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5 - Mohopollo: Moho dV, Moho Problems Mohopollo A (based on Drespollo with an stage 2.5 and souped-up lander) was a pretty severe failure: I used almost 95% of my orbiter fuel just getting into orbit around Moho, and would have remained stuck in orbit after the landing. Lools like I underestimated the dV requirement by 2000-2500 m/s. Reverted back to the drawing board. https://imgur.com/1OEGHMO https://imgur.com/Y5A2UmA https://imgur.com/yw6cWKT https://imgur.com/Ti77kAa Enter Mohopollo B: The orbiter features a nuclear upper stage and higher fuel fraction, and the launch vehicle has been redesigned. The stack weight only increased by around 50 tons, but I should have a comfortable dV margin now. We also are using an Eve flyby trajectory that gets us to a Moho flyby for 450 m/s above Kerbin escape velocity: I got cocky with the enhanced lander and tried a landing from a 2000x30km elliptical orbit... not a good idea. I had to borrow about 20% of the ascent stage's fuel, and still ended up with a rough (but undamaging) landing. Tanning session complete, the ascent stage was able to make any sort of orbit only by burning all remaining fuel, including RCS. With no RCS on my orbiter top stage, my redocking using only main engines was dicey - but eventually successful. https://imgur.com/KaZJnGH 3613 science was collected on this mission. Time to revisit the Eve system for more than just a flyby!

Looks like I missed taking a screencap of the two docked. Hopefully that's not an issue? I can try to remember to do this in future missions (though I don't have that screencap for Moho, either since that's already done).

4 - Drespollo: Skipping Dres Rehearsal https://imgur.com/UvB9g9n Minpollo had lots of dV remaining, so we are using nearly the same craft with some tweaks using newly available parts. https://imgur.com/rpdOkKH https://imgur.com/E7rMrRw The lander, now modified with reaction wheels, handles much better. I also added RCS and spare monopropellant to my orbiter to provide some flexibility. 2121 science earned; enough to unlock the seismometer, nuclear engine, and atmospheric analyzer among other things. Put on your sunscreen; it's time to go tanning on Moho!

3 - Minpollo: Larger and in-charger We've unlocked enough pods for a heavier mission, complete with docking. Our space program has been expanded to seven Kerbonauts, and they all are taking part this time around. No 2.5m aeroshell, so the craft is a bit wasp-waisted: Here's a view after TMI and MCC1, showing the exposed lander sandwiched between the orbiter and kicker: To save weight, I didn't put any RCS on the orbiter. Turns out that I ALSO forgot that my lander pod has no built-in reaction wheel. That means that orbital transposition and docking was a bit of a pain - I only have a mission total of 30 units of RCS propellant to work with, and in the initial configuration the lander handles like a dead horse with a live elephant on its back. The slight offset and very high COG, combined with the minimal thrust vectoring of the Spark engine, make this a pretty tough landing. Fortunately, flats is something Minmus has lots of: https://imgur.com/fLQm2IT Turns out Minmus isn't edible. Fortunately, there are snacks in the orbiter. The ascent stage handles much better with the more balanced COG. Docking wasn't as easy as it could have been, but we managed it with just over 50% RCS remaining. https://imgur.com/ozSqgDI On the way home, we flew past the Mun to show the rookies the first manned landing site in our program. Our landing site was just near enough to dry land to catch the Shores biome. https://imgur.com/sLCcwOV https://imgur.com/rvxEWBv 1326 science collected, all of which was used filling out most of the tier 6 science. No new scientific instruments unlocked, unfortunately. No worry though: it is time to prove once and for all whether Dres exists.

2 - Munpollo: One biggish step for Jeb No docking ports yet, but that doesn't mean we can't use an orbiter! Mission plan is to stay connected until in low Munar orbit, then return to the orbiter via spacewalk after the rendezvous. https://imgur.com/kqJIDgJ Launch went pretty well, though the use of a wrong-way decoupler on the orbiter seems to have confused the fuel flow presets. Some resource transfers will be needed to avoid separating the lander with dry tanks. Another polar orbit for EVA science. The farside crater seems flattish, so we'll give that a try... Jeb is the only landing-qualified pilot at this point, so he's hopping in the lander and leaving Bob in orbit. https://imgur.com/ELjSVik https://imgur.com/w5Y4HDc https://imgur.com/1mECrer Plenty of dV to spare; if we had a heat shield we could take the lander home! Oh well... time for a Munar rendezvous. Grab the science and move over to the equally-crowded orbiter, time for 6 days of endurance flight while we overfly the rest of the Munar biomes. Twin Craters finally came around about as we hit orbital alignment, and we have 16 units of fuel left after the Kerbin transfer burn! https://imgur.com/xs2HA5I https://imgur.com/nhYe3Ve https://imgur.com/lwDbvNL Back home, we've a splashdown this time so no flag to mark the spot. Mission science gathered: 1287.2. Time to find out how Minmus tastes! https://imgur.com/pbF0HeV

Our space probes are the new adventurers, being sent to frontiers that humans may not visit for many decades. They are endearing to us in a way that few, if any, non-humanoid robots can be. Oppy, thanks for capturing the imaginations of so many earthlings!

Thanks, @Starhawk and @James Kerman! Any landing you learn from is a happy one.

Hey, long time lurker (and player), first time poster! Happy to be aboard.

Cool challenge, I'll give it a go. I'm new to this, so let me know if I need to provide more (or less) info. My mods, as such, are all navigational and engineering: I have KER, transit window planner, and trajectories. Pretty vanilla start, except for some tweaks to the coms network: https://imgur.com/36ufWhx https://imgur.com/TIuIctb Let's roll (heh). First runabout for KSC science works ok, as long as you stay below ~5 m/s. Not much fun to pilot, though. https://imgur.com/ZqYb9ve https://imgur.com/AudNlC5 That'll get me through the first two tiers. Time for orbit! https://imgur.com/XtdzUo5 1 - Kerpollo: The first thing https://imgur.com/Bxseijx Pretty simple stack. Turned out rather conservative - about 1300 m/s of extra dV before I dumped the last thrusting stage on reentry. Munar orbital mission would have been possible, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I grabbed EVAs for all major biomes with a polar orbit, and ended up on the southern ice shelf: https://imgur.com/D0Tb7en That wrapped up science through the 90 level, plus fuel systems (gotta have those ducts): https://imgur.com/0WIa2qm On to the moon!