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I visited various celestial bodies, both in stock and modded KSP 1, and yet Duna is the place I find myself always returning to: relatively small dV required to reach it, enough gravity for quick surface traversal, atmosphere thin enough to allow brutal reentries but at the same time just so thick enough to fly and even land planes. Pretty much everything I could do on Duna I did it: from simple fly-bys to non-refuelable SSTOs to even circumnavigating the entire planet on land With the release of KSP 2, total redesign of Duna and (future) addition of all the new game mechanics, I plan to again thoroughly explore the Red Planet. But, instead of doing it all myself, I decided to share the fun with others! Proudly introducing... The Mastery thread will consist of various challenges/achievements that you will need to complete in order to get on the respective list. Challenges must be done in order from start to finish. Depending on the future updates and new gameplay mechanics new challenges will be added, or the old ones adjusted. Rules might also be modified accordingly Rules: Usage of potential physics exploits is forbidden: no cheats or Kraken drives of any kind If you use any mods that affect stock gameplay (whether it is new parts, changed rigidity configs or otherwise), state them. These submissions will be marked as Modded General construction of the vessels is up to you: use any part you want, as long as you keep within the broad requirements of each challenge (satellites must have antennas, Rovers must have wheels, you get the idea) All crafts must be launched from Kerbin (unless specified) Post proofs of your mission: screenshots or videos. If you have a lot of screenshots, place them under a spoiler Don't mix up the missions: there must be one submission per mission and the missions must be flown one at a time State the Game Version that the mission was flown on If you have concerns or questions about the ruling - ask away! Let's get down to the Challenges. And before you ask: most of the Challenge names are inspired by various works of fiction about Mars 1. Destination Duna Pretty straightforward: build an Unmanned Probe and perform a fly-by of Duna. Very broad definition of "Probe" here: you don't need to have antennas or means to generate electricity. As long as it has a Probe Core and it fly-bys Duna - you're in 2. Otherworldly Connection Build an Unmanned Satellite and enter Duna orbit. Satellite must have an antenna strong enough to reach Kerbin and have means to generate power. Take Ike's SOI into consideration when you plan the orbit! 3. Transmitting Live From Duna Set up a Relay Satellite constellation in Duna's orbit. There must be at least 3 satellites in the constellation. Each Satellite must have a Relay antenna strong enough to reach Kerbin and have means to generate power. You can either launch new satellites or add some to the one you've sent in Challenge 2, as long as the Satellite from Challenge 2 satisfies the aforementioned requirements 4. First Landing Launch an Unmanned Lander (like Viking) and land it intact on Duna. Lander must have an antenna that can reach the Relay satellites, means to generate electricity and some sort of landing legs. Whether you choose to use already provided lander legs or make some of your own from structural parts is up to you 5. Desolation Road Design an Unmanned Rover, send it to Duna and demonstrate its functionality by covering some distance in it. Rover must have an antenna that can reach the Relay satellites, means to generate electricity and at least 3 wheels 6. Bring It Home Design an Unmanned Lander that can land on Duna and then subsequently return it intact to Kerbin. If the Lander is multi-stage, the stage with Probe Core must be returned. Otherwise the requirements are the same as in Challenge 4 7. Strangers in a Strange Land Land a Kerbal (or Kerbals) on Duna and then bring him (or them) back. The method (Direct ascent vs. Orbit rendezvous) is up to your choice. If you send multiple Kerbals, all of them must return home: leave no one stranded! 8. Come Fly With Me Design a Duna Plane and demonstrate its ability to navigate its skies. Plane must have wing parts and be able to land and take off horizontally. Plane can either be Manned or Unmanned. If Manned, all Kerbals must later return home (either via Plane or other means). If Unmanned, the Plane must have an antenna to reach the Relays and have means to generate electricity. Extra kudos if it can return intact back to Kerbin More to be added... Good luck and have fun!

