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As the title says, I'm attempting a Duna Mission (hoping that there isn't any major inclination) but not sure of the DV requirements. I'd like either an SSTO or Rocket being capable of the transfer burn and the most efficent transfer window (I will figure this out using the Transfer Window Planner Mod). Of course, I will try to build a craft myself first but I'm clueless as exactly how much DV is required. A rocket that I can test which can get me to Duna (Either SSTO or a VAB Consturction) so I get a rough idea from the readouts on KER. Mods I'm using (All Abbrevaitions in the Title): KER KAC KAX Transfer Window Planner Texture Replacer (When I work out how to do Custom Spacesuits, regardless it is still installed) SpaceY and SpaceY Expanded RasterPropMonitor Precise Node (See here, since I can't exactly get mine to show the Window...thats why there is a seperate thread here: Rocket Factory Thank you for the help KSP Community, it is much appreicated and I wish the best of luck and I appreciate the people who are willing to help me! -awfulcraftdesigns, wishing the help he is given...good luck and peace out! Mission Update: (PIcs Coming Soon!)

If this is on the wrong section of the forums I apologise. Move to the correct sub-section if you wish. Anyway onwards with me request, I have KER (Kerbal Engineer Redux), KAX (Kerbal Aircraft Expansion), KAC (Kerbal Alarm Clock) and finally Transfer Window Planner. So if people haven't already guessed I'm running a modded install and any other requests to add to the above would be much appreciated. I've been considering to add SpaceY but is it worth it alongside the other mods I've installed. Oh and I forgot to mention I also have Texture Replacer but not sure how to edit the kerbals design exxactly. I'm here beforth the kerbal community to ask you to help me, awfulcraftdesigns to create a Duna Rocket or SSTO that is designed by you the community with my input (basically a community rocket that I shall build taking your ideas into account) If I may ask of this relatively simple request, then its much appreicated. I'm looking forward to hearing the ideas put beforth me and I'm much appricated for the community's help. -awfulcraftdesigns, signing out! P.S: I'm running 1.0.5 because 1.1.2 is buggy IMO!

I'm tossing around the idea of doing an opposition class Duna mission instead of the standard kerbal way of "wait for the launch window then wait a year for the next one". There are two parts to this question: When do I need to depart from Kerbin and later on Duna? How much delta-v would be required to depart, insert into Duna orbit, then return to Kerbin? Thanks in advance!

Hi guys! So, I've been playing KSP for 3-4 years now (that long? sheesh ) and have never left Kerbin's SOI in a consistent way. Well, I admit, I've made a few trips to Duna and Eve using AltF12 infinite propellant cheat, but never a proper interplanetary kerballed mission. However, I have been planning kerballed missions to other planets for years, only I play in career mode, usually miss the first windows and then I get too bored to wait for the next ones, do a lot of Mun/Minmus bases, rovering etc and there comes a new patch! Start all over again. This time tough, I am determined to land kerbs on Duna, Laythe and Eve, no matter what! I wanted to share my mission planning here so that more experienced travelers could point blatant flaws in my super hypothetical blueprints and maybe do a bit of constructive criticism (MOAR boosters!, while very much in line with my design principles, is not particularly helpful in these instances) So, without further ado: I calculated the interplanetary window using alexmoon's launch window planner, and got these informations: Timetable Kerbin -> Duna Departure Year 3, day 302 at 3:50:24 Arrival Year 4, day 153 at 2:50:24 Time of flight 276 days 5:00:00 Stay @ Duna ~1 year 135 days Duna -> Kerbin Departure Year 5, day 298 at 5:26:24 Arrival Year 6, day 161 at 4:55:12 Time of flight 288 days 5:28:48 Total Mission time: ~3 years 140 days == ~1418 days Notice that this gives me more than a year to perform all the explorations I want to. Is that enough for maybe 3 Duna landings, with ISRU to refuel the lander inbetween and another 5 to 6 Ike landings, also using ISRU? Important Mods used USI Life Support Pathfinder KIS/KAS Universal Storage That means I can store base and rover parts on my lander and build them insitu, which s my plan. Also, planning to use ISRU and SSTO landers/ascent vehicles to explore multiple biomes on Duna & Ike Planned hardware I plan to bring a small flotilla consisting of: Eämbar (Interplanetary Crew Transfer Ship) Two Melians (Duna Lander/SSTO Ascender) each carrying: Eärendil (Duna Science Rover) Duna Surface Base Dailir (Nuclear-powered tugs) to haul the lander (one-way trip only) So, the idea is to use the Crew transfer ship as a central hub for a space station. After landing, the engineer assembles the Base and the Rover insitu. The Surface bases works on Life Support (Pathfinder Greenhouses) and drilling ore/converting fuel to replenish the Lander/Ascender while the Rover roves (hah!) around gathering much SCIENCE! I'm playing the idea of using the same design of the Duna Lander for my Ike lander, for redundancy and safety, but also because then the Ike lander can use the extra fuel it can get to orbit to replenish the Crew Transfer's stores. Is it more work than it's worth? Also, it would be significantly heavier than a purpose built Ike lander. Crew Two scientists (Sa) & (Sb) One engineer (E) One pilot (P) They will all be two stars, tops, since they will be the first kerbals to venture in interplanetary space ever, in my save. Not much else to elaborate here, except that for RP purposes I'll be using Final Frontier ribbons to assign them special roles. (such as exobiologist, energy engineer, etc) Life Support calculations So, in USI-LS, each kerb consumes 16.2 kg of supplies per day. However my Mobile Science lab onboard Eämbar, I can cut this consumption to 4.86 kg of supplies. Also, the greenhouse allows me to grow supplies using fertilizer, dividing my required mass by 8.5, leaving me with a requirement of 0.571 kg of fertilizer for each kerb per day. In 1418 days, that's 810,7 kg of fertilizer per kerb, for a grand total of 3243 kg to suppor all 4 kerbs on the trip, which is less than a single 2.5 container. I'll bring some more as a safety buffer. Also some initial supplies are needed, not just as a safety net, but also to start the cycle. I'll bring along 500kg, which is enough for nearly 219 days for all 4 of them. For comparison, without using the recycler on the lab and the greenhouse converter, I would need to haul along 91,886.4 kg of supplies! Delta-V budgets I calculated the projected deltaV costs using a deltaV map (sorry, don't remember which, but it was updated for 1.0 aero) and got the following: Low Kerbin Orbit (LKO) -> Low Duna Orbit (LDO) 1700 dV LDO -> Duna Surface (DS) (aerobraking) 500 dV DS -> LDO -> 1450 dV LDO->DS->LDO 2000 dV LDO <-> Low Ike Orbit (LIO) 570 dV LDO->LIO->LDO 1200 dV LIO <-> Ike Surface (IS) 390 dV LIO->IS->LIO 800 dV LDO -> LKO 1700dV I understand that there are many different possible transfers, and that usually the more dV you can spend, the less time you have to wait. In a scenario with life support, do you think it is worth "kicking the door" so to speak to avoid huge amounts of supplies? Mission Plan Ah yes, now we get to the meat of it: Transfer from LKO to LDO a flotilla composed of: InterplanetaryCrewTransferVehicle with (Sa)(Sb)(E)(P) DunaLander+Tug IkeScienceLander+Tug Dock all the ships to create DunaScienceStation with (Sb) manning the science l ab Duna Exploration Land DunaLander with (Sa)(E)(P) Establish SurfaceBase (E) and start drilling to refuel the lander Build ScienceRover (E) ScienceRover explore nearby biomes (P)(Sa) Dismantle Rover and Base and repack into DunaLander (E) Reorbit and dock with DunaScienceStation Repeat #3 as needed Prepare for Ike Expedition TransferCrew to IkeScienceLander (Sb)(E)(P) Transfer DunaScienceLander+Tug from LDO to LIO Ike Expedition Land DunaScienceLander on IS Start refueling (E) Explore nearby biomes (Sb)(P) Reorbit and dock with Tug Repeat #6 as needed Transfer DunaScienceLander+Tug from LIO to LDO Prepare for Kerbin return Dock with Duna Science Station Transfer crew to InterplanetaryCrewTransferVehicle Transfer InterplanetaryCrewTransferVehicle from LDO to LKO Dock with KhazadDûm station (that's my Kerbin Orbital Science Station, by the way) and retrieve crew+science! Step 3: Profit! So, that's about it. Thoughts? Ideas? Thanks in advance, Cheers

