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So I've landed on Duna and I have a contract telling me to get some science from a Duna Sand Dune. I've found pictures and such on the web, but I'm still unable to find one. Is there a specific biome I have to be in (I'm in the Duna Midlands), or something like that? Here's a link for an image (I don't know how to properly insert images): https://imgur.com/SISCsHN SOLVED: I have found one. It was sorta glitched into a normal rock. It seems to look more like a rock with a dune texture. They stand out cuz they're slightly lighter than the rocks and surface of Duna (that's how I found mine).

I am planning to rescue Jeb, Val, and Bill off of Eve with this lander: https://imgur.com/a/MSKREIv https://kerbalx.com/MunsterIII/Mona-Lisa-III-Lander I am testing it out, and it seems to work great until 1100 meters. Most of the parachutes are deployed by then and everything is going smoothly until the game freezes. The next thing that happens is the entire lander is fairly evenly distributed over an area of about 10 km. I have no clue what is happening. Any ideas? Lander description: Double layer asparagus pancake for ascent. Heat shield on top and bottom for stable descent. SRB on the bottom to deorbit (use cheats to get there). First stage deploys drogues, second deploys main chutes, third releases probe.

Even though I have 15,000 excess science.. it's not enough. I found I had not yet landed on any of the Jool moons. Bad Kerbals! So, i decided I would take a lab with me, and make a single lander that can hit all the moons except Laythe (requires a specialized design). Tylo being the biggest challenge, because of its very high gravity/size, it's like landing on Kerbin without an atmosphere. So I designed a lander with some jettisonable fuel, with the idea I would go to Tylo FIRST, and then wouldn't need those tanks for Vall, Pol, or Bop. I would bring my lab with me as an undockable section, with its own fuel, RCS, etc. Unfortunately, I forgot to put a probe controller on it, but that's OK, I'll just have the lander always dock to it. The small docking ports are for refueling (note that I can't refuel the lander without the lab until I jettison the tanks, but might have been nice to put one on an external tank just in case.). The lab acts as the big com relay back to Kerbin, if needed. And, of course, I need to refuel constantly, so I made a one-piece driller/ISRU/fuel transport, with a small docking port for refueling the lander/lab sections. Small engine to just handle interplanetary and landing on Pol. Checking out the dV for the lander, the DV maps *say* I need about 2280 to land and take off at Tylo, with 4750, I *should* have enough, right? (more on this later). It may take a low starting orbit, but on paper, it should work. So, first we get up into Kerbin orbit, and head to Minmus to refuel everybody for the long drive to Jool. Note that I was able to keep the lower booster from Kerbin, so it took two refueling runs, but the landing section would come into Jool with plenty of fuel, while the driller would come into Jool orbit with maybe only 800 dV, probably enough to get to Pol on its own, but this added extra insurance. Turns out I had plenty, transfer, orbit and landing is maybe 500-700. We refuel everyone at Pol, and head to Tylo. Now, I begin to worry- if I start my landing low (say 17km), and get back to a low orbit, can my fuel ship dip down that low to refuel (before landing and after re-orbit), and climb back out the gravity well and get back to Pol and land? The answer, it turns out, is yes. I leave about 1000 dV for each run back to Pol. So, we try our first descent from 17km. We learn two things. (1) You can't start from 17km because you can't slow down fast enough before gravity sucks you into a mountain. If you thrust downward enough, you use too much fuel. So we raise the descent to about 30km. That works well, but we land with only about 2100 dV left, not nearly enough to get back into orbit. It turns out it takes about 2500 dV to get to a roughly 10km orbit. Yep, this looks bad. So, after failed attempts, I realize I need help. So I built another fuel/engine "top" component to provide more fuel (and the thrust to counter its extra weight). Note that I added a decoupler to the docking ring, because those BIG docking rings have enough magnetic attraction they don't come loose easily. I am still granted the proper dV, but I didn't want to have something that might crash on top of me and explode after landing. With this component and some careful piloting, I'm able to land with about 2561 dV left. Note that I hit hard when I landed and broke a strut, but I should still be fine for Vall. 2561 was enough to put us back into a 9kmx20km orbit, with enough dV left to re-dock with the science section. Then the refueler only had to make one stop! So, the major lesson learned is- don't trust the dV maps. It took about 2600-2800 dV to land and 2300-2400 to reach stable orbit, and that's with optimal piloting. But other than that, the "two ships, single lander for four moons" project is so far a success, and has passed the toughest test.... Tylo, with only one landing strut as a casualty.

