OJT

In addition to what @cantab and @swjr-swis have said, I have couple of more suggestions on the metrics that can be used to judge the submissions Yes, passenger capacity is certainly important for a commercial airplane, but we should not forget about cargo: airline passengers rarely travel without any luggage. EVA Experiment Kit and EVA Repair Kit weigh 20 and 10 kg respectively, so you could use the Experiment Kit as a baggage and Repair Kit as hand luggage. You could use the inventory slots of Crew Cabins as baggage space or add additional space via Cargo Storage Units It is important to set certain limits on sizes and weights of the submitted aircrafts: you could build an equivalent of say an Airbus A380 which can haul lots of passengers and cargo in one go, but what use is such a big plane if it is too big and/or heavy for the destination runway? Of course you don't have such constraints in KSP, but for the purpose of the challenge I think it would be good to set limits on weight and size of the aircraft (length, wingspan etc.) or outright classify the entries depending on these factors As for the Maintenance, I think I might have a good way of rating it: Say, after certain amount of flights we need to do engine servicing. From quick Google search, price of the Boeing 747 jet engine ranges between 12 and 21 million dollars. According to Wikipedia, an engine overhaul for jet engines in general takes up about10-20% of the price of a new engine (in B747 case it is 4 million dollars). So, what we could do is take the engine that the plane uses, divide its price by some number, multiply it with the amount of the engines the plane has and you can get the Maintenance price. This way is simple to understand, easy to rank and it also will influence the coming entries, since the challenge contenders will need to pick their engines more carefully if they aim to make the plane as low-cost as possible

Take your time, I am not in a hurry There is also the Minmus mission left to do, but yes, Test Pilot Series and Asteroid recovery

Huh, I assumed that there was a certain weight limit that one must go under to get the Minimalist rank. From what I understood, it is an "absolute" rank (meaning if you want to get it, you need to break the record) Still, at least I got my fourth Advanced Pilot Precision award

Something I've built while experimenting with weight optimizations Manned, has enough battery charge for short near Kerbin operations. Got it to 5935 kg. Haven't checked the submissions from other users, but I reckon this might be one of the lightest manned SSTOs here. Let me know if this is light enough to be eligible for Minimalist rank @boolybooly As I got to 1800ish m/s of orbital speed, I switched the RAPIER to Closed Cycle mode and pushed the rest of the way 70x72 km orbit reached I used the rest of my oxidizer to deorbit I overshot KSC a bit, so I turned around and flew a bit under engine power: I still had some liquid fuel left over Landing was a bit sketchy due to narrow wheelbase. Took me two attempts to stick it

Single Stage To Orbit The party was out of this world, but it had no atmosphere

No problem mate, the thread was somewhat abandoned after that so you could miss it. And I usually tuck away most of my screenshots in the spoiler, so I understand why it slipped through the radar. Still, I appreciate your commendation Real X-24 was indeed used to test lifting body designs and the data gained from those flights indeed was used in the design of the Space Shuttle orbiter

@Artienia I've completed the Jool STS-1 Mission. Aiming for Commander rank as usual Jool STS-1 Submission And I don't know whether you reviewed my Eve submission yet or you simply forgot to give out the badge, so I will link my Eve submission again, also for Commander rank Eve STS-1 Submission

