Questions for Realictis level of difficulty
- Thread starter Catalyst_Kh
- Start date
Also, i finally understood why my separator never works - it was simply held together by maneuvering engines. Just like paperclips, fixating both sides in one:
First i thought that maybe it is white separator glitching, like bug of some kind, then i tried black one, from redstone - it stuck too. After that i even thought that heat shield it gluing it and bugging separation, but removing shield didn't help either. And only after that i got a revelation and removed those maneuvering engines.
And i thought how neat was my idea to place engines there, to free up space in all other places...
First i thought that maybe it is white separator glitching, like bug of some kind, then i tried black one, from redstone - it stuck too. After that i even thought that heat shield it gluing it and bugging separation, but removing shield didn't help either. And only after that i got a revelation and removed those maneuvering engines.
And i thought how neat was my idea to place engines there, to free up space in all other places...
I have another interesting idea. Look at this picture:
This is my solar orbit for the price of Moon. I uploaded myself from Earth to Moon and that is all, no more burns, even from Moon's periapsis. Just clean cheapest slingshot from Moon to fly away from Earth's SOI.
I already made 2/3 or the needed descent to intersect with Venus orbit. So, maybe there is a way i can use Moon and Earth on next orbit laps to slow down even more, to complete the rest of 1/3? I mean slow down more for free, with only tiny burns for trajectory correction.
For example here is like one of next encounters with Earth looks like:
By correcting trajectory i can grab moon before Earth or after Earth or twice - before and after, and i can pick if i grab Moon from behind or from ahead of its own vector.
So far i was only able to return to original "2/3 to Venus" orbit, i was not able to find a way for more slowing down. Is it possible at all? Or there is no such vector approach exists? I can't figure out how i have to approach to make any further progress.
I already made 2/3 or the needed descent to intersect with Venus orbit. So, maybe there is a way i can use Moon and Earth on next orbit laps to slow down even more, to complete the rest of 1/3? I mean slow down more for free, with only tiny burns for trajectory correction.
For example here is like one of next encounters with Earth looks like:
So far i was only able to return to original "2/3 to Venus" orbit, i was not able to find a way for more slowing down. Is it possible at all? Or there is no such vector approach exists? I can't figure out how i have to approach to make any further progress.
Altaïr
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It's surprising, normally the VEEGA technique allows to reach Jupiter easily if performed correctly. I'll make you a demo if you want.
I'm glad you appreciate the mod and use it to its full potential
Before we had it, it was a pain, even with the closest approach line in 1.4 because it only showed the closest approach on a single turn, and an encounter that would have been affordable if anticipated several turns before was much more expensive. I also had to calculate myself the resonance ratios to chain the gravity assists. As you say, now I can do this without leaving the game, it's literally a game changer
Regarding your slingshot attempts with the Moon it's been long I haven't attempted it myself. But the gain would be low in any case. I tried an injection burn to the Moon and to Venus in IRIS:
That makes 172.5 m/s of difference (double that for an estimation in realistic). Even by the hard difficulty standard this is not a big difference, especially that you'll save only a fraction of that because of corrections.
I'll try a strategy or 2 though...
I'm glad you appreciate the mod and use it to its full potential
Before we had it, it was a pain, even with the closest approach line in 1.4 because it only showed the closest approach on a single turn, and an encounter that would have been affordable if anticipated several turns before was much more expensive. I also had to calculate myself the resonance ratios to chain the gravity assists. As you say, now I can do this without leaving the game, it's literally a game changer
Regarding your slingshot attempts with the Moon it's been long I haven't attempted it myself. But the gain would be low in any case. I tried an injection burn to the Moon and to Venus in IRIS:
That makes 172.5 m/s of difference (double that for an estimation in realistic). Even by the hard difficulty standard this is not a big difference, especially that you'll save only a fraction of that because of corrections.
I'll try a strategy or 2 though...
There is no need for demo now. As i wrote in next paragraph i understood the algorithm of vector management and now i can do optimal slingshots from each body in a row, now i can manage it easily. Because your wonderful mod i only need to manage vectors and nothing else. I can through myself much higher than Jupiter after VEEGA path or little lower than Jupiter, or exactly at Jupiter - whatever is necessary. I even can VEEEGA to Saturn directly without meeting with Jupiter entirely.
