What is the biggest mission failure you have ever had?

[JacobJHC]

Simple as that. What is the biggest letdown/ failure you have ever had in KSP. Mine was probably the time I was attempting the Jool 5 challenge and met the Kraken out at Tylo, resulting in the loss of the lander's ability to function. So what's yours?

[AlmostNASA]

Recreating a space shuttle mission when it turned out to be STS-107. Columbia. Death of 7 Kerbals and one whole Orbiter.

[Wjolcz]

My own crusade to "finish" a career save by completing the tech tree.

Couldn't handle it after a while.

[Corona688]

A kerbal rescue mission where the rescuee got spaghettified and krakened to the point he re-entered without a spaceship.  If you're going to stuff someone inside a module bay, turn off their RCS thrusters first.

[AstroBovice]

This happened with my first attempt at a space/refuel station in LKO. To preface, Jeb was stranded on the Mun after Apollo II (my first landing on the Mun, but with no fuel) so I sent a rescue. Before I could get there and after many saves along the way( as I was still learning at the time), I went to check on Jeb's location to find out that the ship has blown to pieces and Jeb is dead. No idea what happened, but the ship was upright when I left it! So I decided to take it as a lesson and not load my save to bring him back. Up steps Valentina. Valentina became my main pilot for the Apollo Program to the Mun (11 missions total-program ended) and the Artemis Program to Minmus.(8 missions-still active.) Now came time for me to build a space station. To get to the story lol, I sent an orange tank to my first, small space station with what I thought was an unmanned lander can. The can has a solar panel covering the hatch....and turns out Valentina hitched a ride and is now stuck inside a lander can attached to empty orange tank forever. I planned to deorbit the station, as I have a much bigger and better one now, but I just cant bring myself to kill Valentina! 

[JacobJHC]

1 minute ago, AstroBovice said:

This happened with my first attempt at a space/refuel station in LKO. To preface, Jeb was stranded on the Mun after Apollo II (my first landing on the Mun, but with no fuel) so I sent a rescue. Before I could get there and after many saves along the way( as I was still learning at the time), I went to check on Jeb's location to find out that the ship has blown to pieces and Jeb is dead. No idea what happened, but the ship was upright when I left it! So I decided to take it as a lesson and not load my save to bring him back. Up steps Valentina. Valentina became my main pilot for the Apollo Program to the Mun (11 missions total-program ended) and the Artemis Program to Minmus.(8 missions-still active.) Now came time for me to build a space station. To get to the story lol, I sent an orange tank to my first, small space station with what I thought was an unmanned lander can. The can has a solar panel covering the hatch....and turns out Valentina hitched a ride and is now stuck inside a lander can attached to empty orange tank forever. I planned to deorbit the station, as I have a much bigger and better one now, but I just cant bring myself to kill Valentina! 

That sounds similar to my luck as a noob trying to reach orbit (the good old days). I suggest you dock a separate reentry pod to the station and transfer her to it then save her and deorbit the station. Heck take the old station to the new one and make it a larger station. But that's just my two cents.

[AstroBovice]

6 minutes ago, JacobJHC said:

That sounds similar to my luck as a noob trying to reach orbit (the good old days). I suggest you dock a separate reentry pod to the station and transfer her to it then save her and deorbit the station. Heck take the old station to the new one and make it a larger station. But that's just my two cents.

Man...idk if something changed but I thought you couldn't transfer Kerbals through docking ports, but I just tried and it worked. Rescue is on the way, haha. Thanks for the input, I really thought you couldn't do that for some reason! I guess my biggest failure is killing Jeb, lol. 

[Red Iron Crown]

My story is similar to the OP's. I've made a couple of Jool 5 attempts but still haven't succeeded. The last one (back in 0.23.5 I think) was, on paper at least, a winner. It had a huge reusuable single-stage mothership, a modular universal lander, a science lab, and a design the kept the CoM relatively static no matter what payload was attached. I put a ton of time into testing that spacecraft and designing a lifter for it (the largest I've ever launched "seriously"), plus all the lander testing. So I had a lot invested in that mission.

Come time for the actual execution and it all started fine. Made the Jool transfer burn relatively efficiently. Aerocaptured in Jool's atmosphere (remember when we could do that with impunity?). Got into Tylo orbit and put the kerbals in the lander and the damn thing wouldn't undock. At all. Tried persistence file editing and all that, couldn't make it work. So I sadly had to write that one off as a failure, and I still haven't come back to it to try again (the design is obsolete now anyway).

RIP Crown Jool, you are still one of my favorite KSP creations. Some pics for those who might be interested:

Spoiler

 

 

[solarbearman]

I went to Duna for the first time in my career mode. I planned an aerobrake to save fuel. But then i realized i used the non retractable solar panels.

And now the spacecraft is stuck on Ike. Don't ask why.

Edited July 29, 2016 by solarbearman

[cantab]

Most Kerbal deaths in one mission: Probably my complex trip to Duna and Ike with an asteroid in tow. Killed Kerbals trying to land on Duna, Kerbals trying to land on Duna again, and even Kerbals in one of the landings back on Kerbin.