Hello fellas Coming up is the hardest mission I've done so far in this thread... Jool Series: STS-1 In this mission we will be visiting one of Jool's moons: Laythe. In fact, we will be landing on it. It is a very far destination with relatively strong gravity, thick atmosphere and very little landmass. Laythe's atmosphere is oxygenated, so this makes use of jet engines possible. In addition, to get Commander rank I will need to carry along two payloads. These are Surface Ore Refinery and an Atmospheric Exploration Aircraft. Here are the requirements for both The ground outpost must have: Ore refinery and fuel storage with docking port Room for 4 or more kerbals The Atmospheric Exploration Aircraft must have: Room for 1 or more kerbals Docking port I will also need to land the Orbiter on the runway New Series requires a new Orbiter. Here it is: It is a bit longer than Duna/Eve Orbiter due to having bigger cargo bay. It also packs serious power with 4 RAPIER engines and two Supersonic shock cones on top that supply these engines with air Here is the Ore Refinery Space for 4, mining and refinery setup, small tanks for fuel and ore respectively, nuclear generator for power and big antenna for direct connection to KSC Here's the Atmospheric Exploration Aircraft I initially tried to make a jet-powered mini-plane, but I couldn't design one that would fit inside the Orbiter. So I decided to go with a helicopter design using Breaking Ground DLC parts. Single-rotor with tail rotor for balance, grip pads for surcafe landings and pontoons for water landings. Small docking port on the front and nuclear generator for power Here's everything packed inside the Cargo bay For this mission, we are also allowed to bring along a Support Package. So here's the improved Tug from Duna Series. Bigger relay dish, more fuel and nuclear generator for power instead of solar panels Now that we introduced everything, it's time to launch it. First goes the Tug After that, Orbiter goes up I used the last stage of the Launch System to rendezvous with the Tug and dock Orbiter to it We will be burning directly towards Jool. The Stack had quite low TWR, so I split up the one long burn into multiple short burns. I think I did 5 or 6 shorter burns before doing the final ejection burn After long travel, we arrive to our destination: Jool To preserve fuel, we will be using multiple gravity assists around Jool's moons. First we do a burn near Jool to achieve Tylo fly-by and enter Jool orbit. After that I did 2 more fly-bys of Tylo and Laythe itself (with small correction maneuvers in between) to then approach Laythe at sensible speeds I know from experience (check my second Jool 5 submission) that docking ports are quite sturdy and can survive reentries. So, like in my Jool 5 mission, I aerocaptured with the whole stack to enter orbit around Laythe. After that, I did couple of more aerobrakes to then finally enter low orbit Time to land on Laythe. Tug will do the deorbit burn, undock the Orbiter and burn prograde again. This way the Orbiter stays fully fueled After sufficiently slowing down, the Orbiter glides towards some island Island turned out to be a bit more mountainous than I expected, so I landed on the shore which seemed flatter Landed! Time to deploy the payloads. Same structure as on previous Orbiters: bay doors opening downwards and Large landing gear at the back to raise the rear for clearance. Although I still had to sort of wiggle myself away from the payloads, but we got there I waited for the noon so it would be brighter Then we deployed the payloads: Ore Refinery extended its legs... and rolled away from the Orbiter because I forgot to put the brakes on. Thankfully it didn't roll too far away from it Next up is the Helicopter: Bill boarded it, did a small test flight and landed near the Refinery Unfortunately Helicopter has only one seat, so Jeb had to run towards the Refinery At the end, a flag is planted and everyone poses for a group photo Time to return home. Jeb and Bill get back into the Orbiter and fire up the engines I picked the RAPIERS because they can be used as jet engines, thus making the ascents through oxygenated atmospheres more efficient. Despite that, the return to orbit was extremely close: when I reached orbit I completely ran out of fuel Thankfully, the Tug has more than enough fuel to do the rendezvous and docking by itself The Stack is assembled back. Now we do two burns to escape Laythe and enter an orbit around Jool After that, I did couple of correction maneuvers and one Vall fly-by to enter high circular orbit around Jool, where I waited for the Kerbin transfer window and then performed the ejection burn Back in Kerbin SOI At this point I had two options. I could do a fly-by to encounter Kerbin later at lower speeds, but this would noticeably increase the mission time. Or I could try to enter directly, aerobrake and do an additional retrograde burn, but this would be much riskier and I barely had enough fuel to pull this off. Being the sensible person that I am... I went with the second option First of all I fully refueled the Orbiter: the Tug had a bit of storage with Oxidizer in it to fill up the Orbiter. Then as I was getting closer to Kerbin, I burned with the Tug, using what little fuel it had inside. Shortly before entering the atmosphere, I decoupled the Tug and aerobraked with Orbiter. The aerobrake wasn't enough to slow down however, so after leaving the atmosphere I did a burn with RAPIERs to finally enter the orbit around Kerbin After that, It was only a matter of couple of aerobrakes to get to low circular orbit. However, during those aerobrakes I found out something. I never tested how Jool Orbiter flies with low fuel and it turns out that CoM of the plane shifts noticeably behind the CoL if fuel gets too low. I could fix this by putting all of the fuel in the nose tank. That's the reason all of my Orbiters had a nose tank in the first place, so I could balance the fuel if needed. However my direct entry maneuver used up quite a lot of fuel and what I had left was enough to place the CoM just behind the CoL. You can have a relatively stable plane with this arrangement, but this meant that I needed to be extremely conservative with my fuel and that I couldn't use any of it to extend my range in the atmosphere, which meant that after doing the deorbit burn I needed to glide the whole way to KSC and land it. I glided all of my previous missions, but these increased stakes did make me a bit nervous After waiting for suitable window, I did a small deorbit burn and entered the atmosphere. My orbit was highly inclined, KSC wouldn't be exactly inline with my trajectory when I'd get close to it and I couldn't burn normal to adjust for it due to reasons explained above. So I banked to the left during pretty much the whole entry phase and prayed that my plane doesn't flip and lose control I survived! Never thought I'd be this happy from surviving LKO reentry with the amount of hours I spent in this game . And the plane was gliding stable, so all I needed to do was to land it I wish I had a video of this: this was the smoothest landing I did so far in this game And with this, all Interplanetary Series have been completed! Only Minmus mission is left among the Main Series, which will come soon

