Greatest achievement in KSP?

[goldenpeach]

My manned mission to Duna(the one where the astronauts return safely).

Also, it may seem strange, but today I particularly proud of my (very) tiny rover on Duna: it didn't took me a lot of time to make a Duna rover but it took me a LOT of time to make it stable enough to be called a decent rover.(I used FAR by the way)

I was using a rocket to it's very limit(only a few m/s of delta-v left) and I used SRB(and sepatron to have the correct amount of delta-v) to exit the SOI of kerbin. This method was the source of many problems: if the SRB had too much delta-v, my solar orbit would have been too elliptical, if it didn't had enough delta-v exit the SOI.

After several wheels breaking, I decided to put landing legs on the rover(the tiny one) to prevent it from flipping and to protect the wheels.

After countless attempts to drive on Duna without flipping a rover, I decided to place the chutes I was using on two decouplers. After placing of some sepatron on the SRB(in order to have enough delta-v to escape kerbin SOI) and the addition of two small boosters on the rocket(to have a decent TWR on lift-off), I finally been able to make the rover land on Duna, I dithced the chutes and drove it without flipping it.

(I was desperate enough to place the wheels higher hoping it would do any difference)

Just after that, I made a manned mission to the mün in order to relax.

Final note: The last sentence show that KSP is NOT like real life: imagine if NASA's engineers, after landing Curiosity, said:

"We finally landed that rover on Mars. Hey guys! Anyone want to send a men on the moon? Just to relax a little after this landing."

Edited May 12, 2014 by goldenpeach

[Garek]

The first time I launched directly to docking. So I had a small station in LKO. I experimented a bit and found that the phase angle between the ship and the station at orbital insertion is about 20° "more" than at launch. So I launched at 340°, and instead of orbital insertion->rendevouz->docking I came up just right for docking. I now do that more or less regularly, but the first time it was just awesome.

[cheeseit]

Probably taking an SSTO up to Kerbin orbit and meeting up with a orbital tug over to Laythe. Landing on Laythe to bring home another stranded kerbal

[Vanamonde]

There is an existing thread on this subject, and so the newer one has been merged into it. Please feel free to continue.

[Whovian]

Getting a capsule onto the surface of Thud. Still haven't made a successful return trip.

Seriously, that planet is a **** to land on.

Or maybe my manned mission to Duna (whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.) So everything's going fine. I get to Duna and all that; get about 500 science. Get back into orbit. Then I realize I'm low on dV. I spend about half an hour trying various return trajectories, before finally finding one that comes barely within my dV and time restrictions (I'm playing with TAC.) So, finally, I'm on my return trajectory, which is going to take me through the atmosphere to aerobrake. Then I get a freak Mun encounter that the map view didn't tell me about, which pulls my trajectory clear out of the atmosphere. I have enough dV to get inside the atmosphere enough to get a capture, but not a full brake. After the capture, I'm on a fairly steep collision course (a 60-90 degree angle with the tangent to Kerbin) with Kerbin, and mind you this is a vehicle consisting of probably more mass than a single mini white parachute can safely save at that steep a trajectory. This is before I realize you can take science from the capsule onto your kerbal.

So, naturally, I'm quite ****ed. I have KAS installed, so I figure I'll send up a rescue ship with something I can use to get a safe return trajectory. Turns out KAS doesn't let you attach RCS thrusters, so plan A's out of the question. I eventually realized I had a few radial chutes on the rescue vehicle and attached about 10 of them to the ship I was trying to rescue; this turned out to work, luckily.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Whovian

[pauix]

Landing 3 Kerbals on Dres and getting them back safely. The thing was running very low on fuel, so I made a lot of burns during my Kerbol orbit until I got the Kerbin periapsis low enough that the ship got captured and high enough that the crew suffered only a 4G reentry. The mission managed to score 1040 science points, and with my new pieces I've already started planning a trip to Eeloo.

[allmhuran]

Last week I filled out the entire tech tree in one launch on starting parts. I was going to do a 3 part video of this but there doesn't seem to be much interest based on reddit votes and view counts, but if you want to see part one it is here:

http://youtu.be/MrqhNfMyLCs

[Camaron]

I launched a Fuel Storage ship with a capacity of 1,000,260 Fuel, named Andromeda M. I have yet to actually load it with the vast majority of that capacity, but the launcher is capable of acting as an SSTO. It would lose a lot of it's maximum orbit altitude if launched as an SSTO, but it can do it. Biggest SSTO you've ever seen.

Of course, it's not smart to fly it as an SSTO, but how many people have built a 2500-ton SSTO? I'm proud of that.

[pauix]

a 2500-ton SSTO

Holy mother of kraken

[KingPhantom]

i build a apollo style ship and i'm able to visit mun and minimus with a manned lander. i can get them back every time (randevouz fail + load qucksave FTW!)...

one of my best missions was the rescure of a kerbal from the surface from mun. i went to mun with a minimus lander and wasnt able to get away... so he had to wait for the rescure mission. this was a single lander in one part and returned all sience and kerbals to kerbin