Laythe Rescue (iamge Heavy)

[kookoo_gr]

Back in 0.19 i decided to send a manned mission to Laythe and back. I knew it would be a resource demanding mission so i decided to break the mission in two parts. First was to send a lander to the planet and return it to orbit and then send a second vehicle to bring them back to Kerbin. This is the lander i came up with, while it burns out of Kerbin with a crew of three, Willie, Romore and Joebart Kerman.

Unfortunately the whole mission went down the drain from the beginning with fuel shortage and control problems due to wobbling form the docking port. So our intrepid crew had to make an emergency landing at Laythe and got stranded admiring Jool form Laythe's surface

Then the 0.20 update came and that meant i had to plan a rescue mission but before that i had to make sure the crew wouldn't spend waiting inside a small capsule, so i sent a hitchhiker capsule and a rover and established a small base so the stranded crew would make some research while waiting to be rescued.

Here is the rover i sent, with a Jool and Vall background, unfortunately i forgot to take any screenshots of the base module.

The rescue mission consisted from another manned lander (so i could plant a flag on Laythe). The plan was to paradrop a lander to Laythe near to the base, lift off and connect to a transfer stage back to Kerbin. Here you can see the building phase of the lander with Ribdin Kerman on the controls.

But at some point i found out that i didn't have enough fuel so i had to make another fuel tank delivery at the rescue lander

After the Jool transfer and a few aerobraking maneuvers, Ribdin finally reached the stranded Kerbals

Once Ribdin landed the rover raced to get him to the Laythe base i established in order to plant a flag.

While driving to get Ribdin, this funny bug happened, the rover almost tipped over but i managed to save it leaving standing on its two wheels

A quickload later the rover delivered Ribdin where he planted a flag and took a photo of the event with the stranded crew.

After that the intrepid crew went for the lander where they discovered that the lander didn't have enough ÃŽâ€v to establish orbit

The crew contacted KSC where their answer was wait for another rescue. Until then do some more science stuff.

A new mission was under way. This mission included a simultaneous launch of two ships built in orbit, the lander, which is to be paradropped and the return ship, both of them robotic so not another Kerbal can be stranded.

Here are the two ships.

The lander during escape burn for Kerbin

The return ship during escape burn from Kerbin

The transfer orbits of both ships

The good thing about the Sr docking port is that it makes modular ship building very fun and creative, especially for long range ships with lots of fuel, you can drop various stages into interplanetary space thus reducing weight.

After a Jool aerobraking both ships managed to reach Laythe orbit

As usual this transfer was not flawless and i ended up with the lander at a planet prograde orbit and the transfer stage at a retrograde orbit but that's a problem i had to deal with later.

Time to get the show on the road, i adjusted the lander's orbit with the remaining fuel of its transfer stage and landed 3km away from the first rescue ship.

The crew raced with the rover to the rescue ship and took a last photo before heading out to Kerbin

After establishing orbit the crew rendezvoused with the transfer ship

The crew transferred to the transfer ship and left the remains of the lander as a core for a future space station at Laythe and begun its return journey back to Kerbin

Once at Kerbin SOI the crew's spirits rose, after a quick aerobraking maneuver and some orbital corrections the crew decided to land at KSC as they were fed up being closed in tight confines all these days and didn't want to have another long journey back to KSC.

Even though the capsule landed at 3km from space center the guys at KSC sent another rover to pick them up and bring them back to safety and a big feast that awaited our intrepid crew

[Scotius]

Well, it's not the best kind of mission when everything consistently goes wrong. But those are most entertaining and memorable Of course when dust settles and curses stop flying

[suzin.felipe]

I'm very fond of this kind of mission. Rescue missions gives you the opportunity to be creative and a sense or purpose.

The only sad part is that as you became more experience by doing them, less things go wrong and less rescue missions are needed.

Edit: Spelling...

[FlamedSteak]

This is a great one, it's always frustrating when you're rescue mission needs rescuing but it's satisfying when you get everyone back home. Also props for managing to get so close to KSP.