You Will Not Go To Space Today - Post your fails here!

[AndrewBCrisp]

On a very special You Will Not Go To Space Today, Canadian Thanksgiving edition....

Taken during my testing of a MegaLifter-V heavy lift vehicle. After the rocket crashed I looked at the flight report; apparently the errant booster disconnected from the radial decoupler, leaving the decoupler behind.

This has never happened before; I've accidentally separated boosters before, but never had one shear off in flight like this. No pogo-ing or shaking of the craft before; I had three struts anchoring each booster to the core stage. Could this be a nibble from the Kraken?

[CatastrophicFailure]

Sometimes you just get an antisocial booster

[RocketPilot573]

[kaora]

all was going well for my Eve base when...

curse you parachut!

normal science day

on this one i realise i forgot the put landing leg when arriving on the mun, on a slop.... also killed a kerbal with the rover when it flipped and i can't get it up... sad day

Edited October 16, 2013 by kaora

[drewscriver]

Not a total failure, but still interesting, I think.

So, I was testing out a new lander design, and it turns out I had a bit of a plumbing problem with the fuel. I didn't realize it at the time, though - all I noticed was that the craft was unbalanced and I couldn't run the landing engines at full throttle (, as I had paid close attention to balance ). Unfortunately, there's another issue resulting from the fuel mis-allocation; as shown in the picture - the front thrusters are just seconds away from cutting out, when the craft is still a ways from the ground.

So I'm caught completely off guard when front thrust cuts out, but I still react quickly enough to drop the throttle before the imbalance flip the craft out completely (fortunately the fuel imbalance had the craft rear-heavy). I belatedly kick on RCS, and watch as the whole thing comes down, hard.

The rear lands first, with the front pivoting down around it until it hits and... *pop* I watch as the command capsule begins tumbling down the slope, sans ship (did I mention that this was already a horrible landing, barely controlled into the side of a crater?)

As I'm trying to control the capsule's acrobatics, I notice that, amazingly, the rest of the craft managed to land intact! I'd forgotten about the rover attached, which included a probe core. Thanks to it, RCS and SAS remained enabled, and the headless craft stuck the landing.

Unfortunately, I detached the rover and rolled it down to the imprompteu capsule-base before I realized I could have jetpacked the kerbals up to the rover, boarded, and flown away. Now, there are no command modules attached, and I can't even rename it from being a rover. Worse, the slope is so steep, there's no way the rover can climb it, let alone reattach.

So now I've got my first Mün rescue mission underway, including plans to salvage the craft - it is going to be an interesting challenge.

[robogungt8]

Jebediah becomes the first Kerbal to break the sound barrier -- FOR SCIENCE!!!

[rhylbom]

I often make a basic test ship, lacking parachutes and other equipment because I don't think I'll make it where I'm going. Then of course everything works as I had hoped, and I have a ship that cannot return home.

[Ritiric]

What happened to me:

I took of with my lovely plane. i was in air, but then... it all happened. i tried to roll, and my wing touched the ground, 1 wing blew of my plane and my command pod exploded, the rest of that basterd flew away making loopyloops, and at last it hit the oceean... so yeah... it was a pretty failure...

Worst thing is: JABEDIAH FLEW IT!

[RocketPilot573]

Whoa, I had no idea a rocket that big could turn so quickly...

[CressAlbane]

My most recent failure:

No, I think I'll keep flying, actually...

[Mercury1964]

Somehow, during a transfer burn from Mun to Kerbin, I managed to be recaptured by Mun three times. By the end I was still burning retrograde a few hundred meters above Kerbin's atmosphere, just to make sure.

[Hurry- Starfish!]

I almost thought this landing through.

Good thing there's no reentry heat yet.

[Kerbart]

In career mode I'm constantly updating ships as new parts become available. Or simply because I did a half-ass job designing them in the first place.

For a science mission to retrieve some samples I launched my Mk2 shuttle to have it dock with the lander (sending the whole ensemble as one package... No. Not when your most powerful motor is the skipper). So... launch, parking orbit, waiting for transfer, rendezvous until we're 50m apart. Ready for docking... and nothing happens when I activate the RCS thrusters.

Hey Jeb, when we switched fuel tanks in the VAB, did you remember to put the monopropellant tanks back?

Yeah... I thought so...

[Kinglet]

Houston, We have a little problem with our Kethane mining base. Well, lets just say that the problem is airborne.

[Pixelsarg]

My first post in this forum, might as well start with a failed touchdown. One of my first attempts on a munar landing, no pictures, so you'll have to imagine. After numerous failed attempts to get into a stable orbit around the mun with a manned lander, i finally manage to establish one. So, being all exited, I lower the orbit. Now, here's where things went wrong. First of all, I wanted a really close orbit (I think I wanted to reproduce those TV images where the moon is rotating above the capsule and you get the feeling you would almost be able to touch it). Second, I somehow got the impression that the height of the orbit was measured from actual ground level and not from "sea level".

So, the orbit gets closer, and closer, and I also managed to get it in a nice shape. I'm flying towards the night side, so I decide to keep the orbit at around 6-7k, sit back and wait until the sun rises again. Stars are pretty, and I still can somehow guess the silhouette of the craters. Speaking of the landscape, all of a sudden a black wall is coming towards my lander at breakneck speed, so I panic, zoom out, and - I just missed some munar mountain by roughly 10 meters(?). And because I couldn't believe that the little kerbal guy nearly died (and why the hell are those height values wrong?!), I literally turn the camera to take a look at that thing I nearly crashed into. After having it checked, I turn the camera back with some kind of satisfied grin (YOU DIDN'T GET ME, PUNK!), and OH SHI-. I missed a another mountain top by 10 meters. Wrong direction this time, though. All that remained from the ship was tiny pieces and a shower of sparks.

[Lojik]

Jeb won a bet at the local Kerbal pub with a design member over how rockets should be laid out.

Lets just say the designer was sick that day when it was launched

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[Kerbart]

Apollo-style Mün mission. Jeb has boarded the lander can, and about 90° in orbit before descent he detaches from the capsule. I figure “in those 8 minutes in orbit capsule and lander can will float apart, no need to waste precious monopropellant over thatâ€Â

Well, we all know that ships don't rotate in orbit (unless you make them to). Which means that an alignment like this: == will after ¼ orbit be aligned like this:

=

=

And in “rotating†(relative to orbit) into this position the fuel tanks of the lander sheared off a part of the capsule. I did hear something but aside from a bland “docking port collided with fuel tank†I didn't see anything in the log and nothing exploded. Wew. Close call!

That it wasn’t that close I only found out when Jeb came back with a lander can loaded to the gills with surface samples from the Far Side crater. “Why can't I select the docking port of the capsule as target?â€Ââ€â€as I got closer I learned the answer: because the docking port is gone.

So I EVA’d Jeb over, and figured I'd write off the science and push the lander out of orbit (no debris left behind). Luckily I wanted to go to bed (it was late) and decided to leave that for another day. This morning I realized that I can just send another shuttle to pick up the lander and collect the science. Once again a victory for procrastination! But more about that another time...

[Hurry- Starfish!]

Note to self: Don't deploy solar arrays while parachuting into Jool. Things go confetti.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Hurry, Starfish!

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

Not the most explosion-worthy, but I feel it's worthy of this thread.

While testing whether my Iris launcher could deliver an Eve probe to a Kerbin escape trajectory, I placed the vehicle too low in the VAB. As a result, when the rocket took off, the main engine was left sitting on the pad. Needless to say, it did not go to space that day.

Since the 20 ton rocket's only attitude control was now the built-in reaction wheels of two probe cores, I assumed it would imitate this year's Proton crash, but incredible it continued upward, straight as an arrow. The mission was "only a simulation" anyway, but out of curiosity I decided to see if I could save the rocket. Unfortunately, only when all the parachutes were fully deployed did I have the presence of mind to take a screenshot.

Sadly, with full fuel tanks the first stage's parachutes were unable to slow it down to a safe speed, and the second stage crash-landed due to pilot error.

[Penguinhero]

Every SSTO I've ever built -3 so that leaves a estimated 50ish SSTO's that have crashed and burned

[drewscriver]

This was a bit more of 'coming back from space', but one of my SSTO flights suffered a little bit of a connectivity problem on re-entry.

[kola2DONO]

Because of bad planning the engine was lower than the landing struts, resulting in that the engine fell off and the base falling to the side..

[kaora]

This was a bit more of 'coming back from space', but one of my SSTO flights suffered a little bit of a connectivity problem on re-entry.

would like to see your ship before it explode ( by the way nice cinematic picture)

[crasher925]

Jeb, that's coming out of your paycheck this time!"

That a one in a million crash!

[drewscriver]

would like to see your ship before it explode ( by the way nice cinematic picture)

Thanks! That ship was one of my Changelings:

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Forum thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56700-The-Changeling

The one in the picture ran afoul of a bug; after I showed off the wing opening/closing ability to a friend, for some reason the ports wouldn't re-dock, but I couldn't get them to open, either... So I decided 'what the hell, I'll try re-entering anyhow'. Anticipating such an outcome, I did loft a space station for the sole purpose of offloading the crew first, so there were no casualties.

Also, the destruction wasn't quite total.