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

[tipsyMJT]

Definitely a close call. I would have deorbited the mission and started over.

Jeb was the pilot. I wasn't about to tell him I was going to make him quit.

[alteffeight]

Back in 0.19 when I first started playing, I had a successful first-ever Mun landing (no return was planned) that safely touched down with between 1 and 2 units of LFO left. This is back before I knew what RCS was...

[Whirligig Girl]

Well, Once I ALL GLORY TO THE HYONOTOAD!

[Conarr]

My closest disaster just happened. without the Kethane lander they're all gonna be stuck until rescue comes. As it is, they missed a long wait by 14m/s.

[Giggleplex777]

During my first landing on Vall, I ran out of fuel a few meters above the surface. Fortunately, I was able to land safely and was able to deploy the rover that was attached to my lander.

[M5000]

Zero units of fuel left. Had I burnt any less fuel, my PE would have been still in the atmosphere.

This was an SSTO launch custom-built to get a massive propulsion core for a large grand-tour vessel into orbit.

Seriously, I couldn't have been any closer to orbit. With those big engines, 0 units of fuel and 50 units of fuel is basically the same thing.

And here it was in the hangar with the KER window:

I stared failure down and made it walk away with its tail between its legs.

[austin4050]

I once was going down for a landing on Eve with parachutes (of course) and I thought I would watch tv during the decent. So I watch some TV and looked at my screen every now and then, then I got really interested when they started to talk about some topic I forgot. I look back and the parachutes broke, but I smartly choose to use a mainsail to return to Kerbin and was able to stop it from exploding into the terrain. All that broke was...the mainsail!!!

[KinkyFerrets]

Jool orbit return mission. Ran out of fuel just before reaching a Kerbin encounter. So, out goes Jeb to push! I disconnected the now spent fuel tank and engine, from the capsule/parachute combo and started pushing with the RCS pack. I ended up using 83% of the fuel in his pack before getting an intercept. Then, before I actually entered the SOI, I had jeb push the capsule again to get an aerobreaking.

[ApocSurvivor713]

Failure to dock, successful crew transfer. I was flying a capsule up to my first space station, to drop off 2 crew members and have fun. Rendezvous went without a hitch, but docking was tricky. I ran out of monopropellant only a few meters from the port. I then bounced off the side of the station. I was thinking I'd have to turn around and head home, then launch a revised version, but instead I used the engine to hold speed (but not dock, I didn't have the patience) with the station, and I transfered the crew that way.

[deathchicken]

Jeb had a bad landing on Duna, and lost his stage that would take him to Duna orbit. Luckily the interplanetary transfer stage had just enough fuel to get to orbit and home.

No fuel left just barely able to get into Kerbin's atmosphere.

[Tristavius]

My first Duna landing I honestly didn't expect to make it there at all - I just had a very over designed Minmus lander and decided to try.

I did a terrible transfer, having no clue what I was doing but somehow made it into the atmosphere. The lander was designed for Kerbin return but the parachutes didn't do enough on Duna. Had to use my tiny fuel reserves to fall help slow. Ran out about 300m off the surface and fell hard the rest of the way. By bad luck I was coming down on a very steep slope, bounced, spun several times and somehow came down on my legs again, slid down the slope and eventually came to rest on the shallower inclinations several hundred meter away. Couldn't repeat that landing if I tried.

[AmpsterMan]

Some tim after 0.18 I was testing my final direct descent Mun craft when, as I was making pictures I messed up and crashed. Still the crew survived so I was able to rescue them. On my way back I noticed I hadn't put Parachutes on the return craft so I had to send another ship to rendezvous. It was fun.

[rdfox]

I said this elsewhere, but I think I've beaten all of you on "getting as close to disaster as possible without actually having one."

I once managed to complete a mission that required more delta-V than I actually had available.

0.18 or 0.19, can't remember which, I flew a very-high-inclination Munar landing mission. As in, "I was checking out the polar Munolith" high. My standard three-man Mun mission craft was pretty optimized, and usually had about 100m/s of delta-V margin for a Munar mission. So I flew the flight plan (launch, transfer, plane shift, enter low Munar orbit, deorbit, land, EVA, launch back to low orbit) just fine, and then, for some insane reason, I decided I needed to shift back to an equatorial orbit before my transfer burn to return to Kerbin.

This was a dumb move.

During the return transfer burn, I ran out of propellant in my service module engine. Ooops, oh well, that's why I always bring along plenty of extra RCS juice. I used the RCS to complete the burn until I had an SoI change coming up, then aborted, figuring that I'd do a midcourse correction after the transition and go for the same direct re-entry that I planned on doing anyway, just using RCS to do it.

