KerbalX

Description

This craft contains an entire fleet of unmanned vessels for researching the big purple monster:
1. Three separate science-laden rovers. The lander shell of each rover acts as a surface relay after landing.
2. Eight ion-propulsion relay satellites, to be deployed in low or synchronous orbit.
3. The nuclear mothership is equipped with an orbital resource scanner to continue its use after the satellite and rover deployment.

Flight Plan

ERRORS has a rather complicated flight plan due to basically being a bunch of satellites and rovers shoved into a fairing, so here goes:

1. Launch to LKO and transfer to Eve as normal. Do not separate a stage until fuel within that stage is depleted.

2. Insert into Eve orbit. The orbit should be:
   Near-equatorial
   Circularized
   Roughly 400 kilometers

3. Detach and land each rover/surface relay in order.
   Separate fairings and heat shields at 10 km ASL.
   Cut drogue chutes as soon as mains fully deploy.
   Do not begin significant surface operations until relays are in place.

4. Maneuver into a resonant orbit before deploying the first 4 satellites.
   Periapsis: 400,000 meters
   Apoapsis: 752,874 meters

5. Deploy 4 of the satellites into this orbit (1 satellite at apoapsis per orbit) and circularize.
   Try to keep the apsides as accurate as possible.

6. Maneuver into an elliptical resonant orbit with an
   Apoapsis: 10,328,472 m (Eve synchronous orbit)
   Periapsis: 6,479,134 m

7. Deploy the remaining 4 satellites into this orbit (1 satellite at apoapsis per orbit) and circularize.

8. Burn into a near-escape orbit with ascending/descending nodes at apoapsis and periapsis.

9. At apoapsis, perform a plane change from near-equatorial to polar orbit.

10. Lower and circularize the polar orbit, then deploy the resource scanner.

For optimal results, try to keep each maneuver as accurate as reasonably possible, otherwise the satellites will precess.

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 382
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.9.1