For STS-3T I've figured as much, I just wanted to make sure with the challenge mods For STS-4T, bringing oversized cargo down can be an interesting approach. I'll see what I can work out of it And yes. I did want to swap out the engines on the Launch System. Should be easy, I've already built many boosters with multiple Vectors In that case, paging @sturmhauke . I will quote my original post so you won't need to search for it

I quickly went over the requirements for the Bonus/Test Missions. Asteroid mission should be manageable. Most of the Test Pilot missions also seem workable with Mk.2 limitations. I only have couple of questions that I must clear up One mission that seems out of my scope is the STS-4T Skylab boost mission since the stuff that will need to be hauled around is way too big to fit inside the Mk.2 cargo bay. However, according to the mission description, I am allowed to make a station of my own. Am I allowed to scale down my "Skylab" while roughly having the same design and capability? Like if I substitute the Hitchhiker Storage Container with two MK.1 crew bays joined together (both will have a max capacity of 4 kerbals) or put smaller solar panels or antenna on the solar/comm array? The other mission is the STS-3T Cassini-Huygens mission. It says that the entire payload (with transfer stage included) must fit inside a long Mk.3 bay and it is quite obvious that Mk.3 bay is out of the question for me. Can I substitute it with a Mk.2 cargo bay assembly of same or perhaps even smaller length? Lastly, do I need to complete all Test Pilot missions in order or I am allowed to switch it up? One more thing unrelated to stuff above: have you reviewed my Eve submission already? Looking forward to your response

@Artienia I did the Eve mission in the meanwhile. It turned out to be easier than I expected it to be Eve STS-1 for Commander rank Another question from me to both you and @sturmhauke: seeing as I am well underway to completing all Main Series missions using Mk.2 fuselage parts only and, as far as I am aware I will be the first one to do it, can I get a special badge representing this when I finish everything? Since the Shuttle shown on regular badges is a Mk.3 one, it would be cool to have a badge with Mk.2 Shuttle on it

