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The Red Planet has captured the imaginations of space pioneers ever since the first days of high-powered rocketry. There's a long and auspicious list of proposed Mars missions, dating all the way back to Werner Von Braun's wildly optimistic plan to use over 400 launches to construct a massive artificial-gravity space station for Mars colonization transport. Any of us who have played KSP for a while can probably put a single-launch mission of arbitrary size on Duna easily enough, because Moar Boosters. However, the real world doesn't work like that. You can't just add more boosters; typically, mission planners have to work within the capabilities of existing (or planned) launch vehicles, which can only throw a certain amount of mass into orbit at once. As a result, most of the proposed Mars mission plans involved some degree of in-orbit assembly. The challenge is to design and execute a flags-and-footprints Mars mission with the lowest-massing payload per launch. You can assemble your mission using up to five separate launches; the goal is to make each of those orbital payloads as small as possible. There is no bonus for using fewer than five launches. For example, if you use four orbital payloads massing 8 tonnes, 12 tonnes, 6 tonnes, and 9 tonnes, then your score is 12 tonnes. If you use three orbital payloads massing 4 tonnes, 7 tonnes, and 14 tonnes, then your score is 14 tonnes, even though you did it in fewer launches with lower total mass. Obviously, lowest score wins. Thus, the incentive is to make all the launches roughly the same size in order to maximize the amount of mass you get into orbit while minimizing the size of any one launch, just like real-life mission planning requires you to work within the payload capacities of existing launch vehicles. This will require clever planning, so think ahead! A few rules to keep things more true-to-life: You can use whatever mission architecture you want, but it needs to have at least three Kerbals delivered to Duna orbit and at least two delivered to the surface. Crew must be sent up in the final launch from Kerbin. The transfer and lander (or whatever you use) must have actual crew space. It's fine to use command seats for rovers or for a separately-landed ascent vehicle. On-orbit payload is anything that goes with you toward Duna. If your upper stage is jettisoned after reaching LKO, then it's part of your launch vehicle, not your payload. If you refuel the upper stage to use for your transfer burn, then it's part of your payload. Assembly in LKO means assembly between 70 and 200 km. No ions except for unmanned probes, and then only for orbital adjustments (e.g., no spiraling out over the course of months). If you want to use nukes, you can do so, but only before leaving Kerbin's SOI. NERVAs can't be reliably restarted after a long period of time. ISRU can be used, but with some restrictions: Astronauts can't wait forever for ISRU, so if you manufacture your own fuel and oxidizer, you'll need to send an unmanned ISRU unit ahead of time. If you bring your own liquid fuel and only want to manufacture oxidizer, it's fine to have the ISRU unit on the manned lander (it's considered feasible to do this for Mars missions since cracking LOX out of the Martian atmosphere is straightforward). If you take this route, you can turn on infinite fuel when you activate your Convert-O-Tron (no need to use a drill). If the ascent vehicle lands on Duna separately from the landing craft, then you must bring a rover or other vehicle to take your crew from the lander to the ascent vehicle; no hundred-mile treks. You can earn bonuses to improve your score: On Tongues of Fire. Use no chutes; propulsive landings on both Duna and Kerbin. 10% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Wing It. Wing It. Winged, rolling landings on Duna and Kerbin. 5% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with On Tongues of Fire. Old School. No nukes or ions. 3% decrease in highest payload mass. Brute Force. Assemble a Direct Ascent vehicle in LKO; no ISRU, no propellant transfer, no Duna orbit rendezvous. 12% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Loop the Loop & Justin Case. Slow Climb. Put ladders on your vehicles, if necessary, so you don't have to jetpack around on the Duna surface. 4% decrease in highest payload mass. Elon Style. Make the whole system fully reusable without using nukes, ions, or airbreathers. 25% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Justin Case & A Solid Plan. Stayin' Alive. Bring extra living space (at least one extra seat per Kerbal) for the transfer to and from Duna. 18% decrease in highest payload mass. Loop The Loop. Make your transfer vehicle a fully-reusable solution that can brake back into Kerbin orbit and be used again for the next trip. 15% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Brute Force. Consistency, Good Sir. Make all of your launches with the exact same launch vehicle. 6% decrease in highest payload mass. Justin Case. (NEW) Provide your crew with a separately-landed ascent vehicle as a reliable way to get off Duna (inspired by The Martian). 18% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Brute Force & Elon Style. A Solid Plan. (NEW) Make the Duna Ascent Vehicle (whether separately-landed or not) solid-fueled to orbit. 9% decrease in highest payload mass. Conflicts with Elon Style. They See Me Rollin'. (NEW) Bring a rover for your crew to get around Duna. 15% decrease in highest payload mass. If you find you need more than five launches, that's fine, but you'll have to assess a 15% penalty for each additional launch to represent the added real-life cost of adding an additional launch contract. There is not, however, a bonus for doing it in fewer than five launches. No part mods for the actual Duna package, although you can use part mods for your launch vehicle if you like. I may continue to add additional bonuses to enable increasingly-lower scores as the challenge goes on. Good luck! Smallcraft Leaderboard: Largecraft Leaderboard (20+ kerbals): Differences: Entries must have 20 or more kerbals. At least 2/3 of your crew must land on Duna. Stayin' Alive only requires that you have one extra seat for every 2 kerbals. You divide your total score (after bonuses) by half the total number of kerbals you take.