"Landing" on Jool (Not really, but still)

[GigaG]

This is not a challenge, as I don't think I could do this myself nor would I want to. But here's the concept. You know you can't land on Jool. But you can go into its lower atmosphere. So what if we were to go into Jool's lower atmosphere, collect science, and then blast back out?

Jool's lower atmosphere starts at 120km according to this.

So we could do a high-speed aerobrake and get our science. But what about a more leisurely option? Parachuting into the lower atmosphere and then blasting back off after collecting some EVA reports at low speed, etc.

This is a graph of atmospheric pressure in KSP. As you can see, 120km is really high. Let's say we float down to 30-40km on parachute. At that height, Jool's atmosphere is similar to Kerbin's.

My question - is it theoretically possible to escape Jool's atmosphere from 40km and get into oribt? Jool is so huge that getting back into orbit has to be tough. Has anybody tried this?

[Deadpangod3]

someone actually did this, and went down to 0 m and got back out, provided the rocket was huge (not sure how he got it out there...)i dont have the link to the imgur album but maybe someone else does.

[Stratzenblitz75]

Yes, its is. In fact, magnemoe built a "sea-level" Jool "lander".

Personally, I've taken the "high speed aerobrake" option to gather Jool low and high science:

This could be done wayy better though. The ship is literally just a collection of modules I borrowed off my grand tour ship. I never intended to go Jool diving when I planned the mission but since I had the extra fuel, I figured "why not"?

[Elthy]

I build a plane powered by linear aerospikes to do this, i had a kerbal in a closed cargobay for the EVA report. The problem isnt that you have to get down to 120km, your periapsis also has to be below 0 for lower atmosphere science and getting up from so low AND slow is not that easy...

Edited January 8, 2015 by Elthy

[monophonic]

Jool should have biomes for this. At least the poles and a "stripe" or two. After all those aren't just painted on the clouds, right?

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

I've worked on this.

I think it could be done, but you would need something on the scale of a Saturn V with wings.

Balloon launch would also work (if stock had balloons)

I think Jool Low Atmosphere Sample Return SHOULD be a challenge!