearby.

All the data shows that this area has something to do with hell. Heavy metal deposits, heat, earthquakes.

Seismometer wants to escape, but with only 260 m/s left, this is impossible.

Kerbals will have to land there one day.

[-Velocity-]

lajoswinkler , to respond to your question of how far away is Stelly, its roughly 2.5 Tm away form Kerbin (found using Remote Tech and pointing an antenna at it, only to find that nothing in the mod can reach it without a prob floating in intergalactic space...)

You COULD reach it with Chemical, but it would require insanely efficient engines with massive ISP's, as well as would require the ship to be build in Neidon's orbit (if you use OPM).

2.5x10^12 meters? That's not very far at all. Most things in KSP are like 1/10th scale; 1/10th scale to Alpha Centauri is still 4x10^15 meters! It seems to me they made this "Stella" more than one thousand times closer than would be realistic, even AFTER taking into account everything being shrunk in KSP by a factor of ten.

Anyway, if you REALLY want to depart the solar system at very high speed, the trick I use is to fly out to the outer reaches of the solar system, then cut my transverse velocity to Kerbol almost down to zero (which won't take much because you're out pretty far). You deliberately put yourself into an almost sun-grazing orbit. At perihelion, your solar panels work ridiculously well, and you can generate enough power with one to power several ion engines. So at perihelion you fire your ion engines and zip away with most of your solar orbital velocity, plus like 40+ km/s. You can easily get 100 km/s final antisolar velocity with enough ion stages.

Maybe something less extreme could be used if you really want to cut down on your flight times. Also, it's not hard to make your own xenon tanks and upsized xenon engines. The xenon tanks in the stock game are freaking horrible, only like 50% of their weight is fuel. It's very easy to edit some part files and make some bigger ones, with 85%+ fuel by weight. I've done them before, but they had the skins of the regular fuel tanks. Anyway, with big, efficient xenon tanks, a mulit-staged crewed electric-ion ship with 100 km/s dV is probably reasonable, but it will be very massive, a few thousand tons. If not 100 km/s, then close to it.

Edited February 9, 2015 by |Velocity|

[lajoswinkler]

Velocity, that's a bielliptic transfer and it's probably the best approach for such missions, but I would't tweak the xenon tanks. That's cheating yourself.

As some of you might've found out, Outer Planets mod has been updated and now contains a Titan-like satellite in the orbit around Sarnus called Tekto.

Kron 3E will contain a Sarnus impactor and a Tekto lander.

A daughter-project has been arranged by the Ministry of No Better Things To Do called Kaos and it will be used to probe Urlum and Neidon atmospheres while they're still under development by the OPM team.

Kaos 1 has already been launched and is currently on a trajectory leading to reentry at the south pole of Urlum.

Edited February 9, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[Drakoflame]

wow... that last picture... absolutely beautiful.... all those little teeny tiny dots in the distance... I'm surprised that the solar panel (if that's what that is) works well/at all at that distance. What is its energy rate that far out?

[-Velocity-]

Velocity, that's a bielliptic transfer and it's probably the best approach for such missions, but I would't tweak the xenon tanks. That's cheating yourself.

Thanks for the info- I didn't know what it was called.

As far as the xenon tanks, if making my own mod that adds new, larger xenon tanks and engines is cheating, then any mod at all is cheating. You're "cheating" too, because you use mods. It's all a matter of perspective, and in my view, it's not cheating if it's realistic. When I made my xenon tanks mod, I used the real density of liquid xenon and the physical size of the tank to determine the amount of fuel the tank contains. I make the mass of the tank only like 10% of the mass of the xenon because xenon is an extremely heavy gas- liquid xenon is like 3 times denser than water. I don't just make up numbers to fit how I'd like them to be, I make up numbers to fit how it should be. When I was done, I had large, realistic-capacity xenon tanks. And boy were they heavy! Xenon is, in fact, the heaviest stable noble gas, so full xenon tanks SHOULD be very heavy!!!

Edited February 9, 2015 by |Velocity|

[-Velocity-]

BTW, as an example, the stock xenon tank (the "PB-X150 Xenon Container", not the radial attached one), scaled up to 2.5 m, would weigh 7.68 tons full, 3.2 tons empty, and store 44800 units of xenon fuel (one unit = 0.1 kg). You calculate these numbers by multiplying everything by 64, since the radius increases by a factor of four and these are three dimensional objects, so their volume and (and mass) increases by radius cubed.

3.2 tons, empty. The Rockomax X200-8 Fuel Tank, which has similar dimensions to a scaled up PB-X150, weighs 0.5 tons empty. These are xenon tanks intended to go on a spacecraft, not sit around in some lab somewhere, so they are designed to minimize mass. I can't see how it's possible to make a case that 3.2 tons empty is a realistic number for a spaceflight application.

BTW, a 4X scaled up PB-X150 xenon tank would measure about 1.25 meters radius by, let's just say 1.25 meters tall (I can't remember the actual length, but I did know it at one time). The volume would therefore be 6.14 cubic meters. Liquid xenon has a density of 3100 kg/m^3. If the tank's volume was 100% utilized as storage for liquid xenon, it would therefore hold about 19000 kg of xenon- or 190 thousand units of xenon fuel. However, a scaled up version of the tank only holds 44800 units of fuel. Therefore, the stock xenon tank only utilizes 44.8/190*100% = 24% of its volume to store liquid xenon fuel. Again, is that realistic?! HELL NO.

So the stock xenon tanks are doubly unrealistic- they weigh far too much, and they only utilize about a fourth of their volume to store fuel.