I require a Duna lander since I am not very good at making rockets and I can't find a good Duna lander and rocket, and it would help very much if someone could refer me to one. Disclaimer: STOCK ONLY

April 7th, 1974 They'd done it. The Soviets had landed a man on the Moon, and returned him safely to the Earth. His name: Alexei Leonov. After Apollo 17 returned to Earth in 1972, the world thought the space race was over. America had been to the Moon nine times, and landed 12 men there, and the Soviets weren't even close to orbiting it. Yet, on that fateful morning, the Soviets put themselves back into the space race. Any doubts that congress had about NASA immediately vanished, and president Richard Nixon immediately ordered a renewal of the American space program. The Apollo Applications program (AAP) was re-opened, and a new program was created for the revived space race: Apollo-Mars. There were three goals for Apollo-Mars: Establish a long term presence and begin the expansion of Skylab, create a long-term lunar presence with a space station and surface base with a re-usable lander, and as the most ambitious goal of the program, land a man on Mars in the early 1980s. Just as President Kennedy had set the goal for the U.S. to land on the Moon 13 years ago, America had set another ambitous goal. And so, the new race was on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To celebrate one year of foruming, I have decided to redo my very first mission report, Apollo-Mars! This time it will have a more in depth story to it, as well show what the Soviets are up too. Did anybody ask for this? No. But I'm doing this anyways. With the knowledge I've gained from other mission reports, this will be 10,000 times better than the old thread. So enjoy!

Considering Duna is a Mars analogue, I feel that the atmosphere is too thick. In the game you can get most craft down with a few parachutes and a couple of engine bursts. There was even a time that a rover I built landed safely with one inline parachute and no engines. Meanwhile irl, landing on Mars is a hassle. Parachutes can only really slow you down to 100m/s (200mph) and the rest of the descent needs to be powered. There’s gameplay reasons to make Duna’s atmo thinner as well. It could be kinda like a stepping stone. The first legitimately dangerous landing that the player makes in campaign mode.

When entering Duna's (or any other planet) SOI, should I plan to do my capture burn on the bright side of the planet or the dark side? I think one of them is more efficient but I forgot which one.

Hey! Some of you may know me, some of you may not. I've been on these forums for a while, and I always wanted to do a mission report, but wasn't really sure what to do it on. At the same time, I always wanted to do a big Artemis-style "Mun-to-Duna" program, but I'd always run out of motivation. Putting them together, I decided that writing a mission report would give me the motivation I needed to do what I want. Without further ado, I give you Per Aspera Ad Astra Background: The report will be split into two parts. Part 1, "Per Aspera" will focus on the return to the Mun. Part 2, "Ad Astra", will focus on the exploration of Duna. The space agency this report focuses on is called KASA, and it's the national space agency of the Kerbal States. They went to the Mun with an Apollo-style program, but haven't returned since. Their main focus now is Space Station Harmony (Kerbal equivalent of the ISS), cooperating with Roskerbmos, the space agency of the Rusk Federal Union. First Post Later Today!

PROJECT CITADEL purpose: -Kerbal XP and science space station -First space station on Duna orbit for the kotius program T H E C I T A D E L crew capacity: 29 power generation: a pair of OKEB-250 "Ares" ROSAs from NF solar modules: 6 (+ crewed spacecraft) artificial gravity modules: 2 landers (occasionally and/or ascent stages): 1 etc. etc. I ran out of module ideas after getting a Duna lander mods used: Tantares spacecraft NF solar, NFLV, NF props, NF spacecraft SSPEr ReStock

Hello everyone, AtomicTech here! I started this challenge over on the KSP 2 Modding Society and I figured that I'd bring it over here to the forums! Image from Penumbra's Submission over on the KSP2MS Discord Server. For this challenge, should you choose to accept, you'll take an aircraft of your design and construction over to our rusted neighbor, Duna, and show off its capabilities! You'll need to adhere to the following challenge constraints: No infinite fuel or electricity. No orbital placement cheats. Your spacecraft must survive Duna entry, descent, and landing. After landing, it must take off and travel at least 10 KM. (Note: The way to measure this is up to you; I recommend you take some sort of rover or small SRB-powered rocket to travel to your landing point .) Kraken drive-powered submissions will be considered separately. Winners will be chosen March 11th, 2023; your imagination is the limit!

Crimson Vanguard Mission. Objective: taking screenshots of Duna. Crimson Vanguard is a probe desined to serve a communication relay above Duna for future mission on the surface of Duna or Ike. It is launched on a Krocket III rocket. On the pad: Somewhere above the ocean Somewhere very high above the ocean. Or was it above a continent? Transfer to duna (requires a mid-course correction of achieve target's interception.) Into the interplanetary space! Duna is visible. Closing in! Above duna. End orbit AP-130KM / PE-69KM. No fuel left.