 

Biggest facepalm moment: Sending ten of these landers out to various destinations:

 

Runner up: A Kethane mining ship I sent to Minmus. It was planned to land using ion engines, which were powered by the kethane generator, which is fuelled by the drills, which run to fill up on kethane once the ship has landed. Can you see the problem there?

 

Physically biggest failure: This RUD of a large (4,000 tons to orbit) refueller.

 

[Mastikator]

Trying a "legit" kerbalism/interstellar career run, finally have the science to make warp drives, finally have the money. When I finally unlock warp drives the game won't stop crashing. I just wanted to explore the system in my ftl space ship but nope. Feels bad man

[MDZhB]

On a Mun mission back in 0.24 or so, I EVAd my only Kerbal, just to fly around in space a bit. I zoomed around a bit, but when it came time to get back in, I found that I couldn't. The hatch on the capsule was pointing down, so I couldn't get the guy to grab it and get in. There was no probe core on the main ship, so I couldn't move it, but the SAS was still active, so I couldn't push it. He ended up running out of fuel and floating around the Mun forever more.

[Kyrt Malthorn]

Ahhh...  Back in 1.0.5, when the new contract type came around - the ones that generate points near already landed craft?  Well, I thought, why not put a rover on Minmus and test out these contracts.  (Questionable, I know, but I was just getting into rovers in 1.0.5 as in previous versions heat transfer bugs usually caused all my rovers to explode.)  Built it, flew it to Minmus, landed no problem.  Undock.  Uh-oh, it's stuck between the engines.  That's fine, my skycrane has TONS of fuel, I'll just hop it over.  By the way, I was lazy with my landing site and had landed on Highlands, not any of the Flats.

Oh, I shan't forget to mention that riding this multipurpose lander I'm using as a skycrane are seven tourists.  And this was a hardmode game - I did NOT have quickload ability!

Got unstuck from the rover, but my re-landing attempt toppled over on its side.  SAS torque was just not sufficient to point it in the right direction.  Well, I thought, I'd just decouple the radial engines - I had one more the rover was blocking, and the SAS should be able to point the center stack high enough in Minmus gravity.  Here goes!

Decoupled the radial engines.

Pointed upward.

Lost power.

Yeah.  All my solar panels?  They were attached to the radial engines.

Oh I tried to save those seven tourists.  I tried everything.  I tried flying a solar panel probe to link up with its docking port - blew up bumping into the ground one too many times attempting to dock.  I tried skycrane with claw - was too tall.  If the darn tourists could just EVA I woulda had a rescue, no problem-o, but nooo they're limited to crew transfer and seat warming.

I was so frustrated over this I deleted all the work I'd put into that hardmode (losing the tourists woulda bombed my agency's reputation eventually, and meanwhile it was taking up a number of contract slots).

[MaxwellsDemon]

In version 1.04, when I mounted my first mission to the Mun, I found out the hard way that my lander design was defective and couldn't take off again.  And the way i fixed it when I sent a rescue crew was still defective, but in a slightly different way.  (In one of the cases, the engine bell exploded when I hit the ground; in another case, I discovered-- late-- that some of the fuel tanks that I thought contained LFO only contained LF, and were perfectly useless dead weight.)  I can't remember if there was a second failed rescue attempt or not... by this time, I had to put together quite a large rescue ship to collect all the stranded Kerbals, and since I wasn't any good at pinpoint landings, the closest I could get to them was a few kilometers off... so, one by one, they each made the long EVA trek cross-country to get to the rescue ship (which, finally, worked correctly).

Edited July 29, 2016 by MaxwellsDemon

[InterCity]

One of my first attempts on career mode back in .25. I was going to make myself a space station on the Mun. 

Now I land my bases two ways: Either I assemble them in orbit and land them in one piece (non-atmospheric) or I use the "Cluster Bomb" design where I make a cluster that disintegrates deploys once it's safe. I've eventually used both for that one. 

Attempt #1: I warped to the mun to save time. Base smashes into the surface.

Attempt #2: Failed suicide burn, started too early, ran out of fuel. Base smashes into the surface at 50 m/s.

Attempt #3: Failed suicide burn, started too late. Base smashes into the surface at 50 m/s.

Attempt #4, #5, #6: See Attempts 2-3.

Attempt #7: Trying the novel cluster bomb tactic. Base smashes into the surface at 50 m/s.

Attempt #8: Revamped cluster bomb tactic. Base smashes into the surface at 20 m/s and most of it actually survives. Any sane kerbal would chalk that up as a success, not me.

Attempt #9: Further improved cluster bomb. Base smashes into the surface at 10 m/s and survives. Unfortunately, after deploying the modules, about 1/3 of them landed on their roof and another 1/3 on their side. Habitation module destroyed when attempting to nudge it with engines previously meant for landing (see attempts 1-3).

Attempt #10: Repeat of #9, except this time the nudge is successful. Base is standing! WIN!

[Dogenutt]

The biggest fail? Well I have not one but two!

