Constellation Inspired Mission to Duna (aka how to over complicate things)

[katateochi]

I've recently completed a Duna mission that has been in development for several months. It's evolved a lot and although it wasn't initially the goal, it slowly turned into the (sadly cancelled) Constellation Mars mission (with a few kerbal variations).

Here is the very edited vid of the mission;

You can now download the craft from this mission from the spacecraft exchange

I've edited a lot to cut it down and keep the main aspects of the mission but it's still quite long. So here are some pics and background about the mission;

As with most of my missions this didn't start with a plan, just a design idea which got increasingly out of hand and then a mission evolved around it (a totally backward approach). This began with the idea of a rover being used to deploy small base components that would then need to be connected together using the Kerbal Attachment System. A kethane drill module that lacks power generating components (and can't do anything with the mined kethane). A converter that also has no power and very limited storage for converted resources (and no source for kethane) and a power generator that has no use for all the power it can produce. But plug them all together using the KAS and its a working mining operation.

These modules arrive on an unmanned Cargo lander which also has a rover that unpacks the modules and positions them.

When the crew arrive later they are connected to each other and the cargo lander acts as a fuel store;

The rover really was the main design focus of the mission and took quite a while to come up with something that was reliable. Initially it used the magnets from the KAS to connect to the modules, but this would sometimes flip the rover around or rip bits off the modules. It wasn't reliable. I also tried using just docking ports, but that results in a problem with DamnedRobotics in that once it docks the hinges stop working and you need to quicksave/load to get them working again. So while reliable it was not nice to have to save/reload after picking up each module.

The solution in the end was to use both KAS and a docking port. The advantage here is that the KAS winch can have its mode changed from 'docked' to 'undocked' and in the undocked mode the docking port is actually a separate 'craft', not part of the craft with the DR hinges. That got around the problem of docking mucking up the hinges and also brought other advantages like being able to change the docking port for a different attachments during the mission.

When the crew arrive they connect an attachment that has a command chair and a lazer (for science) which enables one of the crew to ride shotgun and shoot (I mean study) things.

The rover also carries the two other KAS attachments, the magnet and the grappling hook. The later was used to enable the rover to climb really steep hills by firing it up the hill and then winching itself up. It was a slow way to climb but does make some inaccessible places reachable by rover.

The crew land at the base in the Hab lander which like the cargo lander was sent to Duna unmanned. It waited in orbit for the crew to arrive and then landed by the other parts.

Hab's ascent module taking off.

The hab lander went thou several versions before this one. The earlier versions had the ascent module just perched on top and it joined the hab module once in orbit. In this version it sits right inside the hab module and is launched as one craft.

One goal from the start was to be able to bring the ascent module back down and land it on/in the hab module and re-dock (@ 27:16 in the vid). I must have spent 4-5 days practicing that maneuver on Mun where it was easier to master. One thing I forgot about during my practice was that in the real mission I would be bringing it down without a crew and it has remote tech parts so there is a small signal delay. Even when the signal delay is 0 it behaves a bit differently so the landing on Duna was extra tricky and was the hardest landing I've ever pulled off. My forehead was covered in perspiration after that landing and I had to go and sit outside with a beer!

The hab lander also brings a very small unmanned rover that is basically a science box on wheels. It's able to potter about the base but being on such weeny wheels can't travel that far. So it can dock to the larger rover and piggy-back to other places to get the all important science data. When it's brought back to base it can re-dock with the hab lander (you know, to upload it's data of course).

About half way through building the hab lander I realised that this was getting more like the Constellation mission. So I made more changes, encased both the cargo and hab landers in fairings so they looked more like the constellation landers (err I mean so they were protected against re-entry) and changed the hab lander to be unmanned. The transfer stages were also re-designed to be more like those used in the constellation mission. I wanted to be able to send both modules at the same time so they used LV-t45 engines for a shorter burn time enabling both to depart at a similar time. The cargo module departs first and then the hab module departs by doing a burn against the relative V of the cargo module. That put them both on roughly the same course and then both made minor adjustments to get a better final Pe at Duna.

