nsgallup

I think I would come in to Neidons SOI with a very low periapses skimming the atmosphere, and then slow my orbital speed down while at the periapses. Once captured into an enclined orbit, I would then worry about transferring to Nissee

KSC has decided there will be a future Duna rover to a more exciting location, as well as other rovers to different bodies. The budget priorities are elsewhere at the moment though so it may be some time.

Burning for suborbital trajectory The plan is to land on the edge of the southern icecap to study the transition zone Drogue chutes deploy Lots of parachutes are required Final chute deployment The RDL came very close to tipping over Antenna and solar panel deployment Rover deployment Meet Watney To the ice fields! A big boulder The solar panels are creating less power compared to on Mun, Watney is required to break and recharge a few times It's farther then it looks The ground is kinda slushy here This landing zone unintentionally is a great spot for viewing Ike We made it on to the ice The ice seems very reflective here (compared to other landings in past save games) Shortly after that photo Watney transmitted the collected data and transitioned to hibernation mode, sorry if this one was boring, but the terrain was very gentle and so there were no major land marks or other exciting things to take pictures of. The journey was about 8km long in a mostly straight line.

What kind of solar panels are those?

KSC wanted to investigate the icecaps of Duna, and it was decided to use the tried and true Rover Deployment Lander atop a modified Jupiter heavy lifter. Liftoff Ascending Dropping solid booster Circularization Finishing circularization, and dropping the lifter stage After completing the interplanetary transfer burn the RDL transfer stage deploys its solar panels and begins it's journey Duna Capturing into a highly inclined orbit The RDL separates from the transfer stage and prepares for landing, the transfer stage will remain in orbit as a relay

Oh I'll be visiting them all, my goal is to land at least one kerbal on every body, except for maybe those in the keptunian belt (got trans-keptunian installed too) There are still a few missions scheduled between now and the Sarnus orbiter (I'm further ahead irl then what my mission reports show)

Nice! Always satisfying to complete a mission with lower then ideal tech

Interesting quandry indeed

Mission control has decided that an upcoming mission will be an orbiter sent to investigate the moons of Sarnus

Mun has awesome terrain even though it looks bland from orbit

Testing the Titan II heavy lifter

Sounds pretty brutal.. At least no one died?

Wow love the look of the new rover.. Tylo is a big moon, that is gonna be one long drive, at least the gravity will hold you down more then most

The small triangle of light in the center of the picture identifies the landing site, the plan is to cross the valley, climb the softer slopes towards the bottom right, and then drive up the right side of the picture into the mouth of the canyon Buzz begins climbing the crater wall, leaving the lander behind The crater walls were steeper then originally thought and the rover struggled to reach the top, KSC turns it around for one last image of the lander Now to descend from the ridge and cross the valley This part was extremely sketchy and many quicksaves were required, it was nearly a 40 degree slope and brakes were useless, I resorted to turning back and forth like a downhill skier to keep speed down and using the reaction wheel to stop from flipping One of many failures.. ahem during "simulation" KSC notices an even steeper ridge and notes to never go there Buzz slaloms between boulders, more skiing then driving as the rover is skidding on brake locked wheels [h=3][/h] That was not rover approved terrain! At least the bottom of this valley is flat The opposite side of the valley had a pretty gradual slope and was easily ascended Buzz skirts around to the other side of the ridge to avoid unnecessary climbing There is a short section of bumpy and steep terrain to drop down into "Crater Valley," Buzz zooms down after a small jump as there is a large area of run-out to lose speed KSC skirts Buzz around the crater to avoid the sharp cliffs on both sides Some low velocity airtime on the crater edge Halfway across the crater Buzz has nearly reached the canyon mouth Here we go KSC panics! Buzz is going way too fast and can't seem to slow down! (15m/s) This is bad.. we lost the frontal solar panel, and it is impossible to brake when Buzz is spending so much time above the surface, speed is now over 20m/s A hard landing from a high bounce completely shattered the suspension and smashed the wheels, Buzz is still sliding very quickly After sliding up the opposite side Buzz slid back down to the center of the canyon and a gear leg was completely torn off by the impact Buzz finally screeches to a halt.. the rest of the solar panels are fine and the antenna and scientific instruments seem to be in working order The rover slid to a stop about halfway through the canyons, just after the bench before the large crater Buzz isn't going anywhere soon, but the mission is deemed successful, the goal of transmitting data from three biomes has been completed A final shot of the lander An expertly created info-graphic from the KSC Public Relations department detailing the rovers journey This mission took about 3 hours as the total distance traveled by Buzz was around 20km, now that KSC has learned how to rover, the next one is slated for a much simpler mission on Duna

