Back to 0.19, and recovering my very first Mun Lander.

[Tw1]

This is my 2000th post on this forum! That's a lot of posts!

I thought I aught to make this one special. I considered using it for something like the next part of my story, or showing a big step in the making of my mod, but nether of those were going to be ready in time.

So instead, I had another idea.

The first time I landed on the Mun, one leg broke of, I crushed half the engines, lost the light, and only had a tiny amount of fuel left anyway. Melmy got home curtsy of the old end flight button, but that vessel, did not.

For my 2000th post, I decided to right this wrong.

The most recent version that still had that ship in a save file, was 0.19.1. So back we go!

The challenge will be to return the Lander using only the things available in that version- and in one piece.

Lift of! Melmy was unavailable, so Seetop is going instead. No new SAS here! Wrestling with the old version, this rocket wobbles a lot more.

The plan is to land nearby, pick it up, and travel home.

This Vessel, the imaginatively named Recoverer, is equipped with KAS: both re-attachable ports, and a magnet, so I'll have a few options for recovery.

Look at that smooth munar maria! That's a little different from 0.21

Landing was close, but not close enough. It was about here I remembered I'd forgot parachutes. Oops.

I'll think of something.

Lifting of again, the Recoverer vessel hovered, moving closer to the target. It set down about 50 meters way.

Close, but not quite close enough. Fortunately, there was a solution.

With careful rolling, and use of the two remaining engines, Seetop manoeuvred the little ship to a position beneath his big lander.

Now, we've got this far. Now, to attach the little ship to the larger lander, and tow it home.

Seetop placed one of the KAS ports position, ready to hook things together.

He flew up to to the winch, pressed 'G' to grab the connector, but- nothing happened. Controlling it from the ship gave an error message- no hook attached.

Damn. Looks like KAS is broken here.

Completely undeterred, Seetop reached for the magnet.

But, there was another problem. The magnet had been placed in the hook bay with the gripping face facing inwards.

With no ability to turn objects before placing them with this version of KAS, Seetop could only place the magnet backwards. Not only that, there was no way to get power to it. Problem.

Without KAS, I was beginning to wonder if this was going to work. In a last-ditch effort, I tried grabbing the little ship with the reentry shield. And funny enough, it worked.

With the Tenor capsule hanging precariously, the Recoverer rose to orbit. It almost slipped out once, and made the vessel slightly tricky to control. But, we made it.

There was a big flaw with this set up- warping was not possible. At least, not if I wanted to maintain the grip.

Recapture was possible over short distances, but anything more would not be practical. I was almost out of RCS anyway.

But, now it was in orbit, a lot of other options are available. So I began planning a part two.

Recovery from Mun Orbit

First, I tried sending up a modified version of the Recoverer: Recoverer MK2.

It had a KAS magnet placed where the winch had been. Moved up to the Tenor capsule, and practically docked to it with the magnet.

But, the magnet pulled the capsule apart. Quickload time.

Next, I tried sending a probe, cylindrical, with a magnet on the end, parachutes, and not much else. This way, I'd be able to grab the bottom of the capsule more accurately.

This time, the magnet was pulled from the probe, and floated away like a lost frisbee. Quickload time again.

Clearly, magnets weren't the way to go. But I had one last idea...

Recovery mk3 lifted of from KSC, watched over by the media kerbals on the old lag observation tower.

Next stop, Mun!

Some hours later, it made rendezvous with the Tenor capsule. Seetop, who'd been inside since Munar take off, went out on EVA. He would play an important part in this next step.

Yep. I added the KAS attach module to the clamptron Jr.

Seetop floated back to the capsule. There, he put the port in place.

The capsule span, and began drifting away fairly fast. But, it was still in one piece, which was much more important.

Docking with old SAS is a pain, but not so much with such a small vehicle. Soon enough:

And it was smooth spaceflight from then on.

The reentry shield protected the historic capsule, as the whole craft plummeted through the Kerban atmosphere.

Five parachutes opened, from the recovery probe, and the Tenor capsule itself.

Success!

Safe from the extremes of space, Tenor Four.2LI is now home.

It even has its own pedestal. A perfect monument to that first step into space.

At least, until the space center will be replaced in 0.21....

2000

Edited March 24, 2014 by Tw1

[The Destroyer]

Amazing, I thought you would use the heat shield, so kerbal.