I made it to DUNA!

[mellojoe]

WHEEEEE!

First mission to Duna was a moderate success. We landed, mostly. But we ran out of fuel, stranding Maynard Kerman and Bill Kerman. So a resuce operation was in order. We launched a modified version of the lander for a 2nd landing on Duna in order to try to rescue and return Maynard and Bill. That mission is currently in progress.

UPDATE: KERBALS HAVE BEEN RESCUED

(PS: This was done without MechJeb or mods of any kind.)

WE LANDED!

Can you see some problems with our lander pod? Yes, there's no landing gear. Oops! Also, there's no electricity source. Oops! Also the ladder doesn't work. Ooops! Our talented, and not-stupid-at-all Kerbin Research And Planning team [K.R.A.P.] have made some modifications to hopefully rectify the situation.

Here's Maynard. I think everyone back home on Kerbin were feeling the same way. I know I was.

Sunset on Duna. This is also when it became apparent that we would be running out of battery power with no way to recharge. The K.R.A.P. team solved this in the 2nd version.

Rescue Mission

Our improved lander. This one is currently remote operated with two empty seats. Our goal is to land, rendevouz with our stranded Kerbonauts, get them on board, and bring them home. The passion of our Kerbal scientists is reflected in their speed with which they made changes and launched this vessel. Waiting on a new launch window was agonizing, but we have made it. Adding a touch more fuel seemed to be the biggest challenge: adding fuel without sacrificing effeciency. It would be pointless to simply burn up all the fuel we added in the process of trying to launch all the fuel we just added.

This is where we stand. Our rescue lander is currently in orbit around Duna. We should have enough fuel to descend and and land using our transfer stage. Hopefully this puts us on Duna without touching any of the fuel in our lander pod. We'll have Maynard and Bill run from their dead-in-the-water module to the new one. And hopefully, HOPEFULLY, this will have enough fuel to escape Duna and get a return trajectory. This lander pod has tons of parachutes, so the K.R.A.P. team is counting on massive aero braking from Kerbin's thick atmosphere followed by parachute decent. This is a Kerbin-wide endeavor, so our landing zone does not have to be perfect.

Law Enforcement, Coast Guard, and Military personel stationed throughout Kerbin are anxiously awaiting their opportunity to help save Bill and Maynard wherever and whenever they land.

Edited June 24, 2013 by mellojoe

[7499275]

Congrats on the safe landing, well safe considering they have no return home and no defense against the Kraken then comes out at night on the Dunar surface.

[Ford_Prefect]

Congratulations and good luck

Tips for your lander: It obviously lacks fuel and while I don't remember the Isps right now, I think the radial engines are rather inefficient. Did you take a look at the 909?

[Uberick]

Congrats on a successful Duna landing!

My own engineering team would advise yours that your lander might have an abundance of redundant engines. While we understand that the traditional Kerbal design philosophy of "MOAR ______" is usually the best way to go in any situation, the addition of engines is one of the rare exceptions. My own team has found that for a lander that size, a pair of nuclear engines or 909s will often result in better fuel efficiency, while having just enough power to lift off. (The exact reasoning behind this gain in efficiency is much debated and not fully understood, but the results speak for themselves)

good luck on your rescue mission!

[el_coyoto]

Congratulations on your landing!

Just to concur with what the smart guys said up there, those radial thrusters do have an awful efficiency.

I usually design multi-purpose landers and make sure that they can at least land on Duna.

I have to check if that still works on 0.20, but it should be possible build lander with *a lot* of Delta-v powered by two nuclear engines that has enough thrust to land and take-off from Duna.

I can't find my trusty 0.18 nuclear lander on the forums any more, so I won't be able to show it off...

Plugins such as Kerbal Engineer are really helpful during the design process, because they can show you your thrust-to-weight ratio on all the Kerbol celestial bodies for example.

Anyway, good luck on your rescue!

[regex]

This is a Kerbin-wide endeavor, so our landing zone does not have to be perfect.

Good luck to Bill and Maynard on their long walk.

[Landge]

:Thumbup: Congrats! Nice work! 2 LV-N's or 909's on a lander that size provides enough thrust to leave Duna.