If it's just that don't worry, here are a few of my creations:
View attachment 96134
Your launcher can't be worse than those right?
View attachment 96134
Your launcher can't be worse than those right?
There is also an interesting development. When i set myself to "2/3 to Venus" orbit and Earth catches me from my behind several laps later - i have two most promising options. I can turn hard left or hard right, with 90° to the approach to Earth vector (and 90° to my orbit vector around sun too). Which makes some considerable shifting of my orbit to one side or another side.
Over several laps more i will meet Earth again and i can do hard 90° turn again. Thus i can accumulate a lot of vector difference (as total sum of all shifts) for each next meeting with Earth.
Maybe we can find some benefit from using this free vector accumulation.
Because, for example, when i left Earth first time to slingshot myself from Moon out of Earth's SOI - i had 10.9 km/s velocity at Earth's periapsis, but when Earth picked me up over several laps later and i dropped to the minimum Earth's periapsis - i already had 11.1 km/s and could perform Oberth accelerating towards Mars for example.
So, just one simple overlapping already gives +200 m/s free ΔV, when you are going to Mars. It is like you are simply Oberthing to Mars from the start, but with free +200 m/s jump in your velocity in the process.
Though in real life it will cost several years of lapping in orbit before encountering Earth second time.
So this little trick seems promising, i want to investigate this accumulation of side pushes further, maybe we can find a way to make it work for going to Venus for free (for the price of reaching Moon at the start) or to make some kine of EEEEEEGA path, which might be cheaper than VEEGA, but just take many orbits (years) for accumulation.
Over several laps more i will meet Earth again and i can do hard 90° turn again. Thus i can accumulate a lot of vector difference (as total sum of all shifts) for each next meeting with Earth.
Maybe we can find some benefit from using this free vector accumulation.
Because, for example, when i left Earth first time to slingshot myself from Moon out of Earth's SOI - i had 10.9 km/s velocity at Earth's periapsis, but when Earth picked me up over several laps later and i dropped to the minimum Earth's periapsis - i already had 11.1 km/s and could perform Oberth accelerating towards Mars for example.
So, just one simple overlapping already gives +200 m/s free ΔV, when you are going to Mars. It is like you are simply Oberthing to Mars from the start, but with free +200 m/s jump in your velocity in the process.
Though in real life it will cost several years of lapping in orbit before encountering Earth second time.
So this little trick seems promising, i want to investigate this accumulation of side pushes further, maybe we can find a way to make it work for going to Venus for free (for the price of reaching Moon at the start) or to make some kine of EEEEEEGA path, which might be cheaper than VEEGA, but just take many orbits (years) for accumulation.
Orbital refueling is easy and boring. I tried that once and it is not interesting for me anymore.
My goal is to bring the maximum mass to each planet and perform all missions there, all at once with one flight, with all it's moons, in one single launch without any refueling and any other help from other rockets. And not with android tin can, which is lighter, but with a heavier astronaut module, which requires much bigger rocket, and with mandatory returning of this astronaut home alive.
I can bring to Mars 150 tons of Mass now, from single launch from Earth and no refueling whatsoever. I can bring to Moon 155+ tons too.
That makes the game interesting, to invent solutions to make it possible.
My goal is to bring the maximum mass to each planet and perform all missions there, all at once with one flight, with all it's moons, in one single launch without any refueling and any other help from other rockets. And not with android tin can, which is lighter, but with a heavier astronaut module, which requires much bigger rocket, and with mandatory returning of this astronaut home alive.
I can bring to Mars 150 tons of Mass now, from single launch from Earth and no refueling whatsoever. I can bring to Moon 155+ tons too.
That makes the game interesting, to invent solutions to make it possible.
I finished my Jupiter all-in-one mission with full success. That was so much fun! When i brought 150 tons to Jupiter - i didn't know what to do with it, i never reached Jupiter before. I tried simple approach, like with Mars, but to my big surprise - the speeds of Jupiter moons were so high, that Mars strategy didn't work at all.