So, what I did for my scaled up xenon tanks is design a better, more realistic tank. Let's be conservative and say that the dry mass is 1500 kg - the tank must be heavier because the fuel is more massive, and maybe the tank needs some extra thermal shielding. I donno. But, while less than half the mass of the scaled-up stock version, 1.5 tons is still three times the mass of the regular liquid fuel tank of the same size! Also, let's say that it utilizes 70% of its volume for storing liquid xenon. This sounds pretty reasonable to me. 70% of 190 thousand is 133000, which is 13.3 tons. So a realistic, scaled-up 2.5 meter xenon tank using the PB-X150's shape holds 133,000 units of xenon fuel, weighs 14.8 tons full, and 1.5 tons empty.

ANYWAY, all that said, you don't have to use ion propulsion to go a measly 2.5 billion km in a reasonable time span. NTRs will work just fine!

Edited February 9, 2015 by |Velocity|

[lajoswinkler]

wow... that last picture... absolutely beautiful.... all those little teeny tiny dots in the distance... I'm surprised that the solar panel (if that's what that is) works well/at all at that distance. What is its energy rate that far out?

Yes, that's basically the whole stock system in one screenshot. I think Kerbin is the rightmost dot.

Even without sunlight decay introduced, it would not end well, but here the total decay of useable light is between Jool and Sarnus. The largest panels stop working there, so you have to rely on some other method. I use RTG units with decay mod for more realism. IDK why that behaviour isn't stock...

Thanks for the info- I didn't know what it was called.

As far as the xenon tanks, if making my own mod that adds new, larger xenon tanks and engines is cheating, then any mod at all is cheating. You're "cheating" too, because you use mods. It's all a matter of perspective, and in my view, it's not cheating if it's realistic. When I made my xenon tanks mod, I used the real density of liquid xenon and the physical size of the tank to determine the amount of fuel the tank contains. I make the mass of the tank only like 10% of the mass of the xenon because xenon is an extremely heavy gas- liquid xenon is like 3 times denser than water. I don't just make up numbers to fit how I'd like them to be, I make up numbers to fit how it should be. When I was done, I had large, realistic-capacity xenon tanks. And boy were they heavy! Xenon is, in fact, the heaviest stable noble gas, so full xenon tanks SHOULD be very heavy!!!

That's not adding larger tanks. You were talking about changing the ratio of dry and wet tank mass. In the constraints of the game, that's cheating.

Not every mod is cheating. For example procedural parts' tanks have the same stock dry:wet ratio and they're basically used to change the look of your craft. It does not alter the gaming itself. I don't know any of my mods to change crucial game values. They're mostly plugins that add stuff like Planetshine, Distant Object. And on the top of everything, I make the game more difficult by playing with Deadly Reentry, although that will soon become stock.

I didn't say you were a bad person or that you shouldn't do that or that I'll call the Kerbal police or anything, I was just stating a fact - altering the core parameters of the game to make stuff easier changes the difficulty of the game and thus becomes the most basic form of cheating, but the only victim is you, because it robs you from the developers' intention.

Adding realistic densities and ratios to KSP is not correcting anything. The whole physics of the game is set up so that things are approx. 10x smaller and more dense. If you want realism, there are mod packs that turn everything to our sizes and values. Changing one thing is something else.

- - - Updated - - -

A malfunction occured on Kaos 1. The impactor could not detach from the probe so the whole thing was dumped down. Due to the DRE-OPM incompatibility, most of the probe exploded right at the edge of atmosphere.

The only data acquired was that it was "very cold" there.

[Drakoflame]

no! Say it isn't so! I really want to send my probes to the OPM planets! (what version are you using? I mean, are you in ksp .24/5 .90, and are you using Kopernicus Core by _Agustus_ or are you using the new KoperincusTech, which I am going to port over to, unfortunately Stella is incompatable D: unfortunatly)

I on the otherhand, have FINALLY begun exploring the Kerbol system (though I will have to restart because I'm switching to Kopernicus Tech), and had a probe on its way to Duna. It was going to take roughly 320 days to get into its SOI, and in the next 94 days and 134 (ish) days, two asteroids, a class C and class A (respectively) were going to come into Kerbins SOI with the farthest (class A) periaps being at roughtly 8Mm or so from Kerbin, I was just hoping I would have the knowledge to build a rocket capable of intercepting it (because so far my rockets havn't looked pretty, and were bare minimum functional). I have successfully sent a manned mission to the Mun and to Minmuss, with the Mun lander also carrying two, very small, barely operational (like... I use the reaction wheals and it runs out of power) SCANSat probes and put them into polar orbits around the Mun and Kerbin (and the kerbin probe is off in a way that I don't have the poles scanned). The... Mun mission ended in 2 "simulated" fails... before Bill Kerman maneged to land on the opposite side of the planet... he really wanted to see if he could find any of Jebidias bod-er, crash to bring back so they could make it into a memorial... but that will be for another mission... in another save... in another universe :3

[lajoswinkler]

I'm using the latest KSP and latest OPM with all its new stuff. Sadly, DRE really doesn't allow any messing with atmospheric bodies of OPM at reentry speeds, so Tekto is out of the question unless I remove DRE just once.

Yes, I say practice with the closest planets before heading to the places where Kerbol barely shines.

Tiny probes are a lot of fun indeed.

[Specialist290]

Well, this series certainly has an intriguing concept behind it. It's definitely tempting me to install OPM the next time I play the game, just to see if I can replicate some of this stuff myself