Crimson Aspirations is an Apollo style Duna/Mars return mission craft for use in the stock game or in Stock Sized Real Solar System. It has a 2 person rover to deploy on the ground and space for 4 crew. 182 parts Download Launch to above 200km orbit, deploy solar panels, transfer to Duna or Mars, orbit Duna/Mars, move crew into Lander and detach, stow solar panels if deployed and de-orbit, start slowing down with rockets at just under 15km until you can deploy drogue chutes, continue reducing speed until main chutes can be deployed safely, at this point turn off engines and wait till the last 100 metres or so to turn them back on and wipe off the remaining speed to get it under 10ms on landing. Once landed deploy rover and solar panels. When ready to leave stow solar panels and start your launch to rendezvous, use up the landing stage fuel to give you a little boost and head for orbit. Rendezvous and dock as frugally as you can and transfer crew to command module. Leave Duna/Mars for Earth. At Kerbin/Earth use up any fuel to slow you down before re-entering and deploy inflatable heat shield and then parachutes, once chutes fully deployed you can detach heat shield.

Orion & Lockheed Martin Mars Vehicle So i decided to re-create the Lockheed Martin's facebook post of their new spacecraft they may send to mars to put humans on the Martian Surface and this is what i got out of it It successfully transfered to Duna and entered Duna orbit with a few aerobrakes of course it has 4 engines like the spacecraft in the picture excluding Orion's engine and it fits up to about 3-2 crew 2 if there was no Orion spacecraft docked onto because well i forgot to put a passenger module on it. So... what do you think?

I finally managed it, a spaceplane that can SSTO to Duna and back. https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Astrojet-Lancer It started life as a replacement for the Astrojet Citation, which worryingly vulnerable to aerodynamic heating with its airliner wings. Using a larger amount of smaller wings means we can no longer afford to run fuel ducts, so it's manual transfers into a feeder tank scenario. The game is confused by multiple transfers, necessitating a single core/engine design. note - i have GPOSpeedFuelPump installed but am not using it for this flight. note 2 - you have to stop the transfer before the tank fills completely, or it will drain unevenly from the wing tanks and make inbalance. note 3- it took almost 28 minutes to raise our AP out of the atmosphere. It was also somewhat reluctant to cross the sound barrier, i don't think you could increase the fuel fraction much more than this. Finally in orbit. The calculated dV is wrong because we still have all this fuel in the strake tanks the nuke cant access, it's not being added to the total. After landing on Duna, we take off to orbit again. This time our fuel reserves are small enough to all fit inside the fuselage tanks, which means the dV reading is accurate. It's enough to get us back to Kerbin though, if you're any good with launch windows

Hey KSP! After a long time, I finally decided to launch a ship to Duna (manned, of course. I can't risk my unmanned probes ) I wanted some help landing on Duna. The most trouble I seem to get is to get an intercept to Duna by Hohmann transfer. What is the ideal relative position of Kerbin and Duna, to get a nice trajectory? Also, are 19 radial drogue parachutes, 9 radial parachutes, and 1 main parachute enough for landing?

I just got enough Science to unlock the nuclear engine, and I want to build a Duna lander with one, to make my first landing on the planet. The thing is the damn engine is so long, my imagination is failing me on an elegant way to build, and put landing struts and a ladder on it. After spending an hour getting frustrated, it occurred to me that approximately everyone reading this has already built one, or something like it. Any tips or pictures you have would be awesome! A few points: The mission is full science (I don't have upper level experiments unlocked yet). I am planning on not activating the lander (NERV) stage until getting into Duna orbit. However, I was planning on trying to biome hop once or twice. The lander I was working on had 6000+ Dv, and had a 1.2 thrust on Duna, with about 17 ton weight. I was planning on only bringing a scientist to reset and collect experiments. However, that means the experiments need to be within his reach and a probe core is needed. I have all engines unlocked, as well as the largest fairing. So long as it isn't crazy wide, un-areodynamic stuff should be fine. I was planning on having the entire lander reenter Kerbin, using the parachutes, but I guess I am not married to that. The only addon I have is mechjeb. So un-stock parts would mess me up OK, so here is what I have so far: UPDATE: So after reading everyones posts, here is what I am going with. Decided that the NERV engine was not the best way to go, everyone was making that a pretty strong point. I will be using Nerv for transfer stage, which will be brought into orbit separately and attached with the docking ports. Will send an unmanned refuel pod first, to maximize hopping potential. Again, thanks for all the help!