This was supposed to be easy. It was not. Some things that went wrong: Docking ports destroy the ship when undocked. Unless you do it while time warping, then they only add 500dV to one side.. My lander somehow had yaw controls reversed. Had to land without SAS and make the rendezvous using the unwieldy return stage. Orbits keep changing when not in time warp, rendezvous was difficult. Trajectory when returning from Duna did not work at all. Had to exit Duna SoI before setting up the Kerbin encounter. Full vidio is available here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1748896188

Mission 1: Manned Mun Landing and Return Pretty standard Mun mission profile that ran with a few hiccups. Stage 1 stayed tenaciously attached until I did a quick time warp. A phantom spin in my translunar injection stage caused me to be a bit short for my landing stage (ran out of fuel about 100 meters off the surface), so I wound up balancing on the engine bell of the return stage for the landing. The craft: I wound up providing a lot of feedback to the development team via the feedback form in the game launcher (hint: if you start KSP 1 in Steam while running KSP 2, it give you the launcher and you can provide feedback mid-game that way) during the rocket construction, map planning, and flight. There's a lot that needs work, but I was able to get the mission done on the second try. Here's the flight report after landing back on Kerbin: Here's the feedback I provided for others' reference, in no particular format or order: So far, so good. Looking forward to seeing how things progress over the next days and weeks! I'm diving right back in to keep playing now. <3

As we all know here, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to achieve powered flight on Mars. It also became the first rotorcraft to fly on another celestial body. NASA, however, did consider winged aircraft first. There was ARES proposal that was ultimately abandoned in favor of Mars Phoenix program. There were Earth high-altitude research drones with adorable name "Mini-Sniffers" (pictured below) that could theoretically be adapted for Mars flight. And there is also a prototype solar glider Sky-Sailor developed by ETH Zürich that could be developed into a fully fledged mission if funding is provided Thankfully, we are not limited by either budget or feasibility of such missions in KSP and, therefore, for this challenge, we will develop a Duna airplane Mission Profile: The plane will be stored inside a fairing and launched from Kerbin towards Duna. After reaching Duna, the plane will separate from main rocket and enter the planet's atmosphere and glide as far as it can before it either crashes or lands softly on the surface Construction Rules: Only Stock parts are allowed, for both Plane and the Launch Vehicle Plane must be able to fit inside a 3.75 meter fairing. Fairing can NOT be made wider than its base, which means you will need to get creative with wing shapes or robotics in order to make the Plane fit Plane must be either an unpowered glider or be powered by electric props. Depending on that, your submission will be labeled either Unpowered or Powered Plane can be either Manned or Unmanned, that is up to your preferences If the Plane is Manned, the Kerbals aboard must survive the landing. Whether you choose to bail out and pull the parachute, attempt a soft landing or use the plane as an impact absorber is up to you, as long as all kerbals survive If the Plane is Unmanned, your save file must have CommNet enabled like on Normal difficulty. Don't forget to put an antenna on the Plane and couple of relays around Duna beforehand Plane cannot have any means to recharge its batteries: no solar panels/fuel cells/RTGs and whatnot With that being said, you can keep the Plane fully charged for the transfer from Kerbin to Duna. Just make sure all recharging means are discarded before atmospheric flight phase Launch Vehicle must use 3.75 meter fairing to store the Plane Significant part clipping is only allowed for Plane fuselage optimizations. Minor part clipping of wings and control surfaces of the Plane is allowed, but don't overdo it. No part clipping for Launch Vehicles EDIT: I think the thread name already makes it pretty clear, but just in case: the Plane must have wing parts. Wingless gliders won't be accepted Specific requirements for Powered submissions: Plane can only use no more than 100 electric charge to power the props. Rest of the flight must be performed unpowered Props can NOT be offset in any way. Prop offsetting can significantly reduce energy usage to the point of actually generating electric charge, essentially making an infiniglider. So, for the purpose of fairness, props can only be placed "normally" without additional fine adjustments Challenge rules: The whole stack must be launched from KSC Only the Plane is allowed to enter Duna's atmosphere: non-essential equipment like transfer stages must be detached before atmospheric entry. You are, however, ALLOWED to do a braking burn and even enter Duna's orbit altogether if you want to, as long as you don't skim the atmosphere while doing it. As soon as you're ready for the Duna flight, all non-essential equipment must be discarded After entering the atmosphere, you are NOT allowed to escape back to space: once you're in - you're gliding through the air until the end There will be three scoring criteria: weight of the Plane, weight of the entire Launch Stack and Distance travelled. You must include a screenshot of the first two criteria from VAB/SPH with data shown, some screenshots from the mission itself and a final screenshot of the landing site. Third criteria might be tricky to measure in pure stock KSP, so I recommend Persistent Trails that can track your flight trajectory and distance : just start logging your glide as soon as you hit Duna's atmosphere and then make a screenshot of your travelled distance. Alternatively, you can try out @linuxgurugamer's edit of Persistent Trails: this one will start recording automatically as soon as you enter the atmosphere! Third option, if you prefer to play without mods, is to use KerbNet to mark your entry point and then calculate the distance by hand (check @18Watt's submissions for an example on how to do it) Speaking of mods: Mods that affect gameplay (physics changes or new parts) are not allowed. Information mods like KER and graphics mods are allowed Submissions: OJT Unpowered, Unmanned. Plane Mass - 931 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 66.439 tons; Distance - 596.421 km Unpowered, Manned (2 Kerbals). Plane Mass - 1722 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 62.794 tons; Distance - 754.295 km Unpowered, Unmanned. Plane Mass - 707 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 61.325 tons; Distance - 24478.43 km 18Watt Powered, Unmanned. Plane Mass - 804 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 125.562 tons; Distance - 1189.709 km Powered, Unmanned. Plane Mass - 804 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 125.662 tons; Distance - 1509.905 km Unpowered, Manned (1 Kerbal). Plane Mass - 1188 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 126.188 tons; Distance - 12593.132 km Powered, Manned (1 Kerbal). Plane Mass - 1435 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 66.82 tons; Distance - 1946.392 km linuxgurugamer Unpowered, Unmanned. Plane Mass - 4330 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 418.639 tons; Distance - 1808.855 km Unpowered, Unmanned. Plane Mass - 4330 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 418.639 tons; Distance - 2792.045 km kerbalboi Unpowered, Unmanned. Plane Mass - 1065 kg; Launch Stack Mass - 235.333 tons; Distance - 9148.058 km Good luck!

