My greatest mission so far.

[Vanamonde]

To keep lander weights down, I design them as one-way ships which land, then are abandoned after meeting a recovery ship in orbit. So I sent landers to Duna

and Ike.

I then dispatched the Crew Recovery Vehicle 1 to retrieve their crews. This mission had all kinds of ups and downs, such as an accidental slingshot boost from Mun on the way out:

The CRV-1 managed a somewhat sloppy, semi-polar orbit around Ike, where it was able to rendezvous with the Minor Moon Explorer 1:

and transfer the pilot.

The CRV-1 then proceeded to an eccentric orbit of Duna, where I attempted aerobraking. This is NOT advisable on Duna

because there's a razor thin margin between "This isn't doing anything" and "Hey, how did we get into the planet's mantle?"

The XRc Prototype Duna Lander ran out of fuel a little sooner than I hoped, but close enough that the pilot could make the rendezvous with his RCS pack:

I then got another unplanned gravity assist from Ike on the way back, but ran out of fuel while trying to showboat my way to a pinpoint KSC landing, ending up splashing down half a world away,

just off the coast of some scenic mountains, but with all 3 pilots alive and well. Three missions out: one mission back.

It's amazing the emotions this game puts you through. All the while I was struggling along with one game crash or botched orbit after another, I was frustrated and angry. Then when I got the guys back, I forgot about the six zillion quickloads this required, and I'm all, "Who's the greatest pilot that ever lived? This guy!" Anyway, this concludes my narrative. Thanks for reading this far.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Vanamonde

[PakledHostage]

Nice job! You're well ahead of me. I'm currently working out all of the details that I need in advance of my first mission to Duna. My first mission will be a one-way unmanned lander. I'll wait with sending Kerbals until I know more about the planet.

[Markus Reese]

You left Bob out of the mission? Sad Other than that, good work!

[Vanamonde]

Bob was unavailable, as he is currently the first man exploring the Jool system. (Okay, to be honest, he's marooned in Tylo orbit without enough fuel to land, but we learn by doing.)

[Vanamonde]

I decided to try to top myself, and so within minutes of each other, I launched a Duna lander, an Ike lander, and their recovery ship.

You know how the patched conics display will sometimes flip back and forth, telling you you do and then don't have an intercept? Well, that happened as the first ship was approaching Duna. I knew the display was lying so I just kept going, but I hadn't been able to zoom in and see what kind of intercept I had. When I suddenly popped already into Duna's SOI, I was aggravated to find I was coming in retrograde at a fairly high rate of speed, which is not the way you want to approach a world whose atmosphere isn't going to help you brake. I was about to load my quicksave when I realized there was a much cooler thing I could try. I braked enough to bring my path skimming the orbit of Ike, then arranged this:

A slingshot in which I simultaneously braked, matched planes, and flipped my path prograde with respect to Duna. (I hadn't decided where to land on Duna yet, so the plane match was entirely for the sake of coolness.) Trying to anticipate how you're going to come out the other side of a transit through 2 consecutive polar frames of reference is EXTREMELY counter-intuitive, and I freely admit that I used a dozen quickloads and I'm still sure I didn't do it optimally. But I did it successfully, and the lander is now coming in for an aerobraking pass or two.

Update:

The star marks the landing spot I was aiming for. Am I a bad ass or what?

(Oh man, the longer I look at this mission, the more glitches I find. What's with that longitude?)

But what's this?

Some kind of flipping glitch: the pilot vanished somewhere along the way. I still had control of the ship, but there's no one to EVA. That sound you hear is my head hammering the desk. Ack, and I just noticed that I screwed up the staging, and one of my chutes didn't fire. Oh well, as the saying goes, any landing there's no pilot to walk away from...

(Also, the forum is acting up, and it took 3 tries to post this. > Nope? That makes 4 tries.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Vanamonde

[lemonhands]

Your recent problems notwithstanding, this is awesome. Sending recovery crafts out to pick up the landers is a great concept, keeps weight down for the initial rocket and give you more fun missions! Thanks for the bright ideas.

[Kulzar]

That. Is. Amazing. Your idea to send a recovery mission is brilliant! This must be the best way to come back from Duna until they implement auxiliary crafts and rendez-vous. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Khrissetti]

Very impressive.

I'm in the middle of a similar mission on Eve. The Adam I was an unmanned craft to test how much fuel the new nuclear engines would need for an Evian manuever. The Adam II was a manned lander containing Jeb which crashed on the surface but Jeb was able to walk away.

The Adam III deposited a 3-man rover with one spare seat on Eve to pick up Jeb, explore the surface and give them a way to reach...

The Adam IV which will be a lander designed to get all 3 kerbals back into low Eve orbit, ready to transfer the crew to...

The Adam V which will be a ship capable of getting to Eve orbit and back to Kerbin.

[SunJumper]

I once launched a mission that lasted over 28 years. Get to a polar solar orbit, and return to Kerbin. Sure, I used an ion engine, but still...

[Vanamonde]

Your idea to send a recovery mission is brilliant! ...a great concept

It is, isn't it? Unfortunately, I can't take credit for it. Several of us are using the technique, and I myself got the idea from a Scott Manley video. But that slingshot was all me!

Progress report:

All 3 ships have now arrived. To maintain the illusion that I am a master pilot, let's just skip over the hideous messes I made out of the other two approaches and cut right to the good parts.

After some excitement when the deceptive slope of the terrain induced Jeb to discard his booster stage so low that the exploding debris hit the lander,

he came down on a scenic slope over looking a wide valley on Ike,

just in time to watch an eclipse from atop the Minor Moon Explorer-3.

　

Meanwhile, orbiting 30,000m overhead, Matlie gives the CRV-2 a mid-flight inspection.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Vanamonde

[Vanamonde]

My missing pilot glitch de-glitched itself while I was playing with other flights! Yay! Now Thomphus is out exploring that pretty crater.

(Is the plan to make the rocks solid some day?)

[TheDarkStar]

My first mission to Duna ended in an explosion on it's surface. My second one almost worked, except the parachute ripped off at the very end on KERBIN, when I had no fuel to slow down.

[Giggleplex777]

I currently have 8 landers and rovers on Duna (they're all stock) and I'm not planning on bring back any time soon. I even got all of the "orange team" (Jebby, Billy, and Bobbygrill) on Duna.

[Evenger14]

To keep lander weights down, I design them as one-way ships which land, then are abandoned after meeting a recovery ship in orbit. So I sent landers to Duna

and Ike.

I then dispatched the Crew Recovery Vehicle 1 to retrieve their crews. This mission had all kinds of ups and downs, such as an accidental slingshot boost from Mun on the way out:

The CRV-1 managed a somewhat sloppy, semi-polar orbit around Ike, where it was able to rendezvous with the Minor Moon Explorer 1:

and transfer the pilot.

The CRV-1 then proceeded to an eccentric orbit of Duna, where I attempted aerobraking. This is NOT advisable on Duna

because there's a razor thin margin between "This isn't doing anything" and "Hey, how did we get into the planet's mantle?"

The XRc Prototype Duna Lander ran out of fuel a little sooner than I hoped, but close enough that the pilot could make the rendezvous with his RCS pack:

I then got another unplanned gravity assist from Ike on the way back, but ran out of fuel while trying to showboat my way to a pinpoint KSC landing, ending up splashing down half a world away,

just off the coast of some scenic mountains, but with all 3 pilots alive and well. Three missions out: one mission back.

It's amazing the emotions this game puts you through. All the while I was struggling along with one game crash or botched orbit after another, I was frustrated and angry. Then when I got the guys back, I forgot about the six zillion quickloads this required, and I'm all, "Who's the greatest pilot that ever lived? This guy!" Anyway, this concludes my narrative. Thanks for reading this far.

.craft file please? The only body other than the Mun (and Kerbin) that I have gotten to is Minmus:

However I was unable to establish orbit because of my decoupler between my large tank/engine and smaller one didn't decouple right.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Evenger14

[Vanamonde]

.craft file please?