And it all worked out that way, except for one thing...

About halfway through the burn, with nearly 50 m/s of delta-V still required, I ran out of monopropellant. And the spacecraft wasn't going to even *graze* the atmosphere yet, so aerobraking to direct entry wasn't available.

It was about this time that I remembered the line from Empire Strike's Back: "Would it help if I got out and pushed?!" "It might!"

So straws were drawn, and Bob got forced out the airlock to jet around to the stern of the ship, wedge his helmet in the engine bell, and thrust like mad on his jetpack. He had to return to the command module twice to steal propellant from Jeb and Bill's packs, but eventually, he managed, by literally getting out and pushing, to put the spacecraft on a trajectory that would result in a successful direct-entry and splashdown.

So yes, I actually ended up with *negative* delta-V remaining on a mission and still brought the crew home in one piece!

[Nukas]

Very close. I was landing in this crater. I thought it was a small indent. NOPE its this deep crater with slopes that go on forever. my landers don't go on uneven ground. so bill, jeb, and bob crashed and lived in there pod. i had the ship name kerbal 11. the one ot bring them back was kerbal 28 mkII. in this crater are a lot of debris. probably the hard three days of my life......

[inigma]

I honestly laughed out loud yesterday when I read that some of you guys actually got out on EVA and "pushed" your spacecraft to save your missions. I didn't think about that possibility. It's a great idea to keep in mind.

[Spatzimaus]

My first Duna landing I honestly didn't expect to make it there at all - I just had a very over designed Minmus lander and decided to try.

I had the exact same situation. I'd taken a design that had attempted (unsuccessfully) to land on Mun and increased its fuel a bit for a Minmus trip, but when it came time to do the orbital transfer, Mun was in the way. Rather than fast-forward a few orbits to try again, I decided to try for Ike instead. Unfortunately, I entered Duna's SOI in a nearly polar orbit, and didn't really know how to fix that, so I figured I might as well try for Duna itself. I didn't use parachutes, because I didn't know you could repack and I knew I'd need them on the return to Kerbin, so I used my engines all the way down. Amazingly, I landed intact:

So then I had to come home. The four booster pods were dumped in Duna's upper atmosphere, and the central pod burned for home. I had just enough fuel to enter Kerbin's SOI, but then I ran out and had to use RCS to get the rest of the way. The cockpit doesn't separate from the rest, so I was having to decelerate an engine and empty fuel tank, but I still had just enough RCS to intersect Kerbin's atmosphere. After touchdown in the ocean:

Final score: 7.81 units of RCS fuel remaining. At that point, I used the rest of my RCS to thrust my new yacht around the ocean a bit.

[MBobrik]

I lost the sshot, but I landed a returning rover once a few km from KSC running out of fuel just few dozen m above ground. All wheels broken, but I just repaired them and drove back to KSC.

[magnemoe]

I had an class of SSTO who tended to run out of fuel 5 meter above the ground.

I have docked after running out of monoprop a couple of times.

My best is probably the Tylo rover where the lander run out of fuel just over the ground, hard landing so the lander disintegrated around the rover so I could just drive it away

[Procyon]

Had a munar return that ran out of fuel. Just barely made the top of the Kerbin atmosphere. Took 3 orbits before it bit enough to land

[magnemoe]

Last one yesterday, not real sure if it success or fault. Ship crashed, but cargo and crew ended safe on Minmus. However the ship was pretty huge, an 1600 ton orion pulse engine ship carrying 1200 ton rocket parts, a bit slow to turn even with rcs so it failed to kill all horizontal speed then landing.

However the biggest fault was that I discovered I could mine for ore and convert to rocket parts so the entire mission was not much needed.

[Spyritdragon]

My second Munar mission. When i arrived at the moon i found somehow my orbit around it was nowhere near equatorial. Nontheless i managed to land on the moon. This time, i managed to bring enough fuel to get myself back into a munar orbit and burn back towards Kerbin. Only halfway my burn i managed once again to run out of liquid fuel. By this time i had managed to escape the Mun's sphere of influence, but i was in a Kerbin orbit with a very far apoapsis - without any docking ports, landercans or two-man pods in the demo im stuck in for the time being, i'd have to lug one of my rather heavy two-pod contraptions into a very high orbit to make a rendezvous, so that would be a very long, daunting task.

