What is your longest running mission? Post pics.

[Landge]

What is your longest ongoing mission? You know, the one listed at the top of the tracking screen.

Post the latest pics and please don't hide the timer in the upper left corner or it doesn't count.

My original longest running mission WAS my Kerbin Space Station. But when 0.19 came out it was the 1st to deorbit.

It was way too big anyway and would cause my laptop to stutter when ever my ships got near.

So here is my current longest running mission. Mun Base One has been in operation for 7 yrs, 319 days or T+2874:23.

The original crew however returned to Kerbin around 2 years ago having spent over 5 years waiting for a ride back home.

Good thing the new crew brought along some disinfectant and room deodorizer.

[BigBoy734]

I completed the grand tour,which took me about 15 YEARS,219 DAYS.

[Landge]

I completed the grand tour,which took me about 15 YEARS,219 DAYS.

As I stated in the 1st post please post a pic.

[astropapi1]

That base looks cool! How did you clip that structural piece into the crew module?

[Spatzimaus]

As I stated in the 1st post please post a pic.

The problem is that a picture just doesn't help much, because when two vessels dock, the MET of one of the two often gets reset. My own Grand Tour ship was sitting at a mission time of 5754 days when it descended on Eve, as shown in this picture:

But the lower half of that vessel was a docked booster stage designed to help with the ascent, since the main vessel simply wasn't powerful enough for that. Detaching from that booster reset the counter on the timer on the upper half, and the remainder of the journey (a quick jaunt to Moho and then back to Kerbin) took only 175 days, bringing my total mission time to 5929 days (~16.5 years). But a screenshot of my final landing site wouldn't be too impressive (other than the fact that I managed to land a brick back at KSC), since its timer only showed that 175 days.

Besides, that wasn't the OP's question. The top vessel in the craft list isn't the vessel that had the most played time, but simply the oldest one still in orbit. For me, that's one of my second-generation space stations, now in LKO for 25 years.

(Here's a fun one: the craft list says 25 years, and the MET if you go to that vessel shows that 1 year equals 365 days. But Kerbin's orbit is smaller than Earth's; it only takes 106.5 days to orbit its sun, so shouldn't a year be shorter?)

[Landge]

That base looks cool! How did you clip that structural piece into the crew module?

By using cubit struts...

The problem is that a picture just doesn't help much, because when two vessels dock, the MET of one of the two often gets reset. My own Grand Tour ship was sitting at a mission time of 5754 days when it descended on Eve, as shown in this picture:

Good point. I've wondered what a Kerbin year actually is. But my question is HOW THE HECK did you land with enough rockets and tanks to be able to break out of Eve's gravity????

[ThatBum]

Good point. I've wondered what a Kerbin year actually is.

106 d 12 h 32 m 24.6 s

[Spatzimaus]

But my question is HOW THE HECK did you land with enough rockets and tanks to be able to break out of Eve's gravity????

The idea was to use Kethane turbines, from that mod. They're jet engines that work in any atmosphere, but burn raw kethane instead of liquid fuel. Each of the 1.25m stacks on the lower half is made of a turbine and two tanks of raw kethane. (I was also careful to land on the highest point I could find.) It'd be a long, long ascent, but the ISP on those engines is high enough that the total delta-V would be enough to get out of the thick part of the atmosphere; once I was in the upper regions I could dump the booster half and activate the hybrid ions in the upper stage.

Now, you'll note that my phrasing there is awkward. It didn't actually work; I landed just fine, and the ascent worked fine up until about ~10km, with plenty of fuel still onboard, but at that point SAS started freaking out for no reason I could see. It might have just been that I had too few flaps for that air density, but it wasn't exactly the easiest thing to test since I'd have to fly a prospective design out to Eve, latch it to my main vessel, and make the attempt, so I really only had a couple tries. It just wouldn't stay stable, unless I turned on infinite RCS to force it to stay vertical; the thing is, the vectoring on my main liquid-fuel engine just wasn't doing what it was supposed to. So it didn't really count towards my grand tour; I later went back with a spaceplane that also used those Kethane engines, transferred Jeb over, and that one had a much easier time getting up.

[teutoburg1]

Back in .16 when there weren't any planets I sent ship on a 3,000 year mission that ended when .17 came out. I think the pod got around 15 trillion meters or so

[Tw1]

Just goes to show how short my program has been running for.

I've got the Tenor Seven Unkown, coming up for its two year anniversary.

Not really a mission, more like debris that thinks big of itself.

If you look closely, evidence of noobness.

Also, below that on the list, the graceful craft, furthest artificial thing out from the sun,

Traveller One Unknown.

No idea how it got on the trajectory it did. Something must've blown up big.

The strangest thing about it is the little embryonic parachute inside it:

Seeing as when I went back to tracking station after taking these shots, and found all my probes gone, (yay for once-a-game backups), I'm thinking they won't be in flight for much longer.

[Flixxbeatz]

Some of my Exodus probes, around 5 years in-game.

[The Space]

Here's my ship on escape trajectory out of Sun. It has been travelling for over 11 years in-game time.

Edited May 6, 2013 by The Space

[katateochi]

I did a grand tour which was a 7year and 306 day mission. That was a mission with constant involvement from me, I never just left it sitting, so that was the longest mission that I ran.

This is the lander just after touch down back at the KSC with 5 very tired kerbals onboard. It landed on every planet and moon except Jool and Eve.

I have some other missions which have been active for longer; a 13man lander/small base which is parked at the pyramid anomaly on Duna. That has been there for 19 years and 124 days along with a rover and a total crew of 13. Some of the original crew have returned and been replaced by newcomers.

Many of my probes are coming up to their 18th birthdays, but they are just sitting in orbits or landed on various planets. Over all my space program is 20 years old (according to the loading screen).

[Mazlem]

I de-orbited my first Kerbin station, so now the oldest is Munsion Junction at 12y 189d

[Tangle]

My first space probe is still in a LKO 100km. It's been about 8 years.

[Spartwo]

my third mission outside orbit.

ran for 67 years and 200 days.finaly left kerbol one week ago.

[Brotoro]

My longest running mission is Desdin Kerman's "colonization" of Eve. He landed in the Lewis Eve lander:

Over the years, I've dropped him supplies and new living quarters:

Plus, I've sent him a laboratory to see if he can refine Blutonium from the nearby lakes, and a rover so that he can eventually drive to the nearby highland area for pckup (the rover has already been there and back again to check out the route):

And I developed the lander that can make the trip down to Eve's surface and back up again. It has been tested by a different kerbal who took it down to the surface and returned.

I'm just waiting until we get some resource mining equipment that I can drop to him, and then we can finally bring him home as a rich kerbal with a full load of Blutonium.

[Aragosnat]

Here ist mine: Been up for 29 years, 324 days 21+ hours and will brake that some time later today. Tis a come sat doing its job. At least it thinks it is.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Aragosnat