Hi guys, I picked this game up on the last Steam 75% sale and it's really addicting. I'm having a blast. I started a career, and landed on the Mun for the first time yesterday, which was so cool. My first lander had all the science I had unlocked with it, and the full price to get it there was around 43k. This feels so expensive since my Mun orbiter for tourists is only 25k. How cheap can I get a science lander to the Mun to hit the biomes? Any thoughts on my design that I can improve? Thanks! Here are some images. https://imgur.com/a/uv6Ent0 I can get to orbit with boosters, and empty the lower stage tank to get Lower orbit, then burn for Mun intercept. If a poor launch, I might be a couple hundred Dv short. If I land without mistakes, I have 300-400dv of fuel left in lander, but if I have troubles, I can easily burn through that.

ISRO launched Chandrayaan 2 (chandra=moon, yaan=vehicle) aboard a GSLV- mkIII on 22nd July. Youtube link here. Unmanned Orbiter-Lander-Rover mission to Moon/Mun's South Pole. All upper stage modules should be be solar powered, Orbiter must be in a low, circular and polar orbit. Lander (Vikram) carrying the rover must land in a crater near the south pole. Rover (Pragyan) should be housed inside the lander and must have a drill and seismograph.(EDIT: surface exploration & science parts) For those wanting a challenge: As it is an ISRO mission, budget should be as low as possible! Chandrayan-2 will utilize the Oberth Effect for raising its apogee through multiple burns, to conserve fuel and thereby launch costs. Concept : Animation Video by ISRO Chandrayaan 2 Official webpage Realism mods such as RO, other aesthetic mods, mechjeb, kOS, KER, etc are allowed. Stock entries are also welcome. Take it as a challenge and try to replicate it OR simply just have some fun doing it, totally up to you guys! Feel free to post your screenshots, crafts, ideas, suggestions and comments. Enjoy!

I built a massive lander for the moon which was attacked by a kraken while landing. While landing, I deployed the bottom stage (14 Jumbo-64s and 7 mainsails) to eject the lander (2 X200-32s, mainsail, hitchiker, Mk1-3pod, and landing gear). What I expected was that the stage would disconnect and the lander would fire the mainsail and land some distance away. What happened was that the lander sank rapidly into the bottom stage, and when it was almost all the way in it registered that there was a collision. My kerbal in the hitchiker went splat and the two in the command pod got launched at half the speed of light out into the outer void. Is there a known solution to this bug? I really want to land on the Mun with this lander, but if I have to eject the bottom stage early, I won't have enough fuel on reentry.

Ok so here’s the deal (very small font to fit a lot of words) What you need to do is design a mun lander that can go to the mun and back to kerbin. (optional) You need to have the following: ”Terrier” engine FT-400 fuel tank (OX and LF) Mk1 command pod Inline reaction wheel Extra external fuel tanks etc. you get the idea You also need a rocket that can get into a 75,000 meter orbit around kerbin that carries the lander The rest you can do on your own! Thanks for reading!