InSight Lander (INSIGHT) The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) robotic lander by Klockheed Martian for Kerbal Space Program. By zer0Kerbal, originally by @Matheo G adopted with express permission and brought to you by KerbSimpleCo See more Help Wanted Localization Installation Directions 1 Dependencies Kerbal Space Program 2 Klockheed Martian Ltd (KM/L) Suggests GPO (Goo Pumps & Oils') Speed Pump (GPO) Kaboom (BOOM) On Demand Fuel Cells (ODFC) TweakScale (TWK) Other mods by Matheo G New Shepard (NSHPD) TESS Ariane 6 (S3L) InSight Lander (INSIGHT) Supports Either 3 Module Manager /L Module Manager Tags parts, config red box below is a link to forum post on how to get support Be Kind: Lithobrake, not jakebrake! Keep your Module Manager up to date Credits and Special Thanks @Matheo G for creating this glorious parts addon! see Attribution.md for more comprehensive list Legal Mumbo Jumbo (License provenance) DONATIONS Connect with me Track progress: issues here and projects here along with The Short List Release Schedule this isn't a mod. ;P↩︎ may work on other versions (YMMV)↩︎ Be Kind: Lithobrake, not jakebrake! Keep your Module Manager up to date!↩︎

So basically, I installed Scatterer for KSP, and it looks pretty good! But there is a problem, Duna looks terrible. Basically, the only way to describe it is that the orange atmosphere fills the crevasses and makes Duna look like it has bright orange stripes running through it. Also, this might be the reason, but I didn't use CKAN to install Scatterer, I just extracted the ZIP File.

I've built a station that's meant to be for a long-term mission to Duna. I want to add an extra docking port to it, so I docked a rocket to it with an SEQ-24 Cargo Storage Unit containing a Clamp-O-Tron Docking Port. I have an engineer on the station, but for some reason I can't take it out of the storage unit to place on the side of the station. How could I go about doing this?

Hello, i just wanted some ideas for Duna lander, becuase i tried to make one, but all of my attempts were unsuccesfull. The final product is wobbly as hell and the landing struts are very unstable, engine efficienty is very poor. I want a lander that can fit and dock. Don't worry i have both DLC's because i'm attracted to this game! I got to the mun like 67 times and it's getting boring, so i wanna go to Duna, but my spacecraft is very unstable, wobbly and inefficient. You can give me any ideas you want, i am an ace at maneuvering and redenzvous. Thank you!

