Kryxal

I'd suggest, if you move the rear gears up, adding another wheel at the back to protect against tailstrikes ... I think you're going to need it!

I think you'd better be ready to get out and push ... or send a refuel mission for the lander, or a "control" mission (docking port, some sort of probe core, docking port) and maybe some fuel for the return vessel.

So long as the other craft isn't going below 23km, you can probably afford to wait ... don't forget the physics warp!

"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"

True, running into even a small chunk of debris at significant velocity will spoil your day, and that's what self-destruct should give you ... I like to de-orbit things myself.

I'm wondering at what point in the landing process it spins out ... for that matter, what sort of approach are you trying to use?

Mun orbit, not Minmus ... that might be about 5-6 hours for the last orbit, and 800 m/s applied with no danger of capture. Break it up, and 400 m/s is applied giving an orbit under 90 minutes, another 400 for the 5-6 hours, then a final burn with less needing to be applied. Oh, and usually, you can get a pretty good gauge by watching your plotted and actual SoI change times at the end instead of the delta-v numbers.

Getting an orbit that crosses the equator at periapsis is generally easy if you set it up early, and a good place for that tends to be about 90 degrees before planetary encounter ... the normal/anti-normal adjustments have a larger effect there. After that, you can just capture into an eccentric orbit, plane-change at apoapsis (more or less), and circularize once you get back to periapsis.

MerlinsMaster, I think it's going to end up being adjusting of start time. I looked at PreciseNode, and it looks like it could incorporate what you're looking for easily enough (but doesn't). I could see just inputting an ejection angle and that being turned into a time for node, then maybe a +orbit button (though you'd have to be careful with that, +orbit maintaining ejection angle isn't EXACTLY an orbit).

Also note that you can fly a single-engine plane up to the test altitude by turning on the engine with right-click, THEN stage it ... that plane would be nicer without all that mass for so little wing area.

I wonder, what sort of angle are you coming in on Laythe at? For a direct approach, the logical solution seems to me to be to come in with your periapsis on Laythe's orbit, and fiddle with transit times to catch Laythe there. That would let you effectively knock off a good 3 km/s effectively.

For that matter, you can always drop a node for the transfer burn (just get it to the right apoapsis) then a plane-change well into the trip. The further out you are, the less delta-v is needed for a plane change (though if you go too far, you end up needing a bigger plane change). If the plane change puts you a bit off intercept, play with prograde/retrograde and normal ... if it's further off, adjust the initial burn and redo the second one.

Doesn't it work fairly well with symmetry on whole assemblies? All the intakes then all the engines can run into problems, but intake-engine-copy I think works better.

There are ALWAYS units (though not always stated), part mass is in tons for instance. What in particular are you thinking of? Incidentally, I think the fuel/oxidizer is in liters, and tanks indicate total mass of contents.

You know, I think there's a song in there somewhere...

That actually looks like a fairly easy contract ... maybe 2/3 fuel, half thrust, toss a parachute on the top for (hopefully) recovery, then activate using right-click and WAIT to stage till you're in the right ranges. If you end up over-speed then right-click deploy your chute and hope for the best...

Complicated, though ... aerocapture is easy, there are tools for it, gravity assists are a bit tricky, setting up the nodes can take some work, aerobrake into or during a gravity assist is effectively doing an unspecified burn during or before the assist. Doesn't MJ have a feature that could help with this?

Also note that once you're up to altitude and speed your needed TWR goes down, and in orbit it goes WAY down. It may rise again on the landing craft, but by then, your mass is much lower.

Burn a bit so as to give the game a baseline on thrust provided by your engines.

It may take longer, but it's also easier, I find ... you have intersect points AND a different orbital period, so can just drop a node on the intersect point, click "next orbit" until the marker crosses sides, and apply some thrust then to make the rendezvous REALLY close. If you feel like getting fancy, you can also add radial/normal so you have less target motion to deal with on intercept.

Would the claw on a rover be reasonable to connect ships together for fuel? If so, do a two-parter ... landed rover for refuel, parachute pod in a 20k orbit or something for return.

It sounds like a puller design without enough clearance for the thrust to me.

Being off by two hours won't hurt with a Jool transfer ... being off by two DAYS isn't such a huge deal. Oh, and for the retrograde orbit, the only difference is that you'll want to make your ejection burn on the Jool side of Laythe, you'll still be moving in the Laythe-prograde direction.

It might be worth recovering the LSEs before you land it, then ... or land on the runway instead!

That thing looks seriously awkward to use to me...