After having huge CoM issues on the first HLV, I decided to create an entirely new model, the HLV2. CoM issues have been resolved and in the process I think I figured out what went wrong with the first model. Hope to correct and publish that one too. So here it is, the Konstellation HLV. Another quick update: Added the agricultural, hab and science/Comms modules. Amongst others, enjoy:) PS. Texturing still sucks but it is improving:) UPDATE: Added the transfer stage and some more texturing. Download: Spacedock Installation: You know the drill. Copy the Moonprint folder into the gamedata folder. Building: The MAV decoupler connects to a second node on the rear of the lander (the non-conical part). A standard docking port can be placed underneath the nosecone, it connects to a hidden node just underneath the top of the capsule. The cargo conatiners require KIS to be functional otherwise they are there for show. Aeroshell - In production, texturing stage. the aeroshell has two holes, one at the top one at the bottom to stow parachtes and covers to ensure aerodynamics. The chutes are for parachute assisted seperation. Lander frame RCS - Now integrated in to the frame as a LFO vernier engine. Ensues more stability during atmospheric deceleration In modeling: ISRU; ORE TANKS DEPENDENCIES: Community Resource Pack The textures are WIP. I am really terrible with texturing:( Suggestions are welcome:)

The latest NASA budget suggests the Europa Clipper, an orbiter mission to the Jovian-system to study Europa, won’t fly on the SLS, but instead on commercial rockets: https://mobile.twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1105131948903747584 However, instead of just an orbiter mission, by using commercial rockets, we can do it as an actual lander mission at a fraction of the cost of the SLS-based orbiter mission. In fact, it could be so low cost so as to be fully privately financed and at a profit. http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2015/02/low-cost-europa-lander-missions.html This written in 2015. Since then the F9 has been increases in payload nearly 50% and the FH by nearly 25%. So the landers could be made larger or more capable in-space stages could be used to shorten the flight time. I had assumed that the Falcon Heavy couldn't carry the full Europa Clipper orbiter at 6 ton gross mass to Jupiter. And speculation had been the addition of a Star 48 solid-stage would allow the EC mission on a FH but it would require an Earth gravity-assist that would lengthen the flight time to 6 years. However, I was surprised when I ran the numbers that the upgraded version of the FH could do the mission with plenty of margin with the addition of one of the existing cryogenic upper stages. The extra margin would actually allow you to shorten the flight time from the 2.7 years expected with the SLS. Bob Clark

I have been trying my hardest to design a lander that is capable of surviving an Eve re-entry, and being able to return from sea level. My main problems are first that the lander needs to be quite big and so I need big rockets to haul them into orbit. Sometimes they are not light enough to get into LKO. The second issue is that I am trying to at least land on actual land and not the ocean so Jeb can plant a flag and the rocket can stay upright on landing legs. The problem with that is mainly that I don't know how to do atmospheric precision landings on Eve. Any tips?

Anyone want to take on the tough challenge of making an Eve lander for 1.1.x? We had a thread around 2 years ago that came up with some excellent designs for Eve landers and I thought it was time to revive this for the current version of the game. Challenge description - Build the lightest Eve Lander possible! Category 1) Take off from anywhere on Eve and reach a stable orbit. Category 2) Take off from an altitude of under 100 meters and reach a stable orbit. Challenge rules: You need Kerbal on board who can exit and enter the vehicle prior to take off. What would be the point of landing on Eve if you couldn't have a walk around on the surface. No external command seats! That rules out using a seat in a service bay. You'll need to use a lander can or command pod or something similar. I may add an extra category if there is a demand for the use of a chair in a service bay method later. Stock parts and physics only. Exceptions are Autopilot and navigation aids like Mechjeb, Kerbal Engineer etc and any building mods like Editor Extension, Hanger Extension, Infinite offset limits etc. These are allowed. You do not have to transport your lander to Eve. you may use Hyperedit to reach an Eve orbit and the Vessel Mover mod to move your vessel once it has landed, (useful if you want to take off from a specific altitude!) Post screenshots of proof as well as the lander prior to take off. Craft files would be most welcome and videos are optional. Why this challenge? Well, in some ways an Eve Lander is easier to build in this version since v0.9 as you probably only need around 9000 DeltaV to reach orbit from sea level compared to the 12000 DeltaV. However, the journey to Eve is harder compared to earlier versions. Aerobraking is difficult due to the heating effects of the atmosphere and Eve is inclined so it take more DeltaV to get there. This makes building the lightest craft possible an important factor in enabling inter-planetary transfer stages to be of reasonable sizes, especially if you plan on using engine thrust to achieve orbit. Obviously you do not need to build one of these for this challenge but a light lander will help anyone who wants to use a submitted lander to build a craft that is fully capable of a mission to Eve and back from Kerbin. Here is what I have come up with myself: With de-orbiting, re-entry and landing parts attached. With above parts removed, (that are jettisoned at lift off). This weighs 74.220 tons, 86 parts and completes Category 2. It can reach a 100 km orbit from under 100m with 444 DeltaV left over so I think there is a lot of margin left over for better designs! It's a simple asparagus design however the first 2 stages are just fuel tanks with the 3 Aerospikes and 2 vectors all firing from launch. Mixing the engines like this gave me the best balance between TWR and DeltaV. The biggest challenge was ensuring the craft could survive entry into Eve's atmosphere without flipping out as the inflatable heatshield has so much drag it tends to flip the craft out. I realise now that I could have just used the Vessel Mover mod to spawn a saved vessel directly on the surface and not worried about re-entry but this makes this design one step closer to a fully functional Eve capable craft anyway. Download > https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9mK0rPybNaxSHNVZ2JPZm5UdWc Good luck!