Hello fellas, it's time for the next series Eve Series: STS-1 Well I say series, it only has one mission, but hey, I didn't name it like this In Eve mission, I must send the Orbiter to Eve and bring along an atmospheric probe. There I must deploy the probe that will dip in the atmosphere, conduct science experiments and return to orbit. After that, I must collect the experiment module and return to Kerbin. For Commander rank, I must aerobrake/-capture at Eve and Kerbin, the probe must dip below 60km before conducting science and the Orbiter must land on a runway Atmospheric probe has to contain at least 3 different science experiments a probe core a battery Here is the probe I designed It has lightest smallest probe core, avionics unit for more SAS control, battery pack and three experiments that can be conducted in the atmosphere. It has an antenna attached for remote control and the experiment module is docked to propulsion module. Propulsion module also has solar panels for electricity generation and winglets for stability during flight. After returning to orbit and rendezvous-ing with the Orbiter, the propulsion module will be jettisoned, exposing the docking port and allowing the Orbiter to dock to it Orbiter is the same as in Duna series. Only difference is in the cargo bay: docking port is at the other end of the cargo bay, there is also a Remote Control Unit to allow the pilot to control the Atmospheric Probe without needing connection to KSC and there's a small relay antenna for this purpose aswell. Launch System is also the same as in Duna series. Only difference is the fairing colour Let's get to it. First we get to orbit Then we burn towards Eve. Even though we are allowed to bring along a Support Package of our choice, we can do the mission without any additional hardware After arriving at Eve, I discard the transfer stage and prepare for aerobrake Knowing the difficulty of reentering Eve without heatshields, I decided to play it safe and aerobrake at higher altitudes. After first aerobrake I did a burn to adjust the inclination and after that I did more aerobrakes. I did 7 or 8 aerobrakes before sufficiently lowering my apoapsis. At the end, I parked the Orbiter in 130x130km orbit Time to deploy the probe. It burns to lower its periapsis inside the atmosphere and descends into it Temperature percentage went quite high peaking at 96%, but the Probe survived the whole ordeal like a charm. Experiments were conducted below 60km and the Probe safely returned to orbit Probe first got into lower orbit than the Orbiter and then, when approach window came up, it did couple of burns to rendezvous with it Probe undocks the propulsion stage. Experiment module has a reaction wheel and enough charge to control all systems, so I can adjust its attitude to make the docking easier. Orbiter in the meanwhile maneuvers towards the module and captures it Now that we did everything we needed, all there's left to do is to wait for a transfer window and then burn towards home. TWR of the Orbiter around Eve is somewhat small, so I split the ejection burn into two burns for efficiency Arriving home Two aerobrakes proved to be sufficient to enter low parking orbit. After that, I waited for a good approach window, burned retrograde and descended towards KSC At this point I had basically no fuel in my Orbiter, which meant that I needed to carefully shed off the energy to glide towards the runway and not over-/undershoot it It all went beautifully. All there was left to do was to land the Orbiter Another series completed!

@Artienia Did the Duna STS-3. The mission vehicles and plan was tested and ready to go for a while now, but I only now had the time to actually fly the mission Duna STS-3 for Commander rank

