Completing the Mun 4 Rally with a crew of three.

[PTNLemay]

I only started cataloging this mission by the very end (when I realized how exciting this achievement really was) so unfortunately most of the mission hasn't been captured by screengrabs. But all the same, I feel like sharing it. This was also the first time I sent crew to another planet in career mode. Until now I had only ever done it with probes.

This was our mission briefing.

http://i.imgur.com/asd80G0.png

The mission doesn't actually call for any of the fly-bys being manned, I'm sure I could have done it with a probe, but I wanted to try for a manned craft. And while I was going to give a kerbonaut all that experience, why not bring all of them? I did feel bad for leaving Valentina behind, but she'll be on the mission that actually sets foot on Duna, so I'll leave the fly-by to the guys. I also included the science lab, partly so I could science spam on the way to the other planets, partly as a more realistic crew habitation module. I'm sure if they all had to spend 5 years stuck in just the little 3-man capsule that they would go mad (in roleplay terms at least).

This is the ship I ended up using for lift-off. Quite costly, but the end rewards would make it well worth it. http://i.imgur.com/Fm93Bji.png

When I flew by Eve I wanted to divert course and fly by Gilly, to complete another contract at the same time. But very quickly I realized this would be too dangerous, I wasn't lined up for a Gilly encounter and the amount of DeltaV needed to change course would strand us in interstellar space on the way home.

So we finished the Eve fly-by (with only the Minmus and Mun flybys left for when we got back home) and initiated some awkward return maneuvers. Sadly, I arrived in the Kerbin sphere of influence moving at around 4 km/s. This was too fast to break using our remaining fuel, so Jeb came up with a crazy/brilliant plan. Despite our lack of heat-shield, we would aerobreak just enough to be captured by Kerbin. After some tense moments and some scorch marks on the hull, we were in safe orbit.

This is the ship as it was when we finished the last fly-by. http://i.imgur.com/l5dSeYY.png

And here's the mission complete window (also note the fuel levels at this point). http://i.imgur.com/3Eu4Lgh.png

And the map to show our fly-by position. http://i.imgur.com/PlkeT2t.png

Originally I was going to send a recovery ship, since I didn't put a decoupler or heatshield on the craft itself (too heavy, I reasoned). But I figured... what the hell, let's bring the whole thing home. I had proved earlier that if the entry trajectory is shallow enough it shouldn't burn up.

All's looking good so far. http://i.imgur.com/jtuys5i.png

After more than 5 long years they make it back home with most of the ship intact (mostly...) http://i.imgur.com/tiVfusK.png

They each upgraded to level 4 thanks to the experience and with the science lab I collected about 6000 science. Mission accomplished!

Edited May 23, 2015 by PTNLemay