Both landers stay encased in fairings until the last moment (to protect them from the ravages of Duna's atmo). Two upper panels come away first to allow the parachutes to deploy;

Followed shortly by the lower panel, fairing mounts and the long range satellite dish being jettisoned so that the engines can kick in

before landing the chutes are cut and it hovers for a few seconds to catch its breath and deploy legs;

One thing I cut from the vid was the remote tech aspect of those craft. As they approached Duna they made a couple minor course corrections so they would drop their transfer stages on a sub-orbital path. This was done with over a minute of signal delay as they were still in contact with Kerbin and not yet switched to Duna's orbital command station. Its the first time I've really used remote techs flight computer properly and I've got to say, it is awesome. Going to use that much more now!

Originally the hab lander was launched as a manned craft and a 2nd small craft was then sent out to bring the crew home. Once I decided that this was a Constellation mimik that changed and so the final piece of this mission was the crew ship to take the brave explorers to Duna and bring them home again. Of course it had to be "Kopernicus".

This is Kopernicus in orbit around Duna, with its small orion craft docked to one side.

I used two Orion craft to bring the crew up to Kopernicus and then one travels with it and is used to transfer the crew to the orbiting hab module. At one stage I used the Orion craft from the Bobcat mod, but I had issues with it and although the six man pod was a nice advantage it really felt like I was just using a prefabricated craft and I don't like doing that.

In the NASA videos about the constellation missions they show their crew ship (Copernicus) dropping 'contingency' equipment before it returns to earth, but I was not sure what exactly these 'contingencies' were. So Kopernicus has my take on contingency equipment. In case of total failure it has a 6 main pod that can be ejected and powers away from the wrecked ship on septrons and it can land on Duna (all be it a bit roughly) with parachutes. It also has another module that has engines which could be used to transport the 6main pod all the way back home if for some reason Kopernicus couldn't make the trip. This module can land on Duna too if it needed to take on more fuel (although that would require the crew also coming back down in the ascent module to plug it into the Duna base). It could then return to orbit and would have just enough fuel to re-dock with the escape pods and return to Kerbin.

As with all my craft I've used a metric crap-ton of mods, with no particular process for tracking what I used so it's always a bit of a pain trying to produce a mod list. But this is most of them;

DamnedRobotics

Kerbal Attachment System

KW Rocketry

bits from NovaPunch

Crew Manifest

TAC fuel balancer

KSPX

Kethane

Protractor

MechJeb

Quantum Struts

KOSMOS

B9 Aerospace

Remote Tech

Girder Pack

BobCat American Pack

You can now download the craft from this mission from the spacecraft exchange

Anyway I really hope you enjoy the vid and pics of this mission. It's been one of my most satisfying missions so far and building the craft for it was just too much fun.

Edited July 17, 2013 by katateochi

[Grim187]

I just watched the first 10 mins and wow that was awesome.

I couldn't get DamnedRobotics to work with 20.2 (kept locking up at vab/sph) and realized i should probably spend some more time learning (docking, landing, interplanetary orbit transfer and building) so have decided to stick with stock for awhile but i look forward to doing something similar this year.

Liked, Sub'd and +Rep, Thanks for Sharing.

[astropapi1]

I just watched the first 10 mins and wow that was awesome.

I couldn't get DamnedRobotics to work with 20.2 (kept locking up at vab/sph).....

There's no official 0.20 update for DR, but some guy fixed it as "InfernalRobotics" and that's what everybody's using now.

[b0bby]

you know what i feel about that mission sir. i'm so glad to know you, and your genious ideas.

[RogueMason]

I think when 0.21 strikes, my first mission to re-establish a foothold on Duna will probably be something along the lines of this. Very good work!

[Technical Ben]

Great stuff. I love the concepts and use you came up with for the missions.

[Babalas]

I'm not only fascinated by your packing system, which I'm now experimenting with, but I'm in awe of your piloting ability. I can land within a few km most of the time but you landed within another craft!

[Raptor831]

Oh. My. That. Was. Amazing.

That's gotta be the best planned mission I've seen so far. Oh, and for landing on a freakin' docking port? That's gotta be the single best feat I've seen in KSP. Ok, enough gushing.

I finally got a working "side landing" hab module for a future base. Hopefully, it will be going to Duna, but I've tested it on the Mun a few times. May have to use a landing system like yours to pull it off though. That canyon seemed quite hairy to land into!

[Vanamonde]

The next step should be to expand your chain of discotechs to the Duna site.