Abandoned Rover

[Vohjiin]

Block of text, sorry....

So I thought I would share a rather interesting story I have regarding my first rover to Mun. When I started playing KSP I have been keeping a sorta blog/diary of the launches I make and what I'm trying to do with my space program. Well after about 40 hours into the game I decided it was time to land a rover on Mun. I have 3 probe land..ers....uhh crasher's on Mun, but hey they are ...mostly intact so they count. Anyway I use my MoolianR9 rocket which thus far is the only rocket I have made that has some kind of consistency with launching payloads (~68% way better then anything else I have) and launch my first rover design into orbit and out to Mun. This is where it starts to be the fun part....

After getting to Mun and finally achieving an orbit I had wanted my rover to land fairly near my 3 other probes that was on the Mun. I have this going story that the probes landed and my space program knows there was an issue but since I have no camera's they don't know for sure what happened so the rover is being sent to investigate the probes and Mun. Well I waited a few orbits for the rover to get in just the right position and when I went to make a few adjustments no response from the rover stage....I was out of power.

Why am I out of power? I have solar panels...oh yea its not the extending kind just the ones that attach directly and don't adjust for the sun. Well my rover stage was pointing away from the sun and the batteries drained I thought i would time warp, surely it will rotate around and get some sun light. Few days no go, month still no, no matter what, the craft was always pointing away from the sun I time warped 1 year and still nothing Well that was fantastic of me, I thought I would just leave it in orbit. It would be fun to later come by and perhaps nudge it back into the sun for power after so long (be like resurrecting old technology or so the story that was unrolling in my head said). So I go back and relaunch a new one this time with better solar panels, I won't go into details but it took me 5 rovers to finally get one to land and it was missing wheels when it did.

So yesterday, I managed to dock my first station parts together for the first time after 80 hours of play time. By this time I have 2 rovers on Mun and probes over Minmus along with a small landing probe there as well. After that monumental victory I was cycling through my flights and went back to my lone rover still orbiting Mun, loaded the flight, whats this...POWER!!! 5 years of floating over Mun it finally pointed at the sun and it wasn't directly either, it was this half-ass angle that I got just enough power to move the craft into full sunlight. I quickly took the opportunity while the landing site was sun facing to land the rover and is to date my smoothest... my perfect landing ever.

I had to wait 40 hours and 5 game years to land the first rover I had sent out and it landed exactly how I pictured it should have when I built the thing... about made me cry... It also got to a speed of 26m/s before being obliterated when it hit a hill, but I had fun with it before that time.

Never give up on those lost launches ! ! !

[CaptRobau]

Great story!

[Ferrit]

An enjoyable tale of persistence and patience

Also a good argument for never giving up on a mission till its exploded!

[msyblade]

A 10 from the American judge! I know people hesitate to write in depth posts like this for fear of being reprimanded or ridiculed by other forum users, but personally, this is why I come here and check the threads constantly. To find gems of a story like this, and unconventionally in this universe: A Happy ending!!! Yaaay!

[Fel]

A 10 from the American judge! I know people hesitate to write in depth posts like this for fear of being reprimanded or ridiculed by other forum users, but personally, this is why I come here and check the threads constantly. To find gems of a story like this, and unconventionally in this universe: A Happy ending!!! Yaaay!

Yes, it is always nice to go back to old launches and find them in a perfect position for some good old crash-test-dummy runs

[zekes]

nice story! but you should have just sent up a ship, nudged it, and it would have rotated into the sunlight!

[Vohjiin]

@Zeke, that was the plan for the next few rover launches I did. I added an extra stage just for relaunch into orbit so I could nudge it, but at that time I didn't have down how to do uh "docking" in space. That and the next 4 rovers kept crashing on me so I didn't have anything left to nudge it and at that time I had forgotten xD.

Reminds me of my first stranded kerbal in space I had to use his jetpack to slow the capsule down enough to start dragging the atmo of kerbin so he could reenter. First kerbal stranded, my first kerbal in space, first kerbal to orbit Kerbin and the first kerbal saved and he did it all himself... Richster Kerman one hell of a kerbal there...

[Odo]

Awesome story! Screenshots maybe?