Duna Voyage Preparations Craft

[Wait- Was That Important?]

In preparation for a long- term Duna mission, I'm planning on building a lander/ return vehicle, hopefully integrated with a Duna base. However, as I'm forcing myself to do a semi- campaign runthrough of KSP, I had to go the the Mun and back first to test crew-rated heavy launch vehicles and various lander/ CM designs.

Not wanting to take the time to develop a medium-weight carrier rocket from the existing Medium Crew Launch Vehicle (16 tons to LKO), I decided to go all out and use my Heavy-6 (Super Heavy) Launch Vehicle to launch a single-use Mun mission. Due to stupidity, the rocket wound up having enough dV to bring the CM/ Lander out to Duna and then have the CM fly back- though I'm not sure on Duna ascent dV (it's 3300 or so, right?)

Obviously KW was used, and you can see a Kerbal Engineer chip in one of the pics- there are enough little snippets of various mods that I won't list them all.

Without further adieu, prepare for image-spam:

Sitting on the launch pad, she is a volatile beast. 40,000 units of liquid fuel can move up to 55-60 tons to LKO, which would turn out to be gross overkill during the mission.

The first stage falls away with the payload fairings a minute after the 6 boosters separate, and the capable second stage powers itself with a substantial amount of fuel and the CM/ Lander assembly to LKO for transfer.

A better shot of the assembly- note the lack of RCS on the CM. In the VAB, it seemed perfectly logical to save weight and size by doing this. While docking the two together? Not so much.

Slowing down in Lunar orbit, I had already jettisoned the final stage tank after using its engines for the Munar transfer burn. It pained me to see those 1800 units of liquid fuel fly away, but I couldn't use the lander without jettisoning it- future missions kept it to the bitter end, using it to brake the lander and ejecting it to impact on the Munar surface mere meters from landing.

Two very happy Kerbals wander around the Mun wishing for rovers- maybe in the next mission, but there wasn't space in the fairings for rovers this time around.

Ascending from the Mun's surface, tiny solar panels refilling the empty batteries. Because I am an idiot, I always land on the dark side of the Mun, and run out of batteries on the landing lights. On the plus side, I'm very good at night landings now.

It's more efficient to use the CM's engines, and the command pod torque actually produces some minor translation effects, growing more intense as it lightens (the thing flies sideways during a hard turn). Thanks to this breach of the conservation of momentum, docking becomes easier if I mess up.

Probably should've put Crew Manifest on these, as docking to pretend to transfer the crew is pointless when you EVA them anyways. Ah well, we got some extra fuel from the lander, which is being left in a Munar orbit until it can be recovered by the as-of-yet unfinished MunStation I.

Saying goodbye to the Mun- I've never really known what the best way to get back to Kerbin is from the Mun, so I've just burned until I escape and then burn retrograde until I get a low apoapsis.

Landed safely in the fading light of dusk, the crew poses in front of the landed capsule before they're transported home.

Comments, criticisms, and suggestions are appreciated as always.

[astropapi1]

I'm also preparing for my first manned landing on Duna. It's the Hades program, and It's gonna be BIG! I'm gonna set up an fully automatic base with a kethane mining op. before my kerbals land on the surface of the orange planet.

As a suggestion, if you want a cool-looking base, use the LLL parts. They're only for looks, but they're amazing.