Then i invented new promising strategy, tried it and failed catastrophically. Then i reloaded again and invented 2 more strategies, which were much better, but still weak, i made a lot of mistakes.
And ony after i learned from my mistakes i found a genuinely good strategy. With this strategy all Jupiter missions could be accomplished with less than 130 tons of payload reaching Jupiter, maybe even with less than 120.
Though i had extra fuel and played it safely - i took too much extra fuel for each pf 4 landings, because i didn't knew how much i will need, and thus burned a lot extra fuel to get that extra weight back to orbit. I made a lot of mistakes|inaccuracies when i was moving between orbits and thus had to burn extra fuel to correct them. And even after that, when i was entering Earth's atmosphere - i still had 8 tons of fuel left!
If only i was not carrying those extra 8 tons of fuel the entire expedition - that alone would save 10+ tons of fuel from carrying those 8 arcoss all Jovilin system. Plus even though i had very creative inventions in my payload, i still left one flaw unnoticed. Without this flaw, everything will be even more efficient, and thus probably even with less than 120 tons of payload the entire Jovelin system's achievements can be won in one flight.
Then i invented new promising strategy, tried it and failed catastrophically.
Then i reloaded again and invented 2 more strategies, which were much better, but still weak, i made a lot of mistakes.And ony after i learned from my mistakes i found a genuinely good strategy. With this strategy all Jupiter missions could be accomplished with less than 130 tons of payload reaching Jupiter, maybe even with less than 120.
Though i had extra fuel and played it safely - i took too much extra fuel for each pf 4 landings, because i didn't knew how much i will need, and thus burned a lot extra fuel to get that extra weight back to orbit. I made a lot of mistakes|inaccuracies when i was moving between orbits and thus had to burn extra fuel to correct them. And even after that, when i was entering Earth's atmosphere - i still had 8 tons of fuel left!
If only i was not carrying those extra 8 tons of fuel the entire expedition - that alone would save 10+ tons of fuel from carrying those 8 arcoss all Jovilin system. Plus even though i had very creative inventions in my payload, i still left one flaw unnoticed. Without this flaw, everything will be even more efficient, and thus probably even with less than 120 tons of payload the entire Jovelin system's achievements can be won in one flight.
Now i want to mount even more challenging missions. Both are at Realistic and only with one launcher from Earth, as always. And both missions should be done with the astronaut, not with android.
1. Fly to Saturn, land on Saturn and return home to Earth.
By general means the rocket, which can escape from Saturn, should be very huge at Realistic, generally it would be too much, one single launcher can't bring that much to LEO to begin with. But i invented several interesting solutions, how to beat that, i am eager to try those.
2. Do all missions in Saturn at once in one flight, besides landing of course, and return home to Earth. Namely - diving in Saturn's atmosphere and visiting all his 8 moons with all 8 landings at each moon.
Since i found a way to bring even more than 150 tons to Saturn or Jupiter from a single launcher, and 4 Jupiter moons required only 120 tons of payload, and Saturn's moons are lighter and require less fuel for landing, then, once again - it might be doable! At least it would be fun to try!
1. Fly to Saturn, land on Saturn and return home to Earth.
By general means the rocket, which can escape from Saturn, should be very huge at Realistic, generally it would be too much, one single launcher can't bring that much to LEO to begin with. But i invented several interesting solutions, how to beat that, i am eager to try those.
2. Do all missions in Saturn at once in one flight, besides landing of course, and return home to Earth. Namely - diving in Saturn's atmosphere and visiting all his 8 moons with all 8 landings at each moon.
Since i found a way to bring even more than 150 tons to Saturn or Jupiter from a single launcher, and 4 Jupiter moons required only 120 tons of payload, and Saturn's moons are lighter and require less fuel for landing, then, once again - it might be doable! At least it would be fun to try!
