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Duna Probably the worst planet with an atmosphere to aerobrake on. And is also the first planet that I travelled to. In this thread I will talk about my first ever interplanetary mission EVER. Now, I have been playing KSP for a while now and I've always wanted to go to the other planets in the Kerbol System but I lacked the skills to do so, as a result, I was stuck to only sending Kerbals to the Mun and Minmus, creating space stations in orbit and de-orbitng space stations for the lols (Who hasn't done that atleast once?) And I decided earlier this day (After reading other people's missions) to send Kerbals to another planet! And so I chose Duna, Why? Because I can And of COURSE I was under-prepared! This was my first ever mission to Kod knows where! I didn't even know what to do, what to build, and what I needed. After calming down, I recalled the missions of other people and tried to remember what they did "Hmm.. They used nuclear transfer stages, but some attached their nuclear transfer stages to other pieces of their ship in orbit!" and since I was lazy, I just did this: *cue Star Wars opening theme* I present the Duna 1 and its brave crew! (Who will probably die) This ship has the nuclear transfer stages ATTACHED RIGHT ON IT *applause* It also has 2 Gigantor XL Solar panels and 2 medium deployable radiatior and 4 more radiators on the fuel tanks on the nuclear transfer stages, the fairing on top of the Command Module contains a probe that will hopefully be deployed in orbit around Duna. The Duna 1 on the launch pad. Seems like Jeb, Bill, and Bob are happy, they should worry because BAD things will most likely happen. I forgot a bunch of stuff on the rocket, what can I say? I was underprepared and stupid.. Notice the monstrosity of boosters (I have been making a lot of rockets like these lately, don't know why). I'll skip to the part where I had some problems This stage, I hate this stage. It wasn't strong enough to quickly put me into orbit which resulted in Bill, Bob, and me stressing out about how this rocket was underpowered, Jeb seems fine though, he always does. Look at that pitiful trajectory, the apoapsis looked like it wasn't rising at all! (It was though). This stage, I liked it better than the last one, It made my apoapsis rise faster than the other one, It was still slow though so I had to make a maneuver node to reassure my crew (and I) that "Yeah this stage is going to bring us into orbit, Definitely" turns out I was right, TAKE THAT HATERS. In fact, that worked out so well that I was left with a bit of fuel so I decided to use it during the transfer burn. So I set Duna as my target and set an alarm on KAC to tell me when the transfer window opened up. After that, I switched to the tracking station and time warped to when the transfer window opened up, made a maneuver node, and did the burn. But then, PROBLEMS. (Omigod I literally almost had a heart attack here because I accidentally pressed the "Click to go back button" this thread was almost not made) The problem? I forgot to add fuel lines connecting the fuel tanks of the nuclear engines and the rockomax tank in the center so I had to manually transfer fuel between the tanks. FUUUUUUU. The crew seemed fine though. The crew says goodbye to Kerbin while I say hello to a lot of problems (Apparently I forgot to screenshot the ships trajectory from Kerbin to Duna so sorry 'bout that folks) The rest of the trip was just what you'd expect, some course-correction burns and a LOT of timewarping On the journey, I was thinking of ways to get into orbit around Duna "I should try a braking burn!" But that idea was scrapped due to a lack of fuel and that the nuclear engines wouldn't be able to do it in time. SO SECOND IDEA "People always try aerobrakes but I didn't include Airbrakes since the atmosphere is thin or a heatshield!" But then I realized "But since Duna's atmosphere is SO thin I probably won't need a heat shield!" I't wasn't the best idea but it literally was the only one I had so i lowered my periapsis to around 19,000 meters for the aerobrake (Sorry, forgot to screenshot again") "Look at that Redness!" Jeb says. "I hope i don't do anything stupid down there" Bill says. dun dun duuuun *he does* These entry flames seem really impressive for a planet with a thin atmosphere (Notice the broken radiator, I tried opening it while I was undergoing re-entry) Since the atmosphere was so thin, I had to try and use my nuclear engines to try and slow it down! But I was running out of fuel.... WHAT DO I DO. So I tried transferring fuel from the bottom fuel tank of my lander to the Nuclear engines but it still failed (The picture above shows the failure of the aerobrake) But then Jeb had a wonderful idea! "Lets decouple the lander and the nuclear transfer stage and fire up our own engines!" Bill and Bob didn't like the idea saying "Kerbals dont have built-in engines Jeb, you of all Kerbals should know that" then Jeb said "No, I meant our lander's engines!" Then Bill suddenly says "Guys, Why do I feel like Kraken food?" ...... It worked pretty great and I managed to put myself in a highly eccentric orbit and deployed the tiny probe (Bob still had some doubts though). I lowered my orbit for another aerobrake to lower my Apoapsis down to 138,000 meters. I did a retro burn after one orbit to put my self in a sub-orbital trajectory so I could finally land on Duna. At that ^ point, I knew I was screwed. I only open my parachutes when it says it's safe to deploy for....reasons so I quick-saved and changed the parachutes' altitude to 5000 but it seemed like the area I was about to land on was higher than that! So I went full thrust and deployed my parachutes at around 5700 meters, but it was too late. I crashed R.I.P Jeb,Bill, and Bob (Dude, Bob still has doubts, he was right though) But through some kind of magic! The universe restarted to where they almost crashed and they actually deployed the parachutes early! (I gave myself a pat on the back for remembering to quick-save) And..... It tips over, Sure. Jeb happily gets out of the Command Pod and plants his feet firmly on the ground saying "DUST IS GETTING EVERYWHERE!!" Very historic words, Jeb's words will be remembered for decades, be in the Kerbal National Anthem. Imagine that, kids in school singing "And our glorious Kerbs on Duna happily saaaaayyyy... DUST IS GETTING EVERYWHERE!!! AHHHHH!!! Ohhh our beloved Kerbin!". Sadly though, as they were coming out of the the command module to have a flag-planting ceremony, Bill accidentally slipped as he was coming out and accidentally hit his head on the surface of Duna, then Suddenly, THE GROUND SHOOK, Jeb screamed even more "I WANNA LEAVE, THE DUST SOMEHOW GOT INTO MY SUIT!!!!". Out of nowhere, A KRAKEN SHOWED UP, ate Bill, then all went black. Told ya Bill was Kraken food. Seriously though, I did encounter a black-screen Kraken which is the reason why I have no picture of the flag-planting. Also here's the Imgur album which has more pictures than this does: Anyways this is my first ever interplanetary mission AND my first ever mission report! Hope you like it.