This one used 4 909's, which was plenty:

Edited June 20, 2013 by Landge

[mellojoe]

UPDATE:

Sooooooo, the Kerbal scientists, who are not-at-all-stupid, have determined that even on v2.0 of the Duna Lander, they forgot landing gear. Again.

Kerbin Research and Planning [K.R.A.P.] is quickly at work on a 3rd design. This one will have to be a revamp of the entire lander. As you all have stated, my radially mounted engines are absolutely crap. They provide too much thrust to land. They waste fuel. And they are extremely weak, so they can't be trusted as landing gear, since the K.R.A.P. team forgot to include it. Again. Thank goodness for quicksave, because this lander can has been destroyed countless times trying to land. Our most successful landing included leaving the transfer stage attached and landing on the nuclear engines. But, the darn thing tips over. However, this might be our only option at this point. The next window for a 3rd Duna mission is quite a ways off. At least a crashed empty lander has enough supplies to keep Maynard and Bill alive. But just barely. And this will be nearly 200 days alone with each other. The wives back home are getting restless.

We will probably redesign our lander stage to use different engines. And we promise we won't forget real landing gear. Again. We promise.

[Scotius]

"What do you mean - there's no landing gear?" We all know this facepalm inducing revelation. Also: "No batteries." and ever classic "Oops, this ship just ran out of fuel." Don't let it slow you down...OK, maybe just a bit so you can spare 5 minutes to check if your design doesn't lack something mission-critical

[mellojoe]

Final Update:

Maynard and Bill are home. They splashed down late last night in the middle of the Paclantic Ocean. The Coast Guard rescued them bobbing around in their landing capsules, shaken but not stirred. After this ordeal, they are glad to have their feet on solid .... er, liquid ground.

Mission Log:

The 2nd craft sent to Duna was an unmanned rescue mission. It failed. Miserably. Unable to land, crashing and burning violently. Lucky for our brave Kerbalnauts, the crash was too far away to impact their current safety. But close enough for them to make a mission to recover any useable supplies to help them last. The Kerbin Resarch and Planning [K.R.A.P.] team designed a 3rd variation of the rescue craft. This time WITH landing gear, plus a redesigned engine (the small 909 mini-poodle). However, due to the nature of the launch vehicle, including docking ports was not a possibility.

This unique vehicle required the following sequence of events:

• Unmanned launch to Kerbin Orbit. Drop launch stage.
  
• Interplanetary stage using two nuclear engines to transfer to Duna and reach stable orbit.
  
• Detach landing pod, unmanned with 2 empty seats.
  
• Land close enough to our downed Kerbalnauts to allow them to walk (no rover here) to the rescue lander.
  
• Lift off of Duna, rendezvous with interplanetary transfer stage.
  
• EVA - leave the lander pod, jetpack to the interplanetary ship, board empty pod.
  

Yes, the interplanetary transfer stage had two single-seat control pods empty sitting atop it. Brave Bill and Maynard had to space walk to the interplanetary module. This module had just enough fuel and power provided by those two nuclear engines to reach Kerbin. By using the two light single-seat pods, we were able to jettesion the entire craft and parachute down to safety. A single parachute each was the only weight we could stand to afford with this variation. Our K.R.A.P. team determined that this was the best way, as redesigning the entire vessel for a FOURTH time would take too long to reach our stranded kerbalnauts before their supplies ran out. There would be no fuel to slow decent. There would be no fuel to guide decent. There would be no fuel to fix the orbit. This was a single, suicide burn from Duna straight to Kerbin. Bill and Maynard had a tiny window in which to reach Kerbin close enough for the atmosphere to drag them to ground. At 20,000km, they popped the decouplers, deployed their parachute, and held their breath.

There wasn't even space for much communication equipment other than a GPS. Bill and Maynard would be landing, in the dark, all alone, with only a single parachute above their heads to catch their fall in a completely untested design.

All of Kerbinkind held their breath as well.

"We are here. We are home."

[Tw1]

"Paclantic Ocean" Love it.

Good job with finally getting the home, and nice write up as well!