Kercake IV  aka Apollo 13, Well the crew was stranded in space because of a docking mishap during the way up not to mention that they ran of fuel for the lander and the command module so that meant it was time to do a rescue mission to save 3 kerbals in a command pod! Actually no, they somehow got eaten by the kraken and were never ever seen again... Then Kercake V came out with a better design but this time the lander crashed on the mun at 130 m/s! And guess who was on the lander that's right Jeb!, he jumped out and literally bounced off the ground... Only then he only had a spacesuit and a flag. Following the next few seconds a rescue craft was sent in to save Jeb and the only issue was Jeb needed to walk 8.7km to his ride back home which done by a EVA jetpack so then He was rescued and was fired the next day for endangerment of mun environment...

The end.

[Bev7787]

Biggest Failure? I lost an entire rocket in RO after vectoring too far out of the prograde vector with FAR installed.

[Guest]

Easy. My first Mun landing attempt with FASA. What was it, KSP 0.23 or thereabout? Sounds right.

I used up too much propellant too fast during the LEM's descent, then realised I hadn't programmed an abort sequence for the ascent stage. My ham-handed attempt to improvise one resulted in one lost spacecraft, two dead Kerbals, and a spanking new crater. Roughly eighty-five seconds of bug-eyed keyboard thrashing and swearing prior to impact.

Oh, then there was the third expedition to Minmus. I forgot to account for the position of the Mun during transit. Another lost spacecraft, two more Kerbals croaked, and another spiffy new Mun crater. And a deep one at that.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Jack Wolfe

[Brownhair2]

Sierra mission. Send a plane and a mining rig to New Horizon's Serran. Fly around. Return to rig to refuel. Repeat.

1. Bugged landing gear on the rig. Had to hyperedit in a new one with not broken landing gear.
2. Plane was a pain to take off and land
3. When I gave up and decided to return, the plane couldn't survive re-entry from intermoonitary (interlunatary? intersatellite?) space, and didn't have enough fuel for a capture burn. So now Val is stranded in EVA around Kerbin. Luckily there are worse places to be stranded

[NSEP]

My first docking went horribly wrong. There was this realy annoying bug wich made the docking ports locked. So at the exact moment that i wanted to make a good achievment in my KSP playing hours, i realized that i could not dock and i had to abort the mission.

[pertrep]

Early mission to land some huge lab and habitat on the Mun, with bizarre amounts of electricity. Succeeded getting it down on a slope, to find I am 78 volts short, and Stupidly put the docking port near the top.  Much money and time to send movable, top heavy attachment with one battery and manoeuvre it into position. Loads of my craft don't have bits that I forgot to re-attach when I was building them. Why the battery?

[Flickclick]

I did a fly by of the Mun and it was going very well. When I came back to Kerbin, my ship landed on a mountain and it started to roll down it. Before I could stop it, part of my shipping was destroyed. The crew survived but I lost most of the science. 

[Sharpy]

A huge mission to Duna. Lab, ISRU, mining lander, survey sat, some 10 kerbals, a rover, a surface base, Kerbin return lander,  a separate propulsion segment to propel it all, all bound into a huge train, over half a kilometer long.

Rigidity problems aside, the computer just couldn't handle it, running at some 5FPS. Completely unplayable. I just gave up on KSP "until I get a stronger machine" which took some two years.

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Hmm...

Hardcore-ish career mode: Crew transfer SSTO hitting a light on the runway. 6 Kerbals killed.

Most Kerbals killed in a mission: see above.

Largest explosion: Titania I (don't ask). But that was on purpose. (Titania II landed 3 huge fuel tanks on the Mun)

Largest explosion of a rocket meant to work: Read my mission report. There are several.

Farthest from home: My Moho landing. It is currently orbiting Moho, out of fuel. Also in my mission report. I sent a rescue mission, but that might be out of fuel as well.

Earliest notable failure that I can remember: 0.19. I attached one booster to the rocket and forgot to use symmetry. RIP Bill. (Or was it Jeb?)

 

Now, an honorable mention: my Eve fleet. Nothing exploded (mostly) but it was plagued with technical challenges. The main thing being that going back home I jettisoned the Gilly miner. It still had two Kerbals in it. I didn't notice until I had completed the Kerbin burn. Miraculously, I managed to rendezvous the two craft together in Solar Orbit and ended up getting home (albeit a few years late).

Most rage inducing: In my mission report I was docking a cluster of 3 Tylo landers (Because. Why have one when you can have six total!) that I had tried to launch three times previously. I was finally at the ship I was docking it to. Wrong size docking port. I had even built a model of the fully constructed ship in the SPH and missed the docking port sizes. AAAAARRRGHH!

[Gamax19]

Well I was having endless success on my gama onto lunar 2 program four of five went well so why not give Mun's north pole a try. I landed and to my horror the lander fell to the bottom of a pit...

I just thought I'd need to get off the Mun right now and well... that was the problem on attempting to make the perfect getaway the lander fell apart and killed one of the two kerbals the small return vehicle was badly damaged all that remained was the mk2 lander can and sum of the fuel tanks and the engine I had to do a I.V.A to get back to the gasagen space craft and I managed to get back to kerbin one man down worst of all NO SCIENCE!!! 

Edited August 6, 2016 by Gamax19
Human error... FOR NOW!!!