If somebody is reading this and thinking of playing - i strongly advise to switch to Realistic level of difficulty - it is much more adventurous and entertaining, or even try harder than Realistic level - Normal level with this custom world:
True Scale and Distance Solar System (TSADSS) FULL RELEASE
It already provides full Realistic instead of Normal, replacing Normal level with full scale complete solar system with accurate 1:1 distances, gravities, atmospheres, orbits, and other things. But since it runs as a substitute for Normal level - there is no more engine efficiency bonus and other extra bonuses, which game developer added to Realistic level.
And especially nice, that this world can be added to Android version of the game. Because Android version doesn't have the option to switch game difficulty, it can only be played with Normal difficulty and no other way - and that is huge flaw in the entire game. This flaw makes it unplayable, at least for me. And TSADSS totally fixes this flaw. And If only Android versions supported mods, that would be so much greater.
True Scale and Distance Solar System (TSADSS) FULL RELEASE
It already provides full Realistic instead of Normal, replacing Normal level with full scale complete solar system with accurate 1:1 distances, gravities, atmospheres, orbits, and other things. But since it runs as a substitute for Normal level - there is no more engine efficiency bonus and other extra bonuses, which game developer added to Realistic level.
And especially nice, that this world can be added to Android version of the game. Because Android version doesn't have the option to switch game difficulty, it can only be played with Normal difficulty and no other way - and that is huge flaw in the entire game. This flaw makes it unplayable, at least for me. And TSADSS totally fixes this flaw. And If only Android versions supported mods, that would be so much greater.
I significantly improved my payload system for Jupiter mission. Now, that I know a good strategy and how much fuel things will cost around Jupiter.
Now it is possible to complete all missions at once with Jupiter and all his moons, land at each of 4 moons, and return to Earth - and all with a payload less than 60 tons (!!!) sent to Jupiter.
I don't know how much tons exactly, since new wight changes fuel consumption too much, maybe this complex can accomplish everything with even less than 50 tons payload - but that is too doubtful. While less than 60 tons of total payload to Jupiter is enough - that is for sure.
This means that now i can easily accomplish my all-in-one flight to Saturn with all 8 moon's landings, diving in Saturn's atmosphere and returning home. I will just need to take a little more fuel for Saturn, thus all payload will be more than 100 tons, but since i can bring more than 150 to Saturn in one flight - i have huge margin for errors.
The only hard part now is to invent a very tight rocket for landing on Saturn mission. I am still not sure that the one I built will be enough to take off from the ground and get the orbit of Saturn. And i need just any orbit at all, even very eccentric and very low, after that android with my gas station can collect the astronaut with no problems.
My entire rocket, which intends to launch from Saturn's surface, is 134 tons. Thus i have too little left for burning to slow down near Saturn and for returning home. If i make my rocket more than 140 tons i will have too little room left for other things. And that is only if i will be able to land on the surface with parachutes, because if i need to burn fuel for landing - that would be totally another scale of the problem.
Now it is possible to complete all missions at once with Jupiter and all his moons, land at each of 4 moons, and return to Earth - and all with a payload less than 60 tons (!!!) sent to Jupiter.
I don't know how much tons exactly, since new wight changes fuel consumption too much, maybe this complex can accomplish everything with even less than 50 tons payload - but that is too doubtful. While less than 60 tons of total payload to Jupiter is enough - that is for sure.
This means that now i can easily accomplish my all-in-one flight to Saturn with all 8 moon's landings, diving in Saturn's atmosphere and returning home. I will just need to take a little more fuel for Saturn, thus all payload will be more than 100 tons, but since i can bring more than 150 to Saturn in one flight - i have huge margin for errors.
The only hard part now is to invent a very tight rocket for landing on Saturn mission. I am still not sure that the one I built will be enough to take off from the ground and get the orbit of Saturn. And i need just any orbit at all, even very eccentric and very low, after that android with my gas station can collect the astronaut with no problems.
My entire rocket, which intends to launch from Saturn's surface, is 134 tons. Thus i have too little left for burning to slow down near Saturn and for returning home. If i make my rocket more than 140 tons i will have too little room left for other things. And that is only if i will be able to land on the surface with parachutes, because if i need to burn fuel for landing - that would be totally another scale of the problem.