Hey, it might not be as great or fascinating as some of the other posts here, but I still hope someone likes it.

I have been playing this game since at least version .21 but i have always relied on mods as a crutch (especially hyperedit). I also never had any ambition to do it without mods but i decided to give it a try because i had nothing better to do today and it was pretty easy. Sadly i didn't have enough delta v to get back into orbit. This happens to be on of my favorite pictures of kerbal space program with the sun and ike in the background.

Out of curiosity, which return to Kerbin would be cheaper; from a 60km orbit around Duna, or a 10km orbit around Ike? [added] I am also rather tickled that this thread has fostered such a prolonged mathematics discussion, despite the fact that I would find it very very frightening if I were compelled to attempt any of these resolutions! Let one and all feel free to interject their miscellaneous math musings below and here-in.

*click for full res version!* Hey guys! Following the release of my newest short cinematic, Science, I decided I'd release the -all stock- star of the show: Marte Having actually used the whole design before even having the idea for the film, I can vouch that it works excellently, and is great for anyone who is wanting to try and go to the next stage in their space program. Whether you need a reference craft capable of reaching various interplanetary destinations for designing your own, or for practicing aerocaptures and rover landings, the Marte should be a great tool! Grab the craft on KerbalX, here! If you want subassemblies, and a written guide on how to use it, check here! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3KMolVXKZX_ZW11S0xqb2Rma3M "Short cinematic you say? I wanna see that!" Check it out!

Hi I have been playing KSP for a while now, but never gone further than the Mun or Minmus. This is version 1.05 Moderate difficulty career mode. I had a short break from KSP before attempting this..... I think I was a bit rusty! Please feel free to comment on the Kerbaling as well as the Lets play style! Thanks for watching!

I am trying to build my first lander to get to Duna and this is what I got: My issue is that empty space for the small sized engine under the fuel tank. I am assuming this will cause a good deal of Aero-drag, but upgrading from a Terrier to a Poodle costs me like 600 Dv that I don't want to lose if I don't have to. Any ideas? I ask because I am sure this will come up again in the future

So I was on Ike, and my lander can started to spin and spin and I decided to record it. I thought wat if I EVA and this happened, i could escape Ike, put me on a sub-orbital trajectory of Duna, and land on duna alive, only using the EVA suit. Check it out (it's a comedy video also): <Removed by moderation team> Tell me what do you think!

Right now I descend on a quite shallow entry trajectory, dropping through 10 km height (terrain altitude) with around 830 m/s speed. I retroburn to reduce speed to 420 m/s, that is when myMk12-R Radial-Mount Drogue Chutes appear safe to deploy . Cutting off the engines and the SAS, the drogue chutes decrease my speed below 210 m/s, which then gives a for the Mk2-R Radial-Mount Parachute . Activating them (to enable the needed braking to slow it to reasonable 10 or so m/s) does nothing. The chute deploy sound is audible, but neither are they visible nor does the speed decrease further as expected. What is going on?

LC Cruiser IV Ok so it has been a while since my last cargo SSTO, but that has changed. This craft is very capable of bringing a 20 ton payload to the surface of duna and then fly back. Since it uses the same principle of most SSTA's it can also SSTA after the cargo is delivered. It weighs about 230 tons with full cargo (thats about double what my old ones weighed). It has parachutes to make landing on duna or anywhere with atmosphere easier. It has landing gear on its wingtips so that when the plane tilts to the side, it doesn't break the wings and it only bounces back the other way. In my mission video I brought a mining rig with a compact solar array that was expanded to get more energy (although it doesn't really need that much). Heres the download, video, and more screenshots. The video should show you the ascent on how to get to orbit. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzxHcRlvkLMQZWp4dzJLajMwdGM/view?usp=sharing

