The Duna Operation

[A1catraz]

The Duna Operation is my plan to send a probe to Duna, then a rover, and ultimately colonize Duna. I was wondering, is Duna's gravity and atmosphere so strong you just need parachutes and no boosters? Also, how do I get to Duna from Kerbin? Would rendezvousing fuel and boosters be necessary to get to Duna? I don't need a rover design, I just need an idea of how much fuel I need, but a rocket design would be nice. Do the probe and rover need to have a shielding mechanism on the bottom? Sorry for so many questions.

Edited October 30, 2013 by A1catraz

[capi3101]

1) Duna's atmosphere is thin. Chutes help but plan to land on thrusters.

2) You get to Duna by burning when it's about 45 degrees ahead of Kerbin in their respective orbits. It takes about 1,060 m/s of delta-V for an optimal transfer burn and then about 370 m/s of delta-V for an optimal aerobraking maneuver (around 12.5k above Duna's surface). Launch from Duna is 1380 m/s of delta-V. Planetary gravity is 2.94 m/s², about a third of Kerbin's.

3) Rendezvousing the payload with a dedicated transfer module is not strictly necessary, though many people do this. You want LV-Ns is you have them; LV-909s or Poodles if you don't (you'll need about half as much fuel if you go with the nukes).

4) Shielding mechanism? Depends on the purpose, but I'll say no unless you're using Deadly Reentry.

As for a design...that depends on your preferences. Here's my entry in the Duna Apollo-Style challenge; that might help you. Or not; you sometimes have to do things with challenges that are impractical, especially if you're just sandboxing it.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

That booster, incidentally, is a good example of how not to do things. Especially the four engine combo bit.

Edited October 30, 2013 by capi3101

[Nasakev]

Here's a good tutorial on getting to Duna: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:How_to_get_to_Duna

You should be able to adapt it to your purposes.

One note: Always pack more fuel than strictly necessary, especially if you're inexperienced in these things. Having an extra margin of delta-v can be lifesaving.

As for orbital construction, it's not strictly necessary but I would recommend it. I've seen people do return trips from Eve with a single launch, but that takes skill and luck, and besides, constructing a ship in orbit is super satisfying! My Duna ships usually consist of a lander, an engine block, and a fuel block, but you can customize to your heart's content.

Good luck!

[Kulebron]

Launch from Duna is 700-750 m/s, from Ike it's can be as low as 500.

You need rocket engines for soft landing, and to not tear away parachutes. The problem is that parachutes don't always slow you down as on Kerbin, and if they open at 200 m/s of speed, they can break your ship apart.

I've written a tutorial on Duna operations, not on interplanetary part yet. http://flyonbudget.onegiantleap.info/chapter5.html

[vetrox]

I've just finished my first proper return trip to duna in career mode. I'm still editing the album but I was surprised at just how simple it is to get a ship from kerbins surface to duna and back. My lander did come in a bit too fast so had to kill some speed with the engines but as it wasnt that heavy the chutes did get it to the surface. And both my lander and orbiters were so overfuelled they could probably have gone to another planet before returning to kerbin! One thing i miss though was a node editor. The only mod i forgot to reinstall after 0.22

If i were to colonize it I would get a good reliable lifter design and launch all parts into kerbin orbit and then throw them all at Duna when theres a launch window land it all one at a time. I think it would be easier than docking them all together in orbit

Theres a calculator online somewhere (dont have it on me atm as im at work but someone will know) that tells you the best launch windows.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edit: Who knows what im doing wrong with the album embed.

http://imgur.com/a/tZ0Pq

Edited October 30, 2013 by vetrox
Fixed that for you. You don't need the full url for the Imgur tags, just the gallery subdirectory code. Vetrox: Thanks

[A1catraz]

Thanks you guys, oh, capi and vetrox, your pictures don't show.

[capi3101]

Odd; I'm seeing mine.

The calculator vetrox is referring to is at http://ksp.olex.biz/

http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ and http://ksp.freeiz.com/ are also good calculator sites; the second one will give you an idea of just how many chutes you'll be talking about if you want to try and land sans thrusters.