Your most successful/least successful missions and what went wrong/right

[polan]

I am going to travel to Duna and other planets such as Eve and Jool soon and I was wondering before I started designing the rocket... what could go right? Wrong? Then I started to think of other people's missions, then I asked "What went good or bad in other missions?" So now I wanna know that. What good or bad missions have you had, and what went right or wrong? Tell me pls.\

TOOTLES

[HoloYolo]

Most successful mission was a return from Tylo. I had like 3/4ths of my fuel left when I got there, lander had the PERFECT amount of fuel, and it only took 3 years. My least successful mission was Operation Mun. Never again. So many slaughtered...

[polan]

Nice, Kaboom. So far, my missions on my super cereal sace are: Mun, Minmus, and scanner sats. Both pretty boring. I need to spice it up!

[problemecium]

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[Nansuchao]

Back in the first days of 0.90, I had an heavy modded install with Multiple Working Solar System. At the end of a Career Mode, I planned a long missions to another star, using the Interstellar Warp Drive, Vista Engine, Tac LF. I sent 7 Kerbals on the nearest star in just 2 years of travel.

When they came back to Kerbin, the Kraken was jealous of my success, and began to bite my mothership, taking bit by bit of it. I lost many parts and the lander, but succesfully parked the mothership in LKO, before an SSTO took the crew back.

it was epic, fantastic, wonderful and really scary at some moments...

I'll like to do it again in 1.0.

[Musicrafter]

In 1.0 career mode, I designed a rocket to go to Duna in one launch. It had science labs, a reusable lander (over 5k dV, but I would have had to use the one-time staging to achieve that) that I only ended up using once and I'm glad I did that, and science like crazy. The mission was worth about 2,200 science and I probably could have brought back more had I been able to run the science lab at full power more of the time. It only cost like 225k funds. I made it to Duna but unfortunately I hadn't hooked the fuel lines up right for the nuke so the transfer stage was gypped of maybe 1k dV or so, just a guestimation. Then I get there and my periapsis was too high for an aerocapture, so I had to expend maybe 150 dV to get it right. I finally made it to orbit. The landing went great, no issues with that, even rendezvous went smoothly with MechJeb's autopilot. Then I burned out of orbit back to Kerbin. Neither transfer was optimal -- the initial transfer cost me 1.6k and the return cost me 1.3k (which was not using a nuke by the way, it used a Poodle), which is at least 400 more than optimal in both cases. I get back to Kerbin, and used a Munar slowdown to put my periapsis down to 26k. Then I realize I'll have to land the entire science lab -- which is huge by the way -- on Kerbin, because there are 4 Kerbals and the lander only takes 1. And the only thing with parachutes is the Duna lander. So I keep it attached and come screeching into the atmosphere at over 4.5 km/s pulling 14 G's on these poor guys, and of course Jeb and Valentina are all happy while Bill and Bob are freaking out. I come down and figure out that the Poodle engine really sucks deep in the atmosphere, and I really have a sub-1 TWR and the science lab can't take hitting the ocean at the 11 m/s the parachutes can slow it down to. After a few reloads in which the lab smacks down and only Jeb in the lander survived the crash, I bailed everyone out at 800 meters up and the science lab (with about 300 or so potential science in the form of data inside) blows up, and so does the 2-man capsule containing about 100 science. But the lander is intact, the one with all the surface samples from duna and most of the scientific instruments. And all the Kerbals are alive! So I recovered the vessel and now I know for next time, plan ahead better/

[annallia]

In recent memory...

I had a doomed mun colony mission. Kinda restarting that one. The first one I had sent several ships into orbit with the pieces, habitat modules, science labs, rovers, power stations, containers full of spare parts for them to build whtever they need, drilling platforms... To be fair I got most of it to the mun, the problem didn't come until it came to man the colony, something went horribly wrong (somehow an engine got staged in the wrong place) causing my rocket with over a dozen kerbals on board to explode in the upper atmosphere. There were issues with getting some of the parts there as well. In the end it bankrupted my space agency and sent my reputation into the toilet.

Most successful to me would be an old one, my old Duna mobile kethane refinery. Was 4 huge rovers that roamed Duna mining kethane and converting it to fuel for the supply ships that visit the colony.

[m00nchile]

My most successful mission would be science farming Duna and Ike back in 0.25, brought along enough science experiments to get almost all of the science, returned to Kerbin with over 3k. My least successful one would be a Jool 5 attempt. Didn't realize fuel was feeding through docking ports from the landers to the transfer stage, ended up landing on Laythe with 600m/s delta V in the tanks *facepalm*, ended up scrapping that mission.

[AbacusWizard]

In 0.25 (all stock, all honestly launched) I developed an amazing interplanetary infrastructure with several "programs":

• The Wayfarer Program

I placed a small ion-engine science probe in orbit around ever celestial body in the solar system. It took a lot of setup but paid for itself in "science from space around X" contracts. The one big thing that went wrong: I sent a "six-pack" of Wayfarers to the Jool system (one for Jool, one for each moon) all on one central atomic rocket, to be detached when they got to Jool orbit and sent to their individual destinations. My mistake was forgetting to retract the solar panels before hitting the stage button to detach them all. BOOM, all the solar panels shattered. No power generation capability left at all... except for the one RTG I had included in the original design as a backup. So they weren't dead... they just maneuvered veerrrrrrrrry sloooooowwwly and had to wait a long while between transmissions to recharge. Very annoying but not unrecoverable.

• The Phoenix Program

This started with a series of long-range atomic-engine exploration motherships with reusable landers (Phoenix I to Mun and Minmus; Phoenix II to Eve and Moho; Phoenix III to Duna, Dres, and Jool; and a smaller Phoenixette toe Eeloo), and at some point I redesigned the Phoenix III into the "P3-Class Atomic Drive" by removing the landers, the lab, and the crew quarter, launched several duplicates of it, and used them as tugs to haul large cargo (such as the bases described below) to its destination.

• Colonization

Smallish, single-launch orbital outposts around Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, Gilly. Surface outposts on Mun and Minmus. Better surface outposts on Duna and Laythe, each with a dockable rover, an orbital station overhead, and a rocket (Duna) or a spaceplane (Laythe) for ferrying crew between surface and orbit. Overall they worked very well.

One small problem: the surface outpost on its way to Duna was scheduled for its flyby and a braking maneuver to slow down into orbit... and I completely missed it. Must have been working on other stuff at the wrong time; happened to glance at the en-route outpost in the Tracking Station and realized to my horror that it had already passed Duna. Had to make very careful maneuvers with what was left of the fuel, wait another year or so for the orbital insertion, and then send a tanker to provide more fuel so it could actually de-orbit. Whoops.

One bigger problem: at some point Gilly Orbital Command just vanished; didn't show up on the Tracking Station and all crew listed as MIA (or dead? I forget). Not entirely sure what happened; I presume it was just orbiting a little too close and crashed into the lumpy surface.

[DarkGravity]

My best mission (career mode) was one where I screwed up badly (they say that's where you learn the most) but was able to undo my error. I had a contract to land an outpost on Minmus with room for 5 Kerbals. I built a ship shaped like a skyscraper and landed it on Minmus, and it promptly fell over. But since the gravity there is so low, I was able to use RCS and reaction wheels to right myself. The gravity is so weak on Minmus, it is a great place to screw up and learn! Several hops later, I had quite a bit of experience landing (for a noob). It was also my first ever use of a research lab, so I learned quite a bit about those too.

[NightOwl07]

My best and worst mission was the same one. I had sent Valentina to the Mun but having screwed up my descent I was dangerously short of fuel and had no chance of getting back into orbit again let alone perform a rendezvous with my command module. She became the first Kerbal to leave Kerbin orbit, first to land on another body, first to plant a flag, and first to get stranded.

Not willing to simply revert, I launched a rescue mission. The payload consisted of a service module with probe core, batteries, solar panels, reaction wheel, and three docking ports. In flight I would move two medium sized 1.25m tanks (launched with the core) and docked them along side the core in a sort of skycrane configuration with 4 down-facing 22-77 "Twitch" engines. The probe core also has a docking port on the bottom, used to dock with the port at the top of my lander. I managed to deorbit about 3km from Valentina's landing site and spent probably 5 minutes gently floating the rescue ship over the lander's docking port and FINALLY managed a connection. After fuel transfer is complete Valentina was able to complete the rest of her mission without incident and safely return to Kerbin.

