Duna III

[AeroAviation]

Hello everyone, this is my Duna 3 mission. The mission was originally a proposed gilly exploration mission but the media labelled it as "too boring" and so we set our sights on putting kerbals on Duna and here is the report thus far.

I got the name Duna III as this was the first time I had ever sent THREE kerbals to another planet with my last big duna mission only with a 1 man capsule back before 1.0 with Kurt Kerman making the trip.

Crew:

Mission Commander- Jebediah Kerman (Lander Pilot)

Pilot- Valentina Kerman (Interplanetary Tug Pilot)

Crew Member- Bill Kerman (Engineer)

The plan was for Jeb and Bill to descend to the Dunasian Surface while Valentina stays in orbit with the main ship. There was originally going to be a Pilot, Engineer and Scientist on this trip but both my scientists were in orbit on my space station and I was too lazy   so we went with Valentina

 

We started out designing 2 main crafts: the interplanetary tug and the lander. The tug consisted of several liquid fuel tanks, 2 atomic engines and command pod:

while the lander consisted of a 2 person lander can, 5 fuel tanks and 1 terrier liquid fuel engine:

The vessel was constructed in orbit, I sent the interplanetary tug up first followed by the lander to dock on, I ended up having spare fuel in the large orange tanks and so docked a small refuelling tanker I had in orbit so the mainsail could make the majority of the interplanetary transfer burn:

The mainsail completed 90% of the burn and then we switched over to the atomic motors to finish the job:

Course plotted.

Here you can see us entering the Duna system with Duna and Ike in shot.

Orbital insertion burn (we went for roughly a 75-80 km orbit)

Jeb and Bill made the journey into the lander can and prepared to step foot on the red planet

As we entered the Duna atmosphere the craft seemed to pick up a insanely fast spin  that could not be stopped with torque to RCS and it ended up incinerating the craft at roughly 10km, I had to quickload and then go back to the space centre to fix it so yeah... the Kraken tried to ruin my day.

Here you can see the final descent, the drogue chutes and main chutes deployed without a hitch and slowed the craft down much of the way.

TOUCHDOWN! mission control goes crazy

Jeb leaving the lander to walk on Duna, thanks to a new space agency policy we did not bring ladders as Jeb could get back in with the aid of his RCS pack

Jeb and Bill posing for the press

and that is the report thus far! I will be adding the return trip here when I finish it up, I have 2200 m/s left in the lander so I am pretty confident I will get them back up into orbit and rendezvous with Valentina, you can let me know how much delta-v on average you need to go from surface to orbit again (we landed like 3.2km above sea level) just so I can be sure.

EDIT: Added return journey.

Couldn't add pictures of the ascent as I changed my steam screenshot key but it would not take pictures for some reason with the new key.

I have this picture of us just exiting dunas atmosphere instead.

Rendezvousing with the main craft

Jeb and Bill then made their way into the return ship making sure they bring all the scientific data with them, we then proceed to dump the lander in duna orbit and make the Duna-Kerbin burn.

Leaving the Duna system

Course plotted

Entering the Kerbin system

We had so much fuel left so I decided to put the ship into orbit to slow us down

We then did the deorbit burn and aimed for 30km re-entry

And then parachutes deployed and vessel was recovered.

Thanks for reading!

Edited July 7, 2016 by AeroAviation
added more pictures

[NotAgain]

Cool! I just hope that 2.2km/s is sufficient for Dunan orbit. Could get a wee bit interesting.

[Geschosskopf]

23 hours ago, AeroAviation said:

TOUCHDOWN! mission control goes crazy

Bravo!  This is a nifty design.  And a poke in the eye for The Kraken

 

23 hours ago, AeroAviation said:

you can let me know how much delta-v on average you need to go from surface to orbit again (we landed like 3.2km above sea level) just so I can be sure.

I haven't tried it in a while.  Back in the days of the soup-o-sphere it used to take about 1800.  Since 1.0, it's gone down to about 1500 IIRC, so you should be fine with 2200 in the tanks.

[AeroAviation]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

I haven't tried it in a while.  Back in the days of the soup-o-sphere it used to take about 1800.  Since 1.0, it's gone down to about 1500 IIRC, so you should be fine with 2200 in the tanks.

Thank you, I ended up rendezvousing with the ship with around 450 m/s left in the tanks so the lander design definitely is a decent one

[Geschosskopf]

On 7/6/2016 at 7:39 AM, AeroAviation said:

Couldn't add pictures of the ascent as I changed my steam screenshot key but it would not take pictures for some reason with the new key.

The game itself has its own screenshot mechanism regardless of Steam.  Unless you changed it in settings, that works with F1.  That will create a .PNG file in the \Kerbal Space Program\screenshots folder.  The Steam screenshot mechanism creates a .JPG file in some bizarre, weirdly numbered and well hidden Steam folder.  So you have a backup way if Steam isn't working.

I changed my Steam screenshot key to F1.  Thus, when I play my Steam installation, I simultaneously take 2 screenshots, the Steam .JPG and the KSP .PNG.  Periodically, I have to remember to flush out the \screenshots folder of that installation.  But the main reason I did this was because since 1.1.0, I have kept my Steam installation totally clean, pure stock for bug testing and do all my actual playing in cloned installations elsewhere.  For my real games, I have to use F1, so I changed the Steam key to that so I wouldn't have to remember a 2nd key

 

5 minutes ago, AeroAviation said:

Thank you, I ended up rendezvousing with the ship with around 450 m/s left in the tanks so the lander design definitely is a decent one

Let's see, 2200 - 450 = 1750.  So, do you think you could improve on that or is that what it takes now (including rendezvous) ?

[AeroAviation]

3 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Let's see, 2200 - 450 = 1750.  So, do you think you could improve on that or is that what it takes now (including rendezvous) ?

Ah no, we landed with 2200 m/s and after ascent and docking we had 450 to 500 m/s left in the tanks (I cannot remember the exact number)

I am not the most efficient though so I could probably use less delta-v on ascent in the future

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by AeroAviation

[Geschosskopf]

Yeah, your ascent and docking cost about 1750m/s.  This is rather more than the 1.0.5 dV map says, about what it was back in the pre-1.0 days.  Thus, I was wondering if you think you did an efficient ascent and docking, or if you could do it better.  If you did it as efficiently as possible, then future missions to Duna should figure on about 1750 for ascending landers.  But if you think you could improve on this, then it would be a lower number.