Simes

More likely you're out of power, as Monthar says. Got any batteries and solar panels on there?

I love this pack. The docking collars are things of beauty.

So, look at what Boomerang said. Redesign your drive section, put the engines on outriggers, put a docking port on the base, and tow the ship instead of pushing it. Don't cant the outriggers back like that, though. That was a dumb idea. It might make it look a bit more like a Starfury but they're more likely to foul on bits of the thing you're trying to tow.

If you're going for a direct landing, rather than establishing an orbit first, slowing down enough to make a landing is much more difficult. If you establish orbit first, you bleed off a large amount of your velocity doing that, which means there's that much less to get rid of in order to safely touch down. Beyond that, your lander ought to have enough spare dV that you don't need to burn right at the last minute in order to touch down safely; burning "too early" will waste some fuel but, as you've found, it's better to slow down too early than too late.

From your description, I'd say that the problem is that you don't have any engines or landing legs. A screenshot of your lander would probably help, along with one of the full craft in the VAB before launch. Also some more information on *how* the landing failed.

You should probably ask in that thread.

Also, don't forget to take surface samples and do crew and EVA reports.

Already answered in the FAQ which is stickied at the top of the forum.

I think what you may be missing is that empty fuel tanks are also useless dry mass and it's better to dump them than carry them all the way into orbit with you. And once you've dropped a bunch of dead weight, you no longer need those high-thrust low-efficiency engines to lift what's left, so you may as well drop those too instead of carrying them about. And now you're only on higher-efficiency engines, you don't need as much fuel to get the remaining dV you need. How much deltaV does it have, and what is it meant to do? If you can supply that information, I'd bet a lot of people on here will be able to build something with stages which has better dV. It's hard to tell what the payload is meant to be when it's covered with a fairing.

You do still have a source of propellant on your stranded spacecraft, because your crew all have EVA suits. In other words, they can get out and push. As far as I know, as long as you remember to get back into the capsule before the propellant runs out, it can be refilled as many times as you want. It might take a while to get your orbit adjusted the way you want it but in an orbit like the one you describe, it doesn't take a lot of dV to drop your periapisis into Kerbin's atmosphere, and from that point on you should be golden. Better than smashing into the Mun, at any rate, which is why I did it.

Don't forget that you can also set the amount of fuel in the BACC when building the ship in the VAB. Parts tests will still succeed on a booster with no fuel, and that way you don't need to worry about crashes or explosions or decoupling things before testing them.

If a part has already been activated through staging and is in the "current" stage, you can still activate it through staging again by using the + button to add an empty stage at the bottom of the list and then hit space a couple of times.

Repeatedly decline the contract until it comes up "landed at Kerbin" or "splashed down at Kerbin". You get a bit less science that way but it's WAY easier.

Apologies for asking what might be obvious, but: is the claw deployed?