sturmhauke

It does. Some of the planets and moons had to have their orbits adjusted though, for stability.

That's a nice octagon you have there. It's Duna Fight Club!

Maybe try turning on "same vessel interaction" on the ports when docking them together.

If you're lucky you might be able to lower your periapsis and get an aerobrake that won't melt your craft. You might also try for an Eve gravity brake. It's gonna be tough either way.

I don't know much about k-drives, but they usually rely on moving parts interacting with the rest of the craft. Maybe if you post a craft file someone can take a look at it.

You can do up to 3 support launches. And maybe pray to the kraken. I hear it likes to snack on probes.

I used a configuration somewhat like that for a heavy cargo vehicle, used for delivering a base from a shuttle cargo bay to the Munar surface. In addition to the rocker hinge, I added a piston between that and the vehicle body. I also limited the range of motion and turned down the spring and damper settings on everything. This video is of an earlier version, using mod wheels that I have since swapped out due to bugs. But I kept the piston and hinge arrangement.

Gotta love those weird physics approximations...

I object to the demotion of Pluto on the following grounds: The definition of "clearing the neighborhood" as one of the planetary criteria is not well defined enough. There are three major candidate formulas that were proposed for a more rigorous definition, but none of them has been officially selected. The vote was cast in a way that I believe was improper; it was held at the end of a conference when people were already leaving, and many eligible astronomers could not attend in the first place. (My wife likes to make fun of me on this point, saying that my objection comes down to a question of parliamentary procedure. Well, she's not wrong.)

So, Plock?

@Entropian, congrats on completing the Moon missions! I have a feeling the Mars missions are going to dwarf them, somehow...

Here's a video of my Lunex 2 mission:

Yes, that's fine. You might need a lot of ion engines to get a reasonable burn time though...

I'll review your Moon mission when I get a chance. My internet connection has been flaky lately, and I can't consistently get all your images.

Hmm... sounds bonkers. Approved! Just remember that the shuttle from Duna Mars STS-2 and the lander from Mars STS-3 still need to land separately. Deploying the lander from the surface with the shuttle would not meet the specs for Mars STS-3; you need to demonstrate that it can land, return to orbit, and dock by itself.