What are your close calls with low fuel?

[KerbonautInTraining]

We all know the name of the game in spaceflight is efficiency. You want as much payload with as little starting mass as possible. To do this, we try to leave as little fuel as possible in spent stages.

How close have you come to running out of fuel while still succeeding? Or, how close have you gotten only to run out of fuel?

I'm pretty sure I just came as close as you can get while landing on the Moon in RSS. It was part of a pretty big mission; I should have a mission report and/or a video up later today.

Edit:

 

Edited March 15, 2016 by KerbonautInTraining

[DoctorDavinci]

I did a megamission to Dres a couple months back with 4 over designed monstrosities and 2 of them ran out of fuel about halfway there. I still managed to get most of the payloads into orbit although I had to have 2 of the 80 Kerbals I sent there hold on to ladders on the outside of a party bus during landing because their rovers ran out of fuel.

 

[captainbinary]

My closest call was a kerbaled mission to the mun. I had just enough fuel left to get a return orbit to kerbin at a periapse of 57,000m. At first thought, the abalator and multiple passes through the atmosphere should be fine, untill after the third pass where the ablator ran out and i was still a long way off.

Somehow despite most of the return vessel blowing up in re-entry on the 5th pass, jeb and valentina made a safe landing. All that was left was a hitchiker pod and 2 parachutes. They were lucky that day.

[Torgo]

My first ever return from the Mun, just a few hours after having bought the game, I ran out of fuel with a Kerbin AP of about 55 km.

I had very little idea as to the inner workings of the game yet, and wasn't sure if I was going to have enough heat shield left to get Jeb, Bill & Bob home safely. Couple this with my 4 year old sitting on my lap, now 'connected' to Jeb because by luck of timing, Jeb had waved when my son said 'hi' to him. I can't possibly disappoint the little guy by not getting his new little green friend home.

It took quite a few entries into the atmosphere and some tense moments, but all were safely recovered.  

[Mikki]

Tylo ascend with a three Kerbal craft, some 50 dV left while redocking to transfership in very low orbit (10km).
Without MJ, pure  thrill. Jool-5 Challenge, second try was successfull...

[corvustech]

Lately?  Every single early game attempt to reach orbit that succeeds.   The last of the fuel always goes while burning retrograde just enough for re-entry. 

A long while back, it was on Mun.  I was running Kethane and Karbonite at the same time to see which was superior.  Unfortunately, my Karbonite unit was consuming more power than it could store doing the fuel conversions, so I sent a satellite that wasn't much more than an OCTO with RCS glued on between an array of solar panels and a docking port on the top and bottom. I misjudged Mun's gravity and ended up floating it like a hovercraft, less than 100m from the ground, across a quarter of the Kerbinward face of Mun to reach the Karbonite unit.  After what felt like hours of maneuvering with RCS trying to line up the final docking approach I ran out of monoprop...and landed on the top of the Karbonite mining drone just right to dock with it.   

[Fearless Son]

Though I have been to and from the Mun several times, I still run into close-calls every now and then.  Sometimes that means sending out a fuel drone to refuel the lander in orbit, other times it means something a bit more...

The most spectacular one I had to do was when one of my landers touched down with insufficient fuel to return to orbit.  I was not prepared to abandon the two Kerbals that crewed it, so I had to come up with an idea for a mash up of a fuel drone, a lander, and a rover.  It was tricky to get down in one piece, and required a lot of awkward orienting to get landed.  So awkward in fact that several of the wheels broke on touchdown.  Fortunately some of the wheels were still operational, so it could still move, but always listing to one side, with constant correction required to get it to drive in a semi-straight line.  

It made for an uncomfortable few kilometers of driving across the surface to meet up with the lander, parked as it was in a narrow "landbridge" between two craters.  Then I had to "klaw" the lander with the roving fuel drone, which is always a little harry.  But it seems to have worked, the drone transferred the content of its sole remaining tank into the lander, and that was sufficient to make orbit, do the transfer, and bring the krew home.

[bncrock]

My refuel vessel ran out of fuel on the way to Jool. It only had enough left for me to deorbit it and punish the kerbals for my mistake.