Hello lads, it's been a while As is usually the case, real life got in the way and I was kind of bored of the game so I had a break from KSP. I had some free time today and I decided to fire it up again. Besides, I already had everything ready and tested for my next mission, so all I needed to do is to fly it Duna Series: STS-3 This is the final mission of Duna series. In this mission we are continuing to expand our Duna infrastructure, but it also contains some unique challenges along the way. Here are the tasks, and to make it simpler I will list the Commander rank requirements straight away: We must bring along three payloads: a lander for 4 kerbals and two satellites. Lander must be fully reusable and must be single stage: you are not allowed to decouple anything from it Orbiter must aerobrake/aerocapture at Duna and Kerbin After rendezvous-ing with the Duna Orbital Station, Lander must bring 4 kerbals to Duna surface. Kerbals must plant a flag and then return to Orbital Station. Lander must be docked to the Station afterwards After Lander docks to Station, Orbiter must depart Duna, perform fly-by of Eve and return to Kerbin While in Eve SOI, the satellites must be deployed: one must be placed into circular polar orbit with >2000km periapsis and the other must be placed into circular equatorial orbit with <150km apoapsis Orbiter must land on a runway Let's show the Lander This lander took a lot of time to design. The main constraint was the size of Orbiter's cargo bay: my initial plan was to use the Mk.1 passenger bays, but the craft turned out to be way too long, so instead I joined four Mk.1 command pods together. In addition, getting enough fuel to return to Station from the surface required me to clip some fuel tanks, but I didn't clip them in too far and they're still visible (it also kinda adds to the aesthetic). I also struggled alot with putting landing legs in a way that they wouldn't clip through the cargo bay of the Orbiter, but I decided to ditch them in the end entirely and I simply put some RCS thrusters to lift up the nose before ascent like on Mun Emergency Escape Vehicle from Mun STS-4 mission This is the satellite Not really much to explain here, just a satellite with lot's of fuel for maneuvering around Eve This is how everything is packed inside the cargo bay I added extra docking ports for the satellites at the back. Other than that, the Orbiter is the same as in previous Duna missions Launch to LKO is standard As is the Duna transit Decoupling the transit stage and aerobraking at Duna One aerobrake and a bit of maneuvering later I encounter the Space Station Now time to deploy the lander. Four kerbals from the Station board the lander, undock from the Orbiter and descend towards Duna surface. One kerbal is left in the Station to monitor the situation, as is Jeb and Bill in the Orbiter Planting the flag and posing for a picture After planting the flag, everyone is back in the lander. Nose is raised with RCS thrusters and main engine is throttled up Climbing to orbit I didn't time my launch to approach the Station with direct ascent, so I launched to a slightly lower orbit. I then made a small burn and rendezvous-ed with the Station With first part of the mission done, it is time to depart to Eve Except there is a surprise... Remember the Interplanetary Tug that I had brought along as a support package in Duna STS-2 mission? I cleared with the STS Challenge mod Artienia if I could use Support Packages in multiple missions and I've got permission to do this. So, I will be using the Tug for the whole "Duna to Eve to Kerbin" trip First, we need to dock the Tug to the Orbiter. Tug does couple of burns and encounters the Orbiter To my luck (and I swear I didn't plan this), it was Duna-Eve transfer window. So I plotted the maneuver and burned towards Eve As soon as I reached Eve and entered its SOI, I deployed both satellites First I entered the highly elliptical orbit with the Equatorial Satellite. Then I quickly switched to Polar Satellite and circularized. It required a long retrograde burn and small radial adjustment. At the end, I switched back to Equatorial Satellite and adjusted its orbit with couple of burns to finally end up in the required orbit Satellites deployed, switching to Orbiter. It was still within Eve's SOI by the time I finished I did have to do one extra orbit around Sun before favorable encounter window came up, and I also had to do a substantial correction burn, but the journey still took way less time than I initially expected We're back home I didn't test whether Tug could handle interplanetary reentries, so I undocked it and raised its periapsis above the atmosphere. I did this at the edge of SOI, so the maneuver took very little deltaV The Orbiter in the meanwhile is about to aerobrake at Kerbin Orbiter entered the atmosphere at around 4.4 km/s. Reentry was by far the hottest I've ever survived: some parts creeped over 99% heating according to KER readouts. Even then I didn't slow down enough, so I had to do a retro burn immediately after returning to space to stay in Kerbin orbit I then quickly switched to Tug and did a retroburn with it to enter stable elliptical orbit around Kerbin Orbiter did a couple of more aerobrakes before entering LKO I timed my retrograde burn to approach KSC and descended towards the runway Runway approach and landing was smooth as always And with this, Duna Series is finished! This batch was a lot of fun. See you all in the next one

Oh, I assumed that even with occluded nodes it still produced lots of drag, which I thought was the bug that wasn't fixed. That's good to know actually, thx for the tip

Wait a minute, wasn't it the other way around? As in, fairing produces way too much drag if it is set as a root part. It had something to do with a bug in KSP (I dunno if it was fixed as of 1.12). Or I got the wrong memo on all of this lmao

@Artienia My biggest Mission Report so far, and it is worth it Duna STS-2 for Commander Level