Oops, i made a mistake. I just googled - it requires 25.5 km/s to keep low orbit around Saturn. This means, that taking off from the ground and fighting against gravity - i need my rocket to make around 30km/s of ΔV to escape Saturn. A rocket this powerful will weigh more than 1000 tons. That is totally impossible in one flight mission. Thus i will be doing it with several launches with orbital construction, piece by piece. That might be very interesting as well. For example - is it possible to land a rocket this big with parachutes only? I may add 100+ parachutes, if it helps, it will be much less weight than using fuel for landing anyway.
But normal Saturn missions are looking promising, to dive into Saturn's atmosphere without landing on Saturn itself, but with landing at all his 8 moons in one flight from Earth looks more than possible, even with big extra margin to spare.
But normal Saturn missions are looking promising, to dive into Saturn's atmosphere without landing on Saturn itself, but with landing at all his 8 moons in one flight from Earth looks more than possible, even with big extra margin to spare.
Altaïr
Space Stig, Master of gravity
Staff member
Head Moderator
Team Kolibri
Modder
TEAM HAWK
Atlas
Deja Vu
Under Pressure
Forum Legend
I finished my Jupiter all-in-one mission with full success. That was so much fun! When i brought 150 tons to Jupiter - i didn't know what to do with it, i never reached Jupiter before. I tried simple approach, like with Mars, but to my big surprise - the speeds of Jupiter moons were so high, that Mars strategy didn't work at all.
Then i invented new promising strategy, tried it and failed catastrophically. Then i reloaded again and invented 2 more strategies, which were much better, but still weak, i made a lot of mistakes.
And ony after i learned from my mistakes i found a genuinely good strategy. With this strategy all Jupiter missions could be accomplished with less than 130 tons of payload reaching Jupiter, maybe even with less than 120.
Though i had extra fuel and played it safely - i took too much extra fuel for each pf 4 landings, because i didn't knew how much i will need, and thus burned a lot extra fuel to get that extra weight back to orbit. I made a lot of mistakes|inaccuracies when i was moving between orbits and thus had to burn extra fuel to correct them. And even after that, when i was entering Earth's atmosphere - i still had 8 tons of fuel left!
If only i was not carrying those extra 8 tons of fuel the entire expedition - that alone would save 10+ tons of fuel from carrying those 8 arcoss all Jovilin system. Plus even though i had very creative inventions in my payload, i still left one flaw unnoticed. Without this flaw, everything will be even more efficient, and thus probably even with less than 120 tons of payload the entire Jovelin system's achievements can be won in one flight.
Then i invented new promising strategy, tried it and failed catastrophically.
Then i reloaded again and invented 2 more strategies, which were much better, but still weak, i made a lot of mistakes.And ony after i learned from my mistakes i found a genuinely good strategy. With this strategy all Jupiter missions could be accomplished with less than 130 tons of payload reaching Jupiter, maybe even with less than 120.
Though i had extra fuel and played it safely - i took too much extra fuel for each pf 4 landings, because i didn't knew how much i will need, and thus burned a lot extra fuel to get that extra weight back to orbit. I made a lot of mistakes|inaccuracies when i was moving between orbits and thus had to burn extra fuel to correct them. And even after that, when i was entering Earth's atmosphere - i still had 8 tons of fuel left!
If only i was not carrying those extra 8 tons of fuel the entire expedition - that alone would save 10+ tons of fuel from carrying those 8 arcoss all Jovilin system. Plus even though i had very creative inventions in my payload, i still left one flaw unnoticed. Without this flaw, everything will be even more efficient, and thus probably even with less than 120 tons of payload the entire Jovelin system's achievements can be won in one flight.
It must have taken a lot of planning.
You may want to take inspiration from this
You may want to take inspiration from this
No planning at all. I just took maximum payload which i possibly could bring to Jupiter at Realistic, and from that point i planed to look what i can invent. My first strategies were very naive and i laughed a lot when i saw how and why they catastrophically failed.
The 3rd strategy i invented was almost the same as you used there yourself: link to forum thread.
