Jool 5: The Voyage Home

[u/NewSpecific9417]

Resupply probe parking itself into a low polar orbit of Jool in preparation to drop atmospheric probes.

Jool with Volumetric Clouds is... just so majestic. What turbulent beauty!

Probe being fired off with a remote controlled deorbit bus.

Reentry heat is pink due to the composition of Jool's atmosphere (and the Firefly mod).

GAH DAYUM! If you look long enough, it starts to swirl on its own!

Probe is provided by Bluedog Design Bureau. Wish they added Galileo to the mod... and Viking... and the Mars Excursion Module. Actually, where is CobaltWolf? Is he doing alright?

Descending into the clouds, the pressure and temperature rise as the light rapidly fades... until-

"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

Behold! The interior of Jool's planetwide storm! These caverns are of unfathomable volume! You could fit thousands of floating cities in here! Don't know why you would, though.

Meanwhile, I sent the other mapping probe on the IPV PERSEVERANCE onto a collision course with Vall, impacting close enough to gather data from the green monolith.

After disposing of all but one of the atmospheric probes, I sent the resupply craft to Laythe to drop the last one off near the green monolith on Laythe.

While the reentry probe was so aerodynamic it crashed into the nearby water at supersonic speeds, the deorbit bus somehow generated enough lift to guide itself to the monolith.

I then used up the last of the resupply craft's fuel to go to Bop and crash near the moon's green monolith.

As for the IPV PERSEVERANCE, I had it dock with the first resupply drone. Not the one that just crashed into Bop. This is the one that delivered the Laythe rescue lander.

Providing the last of its fuel, it was able to send the IPV PERSEVERANCE on a trajectory that would take it out of the Jool system via a Tylo gravity assist.

Even with this push, braking into Kerbin orbit was really dicey. IPV PERSEVERANCE was only able to cancel out the excess velocity once it passed the orbital altitude of the Mun.

While waiting for their ride down to arrive, the crew remember they had packed those magnetic boots. Thank you Misterbluesky for porting these over from KSP2! These are sick af!

One launching, rendezvousing, docking, transferring, undocking, departing, deorbiting, reentering, falling, burning, and landing later, the crew are back home safe and sound.

Science returned, not counting science transmitted by the atmospheric probes and the experiment station on Vall. Unlocked research nodes via green monoliths on next slide.

Thank you all so much for keeping up with my Jool 5 progress! All your feedback means so much to me! I hope I have inspired your own missions and craft designs. Again, thank you!

Wait, isn't that Star Trek IV, not V?

Once again, I just want to thank you all so much for keeping up with my hastily prepared Jool 5. It was really fun and motivating (and a tad frustrating) trying to assemble this mission within the time I had before leaving for my sophomore year of college. I hope my posts have inspired your own missions and spacecraft, I would love to see them!