MarkusF

Okay, so now the Duna Outpost is on its way to its destination. About the Rocket layout: The lowest part contains tow "Skipper" and one "Mainsail" in the center. The center engine is fed from the outer tanks (Asparagus staging). The upper part consists of three "Poodle" engines, the outer ones are fed by the orange center tank, and are ignited, as soon as the skipper engines are decoupled. At that time the "Poodle" engines already have an ISP of 320s and by this already a better efficiency than the "Mainsail" engine. After decoupling the "Mainsail" engine, the center "Poodle" engine is fed by the outer tanks first. I was planning to achieve a 100km orbit with the full upper center tank, a dv of 2000m/s. I ended up swith 1975m/s when I got the orbit. (If the outer tanks hadn't been empty at that time, I would have decoupled them anyway, in order to avoid debris around Kerbin. And as we have a science lab and to scientists on board, we're gonna use the cruise to do some science. The rocket prior to launch: The final cruise stage with decoupled fairings:

Right, I see your point, but I think I'm still going for it. The center of mass slightly below the cupola (with full fuel), and when the top landing stage flew away, the COM is slightly below the center of hte science lab, so I think I should be fine with it. I'm trying to land at one of the maria anyway, so I should be able to get to a flat spot, at least I hope so. I just have to figure out which maria I'm going to, it should be close to some biomes, as I want to send my rover afterwards to get more science. - - - Updated - - - I've connected one set of experiments to the brake, and one to the gear action group, so that I won't have to click all the experiments while descending through the atmosphere.

So here's the design for my Duna outpost, I hope I'll get it landed safely, Jeb will be part of the team, as well as two scientists. The upper half contains the parachutes and 400m/s worth of fuel, with engines having a 2.6 TWR on Duna, in case I have to do some corrections about the landing spot. All experiments are available twice, so I can store experiments from upper and lower atmosphere while landing. Heat shouldn't be a problem on Duna, due to the low orbital speed (I think it was about 1000m/s) when I burn into a low orbit, instead of a direct (re)entry Hmm, maybe some aerodynamic controls, in order to have more precision about the landing site? The upper half will detach after touchdown and fly away, but not before my scientists got the experiments ou of them and reexecuted them for surface data. And I'm also gonna try to put a rover onto the same rocket, to make sure it will land at a nearby spot (with its own parachute, detached short before landing) If I don't find a way, the rover, as well as an orbital science station and a return vehicle, has to wait for the next launch window. Now it's time to put a rocket under it and test it on Kerbin.

But now, as my scientists arrived back from a Minmus landing, I have to design a landable outpost. What worries me most is the number of parachutes required, as I have no Idea how many are required... Let's see if I can manage to make a powered touchdown: Parachutes to slow it down, then some engines to land it.

I could use the RCS, however I do all my landings without. Just keep the lander pointed to the retrograde vector while landing, and the retrograde vector slowly moves to pointing exactly upwards... The RCS system is just for redocking with my cruise stage. ... Oh, maybe you're confused by by the lower set of landing legs, those are only for the parachute touchdown on Kerbin (with some RCS to keep it upright). The Ike lander is only the part left of the two docking ports.

For many this might be nothing special, but as it will be my first returning craft from outside the Kerbin system I'd like to share it with you. First some information about the mission and the environment. I'm playing a hard career I started after the 1.0.2 release. The launch window to Duna nearly caught me by surprise, as I was doing some tourist runs (Kerbin->Mun->Minmus->Kerbin, Up to 4 tourists, I tried to fill up remaining space with Kerbals to be rescued around Mun and Minmus). Those missions took a lot of time, so here it is, the Duna launch window. As the launch windows take quite some time to reappear, everything has to be perfect. Another mission (landing a 5 Kerbal outpost on Duna) will start shortly after the Ike launch, but my scientists are still on the way to Mun, to get a two star rating. About the Ike mission: All science gathered (Temperature, Pressure, Seismic, Mystery Goo, Materials lab) from Duna High Space, Ike High Space, Ike Low Space and Ike Surface will be brought back and landed on Kerbin. Here are some pictures from the launch. As the mission is still in cruise, pictures of the arrival at Ike will come later. Launch: Separation of first stage: Separation of second stage: Climbing through the atmosphere: Cruise stage with jettisoned fairings. Now you can see the science experiments of the cruise and return craft, as well as the small Ike lander on top. The lower rcs tank is empty and will be used to transfer remaining fuel from the lander's tank before reentry at Kerbin, in order to move the center of mass down towards the heat shield:

I have my game set up to show kerbal days, so it can't be that. I haven't checked the exact values I'm getting, I've only realized, that it's way higher than it should be.

But something seems to be wrong about the amount of science created per day. My lab tells me it creates 0.6 sci/day and after a <400 day flight to duna it's full. I transmitted all science before the start of the time warp. Could it be, that the conversion rate actually tells data/day instead of science per day? - - - Updated - - - But something seems to be wrong about the amount of science created per day. My lab tells me it creates 0.6 sci/day and after a <400 day flight to duna it's full. I transmitted all science before the start of the time warp. Could it be, that the conversion rate actually tells data/day instead of science per day? (Or science/hour)

It's a bug, whenever you bring back science from any place, that contains "Pol" (Flag pole, Polar craters on Mun, etc.) it's beeing registered as returning science from Pol. As a workaround, you could remove the section that contains the "returned science from Pol" in the savegame. Simply open the persistent.sfs and search and delete the Pol section, looking like:

I just started a new career on hard mode (but with activated revert flight and quickloading). After orbiting kerbin I started getting some additional science. I used the landing gears and a jet engine to drive around KSC to gather the science there (it's nice, that scientists are now able to reset experiments) and used a small airplane to get a goo container and a materials lab to highland and mountain terrain. Then Jeb did a blind (no patched conics or manouver nodes) flyby to mun, followed by a blind mission for mun orbit. Leaving mun's orbit proved to be quite difficult without patched conics, I wasted a lot of fuel there. After correcting my course for a Kerbin reentry after leaving Mun's SOI i ended up with two units of fuel left... Right now, the only building I have upgraded is the astronaut complex, because I wanted to plant a flag on the return site from my first Kerbin orbit :-D However, it proved to be quite useful, in order to collect science, as I was not only able to do the eva reports, but also to collect all temperature readings from Kerbin to Mun (low kerbin, high kerbin, high mun, low mun) with a singe thermometer. (30 parts limit)

The Pol contracts are a known issue, for some reason there is a section in the savegame sometimes, telling you would have done a science experiment on pol. Create a backup of your savegame, open your savegame (persistent.sfs) and search for "Pol". It's under "Scenario"->"Progress" and remove the "Pol" section. If you want you can also remove the current "Pol" contracts, in case you have one which cannot be denied. After that, the progress contracts ("FlyBy", "Orbit", etc.) should appear. The structure you're looking for looks like this: Scenario .Progress ..FirstLaunch ..FirstCrewToSurvive .. (etc.) ..Kerbin ...Flyby ...Orbit ... (etc.) ..Mun ...Flyby ...Orbit ... (etc.) ..Pol (delete this section) ... (etc.)

Are you sure, you haven't taken any tundra samples yet? I think the island airfield near KSC contains at least a little tundra area, maybe you collected some samples there? Especially the small amount you got for the surface sample looks like you collected one before. Anyway, you can check the science building to see, in which biomes you have done which science experiments.