But at Realistic level this strategy also fails. The real speeds are enormous and changing those speeds with your own fuel burning will eat away just awfully too much fuel. Simply increasing or decreasing your periapsis by yourself eats a lof of fuel already. And when i do this from super high apoapsis over Jupiter and then meet the moon there below - the difference in real speeds with any moon and my "passing by" is astronomical, i need to gain so much ΔV using my own fuel, that this is totally out of the question.
But your brilliant Closest Approach mod offered so much data for experiments, that i could try almost anything, and i tried very many different ways to navigate, to calculate the expected value of different trajectories, and it allowed me to find more fuel-saving manuevers. And i found a way, that eats almost no fuel at all for navigation between moons, especially for establishing first good orbit after entering Jupiter first time. Now i can bring any ship to any moon with very little of fuel burned, from any starting point, in any direction, skipping more than one orbit at once included.
That is why now it can be done with below than 60 tons of entire payload to Jupiter. And almost all that fuel will be spent for slowing down to take orbit, landing and taking off. It still eats fuel to slow down to get orbit around the moon, i can't imagine how we can find improvement here. Thus remaking landing module to be the smallest one possible we scale down the entire payload, since most part of this payload is fuel for landing and taking off and only smaller part is for slowing down before moons. And the part which is used for navigation between moons is tiny at all.
The best way i found so far is this.
First we use aerobreaking to lower apoapsis and burning fuel prograde both before and right after aerobreaking, because aerobreaking is not enough and we need to slowdown more or we will be thrown away somewhere far above Saturn. That is the only one unavoidable long burn. Because we are falling to Jupiter with 59 kilometers per second, what else can we do?
Then, when we got our first high apoapsis above Jupiter we cut engines off. On the next circle we slow down a little more with new aerobreaking, then little more again, and then we are picking any moon with which we want to start. Some moons are better of course, you know which and why, but the difference is not big. And we set out apoapsis to that moons orbit or little higher, in order to catch it soon.
While we keep our periapsis low, just near Jupiters atmosphere, since it is too expensive to move it on your own.
Then when we first catch any moon with correct vector of approach (similar to your Venus approach when you start VEEGA) - it will drag our periapsis for free and a lot higher, all we need to do is control our apoapsis with little Oberth burnings, so it would not go too far. With good initial vector of approach it doesn't require much burning. Plus when we do this correctional burning we again seek to meet with any other moon, with this one again for example - and Closest Approach exactly shows all possibilities at once for all 4 moons, here and now with no more work!
So, several more meets with correct vectors or ten-twenty more meets with worse vectors propels our periapsis to much higher level and once it is on the level of the moon we want to visit - we simply meet the moon there from its face, to give her away some of our extra speed, so we would not go to high apoapsis again. We can burn to gain orbit of this moon directly or can wait to overlap it later - it also makes little difference.
Then, when we want to go to the next moon - we do NOT burn our fuel again. We only escape the SOI of the moon we are currently orbiting. Once we escaped Soi we will meet this moon again over several laps, and when it will happen - we will go in with a vector, that gives us hard 90° turn to a side. I still don't sure which side is better, both are working fine. But one must be better of course. It requires more testing. We can overlap once again to make hard 90° turn again to increase the effect, more and more times, if needed.
Then, when our orbits are destabilized enough - we can make new slingshots for free, since now our vector of approach is not parallel anymore. And collecting one or several slingshots propels you to your next moon's orbit almost for free.
I still didn't tried it with Earth yet, though it was my original idea. To improve VEEGA path and to reach Venus for the price of reaching Moon. Moon slinghots us away from Earth, then we destabilize several times on next meetings with Earth, and then we go to Venus to start VEEGA, and we only used fuel to reach Moon and no more!
It is also possible, that with little burn after well accumulated destabilizations we can go for EEEGA or EEEEGA directly, without Venus at all. But it requires more testing.
Moons of Saturn are much lighter in weight, thus my strategy may not work well there, so i plan to take maximum payload again, so i could have enough of extra fuel for experiments in Saturn system, to get to landing on all 8 moons with what i have.
The 3rd strategy i invented was almost the same as you used there yourself: link to forum thread.
But at Realistic level this strategy also fails. The real speeds are enormous and changing those speeds with your own fuel burning will eat away just awfully too much fuel. Simply increasing or decreasing your periapsis by yourself eats a lof of fuel already. And when i do this from super high apoapsis over Jupiter and then meet the moon there below - the difference in real speeds with any moon and my "passing by" is astronomical, i need to gain so much ΔV using my own fuel, that this is totally out of the question.
But your brilliant Closest Approach mod offered so much data for experiments, that i could try almost anything, and i tried very many different ways to navigate, to calculate the expected value of different trajectories, and it allowed me to find more fuel-saving manuevers. And i found a way, that eats almost no fuel at all for navigation between moons, especially for establishing first good orbit after entering Jupiter first time. Now i can bring any ship to any moon with very little of fuel burned, from any starting point, in any direction, skipping more than one orbit at once included.
That is why now it can be done with below than 60 tons of entire payload to Jupiter. And almost all that fuel will be spent for slowing down to take orbit, landing and taking off. It still eats fuel to slow down to get orbit around the moon, i can't imagine how we can find improvement here. Thus remaking landing module to be the smallest one possible we scale down the entire payload, since most part of this payload is fuel for landing and taking off and only smaller part is for slowing down before moons. And the part which is used for navigation between moons is tiny at all.
The best way i found so far is this.
First we use aerobreaking to lower apoapsis and burning fuel prograde both before and right after aerobreaking, because aerobreaking is not enough and we need to slowdown more or we will be thrown away somewhere far above Saturn. That is the only one unavoidable long burn. Because we are falling to Jupiter with 59 kilometers per second, what else can we do?
Then, when we got our first high apoapsis above Jupiter we cut engines off. On the next circle we slow down a little more with new aerobreaking, then little more again, and then we are picking any moon with which we want to start. Some moons are better of course, you know which and why, but the difference is not big. And we set out apoapsis to that moons orbit or little higher, in order to catch it soon.
While we keep our periapsis low, just near Jupiters atmosphere, since it is too expensive to move it on your own.
Then when we first catch any moon with correct vector of approach (similar to your Venus approach when you start VEEGA) - it will drag our periapsis for free and a lot higher, all we need to do is control our apoapsis with little Oberth burnings, so it would not go too far. With good initial vector of approach it doesn't require much burning. Plus when we do this correctional burning we again seek to meet with any other moon, with this one again for example - and Closest Approach exactly shows all possibilities at once for all 4 moons, here and now with no more work!
So, several more meets with correct vectors or ten-twenty more meets with worse vectors propels our periapsis to much higher level and once it is on the level of the moon we want to visit - we simply meet the moon there from its face, to give her away some of our extra speed, so we would not go to high apoapsis again. We can burn to gain orbit of this moon directly or can wait to overlap it later - it also makes little difference.
Then, when we want to go to the next moon - we do NOT burn our fuel again. We only escape the SOI of the moon we are currently orbiting. Once we escaped Soi we will meet this moon again over several laps, and when it will happen - we will go in with a vector, that gives us hard 90° turn to a side. I still don't sure which side is better, both are working fine. But one must be better of course.
It requires more testing. We can overlap once again to make hard 90° turn again to increase the effect, more and more times, if needed.Then, when our orbits are destabilized enough - we can make new slingshots for free, since now our vector of approach is not parallel anymore. And collecting one or several slingshots propels you to your next moon's orbit almost for free.
I still didn't tried it with Earth yet, though it was my original idea. To improve VEEGA path and to reach Venus for the price of reaching Moon. Moon slinghots us away from Earth, then we destabilize several times on next meetings with Earth, and then we go to Venus to start VEEGA, and we only used fuel to reach Moon and no more!
It is also possible, that with little burn after well accumulated destabilizations we can go for EEEGA or EEEEGA directly, without Venus at all. But it requires more testing.
Moons of Saturn are much lighter in weight, thus my strategy may not work well there, so i plan to take maximum payload again, so i could have enough of extra fuel for experiments in Saturn system, to get to landing on all 8 moons with what i have.
