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How close have you come to failure? Me: 7 units of RCS fuel left

inigma

By inigma
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inigma

inigma

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I am curious if anyone has a harrowing story of looming disaster that ended with mission success, to tell with pictures. Here is mine:

My first real docking mission. Previous to this I did a successful intercept with two manned ships between Bill and Jeb. Now it's Jeb's turn and he gets the privilege of the first docking attempt with the Kerbina Target Vehicle. His first launch missed the entire intercept and had to be aborted. This is the second launch. It stands ready to receive Kerbinai 8. His brother Bill was a pro on the Kerbinai 7 mission. I guess because Jeb was flying this time, that's why all the fuel was used up. He made a command decision to use his remaining fuel in a Dock or Bust maneuver... that daredevil.

Anyways, he used up all liquid propellant to get the darn thing to within 10km, and had to RCS the rest of the way. Keeping the rest of Mission Control on their... um... feet, as usual, he manages to connect with the KTV... but tail end first, in the dark, and pointing the wrong way. Gene Kerbin at KSC smacks his head. Jeb doesn't lose his cool though, as he maneuvers away from the KTV, and KSC reorients the KTV south. Jeb thrusts the craft around for a docking maneuver. Docking then proceeds but not without a number of wild guesses at which way the craft will fly since the RCS is not perfectly balanced. Finally he levels out, and with only 7 units of RCS left, he thrusts forward and coasts to a perfect magnetic docking, causing Gene Kerbin to fall into his chair with a sigh of relief. Jeb was able to transfer fuel from the KTV to his ship and both ships were able deorbit successfully. Jeb grinning all the way.

ll.png

Edited by inigma
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CosmicX1

CosmicX1

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When trying to dock the 'Cosmic docker' to the 'Cosmic-station' (I know. My naming is brilliant), I was all out fuel and running low on RCS. I got within range of the docking magnets, but then to my horror, the 'Cosmic docker' bounced away! "No matter, I'll just try again" I thought, lining the 'Cosmic Docker' up for another attempt. That's when I ran out of RCS fuel. All hope was lost, the cosmic docker was doomed to gradually float away from the station and Charlie Kerman would never make it home... but then a brilliant idea struck me! I'll just have to move the space-station to the spacecraft! After several perilous docking attempts I finally managed to dock the entire 'Cosmic-Station' to the 'Cosmic docker' and Charlie Kerman returned from space a hero! So technically: 0 units of RCS fuel! :P

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ShachonianX

ShachonianX

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I was launching a Comm. Satellite, and didn't burn quick enough to make an orbit. I started descending, and began to desperately try to start going up again. I succeeded in that, but the orbit burn stage ran out of fuel. I had to resort on the satellite's engine to create an orbit. It worked.

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leax256

leax256

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landing on Tylo and running out of fuel right as I landed. using kethane to just barely have enought fuel to orbit. using rcs to change orbit and dock. ran out of rcs right as I docked.

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Rockcoole

Rockcoole

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After failing to dock with my return space craft from the moon I found myself on a return course to Kerbin with no parachute. Apparently I was high enough out of the atmosphere that the areobrack put me next to my space station. I evacuated the crew and only lost a lander that was going to burn up in Kerbin's atmosphere any way.

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SkyRender

SkyRender

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I've had a return flight to Kerbin from the outer reaches of Dres end rather dramatically with no fuel at all left of any sort. The final burn to prevent unplanned spontaneous disassembly ate up every last meager drop left. All 5 units of liquid fuel and equivalent oxidizer.

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Spaceisbeautifulul

Spaceisbeautifulul

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The worst?

Well my second successful Duna return mission, I derped up the ascent on the lander, and the two ships that needed to dock were orbiting opposite eachother (one orbiting west-east the other east-west). I spend a ton of fuel correcting that and got back on the RCS fuel from the lander.

They made it out OK though. :wink:

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Sapphire

Sapphire

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One time when I was testing a new SSTO, I ran out of fuel putting the thing into orbit, dooming Ademone Kerman to die in space, unable to deorbit! However, by a failed design (or good in this case) I had put RCS on this plane, despite it having enough torque to turn itself. So I was able to use RCS to (very slowly) deorbit the thing.

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zekes

zekes

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Closest i've come.... well, 30L of fuel returning from our first Laythe Orbit Mission.

that's .8% of the total fuel on the ship, and there was 0% RCs left. It was close....

In fact it got so close I shut off two of the four engines to save fuel....

CO4WBxA.png

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Spartwo

Spartwo

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was sending a rollver to bop when in orbit I pressed g instead of f clipping into the drive.short story lander destroyed,sattellite undamaged,rolllver still attached to the drive,landed safely with the drive on fumes (1.75 litres for two LV-Ns) still looking for the babby cracken.

Edited by Spartwo
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Royal_Qube

Royal_Qube

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sending my unmanned estnic 1 mission to orbit around duna to 'gather usefull information'. As it was an unmanned mission, it needed an electrical charge to operate. as I was burning to get closer into duna my estink burned a little too hard and I would've gotten into the atmosphere. I quickly tried to turn around and burn to get back into orbit but I was out of electric charge and floating in the shadow of Duna. Eventually when the sun rised behind duna, I gaind back charge, engines started to burn and got back into orbit with a succesfull 'surveilance'.

3h9Zu

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rryy

rryy

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I was docking with a space station and I was approaching much too fast and was going to crash. The craft was pointing at the station and it was too heavy to turn it around, even with RCS, so instead of crashing or hopelessly decelerating with RCS, I throttled up and hoped the gimballing of the Poodle would be enough to point it in another direction and veer away from the station. I barely got away without crashing.

Edited by rryy
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Cipher29

Cipher29

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Definitely the time I had sent a probe lander and rover in two separate spacecraft to Moho, and I ran out of fuel during the rover's capture burn and had to use to rover's descent engines to circularize my orbit. Not having enough fuel to actually land now, I had to intercept and dock with the Monopropellant-less lander using the rover's engines (thank god I put junior docking ports on both as a last minute addition). In order to actually land the rover, though, I needed to perform a deorbit burn using the lander, quickly undock the rover, reorbit the lander so it wouldn't smash into the ground, and switch back to the rover to actually land. And that is the story of how I landed on Moho for the first time :cool:.

mwX1snZ.png?1

Edited by Cipher29
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