Your Most Rediculous Rescue Mission!

[Crillion]

Let's tell some stories! What was your most ridiculous rescue mission you ever had to go through? Here's mine:

 

I launched Commander Jeb on a totally not top secret flyby mission to Dina. His mission goal? Get into orbit and not die. The flight to Duna was uneventful. He successfully completes the rendezvous with Duna. The Swivel Engine knocks the velocity down to a high orbit. Rocket science ensues, then Jeb fires the engine back to Interplanetary space. All of the sudden, the engine cuts out. Then, I realize that a lack of fuel made a very dangerous situation, stranding Jebediah an an orbit a long way from home.

 

So then comes the rescue. Since Wernher von Kerman neglected to plan for this and slap a docking port onto the ship, his genius idea was to build a probe with claws, slap it onto the same rocket body, and send it up to Jeb in order to push his ship back to Kerbin. This rendezvous occurs without incident. The only problem is, a lack of Reaction Control makes the docked ship unable to fly in a straight line for very long. A long and slow burn ensues, slowly hauling Jeb towards Kerbin. This time however, the rescue probe runs out of fuel, stranding Jeb on an elliptical orbit instead of the fairly circular one from before.

The solution? Drop the empty rescue probe (I'm terrible at space junk management) and launch a new one, but add more boosters. This time the mission was a success, and Jeb was brought home! 

That's my half million dollar rescue mission!

[The Moose In Your House]

Rescuing my rescue ship that was trying to rescue a rescue ship trying to rescue Jeb after he crashed his Mun lander by getting distracted and claimed he saw the "Kracken", after the mission I lost 12 kerbals but managed to rescue Jeb.

Edited April 26, 2017 by The Moose In Your House

[Crillion]

14 minutes ago, The Moose In Your House said:

Rescuing my rescue ship that was trying to rescue a rescue ship trying to rescue Jeb, after the mission I lost 12 kerbals but managed to rescue Jeb.

Worth it! No Jeb left behind!

[Spacetraindriver]

The KLAW!

[XLjedi]

Anything involving a polar orbit...

[cratercracker]

Oh rescue missions you say? Do i really need to tell you such a personall thing? Alrighty m8.

Someday when i was a complete noob,i laucnhed a station. (with just one module,because docking was something frustrating for me.) But i didn't correctly knew where the atmosphere starts.. So,my periapsis was 69 045m and then i noticed that my orbit was slowly decaying.. And then i aknowleged the atmosphere height and was terrified.

I built a small rescue pod for the crew,and laucnhed it,i spent too much time getting a randezvous,and the station started reentering. And so was the resue pod. Just imagine,trying to claw to something when it is in atmosphere. I managed to claw,and very quickly transfered the crew. THAT.WAS.TERRIFYING

But i didn't picture this. But i have and idea of remaking it now in 1.2.1

[Numerlor]

Now thatm I see this I really need to rescue Bob

[kerbinorbiter]

so i sent a (rescue mission to save a rescue mission from a rescue mission)x256 yeah thats crazy

[rocketbuilder]

36 minutes ago, cratercracker said:

Oh rescue missions you say? Do i really need to tell you such a personall thing? Alrighty m8.

Someday when i was a complete noob,i laucnhed a station. (with just one module,because docking was something frustrating for me.) But i didn't correctly knew where the atmosphere starts.. So,my periapsis was 69 045m and then i noticed that my orbit was slowly decaying.. And then i aknowleged the atmosphere height and was terrified.

I built a small rescue pod for the crew,and laucnhed it,i spent too much time getting a randezvous,and the station started reentering. And so was the resue pod. Just imagine,trying to claw to something when it is in atmosphere. I managed to claw,and very quickly transfered the crew. THAT.WAS.TERRIFYING

But i didn't picture this. But i have and idea of remaking it now in 1.2.1

How did the stations orbit decay while you were not there? I really want an orbital decay mod.

Anyway, I had a similar experience when I was trying to do a plane change burn with my space station till I ran out of fuel with a perigee of 100 m above the munar surface. Luckily I had a spaceplane in orbit, but the docking while passing only metres over the munar surface was exhilarating and a few minutes after I undocked the spaceplane and headed for home, the station smashed into a mountain at 1500 kph.

[cratercracker]

@rocketbuilder there is a an Orbital Decay mod. Just search it in SpaceDock

[Human Person]

I'm currently struggling to fulfill a rescue mission from a solar orbit. The orbit is between Kerbin and Eve but -and that's the tricky part- it has an inclination of 180 degrees, so it orbits kerbol clockwise.

getting there is tricky but I managed to do so with gravity assists (It still took me about 7 km/s of delta V from LKO) but getting back seems to be impossible. I want to make a challenge out of it.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Physics Student

[joacobanfield]

I have not had the need for a rescue mission *yet* but yesterday I sent Herdan Kerman to fix a broken mun rover. He slapped some more solar panels and called it a day.

[MythicalHeFF]

My most ridiculous rescue mission was after my first manned mission to the Jool system. First of all, I didn't know how to use gravity assists at the time, so I did a powered insertion around Jool. Then after deciding that Bop would be the "best" one to visit (despite its high inclination) I made a maneuver mode and got a Bop encounter. 

Now, because I didn't bother to correct my inclination and because my orbit was so eccentric, my relative velocity was like 1500m/s, and I was on a collision course with Bop. I didn't have a lander, so the whole ship had to land on Bop. I landed on a steep slope, and was sliding along at almost a meter a second. I had drills, and if I had landed in a better location, I would have been able to get home, but the ore concentration was below 2.5%, so I couldn't drill. I also didn't have enough fuel to land again without jettisoning my side tanks with the drills, so I just left after plabeting the flag and getting loads of science.

