A night of three firsts...

[DerekL1963]

(Edited to add - OOPS! This should have been in General Discussion - sorry. Mods please move it.)

My first manned mission to Minmus on the pad...

Jeb on the surface of Minmus...

My first self designed rover claws for the sky...

And safely reaches the surface of the Mun... (It is down on the surface, the angle of the ground makes it look like it is not.)

The third first is hidden in the launch pictures, my first use of an entirely self designed booster. I'm pretty proud of it, even if it is a trifle overpowered as the TMI stage reaches Munar or Minmus orbit with about 3/4 fuel. (This morning, a slight variant has proven capable of tossing minimal Mapsat probes pretty much anywhere except the most extreme locations in terms of Delta-V.)

The rover however, needs work. Back to the drawing board...

Edited May 17, 2013 by DerekL1963

[CalculusWarrior]

Congrats! You're progressing fast; I didn't even dream of Minmus when I first started out manned missions in KSP!

[Vanamonde]

That is a nice, sensibly sized moon lander, and rover deployers are quite a trick. Congratulations.

[DerekL1963]

Congrats! You're progressing fast; I didn't even dream of Minmus when I first started out manned missions in KSP!

Thanks!

That is a nice, sensibly sized moon lander, and rover deployers are quite a trick. Congratulations.

Thanks. It took several iterations of unmanned tests to get the CG low enough to be stable and the size down enough to be within the launcher's performance. It started with an FL-T800 core (with an FL-TV45 engine) and four FL-T400 radials (each with an LV-909), it was a leftover from my first Munar mission which used a Zenith IX (I.E. about ten times as much booster as I needed) to deliver it. (The new design has been successfully tested unmanned to the Mun.)

My original lander for comparison: