Apollo 13

[Huojin]

Apollo 13

Recreate the successful failure, the Apollo 13 mission. For those of you who don\'t know, Apollo 13 was scheduled to be the third mission to put men on the Moon, but suffered a number of misfortunes that very nearly killed the crew. Eventually they were returned safely to Earth, hence the successful failure, in that they failed to land on the Moon but succeeded in returning home.

First stage in this challenge is the build a rocket and land on the Mun and return home safely, to prove that your rocket is designed to land on the Moon.

Then you can begin the process of re-enacting Apollo 13.

First step, however you wish to, you must simulate an engine shutdown of 1 engine during your ascent into orbit around Kerbin. Historically, this occurred during Apollo 13\'s second stage boost, when the centre engine shut down two minutes early. You still need to reach an orbital path that will send you towards the Mun.

Second step, having obtained your orbital path to intersect with the orbit of the Mun, at approximately 9,000 km from Kerbin (which, as far as I can figure, is, to scale, the same distance as Apollo 13), you must simulate an event which, historically, was an explosion in the Service Module number 2 oxygen tank, which put the Service Module engine out of action. Depending on how you\'ve structured your rocket, this correlates to the stage where you\'ve jettisoned all other stages and are approaching the Mun, the stage before your lander.

From that point on, your main engine must be shutdown and turned off. You can jettison it if you like. Using the engines from your lander stage, you must achieve a free-return orbit, looping around the Mun to return to Kerbin. You can make one burn to fix your orbit so you can free-return, then another burn after the periapsis (the PC+2 burn to speed return to Kerbin), and finally another burn to course correct later on.

Because the Apollo Lunar Module wasn\'t designed to sustain the full crew over the time taken to return to Earth, they had to shut down power in the LM. Likewise, you will have to shut down your RCS and SAS systems until nearing re-entry, as well as hitting F2 so you can\'t see your sphere telling you your heading and so on. This is the equivalent to shutting down the guidance computer on Apollo 13. You can turn it on as you approach Kerbin and make your final course corrections to land on Kerbin.

Bonus points for following a lunar-orbit rendezvous path throughout the mission.

Extra bonus points for doing it entirely with stock parts.

Feel free to make suggestions or additions to this challenge, which strikes me as being pretty difficult... It\'d be interesting if someone did this with the Saturn V mod and made the rest of the rocket up to look like the real Apollo mission rockets.

[OptimusSubPrime]

this. is. awesome. 8)

[Tim_Barrett]

Too bad KSP isn\'t build for re-docking onto detach parts. (The part when the command module turns around and removes the lander form the rest of the rocket)

[Huojin]

Too bad KSP isn\'t build for re-docking onto detach parts. (The part when the command module turns around and removes the lander form the rest of the rocket)

Yeah. Would\'ve made it much trickier, since you have to keep hold of the service module throughout the whole mission, but maybe in a future update, we\'ll see the ability to do it.

[Tim_Barrett]

Yeah. Would\'ve made it much trickier, since you have to keep hold of the service module throughout the whole mission, but maybe in a future update, we\'ll see the ability to do it.

Maybe? That will be an entire part of the game someday. Why wouldn\'t they add it?

KSP I cannot thank you more!

[Huojin]

I mean in an update that we might see soon, I know it\'s going to be part of the full version, but as ever, I\'m impatient for new developments with this game

[Spacecats!]

Challenge accepted! Currently designing the ship :3

[samstarman5]

Awesome idea, but I want to stress that the busted engine should stay on through the mission from the failure up until it needs to be jettisoned for re-entry. Keep in mind the crew of Apollo 13 had to deal with that extra mass of the engine when trying to correct their course.

This challenge needs to stay fresh so it will still be here when docking is implemented and we can include the LM and CM docking portion.

[Huojin]

I\'m not sure about mods for it, but you could do it if there were a way to attach an engine above the CM and parachute facing the other way, to act as the LM and its engine, using it instead of the SM engine. Then the only bit that\'s missing is when the CM and SM detach, turn around, dock and take the LM off towards the Moon, which we can do when we have docking.

[GoDamitt]

Count me in!

[Huojin]

Did everyone give up? =P

[Tim_Barrett]

Did everyone give up? =P

No the forums are just kinda dead lately due to the attention on military and land claims.

[Huojin]

No the forums are just kinda dead lately due to the attention on military and land claims.

And so the Mun Missions became routine and unimportant... Irony?

[foamyesque]

I\'m working on this.

[Huojin]

Easier since we figured out how to do a simple Free Return Trajectory? But still not easy over all, I reckon :3

[foamyesque]

Easier since we figured out how to do a simple Free Return Trajectory? But still not easy over all, I reckon :3

Haha, yeah. I\'d only just started experimenting with FRTs when Skyrim ate me. Nice to see someone else has done the hard work for me.

[Spacecats!]

I\'m getting there...

[MC3craze]

Dino, getting a 403 on your image.

[Huojin]

Kerpollo Config 2 seems like a pretty good craft to do this with, except for the fact that it\'s really difficult to get it to the Mun...

[imdying]

Kerpollo Config 2 seems like a pretty good craft to do this with, except for the fact that it\'s really difficult to get it to the Mun...

I was the play tester for it, and yes it took me 10-12 goes to get there. However, the actual Mun landing itself is nice and easy, and the craft is reasonably robust.

I found you needed to be nice and tight on the Kerbin orbit; waste no excess fuel achieving that and it\'s all easy from then on

[Huojin]

I was the play tester for it, and yes it took me 10-12 goes to get there. However, the actual Mun landing itself is nice and easy, and the craft is reasonably robust.

I found you needed to be nice and tight on the Kerbin orbit; waste no excess fuel achieving that and it\'s all easy from then on

Apollo 13 never landed on the Moon, so that\'s not really an issue here It just needs to get into orbit, make its TMI, get most of the way to the Mun, then adjust course to go on a free return trajectory after everything goes to hell.

[imdying]

That\'s another way to look at it

If you cut the landing out, it had bucket loads of fuel to do the job.

[Spacecats!]

Dino, getting a 403 on your image.

Odd, looks good to me. Better check my dropbox...

[Kryten]

Odd, looks good to me. Better check my dropbox...

You haven\'t set the picture to be publicly visible.

EDIT: Still get 403.

[Spacecats!]

Try now

I think I got it.