During my ejection from Jool, I again didn't use gravity assists from Tylo or Laythe, so leaving Jool took almost 1000m/s. I then left Jool's SOI, and plotted a course for Kerbin. Unsurprisingly I ran out of fuel about 600m/s short of getting home.And then came the stupid rescue mission. 

I launched the rescue ship with no crew aboard (it had a probe core) and was identical except that it didn't have or need drills. After about 20 minutes of messing about with a maneuver that would get me a rendezvous with the dead ship, I timewarped ahead 4 years or so to the rendezvous. It went smoothly, and Ted,Bob, and some Kerbal whose name I don't remember were ecstatic to be returning. I then left the vessel and   got a Kerbin encounter, which was ANOTHER 4 years ahead. In order to get home as soon as possible, my Pe was at Moho orbit.

When I entered Kerbin's SOI, I found that my relative velocity was around 9.3km/s. Thinking that I would certainly die on reentry, I used the remaining fuel to slow down, but my re-entry velocity was not any slower due to acceleration. Coming in at 9.5 kilometers a second, I simply thought there was no way the head shield could endure the inferno. To my surprise, it barely managed to scrape by, and Gee force reached at least 30 G. I then got captured and slowed down to deploy the parachutes and splashed safely in the ocean. To this day, I haven't been able to re create this ridiculously fast re-entry without the head shield failing. I think the mission was in 1.0.4 or 1.0.5 

Poor Ted,Bob and the Kerbal whose name I can't remember officially retired after that 12 year train wreck.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Jack Joseph Kerman

[JoeNapalm]

 

I'm just gonna say that I've learned to make ALL my rescue vehicles are fully automated...

...now.

 

-Jn-

[suicidejunkie]

I launched a mining rig from Minmus, modified with a colonization module on top for what will hopefully be my first successful interplanetary journey.

I managed to get an intercept with Dres just before leaving Minmus SoI, but then later discovered that my velocity at Dres is going to be a few km/s too high.

Construction of the rescue ship began before the victim had left Kerbin's SoI.  Just an LV-N, 10000 LF, a capsule, a claw, and lifesupport.  About a RL year and 200 game days later, they've just rendezvoused and started transferring supplies over.

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

17 minutes ago, Physics Student said:

The orbit is between Kerbin and Eve but -and that's the tricky part- it has an inclination of 180 degrees, so it orbits kerbol clockwise.

getting there is tricky but I managed to do so with gravity assists (It still took me about 7 km/s of delta V from LKO) but getting back seems to be impossible. I want to make a challenge out of it.

Sorry to break in off-topic, but you got my attention. See Orbital Maneuver Question in Gameplay Questions and you'll know why. This has been an ongoing discussion about the best way to flip your solar orbit.

I was actually wondering what you would do afterward; how a planet's gravity would effect you when you enter it's SOI retrograde for an assist. Which is now where you find yourself. Should be a fun ride home, if nothing else.

P.S. You should post in the Gameplay thread, if you're so inclined, since you have an actual experience to share.

[Urses]

My realy maybe dumb rescue mission was at around 400 playhours in KSP. Pure stock i managed to blew a manned MK-1 from surface of the Mün in straight solar orbit. Decoupler in false way, full trust and you have a realy fine catapult for a Kerbal to see the world outside. 

Interplanetary encounters... by a noob like me, who think he has "mastered" orbital encounters and docking... first try pure chemical probe space craft.... after loosing of contact this one managed a impact on Jool after 40 years orbit... full trust at comunication lose...

Second try after building a stable communication grid... to low on dv but shortend the orbit of MK-1 for a Kerbin near Orbit at around 1.2 years....

3rd try an ion powerd craft that brough the craft with MK-1 on a beatiful gravitational assisted slingshot by Kerbin and Mün for Eve, Gilli, Kerbol and back to Kerbin... TWR was to low for slow down...

4th was a manned craft designed for brutforce aerobrake in Kerbin atmosphere...

After somewhere 7 years 4star Bill returned with a lithobrake home...

First manned Münlanding was worth something around 2m kerbacks and brough me Crew and EVA reports of all inner planets but NO Mün because the Science Container participated as part of solar catapult...

Funny Kabooms 

Urses 

 

[Vanamonde]

These reports of missions have been moved to Mission Reports. 

[CastleKSide]

I once conducted a Mun mission set of around 3 missions were every single mission needed a rescue mission. Even though I upgraded my launcher/landed each time I still ended up with not enough delta v to make it all the way back to Kerbin.

 

The first time I couldn't get back into orbit, so I sent another lander failed to land close and then could just barely make it into mun orbit. Send orb8tal rescue mission.  Next time with upgrade lander I make it into orbit but fail the escape. Send rescue mission. 3rd time with even more powerful rocket, still fail to reach orbit. Eventually I just gave up and moved on to exploring minmus

[Soda Popinski]

I'm on a bit of a break, but I'm still doing my most ridiculous rescue mission.  I put a lander on Tylo, exhausting all the fuel, and thought I could land my ISRU rig.  Turns out I couldn't.  So I built this to get to Tylo ASAP:

First link on my sig to see the Cinematic Mission Report.  I tried to make it funny.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Soda Popinski

[Human Person]

I made a challenge out of it

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by Physics Student