[Johnny Wishbone]

I was doing an Apollo style Mun landing mission back in the 0.2x days (pre ARM, so probably 0.21). I had my CSM in orbit around the Mun at about 25k and my lander on the surface. I guess I under-designed my lander or over-burned on landing because I barely had any fuel left in the lander after touchdown. I figured I had enough fuel to get as high as a 10k sub orbital trajectory, but I had nowhere near enough fuel to get orbital at any altitude. So i fired the lander up at a 45 degree angle and flew on that trajectory until the fuel ran out. I had timed it so the CSM would be flying by and managed to get 2 intercepts of the lander's trajectory. I switched over to the CSM and was able to get it close enough to dock on the second intercept (as the lander was now heading back down to crash into the surface). I was able to dock the two craft about 4k above the surface and then use the CSM engine to boost both craft back up to a 25k by 25k orbit. Once safely in orbit, I transferred the crew to the CSM, ditched the lander and sent them back to Kerbin. And i did this all on the first try! I was fully prepared to revert dozens of times if necessary, but I never had to. Doubt I could ever pull that off in one shot again.

[bigcalm]

> I am going to travel to Duna and other planets such as Eve and Jool soon and I was wondering before I started designing the rocket... what could go right? Wrong?

It's all about planning around "what if X happens whilst I'm there". And what you want is rockets not rocket.

You'll need to decide what to take with you to another planet - and how many separate vessels it'll be. Lots of testing, lots of delta-vee calculations required before you even start to prepare in low kerbin orbit.

My list normally consists of at least the following:

* Space station. Needs living quarters and lots of docking ports (and whatever else you might decide you need).

* Tanker - it's basically spare fuel that can be transferred once docked.

* Lander - to get to the surface and return in a single stage (for Eve, you'll have to do things differently)

* Rescue craft - it's hard enough desiging a craft with enough delta-vee to get there. So you'll need something to shunt you back home.

And optionally:

* Second lander - this is for rescue when, inevitably, your first lander has a problem. This could be a rover that can achieve orbit.

* Tug - what if your lander manages to land, take-off, and then doesn't have enough delta-vee left to rendezvous back with the space station? Then you need a tug that it can dock with, and either be refuelled by it or be shunted to the space station. Happens more often than you'd think!

* Moar tankers

* Probe carrier - designed to carry various stuff that may be useful - small rovers, satellites, small unmanned landers.

Here's my current Duna-station - note all the bits came on separate shunts, it's just been joined back up in Duna orbit

You WILL make mistakes - in the above, I have no antenna or science gubbins on the main space station, Lander One had an "unfortunate" landing at Ike and no longer has any solar panels and can only be used for short duration trips now, Rover One is flawed in some basic ways and also doesn't have the delta-vee to make it back from Duna surface (it can do Ike), and I've since redesigned the interplanetary shunt to make it less, er, explodey.

Edited June 21, 2015 by bigcalm

[Superfluous J]

My "most successful" mission is undefined. Pretty much every first launch in any career, plus dozens of other early missions. They frequently meet every single mission parameter and return flawlessly.

My most successful yet most difficult mission is probably my Jool-5 mission. It needed a refuel and I had to go from Jool orbit to Tylo orbit of the mothership midway through, but other than that it as pretty flawless. And I didn't just do a Jool-5 mission. I brought along enough lander cans so that I could return a "vessel" from every orbit and surface, and from Jool's atmosphere. Reconstructing the lander and transfer vehicle with 2 new lander cans after every step was a real pain, and eventually orbiting Tylo screwed it up (Tylo counts more than other moons, so anything that orbited Tylo lost - say - orbit of Laythe credit) but still, every landing worked and everybody got home. And "Everybody" was - like - two dozen Kerbals.

My least successful mission? I've got a lot, but the most recent memory was my recent mission to Duna. The parachutes staged on liftoff from Duna even though they'd staged before (I think that's something new in 1.x) and the lifter didn't have the fuel to overcome that and get into orbit. So I sent a rescue ship that was a duplicate of the lifter... but I forgot the orbital stage for refueling. I then had to launch a refueler that I figured should be an ISRU base for Ike (why not?). WHen that got into orbit of Kerbin, I found it was out of fuel so I had to send the whole thing to Minmus to mine for a while, then eject to Duna. The whole base though was in 4 parts that not only had to be assembled in a certain way, but the landing part were pieces 2 and 4 on the stack. And pieces 1 and 3 didn't connect. So, to reassemble the ship after being a ground base, I had to collect the parts and put them all back together.

[MrWolf83]

Was doing a fly by the mun mission, had been wondering why my burn time kept saying days even after a slight burn then killing them, then realized they weren't even staged, fixed that , made a maneuver , was halfway there on warp for a mun capture or whatever it's called. Some how hit the increase warp and I'm back in orbit around Kerbin. I'm sitting here going what the hell just happened and on a side note now I'm in an eliptical orbiit of Kerbin somehow, creating another maneuver node to redo the burn and mun capture and I see I have a contract complete message, holy kerbins, I completed the contract. I'll take it lets land.