Hi, I hadn't played KSP for more than a year before I decided to pick it up again yesterday. Today I decided to send a very small lander to the Mun. I managed to land it very smoothly (at like 1 m/s). As soon as I landed, the landing legs compressed and then extended like a spring. Since then, the lander keeps bouncing, reaching less than one metre in the air and then falling back down. As it touches the ground, there is an instant in which it is basically still, allowing me to time warp. However, as soon as I go back to real time, the bouncing continues. If I exit the game and reload the craft, it shoots up a lot higher and then goes back to bouncing. Does anyone know how I can solve this issue? Thank you very much! Edit: here's a gif of the issue: https://imgur.com/a/XETJPJX (I am struggling to embed it into this post, sorry)

here it is my little rovy ready to explore https://imgur.com/a/6bD9l1i

So I'm pretty new to Kerbal Space Program (haven't even really left the kerbal system yet even though a probably could, because I just love mun/minmus missions), and for a while I've been messing around with stock Apollo replicas, and just general stock replicas of real life missions. Making an apollo lander in stock KSP, without any of that fancy DLC is naturally a pretty big challenge, but I'm really proud of this one and felt like sharing It houses 2 brave kerbals, and although the video below was made very lazily using cheats, I can guarantee its ability to land on the mun and then rendezvous with a CSM in any mun orbit (Even at the edge of it's SOI) with a bunch of fuel to spare. One of the things I really dislike about this craft is how easy it is to break the landing legs unless you're going <0.2m/s on a flat surface, but cutting the fuel down enough would change that problem (a better player than me could probably land and return with the ascent stage alone, which quite literally has surplus fuel to the moon and back). If anyone wants the .craft file, let me know. I haven't posted it here because A. I'm not entirely sure how to do so and B. I've heard some people are protective of these files and I can't quite figure out why, or if any of these reasons may apply to me. Crappy "Showcase" video made with OBS, Movie Maker, and a whole bunch of debug menu. Yes, I know that in real life the CSM and LEM docked while still attached to the lunar injection stage. Image Album Thanks for looking