First badge acquired Time for the second one Duna Series: STS-2 This is gonna be the mission where I will need to land on Duna and then return back to Kerbin. I will also need to visit the Orbital Station that I sent in Duna STS-1. In addition there are following Commander level requirements: I need to bring along a module that has space for at least 2 kerbals. The specifics of the module is up to me: it can be pretty much anything, from surface base to additional section for Orbital Station I need to aerobrake/capture at both Duna and Kerbin Orbiter must land on a runway And also, like in STS-1, I am allowed to bring along one Support Package of my choice This is the payload that I decided to bring for this mission: a Science Module for the Orbital Station Science experiments, crew bay, solar panels, RCS, the whole shabang As for the Support Package, it is gonna be a big boi: a Nuclear Interplanetary Tug It has over 8k m/s dV and its relay dish provides enough coverage as far as Duna. It has a docking port, which means it can ferry along the Orbiter and it can also be used to adjust the orbit of the Duna Orbital Station and perhaps even to carry it into entirely new celestial body First launch will be the Tug. It reached a circular orbit of 72x73km Next is the Orbiter Both ships then perform the trans-dunian burns (about 10 minutes apart from each other) and depart Kerbin Small midcourse adjustment later, we arrive at Duna. First ship to arrive is the Orbiter: it discards its transfer stage and enters Dunian atmosphere. One aerobrake proved sufficient to enter low orbit Next up is the Tug: it also performs one aerobrake, but it also performs two burns and enters slightly inclined low circular orbit. It will be left there for potential future use Orbiter in the meanwhile is rendezvousing with the Orbital Station After docking to the Station, the Science Module is deployed and docked to the Station at the other side The Orbiter's tanks were almost full, but I still filled them up to the brim using the fuel in the big Fuel Tank. After that, the plane undocks and prepares to descend down Now we get to see the Orbiter and all of the aerodynamic optimization truly shine. Lots of Duna Series prep hours were spent just for this very moment. The plane banks slightly to the left to approach the Eastern Canyon Flying on Duna in a winged aircraft is probably one of the hardest things to do in the game: because the atmosphere is so thin, the planes must produce a lot of lift and at the same time be as light as possible. Duna's surface is very bumpy and there are very few truly flat sections, so landing approach speed is critical and must be as low as possibly can. At the same time, the lift generated by the plane must be sufficient to lower the stall speed, because the last thing you want is for your plane to plop on the surface: bumpy surface and low gravity make landings particularly bouncy and makes braking after landing difficult Pretty much all of the Duna planes I happened to see (on YouTube or other platforms) utilize some sort of gimmick to safely land a plane on Duna. Some build VTOL capable planes, others strap on lots of parachutes to slow the plane down. Many admit to doing a lot of save reloads due to the plane crashing. A lot of people simply use parachutes to land the plane vertically. And so on so forth, you get the idea Through my testing, I worked out the ratio of wing area to weight of the craft to make slow horizontal landings possible. My best "proof-of-concept" plane had 2.28 wing area per 1 ton which allowed it to safely touchdown at speeds as low as 30 m/s! For comparison, the Mun Orbiter has the ratio of 0.76 wing area/ton and, despite flying pretty well on Kerbin, was absolutely hopeless on Duna. So, after figuring out the benchmark ratio, all I needed to do was to get as close as possible while still making an Orbiter that could complete all of the challenges The final Duna Orbiter you see has 1.84 wing area/ton and it flies like a charm. It can change direction pretty well, it glides nicely and throughout all of the tests I've done with it, I landed all of my attempts first time without any reloads. In this particular mission, touchdown speed reached around 40 m/s before the plane stalled, but by that point I was comfortably close to the surface and plane gently dropped on Dunian soil. Perfect landing without any parachutes or other trickery, purely through gliding We landed on another planet! Time to set foot on it and plant the flag After waiting a bit to let the batteries charge up and to get a good encounter window with our Orbital Station, the Orbiter fires up its engines and starts the climb I've actually NAILED the launch: with a modest burn I would be encountering the Orbital Station directly and with small separation, without any need for parking orbits After fueling up the Orbiter and waiting for the Kerbin transfer window, I undock from the Station and burn towards home After some time, we approach Kerbin Two aerobrakes and small normal burn allowed me to park in an equatorial low orbit, from which I've waited for suitable return window As the window came about, I burned retrograde and descended towards the runway I braked very quickly in the higher layers of the atmosphere, so I nosedived towards the runway, performed a roll program and approached the runway from the east side Butter Flag coordinates