Hi. I'm building a new surface outpost on Duna and I've decided to document. For fun and stuff. I've developed a pretty nice look for my contract bases this game that I think is worth showing off a little bit. The new models with 1.0.5 have opened up a bunch of new design possibilities that I've been very happy with. Also Ike, but I haven't started working on that one yet. Sadly, I have no compelling or engaging back-story for my current space program. It's a normal career game. Stock. I have no particular goals or constraints; I've just been goofing about until 1.1 rolls around. The tech tree has been filled out for some time now, all facilities are fully upgraded, and I have 5 or 6 million funds on hand to throw at something fancy. Winter Owl Aircraft Emporium offered the contract to bankroll a Duna outpost and I felt like taking them up on it. I figured it would be handy and fun. That was over 12 years ago. It's funny how easy it is to get distracted by other stuff. Gene and Mort have been very patient with me, but it's about time to get it done. Also Ike. Probodyne Inc approached me 5 years ago with that contract, and I've been slacking on it, too. I don't really have a plan (aside from checking off the boxes on the contract to keep my sponsors happy), but I figure the modular components I need to develop for Duna should allow me to throw something suitable together without too much trouble. So that's where things stand. It's year 14, day 30. The next transfer window to Duna is around day 125. Let's get to work. Part 1 -- Initial Planing and Prior Works This is what I have in mind so far. It's sort of a rough sketch to serve as my guide for building the individual components. Winter Owl wants housing for 8 kerbals, a science lab, cupola, and 6,000 units of liquid fuel reserves on-site. I don't want to haul that much fuel down to the surface and having a strong refueling capacity would be nice anyway, so I'm adding in an ISRU assembly. A solar array and some refueling docks are going in too, and that's about all I've decided on so far. It's general style is one I used earlier in this game for contract outposts on the Mun and Minmus, so a few of the components are already pretty polished. Earlier Projects: Lutha Crater on the Mun, initially built for the Experimental Engineering Group, with a housing expansion commissioned by STAEDLER Engineering Corps. Sanena Basin on Minmus, initially built for FLOOYD Dynamics Research Labs, with a lab and housing expansion for the C7 Aerospace Division: Come to think of it, both of those facilities could use some freshening up at this point. I've been kind of neglecting them since, well, forever. In the next installment, I'll be looking at the first round of finished launch packages and start throwing stuff into orbit to wait for the transfer window while I figure out the rest. In the meantime, here are some archive images from the launches of the Mun and Minmus outposts shown above: Thanks for reading!

So I put together this interplanetary vessel back in .24 but it wasn't until 1.0.5 when I used it to get to Duna (deadly re-entry is off because the ship was designed pre-aerodynamic update). I encountered a few issues along the way, such as the solar pannels I put on the lander not retracting for my aerobrake maneuver due to the pannel update, but my biggest concern is fuel. Currently I have a refuel stage headed to duna to give a little extra fuel to the transport stage (even though I have plenty) but it's also hauling a battery pack and retractable solar pannels to go down with the lander. I was curious if, over all, the lander has enough fuel to make it to orbit and meet the transport stage, which is at about 105-110k meters. It's a lander can with a senior port, a quarter 2.5m tank of fuel, a poodle engine, two solid rocket boosters (thumper) for takeoff that have decouplers to seperate, 8 parachutes (better safe than sorry), and the heaviest landing legs (4). Including the additional stuff, will this be good or should I consider more fuel to be taken by the refuel vessel. I should add this is by memory. I won't have access to my computer for a bit, and as such I can't check any stats (though I could wiki it but I got stuff to do).

