Mun return mission - Parachutes are evil

[Epthelyn]

To start off my new save in 0.20, I sent a rocket to the Mun and planted a flag. Unfortunately that rocket was unable to return due to low fuel and no parachute; I hadn't really intended to bring Munnand Kerman home after Jeb stole the only rocket with the parachute and returned to a field a long way from KSC (he's still there).

Anyway, the trip went well enough; Gregsy landed on the Mun, Munnand moved "Lander I" closer to the spot to make Gregsy think he'd done a good job despite landing 16km away from the target. They set off home, returned to 100km Kerbin orbit, corrected the inclination and burned retrograde to land at KSP. They re-entered the atmosphere, slowed down enough to land at KSC (almost, 15km away in the end ) and then I just sat back and waited for the parachute to deploy.

2km

1.5km

1.0km

800m

700m - Yay! Parachu- Oh...er...

At this point it's probably best to show the lander as it was:

That's two of the new 1m pods on top of each other, Munnand in the bottom one, fuel tanks with 909s and a parachute on top.

Of course, the inevitable happened. The two command pods split apart at 70m/s when the parachute deployed, Gregsy floated down to the ground, Munnand started to accelerate again and I wondered why I had bothered to waste 15 minutes getting that guy back if all he was going to do was crash.

700m isn't very far when travelling at 70m/s, but it allowed enough time to switch craft (]), throttle up to maximum and decelerate to 10m/s before hitting the ground - Intact

Gregsy landed a few seconds later.

So that's that, a boring Mun-and-back mission that ended with a nice surprise

Moral of the story: MOAR STRUTS (and probably boosters, because this is KSP) (or just slow down before the parachute opens).

[Matze1984]

Jupp, never prise the day befor it ends. At lest made it back in 2 pices^^