I've published a new version of Gossamer Albatross [KerbalX] with enhanced balance & controls. UPDATE: Albatross has been retired. Please try Gossamer Anisoptera... You'll love it. I'm opening a topic on it because it's not so trivial to fly. The Albatross is a great tourist vehicle (24 pax) -- a "lo-grav flitter" -- to see the Mun et al. "up close and personal". Pre-flight check-list: AG7 extend sails RCS on stage the ion drive (you may need to create a dummy stage before it to make Space bar work) toggle AG0 and ensure that the Puff engines are shutdown AG8 hover mode SAS on, SFC mode, Radial Out Lift-off: engage full thrust (Z) climb to a safe altitude select SAS Hold (press and release F momentarily) AG9 flight mode Cruise: use F to defeat SAS Hold momentarily while adjusting the craft attitude use attitude to vector ion drive thrust AG0 to engage horizontal propulsion via the MP Puff drive Landing: by the time you get to this, you will have figured it out hint: you can use the throttle to carefully adjust your sink rate hint: you can use the RCS translate thrust for enhanced deceleration hint: if you get desperate, you can turn tail and use the Puff drive (AG0) to decelerate. hint: its got wheels. if you can't land like a chopper pilot, then align the wheels with your direction and land it like a plane. WARNING: THIS MACHINE TURNS INTO A PUMPKIN AN HOUR BEFORE DUSK. HAVE IT ON THE GROUND OR IN ORBIT BY THAT TIME AT ALL COSTS. The manufacturer claims to have orbited this machine from the surface of the Mun. With sufficient skill and iron nerves, it ought therefore be possible to land it, too. [Your speed may vary... [Although your altitude will always come back to zero!]] Refueling: via a Klaw to be attached to the small girder at the rear of the spacecraft. Deployment: Attach it to a lander via the top dock and sky crane it in OR use HyperEdit if you just want to joy-ride the machine. You won't be disappointed. OR *NEW* you can download a fully-equipped world save file: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/170734-lunar-ion-drive-pylon-course/ (UPDATE: the Albatross Pylon Challenge will be updated shortly to use the new Anisoptera...) Pireps made here would be appreciated...

So, I wanted to make an 'all in one' tug/explorer (vanilla parts) to export almost all of the Kerbol system. Criteria was that as much of the ship as possible should be reusable at each stop, and it can refuel itself along the way. My plan was to have three main components: a driller (for refueling), a science lander, and a tug to transport the other two components. The driller was pretty simple, with a 4500 ore capacity: Note the large docking port atop, that will mate to the 'back' of the tug. The harder part was building a lander. I started a lander that would handle MOST of the standard planets (Mun, Eeloo, etc) a single stage land/takeoff that would have about 3000+ dV. Added chutes and drogues for Duna and Laythe. For Duna and Laythe, I added a removable inflatable heat shield, connected with a docking port so I could add or remove it as the mission required via a docking port: Experimenting with the inflatable shield was VERY interesting. A few lessons: If you inflate it and it touches an atmosphere, you can't deflate and re-use it. Which means I'd need to bring one for Duna and one for Laythe. When you deflate it, it *VIOLENTLY* explodes. So I separated it as much as I could, and experimented to make sure after the peak of re-entry heat, I could turn the ship prograde, drop the shield, and then flip back retrograde before finishing the landing sequence (in some cases just turning sideways and firing the engines to get the heck away from this giant bomb I'm carrying). Otherwise, the air resistance forces the shield back into the craft, with another BIG BOOM. So, that being said, my tests with Laythe still didn't work because of the high dV needed to push through the atmosphere. So, I added another optional stage I could also add with a docking port: It's super ugly, and the lower engines gimbal way more than they should, making it a difficult craft to control. But I get an extra 1630 dV from the lower stage, coupled with 3670 on the upper stage (if I use the drop tanks, but a bit less otherwise), gives me about 5300+ dV total, enough to land and take off from Laythe and Tylo. Note that I have to cut the fuel cross-feed (otherwise it robs the upper tanks first) and the stage cutover is a manual redocking/staging sequence, but not too awful. So, now I have all the planets covered, except for Eve, of course. So, here is the assembled tug, powered by a dozen nuke engines: Note the two 'extra' sections being carried: - Fuel/Engine set for Tylo - Thermal balloon for Duna - Another set of both for Laythe And, of course, a science lab. Fully assembled and fueled, she has about 5000dV. Getting ready to run the full system test!