Edited March 15, 2016 by bncrock

[pandaman]

Jeb's first return from the Mun. After crashing his lander he had to wait for a rescue vessel. Which, as it happened,  didn't quite have enough fuel to get him to Mun orbit, never mind back home.  But with VERY careful use of RCS he was able to reach escape velocity and get home with 10 units of RCS left.

[illumiz]

On my last Mun return mission, I couldn't quite get the return vessel's periapsis within the atmosphere for reentry before it ran out of liquid fuel.  Jeb very graciously hopped out and gave it a push.  There was a scary moment when I realized I wasn't paying attention to his backpack RCS fuel and nearly stranded him behind the vessel...

[legoclone09]

I was going to Vall and my lander had 5.5 liters of LF remaining after it reobited. It still docked, though.

[justidutch]

Every once in a blue mun I have to revert to the 'get out and push' method when returning from a mission, in order to get periapsis into Kerbin's atmosphere for a very long and slow aerocapture.  I hate doing that though, as the kerbonauts demand extra hazard snacks in compensation.  

[max_creative]

Jeb wanted a closer look at the mun during a fly by, ran out of fuel and got gravity slingshoted out of the kerbin system. Still trying to rescue them. And Bob is stuck in a retro grade, highly eractic and inclined kerbin orbit... I know, I'm such a bad pilot. 

[KSP Bro AE]

I have this craft, an Interplanetary Starship. On its maiden voyage, I went to the Mun. Turned out the craft was low on fuel. To land on the Mun, I used one of the two landers stored in the Mk.3 cargo bay. I landed successfully, returned, and docked with just a couple of liters of fuel left. Then I returned to Kerbin, but I was so low on fuel I had to do ~5 aerobreaking maneuvers to get into a good orbit. I also had to transfer fuel from the landers to get my periapsis out of the atmosphere. To this day, it is still up there.

[purpleivan]

I don't know if you'd call it a close call, but the four mini landers I equipped my Mun station with in the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge didn't quite have enough fuel to make a landing and return to orbit (at least with me at the controls) so I had to use mono to complete the climb into orbit.

Here's a pic of one of the little things leaving the bay it's stored in.

[KerikBalm]

16 m/s left on a single stage tylo lander.

Alsolitterly running out of fuel just before touchdown on mun with an ISRU craft after i transfered a bit too much fuel to the orbital fuel depot, without leaving a good margin to get down and make the next trip

[carminefo]

6 m/s left on a Mun Lander. Trying to get 1 landing more than designed

[Tex]

I've had plenty of close calls, but my most recent has got to be Muna 1 from my old mission report. Not only did I run out of LF/O, I also ran out of EVA propellant while trying to save the ship. Whoops.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

They're not close calls, they are awesome planning I can't remember any of my specific ones but am always stoked when it happens.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Waxing_Kibbous

[Branjoman]

I remember one time a while back, where I had drained half the fuel in my main orbiters tanks to line up RCS ports...and forgot to fill them back up again. I went on to go in orbit of the Mun and get a survey - but I had like 2 m/s of Dv in the tanks once I had made a trajectory home!

[LordKael]

Ran out of fuel on my powered return to KSC. 0 LF/O at 45m above the terrain, still going a little to fast even if the terrain had been right there. Only the pod survived.

[moogoob]

I once did a powered landing on Eve that made it - but ran out of fuel right at landing. Did it another time on Tylo - ran out right as I touched down. Both were hairy!

[Nathair]

3 hours ago, Torgo said:

return from the Mun, <...>  ran out of fuel with a Kerbin AP of about 55 km.

<...> Couple this with my 4 year old sitting on my lap

Make it 58 km and a 5 year old on my lap and I've been there and done that. Took four passes through the atmosphere to finally bleed enough velocity to actually land.

I'll never make that mistake again! (until next time.)

[purpleivan]

I ran out of fuel on one of my entries to the Mun Landing Endeavour challenge by just a few m/s. I had to EVA one of the crew to give the vehicle a push for a few seconds with their jet pack to get it to clip Kerbin's atmosphere, in order to eventually (after a few orbits) bleed off enough speed for re-entry.

[luizopiloto]

First time I went to Eve... I didn't expected the Kerbals on command seats adds 94Kg each to the craft... I achieved a 100Km orbit on Eve with 0.1 LF left... >____<"