Altaïr
Space Stig, Master of gravity
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Here is one of the most emblematic challenges of SFS: the Grand Tour!
It consists in landing on all bodies of SFS (stock game), except the Sun and Jupiter of course, and to get back home.
As this is a very ambitious challenge, I let everyone choose its difficulty settings: single launch, no refueling... This is your choice, you can also do it the easy way of course! The only constraint is that it must be the same vehicle that lands everywhere.
And to begin with, I will be my own challenger by accomplishing this myself
As I like INSAAANE challenges, here are my difficulty settings:
- Single launch
- No refuel allowed from external sources (only fuel tanks that were launched by the rocket are allowed)
- No ionic propulsion (Now THIS is a challenge!)
- Space clean: no debris left in space
- Realistic throttle: throttle can't go below 30%
Of course that was far from easy and required a lot of preparation, but that was really interesting!
As this is very long, I'll avoid to detail everything so that my story doesn't look like a wall of text.
So let's begin the Grand Tour!
I've named that ship the Trident. I guess you'll easily understand why.
The problems begin before I even reach LEO:
I have to separate the 2 branches of the trident to get rid off the fairings and reassemble the ship, but I can't left debris in orbit!
So, as soon as I pass Karman line, a race against the clock begins to do this before the ship falls back to Earth!
Finally:
Now I can finish the satellization, and watch the debris raining on Earth:
Now I'm a bit cooler to make more reassembling:
As the big fuel tank was empty, it was separated and it deorbited itself (it had a probe, a few RCS, and 1% of remaining fuel for that purpose).
That ship is compound of a propulsion unit, a lander for Venus (the coloured part), and the rest are refuelers that will be sent everywhere I need them.
The small lonely ship above is the refueler for Mars, unlike the others, it will go to its destination by its own means.
The transfer to Venus
The big ship goes for Venus, and then the refuelers are separated. From now on, they will follow their own path:
That small ship will head to Jupiter, while the rest of the ship will aerobrake in Venus atmosphere.
There's also a tiny refueler that will make a fly-by of Venus on the opposite side, to slingshot towards Mercury.
That double encounter is really epic
If you ever wondered if a prograde or a retrograde fly-by could really make a difference, you get the answer
The main ship starts to satellize while the refuelers head on their way. This is where our paths split!
Take care of you guys, we won't see you again before a very long trip!
To be continued...
It consists in landing on all bodies of SFS (stock game), except the Sun and Jupiter of course, and to get back home.
As this is a very ambitious challenge, I let everyone choose its difficulty settings: single launch, no refueling... This is your choice, you can also do it the easy way of course! The only constraint is that it must be the same vehicle that lands everywhere.
And to begin with, I will be my own challenger by accomplishing this myself
As I like INSAAANE challenges, here are my difficulty settings:
- Single launch
- No refuel allowed from external sources (only fuel tanks that were launched by the rocket are allowed)
- No ionic propulsion (Now THIS is a challenge!)
- Space clean: no debris left in space
- Realistic throttle: throttle can't go below 30%
Of course that was far from easy and required a lot of preparation, but that was really interesting!
As this is very long, I'll avoid to detail everything so that my story doesn't look like a wall of text.
So let's begin the Grand Tour!
I've named that ship the Trident. I guess you'll easily understand why.
The problems begin before I even reach LEO:
I have to separate the 2 branches of the trident to get rid off the fairings and reassemble the ship, but I can't left debris in orbit!
So, as soon as I pass Karman line, a race against the clock begins to do this before the ship falls back to Earth!
Finally:
Now I can finish the satellization, and watch the debris raining on Earth:
Now I'm a bit cooler to make more reassembling:
As the big fuel tank was empty, it was separated and it deorbited itself (it had a probe, a few RCS, and 1% of remaining fuel for that purpose).
That ship is compound of a propulsion unit, a lander for Venus (the coloured part), and the rest are refuelers that will be sent everywhere I need them.
The small lonely ship above is the refueler for Mars, unlike the others, it will go to its destination by its own means.
The transfer to Venus
The big ship goes for Venus, and then the refuelers are separated. From now on, they will follow their own path:
That small ship will head to Jupiter, while the rest of the ship will aerobrake in Venus atmosphere.
There's also a tiny refueler that will make a fly-by of Venus on the opposite side, to slingshot towards Mercury.
That double encounter is really epic
If you ever wondered if a prograde or a retrograde fly-by could really make a difference, you get the answer
The main ship starts to satellize while the refuelers head on their way. This is where our paths split!
Take care of you guys, we won't see you again before a very long trip!
To be continued...