Kryxal

So long as you align one with zero rotation, you should be good ... after all, they're placed so you CAN attach both, so it should just happen with the right alignment.

Splashdowns are on the weird side sometimes, you might not be able to do much. Check just what happens to which parts in what order.

Try making a node past periapsis and dragging it back into position.

There's no center tank, is there? Try adding a small central tank, to be fed by the four outer tanks, and see if it makes a difference. Worst case, if it's just draining fuel from too MANY places, you can switch all the tanks off that you don't want active till you jettison the previous set.

Decoupler kicked things away, though, and auto-added to staging. Using a docking port in that way would have meant an action group or something purely manual (which probably wouldn't have been too bad, since it was probably just splitting off the pusher part when in position).

If it's sitting on top of a docking port, you should be able to just "decouple node" from the port, and it will drift away very slowly.

Given the usual overkill of delta-v on satellites, you can probably just deorbit most of them...

Pictures would help a great deal more ... we can't tell just how far behind the CoM your CoL is, nor how your pitch authority is.

Speaking of parachutes, they now cause more drag than most other parts, this can make a rocket unstable in-atmosphere. One design I put together had a couple of chutes to land a stage of the ascent rocket, placed where they would provide drag where it would do good. Of course, then the thing splashed down at a bit under 7 m/s and ate itself except for the chutes...

Often enough, I'll just launch into an equatorial orbit for those contracts with maybe 10-20 degrees inclination. I'll then drop the apoapsis on the AN or DN (whichever has more altitude) and match orbits once I get there. It's not the most efficient approach, but it's simple, one easy burn to intercept and one more complicated burn (set up by an iterative process, radial for plane change, pro/retro for matching orbit period, normal for laying the two on top of each other, rinse and repeat till it looks good).

It at least lets Kerbals hit the ground with their most resilient feature ... that is to say, their heads.

You don't want to match speed, you want to roughly match position and velocity ... position first. Matching speed without being near means you're not getting a whole lot closer. If you need to catch up a bit, drop your orbit maybe 2-5 km and wait a while if you want it the easy (but potentially long) way. You'll shorten your orbital period, so by the time you get back where you started you'll have caught up somewhat.

I'd probably just launch a satellite into an equatorial orbit then plot an escape trajectory for it ... then launch your actual vehicle to be in the same plane as the escape maneuver.

The budget is for a Minimus mission, not just going to LKO. For that mission, note where you will be for each staging event, it's no fun if you're landing on something not meant to, to ensure enough delta-v to leave again (though it shouldn't be an issue). You also may or may not care about cluttering orbital space...

Here's the answer you're looking for, last line of the quote: Just add multiples of a Kerbin year (and convert to 6-hour days if you like).

Just a side note, 50 km isn't going to deorbit you very quickly, though it will work eventually. 30 km is a pretty good aim point, and it works with returning from the Mun and Minimus even with DRE.

I was actually thinking to place them to each side then rotate into place, but if it doesn't work...

The Launch Window Planner at http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ uses a porkchop plot, just plug some numbers into it and play with it to get a better feel (click on the graph for combinations of departure time and trip length).

Might it work to detach the part you want to attach them to, rotate just it, and re-attach, then try placing?

You need VAB or SPH upgrades to unlock action groups, and tracking station and mission control upgrades for maneuver nodes and patched conics.

Put a test craft on the pad, if it meets the contract requirements you'll get a checkmark in that part. Of course you'll want to pull the craft, but it's maybe 5 seconds and fully recoverable.

For that matter, a small symbol ON their suits wouldn't be the worst idea...

For that eventuality, it might be a good idea to have a reference that goes by shape instead of colour to point people at. Maneuver node shows the symbols about one screen down.

Left-click on the lab door.

You'll be far better off if you launch into something at least close to the plane of the final orbit, good launch points will happen twice per six hours. Beyond that, it's probably not worth making the orbit circular for the plane change, but if it's a big change it may be worth pushing the periapsis out at least some of the way.