So, this is the start of the saga of my first Duna rover. And it hasn't been going well. I began with using my standard booster, the Heavy Orbital Booster Mk2. I developed the rover and IP transfer stage, and attached them, then built the fairing. I should have known that things would not go well when the main engines did not start when I first pressed space, which they usually do in this particular design. I staged again, and the rocket lifted off as normal, but with a slight wobble, which was unusual as this design had a quad-SAS core segment to keep it stable and maneuverable. At 6900m, I began my gravity turn. This is where things went wrong the first time. As I began my gravity turn, I realized why my engines hadn't ignited on the first stage. The rocket began tilting earthward, and I had the thought to zoom in to the fairing to see what was wrong. The IP transfer stage had separated from the rocket and was only held in place by the acceleration. As I began my gravity turn, it fell to the fairing and offset my center of mass. The rocket tumbled out of control, and I cut the engines and watched it fall into the ocean. I fixed that staging error and began the launch again. This time, the failure was even more catastrophic. It turns out that even with my faulty staging the IP stage would have fallen from its mounting. It was a heavy 2.5m payload on a 1.25m decoupler, and as I staged to my second stage, which had much higher acceleration for more efficient orbital insertions, the payload broke off the decoupler as I began my orbital insertion. It smashed into the main body and sent debris flying into the stratosphere, which luckily mostly burned up. I'm working on a new booster for this mission, due to the unreliability of the Heavy Orbital Booster Mk2. I'll post updates soon.

Back in the heady days of version 24.2 I finally decided to get serious and mount a manned mission to Duna. Earlier today, whilst looking through old files, I found all of the screenshots. So, I present to you, KSPers, a nostalgic look back at what I achieved in 2014... Duna or Bust, Part 1 First off, we took my version of the Delta IV Heavy to the pad to send off a probe or two to the red planet. This is some weeks before the true launch window opens, so the delta-V requirement is large! setting up our interplanetary transit... (thank you Precise Node mod!) ... delta-V is in the 2200m/s ball park, more than double what we would need when the manned launch is carried out 50 days later light the blue touch paper, and stand well back... meanwhile, on-orbit assembly of the manned element of the mission was taking place...in the foreground the nuclear propulsion block, and in the background the habitat block with its launch booster still attached and our ship is almost ready to go... from right to left we have the "bridge", life support areas, docking node with Skylab style telescope mount, living quarters and lab, and then past the big KW rocketry docking adapters to the fuel and engines. All we are waiting for is the "tug" at the far left to detach, and be replaced with a large aerobraking shield Part 2 will see the crew transferred and the epic journey get underway. Stay tuned!

Ultra-minimalist designers in combination with slightly homicidal engineers bring you the M-1N1 ultra-light manned vehicle. Theoretically capable of landing on Duna, the images below are those of a little test drive to Minmus. The craft will remain there for a while as a monument to the lack of budget of our space program. Launch: Cabins? Heat protection? Real men don't need those! Featuring mini-asparagus staging. Tasty! 600 dV Main stage active; carries enough fuel for MKO insertion. 3400 dV of fuel Orbital insertion almost finished, 22 dV left over in the main stage. High dV mini-stage has just separated. -LOST IMAGE- Minmus transfer. Nothing fishy going on here. 3/4 through the transfer, 1600 dV remaining. We have 40 minutes to insert into Minmus orbit. Minmus orbit achieved. Highly eccentric but good enough for our purposes. Planning the landing on one of Minmus' salt flats. Landing burns in progress. 1420 dV left Seems like we aren't landing on the salt flat after all. Drat. The ground looks deceptively close; however, we still have 1300 meters left until we crash into the ground. A perfect landing! Wrong part of the planet, but still perfect!

In this video I finish the two missions launched by the Skywalker reusable booster. (Click Here to See That)

Hellooow everyone ! Today I come up with a weird question : Okay, so I wish to start exploring other planets in the game now, but I like to do things properly and well, because the most amazing part of the gameto me is when excrements works and you succeed in actually going somewhere. My first target will obviously be Duna and I have this program idea, that's kind of inspired by the Mars Semi-direct Mission, with a hab module, a Duna Ascent Vehicle and a Kerbin Return Vehicle. Now I know Duna has a different atmosphere and gravity pull than Kerbin... So how do I test properly my crafts ? How am I going to know if they'll actually work waaaay over there ? That's the kind of mission I don't want to have to restart from the beginning if something doesn't work.. I mean, I enjoy problems that are interesting and spectacular, like when everything goes south or when you forgot a step and the result is just too funny to be reverted etc... Not the annoying stuff that makes you start again 60 times and takes you 7hours to get right. So yeah, thanks in advance for all the help and have a nice Odyssey