The invention of Debug Drive (pioneered by one Cheiter "Alt-F12" Kerman) has rendered the complexities of orbital mechanics virtually obsolete. Now, spaceships can simply turn on their Debug Drive and zip almost instantly from any orbit to any other celestial orbit, without consuming a single drop of propellant. Some have decried the use of this technology as "too easy", but most have embraced it with enthusiasm. The new tech has only one limitation: it can only be used once a stable orbit has been established, as the Tunnelizer Particles used by the drive will rip the ship apart if exposed to too much gravitational imbalance. So while orbital mechanics is no longer a concern, rocket science remains alive and well. THE CHALLENGE: Build a ship capable of deorbiting and orbiting at many worlds as possible, without refueling, staging, or docking. Your ship is only responsible for the deorbit and orbit; it does NOT have to perform transfer or capture burns. You may use the Debug Menu to "jump" from any stable orbit to any other stable orbit, but you cannot jump from the surface (or from a suborbital trajectory) to orbit. Your vehicle must be manned. At no point can any parts explode, break off, or otherwise leave your ship. Absolutely no part mods. This challenge is about design, so you do not have to fly your ship into orbit; you start the challenge in LKO, fully-fueled. You decide what order to visit worlds in. SCORING: You gain points each time you land and reorbit from a given world. Each world is worth a certain number of points as shown below. Gilly: 6 Pol: 26 Minmus: 36 Bop: 46 Ike: 78 Dres: 86 Mun: 116 Eeloo: 124 Duna: 145 Vall: 172 Moho: 174 Laythe: 290 Tylo: 454 Eve: 800 (if anyone can pull it off) Good so far? Don't get started just yet. You can earn bonuses based on vehicle design and mission parameters. Each bonus is a 10% increase to your final score, and they multiply, so two bonuses means a 21% increase, three bonuses means a 33.1% increase, and so forth. OP reserves the right to add new bonuses in the future. Homeward Bound: Return to the surface of Kerbin from LKO at the end of your mission. Infinity and Beyond: Your vessel consumes neither xenon nor ablator, meaning it could conceivably refuel at any ISRU station and continue its mission indefinitely. In the Neighborhood: Visit each planetary system only once. In other words, you complete all landings within a given system before moving on to the next one. Baby Grand: Visit every world but Eve. Kerbin's Sweet Caress: Land within visual range of the KSC at the end of your mission. No Surly Bonds: Your vessel is capable of SSTO from Kerbin, independent of your main mission. Rocket Scientist: Be the first person to post, in this thread, an accurate explanation for how I arrived at the scoring for each world. Hera, Wife of Zeus: Land on all the moons of Jool. Powerhouse: Your vessel carries no solar panels. Disembark: Your Kerbals can leave the vessel and plant flags on every world without needing their jetpacks. Regular Ace: Fly the entire mission without relying on informational or piloting mods. Pickup Artist: Your vessel is capable of EDL at Eve and re-ascent to orbit if Infinite Fuel is enabled after landing, independent of your main mission. One Stop Shop: Your vessel consumes only a single type of propellant (e.g., xenon only, LF only, monoprop only, or LFO only). Killing Me Smalls: Your vessel has the lowest dry mass of any submission. To qualify, you must land on either Laythe or Tylo. Rule of Cool: You have a dual-thrust-axis lander, capable of vertical takeoff and landing perpendicular to your main engine thrust vector using dedicated engines. Good luck, everyone! LEADERBOARD: @Wanderfound Touches down on Laythe and the Mun before coming home to Kerbin for a pinpoint KSC landing. For now, the smallest submission capable of Laythe, so 791 points!

Lancelot Mk-IX I just wanted to share a rocket I made. It is designed to launch an orbital space ship that can mine on 11 different planets and moons. In fact, it's possible (through mining) to visit and plant flags on all 11 worlds before returning back to Kerbin. It has an extremely capable lander that utilizes the largest wheels and mining equipment. The normal crew is 2 pilots, 11 engineers, and 1 science officer (because it would be unlucky to have a crew of 13). Mineable planets and moons include: Mun, Minmus, Gilly, Moho, Ike, Duna, Dres, Vall, Bop, Pol, and Eeloo. Here is the CRAFT FILE Here is a IMAGE SLIDE SHOW - to show how it works. CONTROLS: Ship: controls for the combined ship and lander. 1. Primary Solar (6 panels |ship) 2. Secondary Solar (2 panels |lander) 3. Primary Thermal Control (2 medium |ship) 4. Secondary Thermal Control (2 small |lander) 5. Docking Lights (Red = Bottom 7, Green = Top |ship) 6. Night Driving Lights (1 spot light, 1 soft light |lander) 7. Primary Engines (toggle to decrease/increase power by 66.6% |ship) 8. Secondary Engines (toggle to decrease/increase power by 33.3% |lander) Lander: controls for the separated lander only. 9. Toggle Ladder (Extends ladder down from the driving platform) 0. Lander Solar (Activates all 4 panels)

So let's see If Ah'v got this reight lad.. Tha wants to send t' lander wi't' command pod? Aye gaffer. Dithent fret, Ah'v got it sussed! Allreight, Let's have a skeg then. Wot's tha got? That's grand lad.. grand.

hey guys I present my mission in mun with two ssto's being one of them v-tol and another, in fact it's strange the cockpit is a Lander just watching ... sorry for the long video of 7 minutes and many docking I've been a long time without playing. .. need opinions for new ships and missions

So, the challenge is to create a kOS program that will launch a spacecraft, put it into a stable orbit around Kerbin, and land the first stage of the rocket on Kerbin, without any manual control (Except starting the program, of course) There is a point system Here is the amount of points you get or lose from doing certain things: MINIMUM: Get to stable orbit, deploy a payload, and land automatically, 1 point. Optional: Payload around Mun: 5 points Costs less than 10000: 5 points Payload weight larger than 50 tons: 2 points Lands near KSC: 3 points Lands on the launch pad: 10 points Lands without parachutes: 5 points Able to configure program to launch different vehicles just by tweaking a few values at the start of the program: 20 points Payload around Duna: 10 points Entire mission to Jool, with an orbiter relay satellite that deploys a probe with a heat shield and returns tons of data automatically: 50 points Good luck!

"Why bother Matt's Thunderbirds when you may simply leave space exploration to droids?" is our motto! Mavnor Space Solutions aims mostly at small subassemblies that helps all those afraid of losing kerbals in manned missions yet longing to get the raw outcome of their experiments, without transmission penalties. Tired of caring for life support? You don't want any accidents involving killing kerbonauts? It's your lucky day! This thread will be updated with new units as I progress in this career save. Right now I'm working on getting RAPIERS, 1-0 action groups and fancy stuff like that. Taking a stroll to our hangar is encuraged: https://kerbalx.com/hangars/25059 Designs I'm thining of: Relay systems <check> Stock Automatic Science Bringer for Duna&Ike (probably Apollo-style with suitable relay/return stage staying in orbit) <check, in testing> Stock Automatic Science Bringer for Laythe (definitely Apollo-style with suitable relay/return stage staying in orbit and flying drone penetrating Laythe's biomes) Science rover mk2 (with material's bay) SSTO Spaceplane designed around mk3 cargo Stock Surface Refillment Unit <check, in testing and optimalisation> Although I'll try to keep it stock, it works really well with following mods: Bon Voyage, USI, Scansat, x-science. I also play with USI MKS. 1. Stock Automatic Science Bringer for Kerbin SOI This subassembly is designed to collect basic experiments from 6 biomes (a number of goo units attached to the rover) on Mun/Minmus and return experimental storage unit full of science to Kerbin. The lander has a lot d/v (in terms of Mun/Minmus landing) so feel free to make mistakes, note that some fuel is going to be pumped to the return stage. Using this rover with science relay mod (https://mods.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/252171-science-relay) generates so much science points that I'd almost count that cheating. Centre of thrust is a lil bit offset centre of mass, be careful. Mass: 9.22t Part count: 56 d/v: ~1,5k Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/Mavnor/MSS-Stock-Automatic-Science-Bringer Feel free to download and comment ;x