@Artienia It is here Duna STS-1 for Commander level

Ladies and gentlemen Mun Series missions have been completed, all flawlessly, all with Commander levels, all verified by the STS Challenge mods (badges in the original post). And with Kerbin SOI pretty much conquered (aside from Minmus, but this would be too easy), it is time to start going interplanetary. And, as already teased in previous post, our next destination will be... Duna These set of missions provide their own unique challenges. Duna is much farther than Kerbin's moons and its thin atmosphere makes atmospheric flight particularly difficult. Very few people managed to make planes that could fly on Duna, and now to make one that should be able to carry payloads and to be able to reach orbit from Dunian surface? Sheesh With that being said, Duna series should be manageable: a lot of planning went into this, noticeably more than for Mun missions, and I believe that I managed to do a pretty damn good job. But for now, let's start with the first mission Duna Series: STS-1 This mission requires you to reach Duna, enter the orbit around it, deploy an orbital outpost and return back to Kerbin. The outpost must have: Room for 4 or more kerbals, Power generation and storage Antenna for communication Probe core with SAS In addition to this, for Commander level the Orbiter must aerocapture both at Duna arrival and Kerbin return, the outpost must be deployed below 70km orbit and the Orbiter must land on a runway New Series require a new Orbiter, and here it is! Duna Orbiter is the same length as the Mun Orbiter, however it has significantly larger wing area to allow it to fly and land on Duna (and wing structure itself is radically redesigned). It also has RCS thrusters placed across the plane for precise maneuvering and it has extra monoprop tanks hidden in cargo bay. And there are extra airbrakes to assist with approaches. Aside from that it is similar to Mun Orbiter: Aerospike engine, cargo bays opening at the bottom and large landing legs for clearance while deploying surface payloads. This Orbiter model will be used in all Duna missions without any changes (apart from the payload, obviously) This is the orbital outpost. Space for five, lots of battery charge, huge solar panels, RCS capability, relay dish and probe core at the back + surplus of docking ports The outpost will be mounted on its side and half of the cargo bay doors will be left open: plane will be in a fairing, so I don't risk damaging it during Kerbin ascent And yes, you read it right: I did fit the plane into a 3.75m fairing Launch System has been reworked: Main Rocket + 2 side boosters and a transfer stage for trans-dunian burn Let's launch it This will not be our only launch from Kerbin, however For this mission, we are allowed to bring along a Support Package. Package can be pretty much anything you desire and it can be launched with both conventional rockets or another STS System, up to player's choice. So for this mission, I decided to bring along a fuel tank The Fuel Tank is equipped with a probe core of its own, a docking port, an antenna, solar panels and some batteries. It has a transfer stage of its own, although 1/3 of the trans-dunian burn will be done with the ascent stage to conserve fuel for future maneuvers Now we're doing the Duna burns. After finishing them, the Orbiter will reach the destination couple of weeks ahead of the Fuel Tank After a long travel (and a small mid course correction for both Orbiter and Fuel Tank), Orbiter reaches Duna Transfer stage is discarded before reentry Due to antenna sticking so far out I had to leave half of the cargo bay doors open, but all components still handled the reentry easily, thanks to smaller (compared to Kerbin) entry speeds, thinner atmosphere and decent thermal ceiling of the relay dish. Orbiter did two aerobrakes in total and at the end achieved orbit of 65x65km After some time, Fuel Tank also reached Duna. It also aerobraked, but the transfer stage was not discarded and the Tank reentered with it. One aerobrake proved sufficient and, with some correction burns, the Fuel Tank achieved orbit of 61x65km (I sadly forgot to make pictures of its orbital parameters) After completing the burns, transfer stage was disconnected Now I needed to rendezvous the Orbiter with the Fuel Tank. They had similar orbits, but the inclinations didn't match, so encountering the Fuel Tank took some burns with the Orbiter and a bit of waiting After temporarily docking to the Fuel Tank, the Orbiter returned to its initial orbit of 65x65km that I have shown above. Orbiter only used its own fuel for the maneuvers, leaving the Fuel Tank reserves untouched. After doing this, I deployed the Orbital Station After Station deployment, Fuel Tank undocked from the Orbiter and docked to one of the Station's ports Orbital Station deployed and in service! Time to return to Kerbin: after waiting for the transfer window, I performed the ejection burn. Also managed to snag up an Ike fly-by while escaping Duna After long travel, we return home from our first interplanetary journey Reentry was effortless: the Orbiter handled the speeds and the heat without any issues whatsoever. I did one more pass afterwards to enter low orbit After timing my retrograde burn, I descend and approach the KSC I had to circle around because I braked a bit faster than I planned and I was still in high atmosphere First runway landing after interplanetary mission. And it was smooth as butter