Look what i spotted just right now:
This nice world with entire full solar system, which i was referring there (link), actually has two more moons of Jupiter! And those are the most hardest moons - they are much closer to Jupiter and have much less weight at the same time.
It would be fun to redo the entire Galilean Tour again with one flight, but to visit and land on all 6 moons of Jupiter this time. I expect that fighting with Jupiters gravity well at Realistic level will be a very entertaining enterprise.
It would be fun to redo the entire Galilean Tour again with one flight, but to visit and land on all 6 moons of Jupiter this time. I expect that fighting with Jupiters gravity well at Realistic level will be a very entertaining enterprise.
I am rofling profoundly now. I just made calculations and it says that i need to have a rocket with around 30k-40k of total weight in order to escape from Saturn to it's orbit with 25.5 km/s orbital speed in orbit. And that is only with pure astronaut module. I was hoping for something below 3k of weight, which is manageable at least, even if it takes something like 20 launches from Earth to construct this in orbit.
But to construct 30k+ tons rocket in orbit and then collect so much fuel to taw it to Saturn and land it there somehow with billion of parachutes - that will take forever to accomplish. It is very sad.
Also, i remembered now, how i made this mistake. Some time ago i looked for Saturn's gravity on the ground level and i was surprised, that it is only 106.5% of Earth ground gravity - pfff, that is soooo tiny difference - of course we can beat that!
And that information and especially that conclusion settled down somewhere in my memory.
What i forgot to consider is huge difference in curvature! When we are flying above Earth with a velocity of 7.9 km/s - we are steadily falling down on Earth each moment. But the Earth falls below us with the same speed, curving deeper and deeper below, away from us. Thus we are falling and falling and still can't fall to the ground, and instead we are moving in circles around Earth.
While Saturn is gas giant, it has very low density, thus his radius is so much bigger. I looked now - it is 9.14 times bigger than Earth's. And thus curvature of Saturn's surface falls down below us "√9.14 times slower" in comparison to Earth's curvature. And if we multiply 7.9 of Earch orbital speed on √9.14 and on 106.5% of gravity then we will get exactly 25.5 speed, which is required for keeping us in orbit.
So we can take off from Saturn's surface, reach 20 km/s speed, fly in his orbit, but still we will be falling faster than the surface falls away below us. The whole 25.5 km/s needed to increase speed of surface's falling down to the speed of us falling down from orbit.
And i had a rocket with only little more than 12k of ΔV and thought that maybe i should increase it to 13k to be sure, to have extra reserve.
But to construct 30k+ tons rocket in orbit and then collect so much fuel to taw it to Saturn and land it there somehow with billion of parachutes - that will take forever to accomplish. It is very sad.
Also, i remembered now, how i made this mistake. Some time ago i looked for Saturn's gravity on the ground level and i was surprised, that it is only 106.5% of Earth ground gravity - pfff, that is soooo tiny difference - of course we can beat that!
And that information and especially that conclusion settled down somewhere in my memory.
What i forgot to consider is huge difference in curvature! When we are flying above Earth with a velocity of 7.9 km/s - we are steadily falling down on Earth each moment. But the Earth falls below us with the same speed, curving deeper and deeper below, away from us. Thus we are falling and falling and still can't fall to the ground, and instead we are moving in circles around Earth.
While Saturn is gas giant, it has very low density, thus his radius is so much bigger. I looked now - it is 9.14 times bigger than Earth's. And thus curvature of Saturn's surface falls down below us "√9.14 times slower" in comparison to Earth's curvature. And if we multiply 7.9 of Earch orbital speed on √9.14 and on 106.5% of gravity then we will get exactly 25.5 speed, which is required for keeping us in orbit.
So we can take off from Saturn's surface, reach 20 km/s speed, fly in his orbit, but still we will be falling faster than the surface falls away below us. The whole 25.5 km/s needed to increase speed of surface's falling down to the speed of us falling down from orbit.
And i had a rocket with only little more than 12k of ΔV and thought that maybe i should increase it to 13k to be sure, to have extra reserve.