I've been planning to establish a long-term colonization on Laythe for a while now, considering so far the only non-Kerbin planet I ever sent Kerbals to was Duna, with a very lackluster base. Because of it being long-term, I plan to have a space station orbiting Laythe with two landers on standby, which must be almost completely reusable and be able to ferry at minimum six Kerbals from the station to the base(s), with maximum efficiency. With those restrictions in mind, and considering that I plan to keep the space station at an altitude of 150-175km(to make the rendezvous easier for me), I managed to design a hefty lander packing 3.8 m/s of dV, space for seven Kerbals, and a jumbo docking port on the bottom, which also counts on being refueled when landing on Laythe by virtue of the base(s) being equipped with fuel refineries and rovers able to ferry the fuel: As you can see, the reason for the unusual placement of the docking port(below instead of on top) is in favour of a RealChute parachute, designed to work flawlessy(mostly) on Laythe - which is why the lander is not completely coated in 'chutes. Unfortunately, RealChute has a hardcoded limit of 10 uses per parachute part, after which it will no longer work; as it will have to be replaced by a new parachute part through KIS, this is why the lander is only 95% reusable - and not using parachutes at all is a terrible idea as the lander completely loses control when entering Laythe's atmosphere - being the very first craft I've seen that prefers to fly face-first when I intend it to fly butt-first, while it's normally the other way around. (Re-entry heating is disabled in my save file because I have barely mastered proper drag-friendly crafts, let alone drag-friendly heat-freindly crafts) Nevertheless, using HyperEdit, I did multiple simulation flights with Laythe and, despite those shortcomings, de-orbiting and landing in Laythe is something the lander can do(with some trouble regarding loss of control; it can end up flying sideways and therefore gliding far away from its intended destination). The true problem is taking off again and reaching orbit: It just doesn't have enough fuel. Sure, it can attain an apoapsis that's above the atmosphere(thanks to a planet pack, the atmo height is raised to 66km instead of 50km; pressure and grav are unchanged), but it will be left with just 900-800m/s of dV left, when over 1100m/s are needed to complete the circularization. And this is without accounting the fact that the lander would still need to rendezvous with the soon-to-be space station at 150-175km of altitude... Either the lander is fuel-inefficient, or I am doing a wrong ascent profile. And I did check a guide for ascent profiles, but when I tried that, it just resulted in the lander deciding to fly into the ground. (Considering that guide was aimed toward large Kerbin crafts, it's possible its advice just doesn't apply for this situation) Thus, I'm wondering if anyone is able to help me with either/both problems. I'm looking to try and optimize its fuel consumption as much as I can(the aerospikes are the most efficient engines available: the Terrier is too weak, and everything else is either too powerful/inefficient, or has a mismatching size) to be useful in case of an emergency, and find out a more efficient way to get the lander up into Laythe orbit. As well as possibly find out what's causing the lander to completely lose control when braking into Laythe, as that will definitely end up causing problems later on regarding landing precision and the time spent ferrying Kerbals and fuel. And yes, the Center of Mass is above the Center of Lift, which is above the Center of Thrust. And here is the lander's .craft file, in case you need it or just want it.

Hello guys, I've designed this to land on Minmus. It has a nuclear engine on the bottom, 6 venor thrust engines, some RCS Blocks, and the top disengages(command pod, crew cabin,science junior) for reentry. It has a heat shield. Now I have a few questions. 1. Is there a way to make this picture smaller? 2. Is this enough to take off from minmus and fly back to kerbin? 3. Do the vector engines fire at different levels so that the ship will go up when I press H? Or will it simply go nose up since the center of mass is towards the back? 4. Can the crew cabin store surface samples? The idea behind this is to get as many surface samples from different biomes, and then return. Just curious. And any tips?

My original plan was to create a cargo SSTO that could carry 4 large Mk2 bays worth of cargo, land at Mün, and return to Kerbin. This turned out to be a much bigger challenge than I though it would be! As the plane got bigger, it needed more engines, more fuel, then it couldn't land anymore, so needed more engines, more fuel, etc. So I tried going simpler with only 2 large Mk2 bays. Still took quite a bit of trial and error, but I finally did it. As a craft, it's a delicate balance of size, mass, fuel, cargo, and power. 76 tons, 3.5k - 4k ∆v after reaching LKO. How did I do?