I'm flattered that you'd ask, but I haven't finalized my designs yet. The recovery ship is temperamental on launch, I haven't tested the Duna lander's parachute descent method at high landing altitudes, and none of them have been optimized for their jobs fuel-wise or in terms of number of parts. I wouldn't mind sharing them once they're debugged and reasonably efficient, but I'm too much of a perfectionist to let anyone see them now.

Besides, as frustrating as it may be to not be able to reach places you see other players going, you won't believe how much more satisfying the struggle makes it when you finally do pull it off with a ship you made yourself.

[MOhon]

Hi, I make some missions to all planets. See here.

I like your ship and your photos!!

For example, my last Hera mission in Vall

[Vanamonde]

Second Duna-trio mission concluded. After spending some time taking samples from Ike, the lander met the recovery ship.

On they went, and up came the Duna lander.

The view out Jebediah's window just before (dirt) splashdown.

And strecthing their legs while waiting for crew pickup.

[Vanamonde]

I decided I was just being overly bashful, and it wouldn't hurt to share the ships after all.

The Mk 41b Minor Moon Explorer can reach Gilly and Ike, and of course Mun and Minmus, but I don't think it can reach any placer farther, and I haven't tried. Remember that it's not meant to return to Kerbin, and can only return to orbit of the body it's has landed upon, though it can reach a pretty high orbit (around 50,000m around Ike). Not atmosphere capable.

Craf:http://www./?5cp4qht0j5d84tt

The Mk 39b Duna Lander is not easy to use. It will get to Duna orbit well enough, but then you need to very carefully bring it through most of the planet's thin atmosphere with a combination of aerobraking and the booster stage firing during a shallow descent. It will land entirely on the parachutes, conserving the lander's own fuel for later return to orbit, but you really should get it down to 300m/s or less before relying on the chutes. And I haven't been able to land it precisely enough to test the chutes at a high altitude landing site, though it probably can if you don't mind tapping into the lander's own fuel supply. With full fuel tanks, it can reach an orbit of 80,000m or more to meet a recovery ship.

Craft:

http://www./?uogi3u8chcg1a68

Both landers can touchdown anywhere on the target world, including the poles because the CRV below will expend the fuel to meet them wherever they come up.

The Mk 38c Crew Recovery Vehicle can reach Duna or Eve orbit, relocate to that planet's moon and establish orbit there, rendezvous with a ship at each world and pick its pilot, then return to Kerbin and splashdown. For the fuel efficiency it needs to do all this travelling, it gets by with just the one NERVA on the interplanetary stage. Unfortunately, this means that transfer burns can take around 10 minutes, though the last chemical stage should be able to at least give you a good start as you're leaving Kerbin orbit. It's pretty steerable, though it tends to roll sharply. Remember to evict two of the original tenants before launch.

Craft:

http://www./?mnpmdd26ootmort

I can't promise perfection, but they've been pretty well tested, and have all flown these intended flight plans succesfully at least twice.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Vanamonde

[Vanamonde]

My (goofy looking) prototype Laythe lander

Then returns to orbit to meet a crew recovery ship (to be launched later) on its

Maybe not as showy as my earlier ones from this thread, but you would not believe how long I worked on this and how many launches and quickloads it took. It was probably my hardest KSP mission other than landing on Mun (without crashing) for the first time.

[SiliconPyro]

All so epic. I was thinking of using the same recovery method, but I've yet to accomplish an orbital rendezvous, so first things first.

[Vanamonde]

I now have landed explorers on all the new worlds, though not all of them will be coming home. Some suffered misfortunes, but others are serving as sort-of live probes into local conditions, to gather data so that I can build returnable ships.

crashed but survived

intentional stranding

returnable landing

returnable landing

returnable landing (that's an eclipse, by the way)

out of fuel, awaiting retrieval (of course, a low orbit rather than a landing)

returnable landing

returnable landing

landed, but out of fuel

intentional stranding.

Feel free to not care. I'm just excited because this game is so incredibly much fun.