Werhner Von Kerman decided that if KSC was to be considered a real space program it needed a proper rover for social media to love, and so a completely overbuilt modular rover deployment system was built to house the very first rover design. This mission was also used to test a multitude of new technologies and concepts. The Jupiter heavy lifter Destination Mun Circularization The engine cover was turned to shrapnel as the vacuum engine ignited prematurely before clearing the spent lifter stage, no damage was incurred to the craft The small transfer stage includes the newly designed 3.75m "P1 Penguin High Efficiency Vacuum Engine" The service bay opens and solar panels are deployed Adjusting Munar trajectory Circularization of Munar orbit, the plan is actually to land around the mouth of this canyon in the crater pro-grade of the ship enabling the rover to cross through 3 biomes This view gets me everytime.. I always have to pause the game and take a look at those amazing Apollo photos Here is one from Apollo 11 The transfer stage is emptied and jettisoned to crash into the surface partway through the landing burn Horizontal velocity is significantly reduced, landing gear deploy It was at this point I realized that the RDL (Rover Deployment Lander) has extremely poor attitude control After many quicksaves I managed to land somewhere that wasn't a huge cliff.. still pretty steep though Using the remaining fuel (and with many more quicksaves) the lander bunny hopped over to a flatter landing zone for better rover deployment conditions Much better Meet Buzz, the new lovable face of KSC! The rear solar panel has to deploy in order to fit under the attachment point when driving out of the bay Systems checks and solar panel deployment More adventures with Buzz coming right up!

"You are glad the EVA suit has a built in RTG" XD

More! Give me more!

I just added scansat, and can confirm that it is an awesome mod

Couldn't you make a rocket plane SSTO?

Awesome news about biomes being finished, I added a bunch of science blurbs

It was time to return to Dres, and so the new Ceres MkII was launched atop a up-engined Pegasus lifter Fairing separation The Ceres II is equipped with two LV-N motors and a Grasshopper lander module I do not have an in context image of blasting off the engine covers, so here is an example taken during testing Transfer burn Dres.. we have come to take your surface samples.. you cannot stop us this time Jeb pretends he is burning up the planet Capture burn Jeb boards the lander and prepares to descend Retro burn Getting the burn times right was a little annoying, the acceleration with just RCS is a little sluggish Grasshopper has touched down Picture time! Jeb is excited to bug Val about getting here first (I actually meant for Val to do this mission but Jeb got auto assigned and I was too far into the mission to restart) Jeb faceplants on his way to a secondary sample site, Jeb wonders if he could delete this event from the flight recorder Kerbin is very far away Wee! Secondary sample site Landing gear separates from the lander can, it won't be needed any longer Jeb begins orbital insertion, since there is no atmosphere Jeb points the craft just above the horizon Circularization Approaching rendezvous Matching velocity with Ceres II Jeb starts lining up his craft Docking Ye-Haw -Jeb Goodbye grasshopper Goodbye Dres Jeb kills some speed with leftover fuel After detaching just in time, the Ceres II explodes meters away from the re-entry pod.. Jeb likes flying through explosions Looks like it could be another mountain landing, sure had a lot of those A desert landing While waiting for KSC to pick him up Jeb decides to check out a cactus.. that is one big cactus

That is one big rocket hilarious video

Passing Mun Ike transits over Duna Duna looks so good with clouds Capture burn The Earth>Duna transfer stage is expended, the Ares is in a 60x60km orbit Val moves to the lander module, it has small RCS ports on the heat shield to move to a suborbital trajectory The ports are visible here The Eagle begins atmospheric entry Drogue chutes deploy, turns out the heat shield wasn't necessary, there were no hypersonic entry effects Main chute deploys and the heat shield is detached Looks nice and flat The Eagle has landed! Everything is very very red, almost orange, and Kerbals are fascinated by a color that contrasts so strongly with their own world. The dust storms are moving pretty fast, but the atmosphere isn't dense enough for there to be any kinetic danger, the solar panels are not deployed because they will be destroyed on liftoff and are needed for setting up a rendezvous with Ares, this was a design oversight, any further Duna landers will be equipped with surface panels rather then fragile deployable ones Liftoff! One issue with AVP is the clouds on the horizon look a little odd when you are right at the same level as them Orbit is achieved Solar panels deploy Burning for intercept Rendezvous successful, the Eagle is not meant to dock, Val performs a short EVA and boards the Ares, bringing surface data with her Val does have one more mission in mind for Eagle though, so she repacked the parachute and assumed remote control of the craft Lowering to sub-orbital Val forgot to repack the drogue chutes so the lander performs a short burn to enable deployment of the main chute, solar panels are destroyed by drag Chute deployed The lander came down on a steep slope and did not have sufficient fuel to change the landing zone, so it tipped into a ravine which will be it's final resting place The antenna was not damaged and permitted sending data from the new landing site up to Ares, pictured is the Dunian Highlands It's science time! At least that's what Bob says Fuel is transferred from the orbital stage of the crew transfer rocket before being ejected Val raises the orbit altitude to permit faster timewarp, which is required to finish the lab work When research is mostly completed Val begins the Kerbin transfer burn Approaching Kerbin, Bob transmits the lab data and starts mentally preparing himself for re-entry First the pod without RCS is released and rotated to a convenient orientation The Val hops in the RCS pod and detaches Docking the two compartments Bill performs an EVA and joins Val in the linked command pods, they play rock paper scissors to decide who goes where Re-entry.. Bill isn't sure about this, a two docked pods have never been tested in re-entry conditions before.. he hopes the linkage holds Hot Safe at last! Bob decides that he refuses to go on another mission where this is the method of re-entry, management needs to invest in some larger command pods

Separation of lifter stage during interplanetary burn Burning for Duna

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