@sturmhauke @Artienia I have some questions regarding support packages that one can bring along for most of the interplanetary missions I can choose how I carry the package into space (either with conventional rocket or with another shuttle), but are there any restrictions on how far I can carry said package? Like, for example, must it be docked to the Orbiter before leaving Kerbin SOI or can I bring it to the end destination separately from the Orbiter? Are there any restrictions on the support package itself? Must it be something simple (like a barebone fuel tank) or I can get more creative with it (say, an interplanetary tug)? Must the package be single segment or can I carry multiple segments? Like, with previous example, may I only launch fuel tank on one mission and then the tug on the other or am I allowed to launch both with one rocket in single mission? Am I allowed to use support packages from other missions in the next ones? For example, if I bring a fuel tank to the orbital station in Duna STS-2, can I fuel my lander or my Orbiter from it in Duna STS-3?

@Artienia LOP-G finished! Although it doesn't look as fancy as you might expect: small Mk.2 cargo bays barely leave any space for creativity (both literally and figuratively) Links below Mun STS-5 for Commander level Mun STS-6 for Commander level Mun STS-7 for Commander level

Mun Series: STS-7 Final Mun mission, let's do it. All we need to do is to send up the Science Module and finish the LOP-G assembly Space for 5, various science equipment, docking ports and RCS capability. This will be nice addition to the Gateway Launch Burning towards Mun After arriving at Mun, I did couple of burns: first to enter orbit, then to line up my orbit with LOP-Gs orbit and at last to rendezvous with it Deploying the Science Module. The pilot inside the module then maneuvers towards the LOP-G to dock to it Time to return the Orbiter to Kerbin. Same procedure as in previous missions, you know the deal by now Landing on the runway, as is tradition That's not the end of this mission, however. We have a fully assembled LOP-G, now we need to raise its orbit And this concludes the Mun Series! This is the second STS Series that we've done. And now, it is time to move on to interplanetary missions. I will give you a little sneak peak that should tell you where we will be heading next See you all in next Series!

Mun Series: STS-6 Next is the Habitation Module for the LOP-G. Simple construction: some crew bays and two docking ports. And before you ask: yes it can only fit 8 kerbals, but the science module (which you will see in next mission report) also has crew space for 5 kerbals, which will bring the total crew space of the LOP-G to 13 Launch Trans Munar injection Deploying the HabModule and docking the PPE to it Two modules down, one more to go. Let's get back home. Return is same as in previous missions, I won't repeat myself Soft landing

Last set of Mun missions, here we go Mun Series: STS-5 For the next three missions, we will be assembling a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (or LOP-G) - a space station in munar orbit which will act as an outpost for supporting Mun exploration and long duration stay in space. LOP-G must have three modules The PPE (Power & Propulsion Element) that generates electrical power and has ion engines for orbital maneuvering A science module/docking adapter A habitation module In addition to that, there are special requirements for Commander rank LOP-G must have enough space for at least 12 kerbals LOP-G must be assembled in polar orbit (inclination between 85-95 degrees) with both apoapsis and periapsis between 600 -700km After LOP-G is fully assembled, it must raise its orbit above 2000km (both Ap and Pe) As usual, all three Orbiters must land on the runway First up is the Power & Propulsion Element Lots of batteries, huge solar panels, RCS capability, reaction wheel, relay antennas and a probe core Orbiter is the same. Launch System has been adjusted again: main rocket is back to previous config, but the side boosters are a bit different, albeit still powered with Twin Boars Launch sequence Burning towards Mun. I did a small mid-course correction to approach Mun over the pole I won't need to land on the Mun in the following missions, so I can ditch the main booster early: the fuel in the Orbiter will be more than enough to carry out the entire mission Time to deploy the PPE Time to return to Kerbin. The procedure is like in previous missions (with the highly elliptical orbit and stuff). I also did a burn to line up the orbit with the equator, I had enough fuel to do this Two aerobrakes and I approach the KSC. Unlike previous missions, I didn't enter a low Kerbin orbit after aerobrakes to time my approach, I just got lucky with the timing. Also unlike previous missions, I undershot KSC so I had to burn with the aerospike to extend my range Landing