Easiest planet to reach.

[hugix]

Eve is the least Dv.

Jool is the biggest mark to hit. Once you're in the ballpark, you will hit Jools SOI.

[SorryDave]

I recommend Duna, aerobraking into orbit can be a little intimidating as I usually have to get as low as 10-12km.

After you have an intercept and have traveled half way to the planet, "focus view" on Duna to fine tune your approach.

[No one]

Dres? You've got to be kidding me.

#1) the Delta-V doesn't cease to be a problem - note there are many threads about long burn times with LV-Ns... so there's added complications of perapsis kicking, poor TWRs, more of a requirement for orbital rendevous if you intend to return, etc.

FWIW, it takes ~4.5x the delta V to land on dres, than to land on Duna.

1034 for aerocapture at duna (from a 100km Kerbin orbit) vs 3989 m/s for a capture into a 12km orbit on dres - and another ~550 m/s to actually land

for a total of about 4550 for Dres vs 1050 for Duna.

#2)Airless bodies are harder to land on, IMO. Its pretty easy to pop chutes, and just control descent rate with a touch of throttle.

Its why a landing on Tylo is much harder than a landing on Kerbin (or Laythe), despite the lower gravity.

#3) Dres's orbit is highly inclined, and launch windows are more irregular as far as dV requirements (there is that rate launch window where you can arrive just at the AN/DN and ignore the inclination, all other launch windows require varying amounts of plane changing).

1) Delta-V is only a problem in that the more you want the longer you have to burn. Waiting for a burn to complete is easy and doesn't affect which planet is the "easiest" to return from.

2) Airless bodies are harder to land on but easier to return from. Once you've got there, there's practically no difference between landing+returning from Dres vs landing+returning from the Mun. Also, Dres has significantly less surface gravity. You need a rocket to return from Duna, but you can return from Dres with just an ion thruster.

3) That's strange. Dres always seems to be at a window when I want to go there.

[BDelacroix]

Kerban is the easiest planet to reach, of course.

[KerikBalm]

1) Delta-V is only a problem in that the more you want the longer you have to burn. Waiting for a burn to complete is easy and doesn't affect which planet is the "easiest" to return from.

Well, the question is to reach, not return, and if a burn becomes too long, you don't simply wit for it to complete, you have to break it up. If you have a very low TWR, and a 1 hour burn... considering that the prograde direction becomes retrograde in ~15 minutes in LKO, you can easily end up with scenarios where you need to perapsiss kick.

2) Airless bodies are harder to land on but easier to return from. Once you've got there, there's practically no difference between landing+returning from Dres vs landing+returning from the Mun. Also, Dres has significantly less surface gravity. You need a rocket to return from Duna, but you can return from Dres with just an ion thruster

.

Once in orbit, you can return from anywhere with an ion thruster. Dres is very similar to Mun, and ion thrusters are generally insufficient for use on the Mun. Duna's atmosphere is so thin, that it is hardly a concern on ascent, and LV-Ns will operate at very high ISP, and have plenty of TWR

3) That's strange. Dres always seems to be at a window when I want to go there.

I was referring to the rare (not rate, sorry for the spelling mistake) window where you don't have to make a plane change, where you arrive as dres crosses the ecleptic.

Interplanetary plane changes are an additional complication for new people, which makes it harder.

[Wanderfound]

Kerban is the easiest planet to reach, of course.

Besides Earth.

[problemecium]

Kerbin is pretty easy to reach.

I'm surprised it took this long for someone to mention this.

[Marclev]

So, as everyone has mentioned before, Duna and Eve are the easiest planets to approach and orbit.

For landings, though, it's challenging to reach the surface of these planets and return. Eve surface return missions are much more difficult than Duna surface return missions, but the latter are not trivial. However, both these planets have satellites that are easy to land on.

Landing on Gilly is very similar to landing on Minmus, and landing on Ike is similar to landing on the Mun. These moons are good targets to practice landings on before aiming for the surfaces of planets.

Oh come on, landing on Duna is easier than landing on the Mun, you just strap a bunch of parachutes onto your lander and add a bit of burn as necessary to get your velocity nice and low. Because the atmosphere's so thin, taking off isn't that challenging either. If you can take off from the Mun and get back to Kerbin, you can take off from Duna and get back to your transfer vessel.

On the other hand, for someone that hasn't done an interplanetary transfer yet, getting to either Duna or Eve, followed by intercepting their moon, followed by circularising that moon, landing and returning, and having enough fuel left to get back to Kerbin ... well, let's just say they might want to start with the planet first.

Edited October 26, 2014 by Marclev

[LethalDose]

Oh come on, landing on Duna is easier than landing on the Mun

. So "Oh come on" get over it.

... you just strap a bunch of parachutes onto your lander and add a bit of burn as necessary to get your velocity nice and low. Because the atmosphere's so thin, taking off isn't that challenging either. If you can take off from the Mun and get back to Kerbin, you can take off from Duna and get back to your transfer vessel.

On the other hand, for someone that hasn't done an interplanetary transfer yet, getting to either Duna or Eve, followed by intercepting their moon, followed by circularising that moon, landing and returning, and having enough fuel left to get back to Kerbin ... well, let's just say they might want to start with the planet first.