Hey everyone! I'm SiriusRocketry, and this mission report came about after a corrupted save file killed my abortive Jool V attempt. I've been struggling with staying committed to stock KSP, as my litany of barely-started mission reports on the forum can attest, so I was looking for a fresh challenge. I'd heard of the JNSQ planet pack on the grapevine, and after a bit of inspiration from both @septemberWaves's Constellation mission challenge and @Misguided Kerbal's JNSQ and BDB modded mission report One Small Step, I decided to embark on a new quest; creating a Kerbalized Orion program to take kerbals to the Mun and Duna, in JNSQ's scaled up Kerbol system. This is your regular old sandbox save, etc, etc. THIS IS NOT A REPLICATION. Although the craft and missions may look similar, I am in no way, shape or form attempting to recreate the exact profiles of the Orion missions. Mods, in case anyone's bothered (running on KSP 1.8.1):

Hi, this is my first post. I'm a newbie in KSP, I've been playing it only for about 5 weeks! Yesterday, I completed my first interplanetary trip. I visited Duna, and I landed near the end of the ice cap, then, Jeb drove a rover from the end of the ice to the beginning of the red terrain. The trip was amazing. The white ice gradually blends with the red terrain. Let see some pictures. Screenshots

Hi! I am trying to make a mod to add Sojourner and pathfinder. this is my first attempt to make any modification i hope i will succeed. so far i made a probe module in blender, i will try to add separate panels, X-ray spectrometer and wheels. I want also in future to create other parts of existing missions

@RoninFrog is doing another challenge! So he needs a spot to dump all his stuff so it doesn't clutter the challenge thread! This challenge is the... It is a pretty intense challenge covering the first ten years of the game, with launch mass limits, life support, rocket construction time, and transfer window management. Hm! First, I need to create the save I will be using. "Game difficulty settings: 'Enable Comm Network' ON, 'Re-entry heating' 100%. Advanced settings: 'Part pressure limits' ON, 'Part g-force limits' ON, 'Kerbal g-force limits' ON." Okay, I've never played with part G-force limits and I don't even know what 'Part pressure limits' does, so here goes, I guess! Unexciting screenshot of game settings: Here's a collection of all the crafts launched: So here's what's up next. I need a Standard Launch Vehicle to loft my payloads to orbit. "One prototype of the heavy lifter ... will be ready with payload for launch pad roll-out on Day 40. New lifters will be delivered on a regular, fixed schedule." The schedule is calculated as one launch vehicle every "NPM (Nominal Mass Payload) * 6" days. The first Duna launch window is in 220 days, so if I want to launch two payloads, I will nead a NPM of 30 tons. Now it's time for designing! First two payload designs: First launch setting out for Minmus: Well, that's all for today! Tomorrow I will hopefully land on Minmus and refuel, if all goes well.

Duna Incubator's Habitat The pre-alpha release is available on SpaceDock ! My first KSP mod. Right now, it is a preview of a work in progress. But you can still try it. Dependencies Compatibility License Known issues FAQ

KerbalX Reddit post Gallery I have struggled with 0.625, but 1.25 worked perfectly, if you guys have any crafts similar post in the thread and share you're ideas.

(Oh) I can go to duna but I won't Some look for life while others don't There's a thousand reasons I should go And ignore your sight which I wish would go away, oh Whoa You're not a shine, you're just a ripple in my eye And if I see you, which I don't, I'm spoken for I fear Everyone I've ever I gone is here within these walls I'm sorry, secret sight, but I'm blocking out your signal I've had my adventure, I don't need something new I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you Into the planet Into the planet Into the unknown (Oh) (Oh) What do you want? 'Cause you've been keeping me awake Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake? Or are you someone out there who's a little bit like me? Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be? Every day's a little harder as I feel your power grow Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go Into the unknown? Into the unknown Into the unknown (Oh) (Oh) Whoa Are you out there? Do you see me? Can you help me? Can you show me? ooh (Ah) ooh (Ah) ooh (Ah) ooh (Ah) ooh (Ah) ooh Where are you going? Don't leave me on duna How do I follow you Into the unknown? Woo!

Hi folks, I recently decided to do a circumnavigation of Duna by plane or helicopter. After many hours of testing, I finally came up with a compact helicopter that flew pretty darn well! Here are its specs: - Weight: 1.24 tonne - Top speed: ~75 m/s (65 m/s on average) - Kerbal capacity: 2 meat bags - Power consumption: ~2.5 Electrical untis/s - Max air time: infinite - KSP Version: 1.9.1 with breaking ground My goal was to circumnavigate Duna and get as much biome-science as possible. I didn't want to visit every biome, but only land on the ones that were along the path of the circumnavigation. Since Duna's circumference is ~2.000 km and my average speed was around 65 m/s, this mission would take me at least 8,5 hours. I believe I flew over 3.000 km in the end, but I wasn't able to record it properly, so I could be wrong. I made a time-lapse video of the mission. You can check it out in the link below (~7:00). Hope you liked it. Some highlights from the mission: