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I've had troubles completing missions sometimes. Somestimes when I complete them, everything seems to be in order - but as I land the popup does not show up. Any idea how to solve this? Just now I did a random mission, which was to land on Mün and return. see picture after landing here Is this a bug, or is there a method to complete the mission I am not awere of?

So basically you are looking for a ship. This is not a challange, but a request

The Charon, small and easy. And with 2 nuclear engines and loads of monopropelant it is easy to dock with. To do this without a stable orbit is all about timing the launch perfectly, so that when you get outside the atmosphere you will be really close to the thug - and then just switch to the thug and complete the docking. It needs to happend quite fast, as the nuclear engines are quite bad if you enter atmosphere. Great Good luck, and I reccomend using the Charon found at Shiva station for picking it up.

Rescue? Seems like someone did the wrong mission, with an earlier save. The mission was not to save anyone, but to get something up into space See below: Another tip: The launcher has enough delta-V to get into an 75k orbit, which will be stable. Atleast if you use some of the monopropellant to help at the end.

I just retried the launch, and it seems that if you do it perfectly it does have enough delta-V to manage a stable LKO. (Even though I think it was just about 4050)

Challenge #55 Complete total kerbals lost: 1 vessels lost: 6 Extra-Kerbin landings: 3 The KPC has parked the rover near the link rover. It wasn't so close, so it took a drive to get closer. Docked the rovers together to have less clutter in the overview. Next mission: On the launch-pad you will find a rocket with a probe on it. This one if ment to colide into Duna - Get it into orbit, must be a stable LKO. The next one should get it docked to the Duna-convoy. The engineers had a strict budget, so they had to cut the fuel short for this mission. So do your best with the limited fuel. (~4k Delta-V). My plan was to dock it with the Dube-Hanitat, this might cause the habitat to be off-balance, so we need to bare carefull when launching it to Duna. Important: Do not use the last solid-booster as is is ment to be used to deorbit the probe. Pro tips: - It does not have enough delta-V to reach LKO alone, but it is close. You will need to use one of the space-thugs out there (for instance found at shive-station), make the thug pick up the Duna-collision probe while it is on a sub-orbital trajectory and bring it back into a stable orbit while still having enough fuel to bring it to the Duna-convoy. It would be smart to put the thus into a LKO before launching, and launch when the thug is at the right place to make it easier. This might be a hard and challanging mission - but I managed to complete it myself. So it is possible Click here to download save

I'll do it

Yeah, I would skip the refueling part 'til after you feel comfortable doing a normal landing and return on the two moons. Thats taking too many steps at a time. For the first travels go with a simple design that will get you all the way there. A 3-stage rocket with a decent lander with enough fuel is something I would reccomend. And try to learn how to control the spaceship, and how to do a properly gravity turn and gettign into orbit without wasting to much fuel. This will make everything easier for you in the long run. Edit: Also keep in mind that due the position of Minmus and the low gravity of Minmus you need very little fuel to get back. I usually think I got way to little fuel, but when I get back I still have fuel left

isn't this fixed by just going into docking-mode while driving the rover - which will infact turn off the rotational movement of the probe-body and let the wheels control the turning.

a spreadsheet would be as much "cheating" in my opinion. I just don't like to hide the math - as I want to learn the physics and math behind it. It catches me as interesting. So if I just had a mod or a spreadsheep where I put in numbers and just got some result back it kinda removes much of the stuff I am looking for. In other words, I just want to learn I have nothing against mods, I use MechJeb for autopiloting - as I have done that so many times that it is not any interesting anymore; and I guess I will do the same for calculating delta-v and such later, I just need to do it a few times manually so I know I understand where the numbers are comming from, and why. It also helps be get a feeling on how to build my rockets properly. So it is not about beeing "pure", it is about not hiding the maths and physics before I actually understand them to an acceptable level. And the problem here is clearly that even though I did know the formulas for how stuff worked i clearly do not understand them properly, and thus I end up with estimations that are far off, and rockets that are way to big. I could solve this by using a mod - but I am afraid if I do that I wont learn things properly.

It seems that the main issue I have had is that I have always had way to much thrust and that the mainsail engines are far heavier than what I imagined - and it seems I should never use that engine unless I have some very heavy payload. And instead I have started using the "LV-T30" for my first stages, which seems to do the job much better and saving me loads of mass. It seems like I have not yet really got a feeling on how much mass affects the delta-v. Yeah, I just got that part understood. So I manage to calculate the Delta-V manually. it is still a bit tidous and just try to add stuff and recalculate Delta-V all the time and check if it is enough. Not to be untankfull or anything, but that sounds like what I try to not do. Using addon to do everything for me, and just try adding stuff until it works.

This sounds verry much like "trial and error". Start small and add more 'til it works. It sounds verry expensive to du it that way. But I seem to have found some way to approach the problem:1: Calculate the thrust needed to lift the payload. And find an engine that can lift the payload + some. Add the biggest fueltank that the thrust from this engine can lift. Just make sure the +some, is not to big. 2: Calculate what amount of delta-V you got. - this should be atleast X-amount delta-V 3: Create a "stage-part " that has as much fuel, or less, than the main stage and add a engine with just enough thrust to lift this section alone. 3.1: Add enough of those stages to reach 4800 delta-v. Keeping in mind that each new stage will add about half of the previous one. So follow-up question. How much delta-V is good to aim for in the last launching stage? (mentioned in point 2). And is my assumption in 3.1 about right?

Thanks, post #7 in the thread seemed to explain much of the things I did not fully grasp yet. Thank you

I think I am not good at formulating my actuall question, but I would love to know and understand the maths behind it, and not use mods. So I know I need 4800 delta-V to get into orbit. And I know that delta-V is related to thrust and mass. (calculated by the rocket equation). Anyone god any good tuturial that could link me to, where people explain (and I would love if they also have an example) how they actually figure out the amount of thrust and fuel needed through math?

But wiithout actually "trail and error", how do you know when to use what? How do I know when I need to stack fuel-tanks on top of each other, and how do I know when to use the Jumbo-64 tanks with mainsails instead of FLT800? I mean, given I have a payload I want to send to minmus. This payload consists of a stage for getting to and from minmus with atomic-engines and a small 3 manned lander. How would I go to know the amount of fuel and thrust I need in my first tage to get this into orbit? okey, so as I run on about 40-50% thrust during the first stages with engines that has 1500 thrust I know I could swap them to engined with 750 thrust, but the smaller engines usually only give about 1/7 of the thrust the mainsail has. So I get the problem with that they won't even take off. I would guess this is due to the large amount of fuel I got, so I try to change to some smaller propultion tanks, but then I am afraid I will have to little fuel - which I in many case have. edit: But I do get that having smaller tansk means you need less thrust, and with the lower mass in total you can get places with less amount of fuel. But I kinda have problem when understanding when to choose the small tanks and when to choose the big tanks with big engines. I mean, lets say I calculate my payload to be 10 tons. To get a successfull lift-off I would then need enough thrust in the early stages to be able to lift 10 tons, but I would also need enough fuel to run those engines til I get into orbit. But that means I would have higher mass, and I would need even more thrust to get up - which leads to requirement of more fuel. So the question is, how do I find the point where I have enough thrust and enough fuel? Would you start by calculating the thrust required and choose engines accordingly? (and how do you actually calculate that to make room for the weight of the fuel required to reach orbit?), or would you start by calculating how much fuel is required and then choose engines powerfull enough to lift the while thing?

Thats not really what I am asking for. That is kinda a completed spacecraft for me, does not really help. I want to be able to create my own designs what can get "anywhere", with as small amount of fuel as possible. Not just use something someone else have made. For instance, how do you know when to use small rockets instead of big mainsails? and how do you know how much fuel you wanted to add? 'Cus I am in the situation where I add to much fuel I think - and this I need much more thrust to actually get this thing into orbit. I do also waste alot of extra fuel due to the extra mass. So I just want to learn how to get out of this bad trend. But I thought I can counter what with just reducing the power on the engines? I try to keep my velocity between 150 and 200 m/s 'til I do my gravity turn. That should limit the effect of air-resistance?

I am a person, and I am sure many people are like me, that usually put many large fueltanks on the ship alongside some huge engines for anything - and I do know that I in theory somehow should be able to get my payload into space with lesser fuel than what I actually use. But since I often make it to the places I want to go, with just a little fuel left, I am afraid to try and make smaller spacecrafts. Though I guess much of the fuel is actually just wasted on lifting all the extra fuel I added on the spacecraft. Just to give you an Image, by spacecraft usually end up with 1+6 large fueltanks in asparagus staging. Something looking close to this: Now say I jmy payload was a lander that I armed to get to minmus; I would guess I could not really need to much fuel for my 1st stage for getting out of the atmosphere? I mean, 7 mainsail rockets sounds verry inefficient. But I have trouble finding new designs that use smaller rockets and fueltanks that does the job well. So in short, what I am asking is not for some complete spacecraft that does the job, I am looking for methods to figure out what engines I need (thrust to weight ratio maybe?) and how to know how much fuel I need to get my payload into orbit. (I guess those two are highly related).

If you made the challange 'cus you want to see many cool space-station I reccomend just go on youtube and search for some "kerbal space station" and check out some of threads where people present their work. Theres so much cool stuff to check out there - no need for a (boring) challange to find it . I mean, this is one of the things people do when they start to get the hang of orbiting spacecrafts.

I decline the mission. I just did it, to find it was on the old savefile. -.- Someone else have a go

The shiva one has been used to refuel alot of other stuff so theres not much fuel left in that one. Popcorn is plannet to go to Jool, and has alot of fuel - but no docking stations. So that doesn't help. But I think I found it "Jool fuel depot A", and as the name tells us - this one works as a fuel depot, so someone that is good at it need to setup an alarm for that one.

Good luck Pseudo, pick an interesting spot. By the way? Have we made any refuelers ready for the next jool window, or do we need to make one?

I made it Next one go land it now!

Mission successfull We have achieved orbit around Laythe with no need for extra fuel! This was a fun flight, especially since I have never done anything interplanitary before. I would reccomend to go check out my gallery from the trip for the full story with images. When getting close to Jool mission control back at Kerbin had calculated a way to get to Laythe with the small amount of fuel left by just doing some small adjustments on the orbit and use the atmosphere on both Jool and Laythe to their advantage. As Jenlord was tired of beeing in his spaceship they all agreed they would take advantage of this - and just go for it. Fuel still has to sent to allow Jenlorf to get back home some day; but he is in no hurry - he has to explore Laythe! In short I adjusted the Orbit to make sure I entered Jools atmosphere at correct angle, to align myself with Laythe, and aerobreaked into an orbit that an encounter with Laythe sometime soon. After just a few orbits around Laythe I got such an encounter and used Laythe's atmosphere to aerobreake once more - and achieved a stable orbit. The total use of fuel was around 230 m/s. Next challange: Land the landingmodule on a suitable location on Laythe. Click here for savefile.

Challenge Completed Total challenges completed: 46 Total kerbals lost: 1 Total lost vehicles: 5 Total planetetary landings: 2 Challenge was easy but fun. the debris was already on a orbit inside the apmosphere which ment I did not really have to bother much with the debris causing the c enter of mass not be at the center of thrust; I just waited 'til the atmosphere slowed me down enougn and dropped it. I did then move to a higher orbit and parked at the Shive Station for later use. See through the photos here Next challange: The next two weeks are calm, and nothing out of the ordinary is happening. The manticore two is set to go to Moho and should take an advantage of the window comming up in 15 days. Do this in the following way: 1: Perform a Moho ejection burn 2: Decouple from the satellite 3: Make a re-capture burn 4: Refuel at Shiva station. Download savefile here

indeed it is. So one of the main things to remember here is to actually just not drop of to much fuel but keep some extra just to add weight on the frontal fueltanks.