First off, the OP clearly stated he's able to do Minmus and Mun missions. If you can transfer from LKO to the the Mun, you can transfer from Duna to Ike or Eve to Gilly. And Ike's Hill sphere is massive, if you can't hit that, then you got no business heading out there to start with. Further, if you can design a Mun lander, you've basically already designed an Ike lander. IIRC, the dv requirement to land and take off from Ike is lower than the dV requirements to reach and return from the Duna surface, even with chutes for landing.

So, overall, I'm of the opinion that it takes a lot less effort to design an Ike surface mission than a Duna surface mission.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Marclev]

. So "Oh come on" get over it.

First off, the OP clearly stated he's able to do Minmus and Mun missions. If you can transfer from LKO to the the Mun, you can transfer from Duna to Ike or Eve to Gilly. And Ike's Hill sphere is massive, if you can't hit that, then you got no business heading out there to start with. Further, if you can design a Mun lander, you've basically already designed an Ike lander. IIRC, the dv requirement to land and take off from Ike is lower than the dV requirements to reach and return from the Duna surface, even with chutes for landing.

So, overall, I'm of the opinion that it takes a lot less effort to design an Ike surface mission than a Duna surface mission.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That's all well and good, but you need to actually get to Duna or Eve first before you can transfer to Ike and Gilly! You're asking the OP to do multiple transfers in the same mission when he's only just figured out how to do single ones (and the easiest ones at that). In my experience (and I'd like to think 700+ hours isn't to be sneezed at) it's one thing to design a return mission to a planet, quite another to design one to a planet's moon. Unless you're extraordinarily lucky, you have to orbit the planet first, then extend that orbit out to get an intercept with the moon, meaning you'll generally need to adjust your inclination, which means you need to worry about which inclination you're coming in on, and and and. To get an intercept with the Mun, you just take off, orbit at 90 degrees as always and drag around a manoeuvre node until you get an intercept. After a while you don't even need to think about it, it's routine. I still worry about having sufficient fuel when trying to hit another planet's moon (even though things generally work out). If you come in at the wrong angle, it can get hairy.

How is that possibly easier than just coming in at a low enough altitude to aero-brake at whatever inclination you feel like and then plopping down on the surface there and then?!

Edited October 28, 2014 by Marclev

[magnemoe]

Oh come on, landing on Duna is easier than landing on the Mun, you just strap a bunch of parachutes onto your lander and add a bit of burn as necessary to get your velocity nice and low. Because the atmosphere's so thin, taking off isn't that challenging either. If you can take off from the Mun and get back to Kerbin, you can take off from Duna and get back to your transfer vessel.

On the other hand, for someone that hasn't done an interplanetary transfer yet, getting to either Duna or Eve, followed by intercepting their moon, followed by circularising that moon, landing and returning, and having enough fuel left to get back to Kerbin ... well, let's just say they might want to start with the planet first.

I agree, however if you is in Duna orbit going to Ike is easier than going to Mun and around as costly as landing and returning on Duna.

Gilly is a bit hard to intercept, first you want to intercept it around its Ap, hard to get intercept without matching planes, one problem in KSP is that you usually only get closest distance where planes overlap not the closest distance in km. However if you are able to intercept asteroids Gilly is no problem cost around the same as going to Minmus if you intercept close to Ap.

[John FX]

For the first interplanetary I would pick Duna. You can plant a flag and return. Returning from Eve is one of the hardest things in the game. Ike can be landed on fairly easily and is similar to Mun. Gilly is hard to get to, being inclined and elliptical. An aerocapture at Duna is easy, just hit 13km or so. Eve is harder and sometimes you just fall into the gravity well.

[pauldbk99]

You should first practice a bit before you go to Duna, after all, you don't want Jeb to get stuck in solar orbit for years, or crash him into the surface.

[Rolanvorxariat]

you don't land on Gilly. you DOCK with it.

[samstarman5]

For those mentioning Duna, I am disappointed on how you do not mention that nine times out of ten, you are likely to end up crashing into Ike upon approach or getting kicked out of the Duna SOI altogether by that large moon. That is definitely a factor that adds to the difficulty of a Duna mission, and should always be accounted for.

you don't land on Gilly. you DOCK with it.

It may behoove you to bring a claw along.

[Joonatan1998]

Eve requires the least delta-V, but is hard because of its inclination (I think my first interplanetary flight was to Eve)

Duna requires more delta-v than eve but is doesn't have large inclination.

Jool has the largest SOI but requires much more delta-V.

The only other planets are Kerbin, Eeloo, Moho, and Dres(asteroid?)

Moho, Dres and Eeloo are require more delta-V than Duna or Eve to reach, and have larger inclination.

[KerikBalm]

the dV difference between Eve and Duna is miniscule.

FWIW, the transfer window calculators I look at show Duna to be cheaper to reach, but maybe there is the occasionaly eve window when you arrive at AN/DN node, and don't need to plane change, that wil result in Eve taking a little less dV to reach.

For practical purposes, duna takes less dV