However, only days earlier, my Kerbonaut Lembur had mastered RSC lateral manoeuvring. My saving grace was the reasonably full tank of monopropellant on board. I managed to reduce the other end of the orbit into the atmosphere using this. The lone kerbonaut i'd sent on this voyage managed to get low enough for a daring 3200 speed aerobrake maneuver in his munar lander with only 20 units of monopropellant to spare.

Lembur most likely thanks his life to the two roundified monopropellant tanks i'd attached to my transfer stage. Else that tank of monopropellant would've been near empty and he'd have never made it back.

Edit: Rdfox, wow. That's the most awesome rescue i've heard of as of yet ^-^

Edited June 19, 2013 by Spyritdragon

[inigma]

Trying to land probe on mun for first time. Mission to take pics. Accidentally decoupled my descent stage. Rode it all the way down, trying to keep probe lander on top, stage hit ground at 65 m/s disintegrating under lander and blowing it high. I reorient with no thrusters and realize I have no fuel on the lander itself (forgot to lock the fuel transfer). As I arch over the stage debris I see a hill edge into a crater. I gyro the fueless landing. Lander miraculously lands on all four legs. Before the high fives commence the lander is sliding... faster and faster downhill. I ride the hill using gyros only and just before bottom legs come off one by one. Still got engine to ride on with one leg remaining, still sliding but slowing. Engine goes, solar panel goes, then last leg. Come to a rest. Last solar panel at that point simply decides to fall off. Argh!

I got batteries! Extended both antennas and dish. Look up to see where dish points and see Kerbin. First landed object on the moon, and Kerbs see first pics of surface before batteries die out.

Total success.

Edited June 19, 2013 by inigma

[magnemoe]

Trying to land probe on mun for first time. Mission to take pics. Accidentally decoupled my descent stage. Rode it all the way down, trying to keep probe lander on top, stage hit ground at 65 m/s disintegrating under lander and blowing it high. I reorient with no thrusters and realize I have no fuel on the lander itself (forgot to lock the fuel transfer). As I arch over the stage debris I see a hill edge into a crater. I gyro the fueless landing. Lander miraculously lands on all four legs. Before the high fives commence the lander is sliding... faster and faster downhill. I ride the hill using gyros only and just before bottom legs come off one by one. Still got engine to ride on with one leg remaining, still sliding but slowing. Engine goes, solar panel goes, then last leg. Come to a rest. Last solar panel at that point simply decides to fall off. Argh!

I got batteries! Extended both antennas and dish. Look up to see where dish points and see Kerbin. First landed object on the moon, and Kerbs see first pics of surface before batteries die out.

Total success.

Nice, I has used the legs as crumble zones myself sometimes. Note the airplane companies definition of an almost accident: An accident where everybody can walk away afterward.

[LILGIT90]

I've got two stories, I'll post an image for both with a link below for all images to those two missions on imgur.

(MODS USED)

MISSION 1

Sending this small Sat-Com to replace the huge one that was crashing to the orbit (Debris decided to bump it, what is the odds!) I almost forgot to extend the solar panels and my electricity was running real low 2.5 fast I found one in the dark just in time *click* elec 1.0...0.5...0.1...0.0 *fully extended one* WOO!

<Not a great picture I know sorry.

Mission 2. (Mods used)

I decided to make a rocket with the lander sperate so I would either had to dock (which I end up not doing) or fly near to the orbiting ship that I would be using to go home, I took a while planning, testing, checking and trying to rip the ship apart to cover all of its weaknesses and It is a wobble wobble, ugly looking but strong and effective rocket! I launched, orbited Kerbin which went straight into a route towards the mun.

The route was....different, not what I would of done if I wanted to do a full orbit but I rushed a little because I was going too fast and would up ending back down to the planet!

Dropping the stage which ended me with the returning fuel, I only needed to use a little bit of the fuel, less than a quater to orbit the mun and get close as I can get, I went to the lander stage and headed to the mun's surface. I landed safely, got the flag out, placed it down...Jet packed to the lander after walking around a little and................DAMIT!

I hit the surface and again...tipically happens when I have Bob going on a solo mission (I know theres others but I keep getting him in the latest version)

As promised here Is the link to my album of these two missions http://imgur.com/a/xFcLx

Here is the shuttle, oh the game crashed just as I was moving from the lander in EVA so I have the returning ship orbiting and the lander on its way to crash with no BOB! (M.I.A) next mission will be to find out what has happened and to place a memorial for him on the MUN.

[Flixxbeatz]

61.65 (out of 5040) units of fuel remaining (1.2%) after landing at the KSC during my signature circumnavigation attempt. I almost gave up the attempt, given that I only had ~<100 units of fuel left with few kilometers left to clear.