That time when a Duna mission goes horribly wrong [No pics, sorry]

[Commissioner Tadpole]

As you probably know, I'm an underskilled guy at KSP, not being able to go further than Minmus. However, I've managed to actually build a Duna-capable rocket that may or may not work correctly... until a tragic accident happened. Sorry, but I took no pictures of this incident.

Alright, we began in a Kerbal Multi Player server spending several hours building the rocket that we shall name Duna 1. It has six liquid rocket boosters in Asparagus Staging format. On it, we have crew members Endon Kerman, Bill Kerman and Philboul Kerman. It was a midnight launch, but it was not a problem. The rocket launched and worked wonders towards the surface with it's exxagerated TWR of 2.26.

It uses Asparagus Staging, which means that it has Six liquid rocket boosters which crossfeed into each other. In this case, one LRB feeds into another, which feeds into another, which feeds into the main rocket. This basically makes it having two groups of three LRBs who perform Asparagus Staging, helping the main rocket to fire it's engines while never using it's own fuel fuel...until the LRBs do run out of fuel, obviously.

Anyway, the rocket was pretty much ascending over Kerbin, and I jettisoned two of the six LRBs after those ran out of fuel. I began to perform a gravity turn at around 8400m, and after some time I went above 10000m. The LRBs continued doing their job boosting the rocket, until I noticed that the rocket's main engine and the lower fuel tank had RANDOMLY DISATTACHED. Argh. Thankfully I still had two LRBs doing their job and easily lifting the rocket, so I just jettisoned the two other LRBs who had recently ran out of fuel.

Afterwards, I tried to use the two remaining Liquid Rocket Boosters to raise my Apoapsis up to 200km up in Kerbin, and, assuming they would run out of fuel by then, I'd jettison them and use the middle stage(intended to perform the Kerbin-Duna transfer...but whatever) to circularize the orbit. The rest of this went nicely with no problem, so I just sat there using warp waiting for a Duna transfer window to open.

Eventually, 48 days later a Duna window finally opened. Quick to not waste time, I set up a node to do the Duna transfer and pushed Prograde the furthest it can(I'm surprised it didn't snapped out of the manuever node). I was expecting it not to give me a Duna encounter, so I was quite surprised when I saw "Duna periapsis" on the map screen. I felt like throwing a party(except it would be a party with imaginary friends because I'm a loner in real life). But of course, like everything in life there is a catch, and one of them was that my Duna periapsis was ~18,800,200m high.

But that wasn't a problem at all, because my rocket surely had enough fuel to circularize, right?... In reality, my entry was going to be an Aerobrake into Duna, so I wouldn't need to circularize unless I really wanted to, so all I had to do was to kick the Apoapsis into 15km. However...if you were observant, you'd likely noticed that I said "there is a catch, and one of them was that my Duna periapsis was at...". The second catch was the reason my mission went horribly wrong...

I don't know how it happened myself, or when exactly, but while I was at Map view admirating my sucess, I noticed that the 'Resources' section wasn't displaying LiquidFuel and Oxidizer levels anymore. Curious, I pressed M to exit map view...and I saw that I had accidentally pressed space and ejected the pod from the main body! ARGH!

So...mission failed. Thankfully I used HyperEdit to transport the pod to Kerbin, so at least the poor Kerbalnauts didn't spend 48 days in space on a Mk1-2 Command Pod only to be stranded in there for the rest of their lives. I'm not using HyperEdit to warp me to Duna because it would make that adventure not as fun. The worse thing is that KMP lacks F5/F9, so quicksave is not an option. Well...looks like KSP once again prevented me from going out from Kerbin system. Boy, it sure is desesperate to prevent me from going into other planets.

Moral of the story: Use Alt+L to lock stages.

[FenrirWolf]

Seems like a few more struts and a few less misclicks should get you out to Duna, so I'd say you're pretty close!

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Seems like a few more struts and a few less misclicks should get you out to Duna, so I'd say you're pretty close!

Yep, I was planning to add struts to the two fuel tanks to prevent the lower one from disattaching again, though it's pretty hard.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Sounds to me like it's not having quicksave and quickload that's holding you back. I have about as many failures as you do, if not more, but I manage to get to other planets through the use of quicksaving everything important or that I haven't done very many times yet.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Sounds to me like it's not having quicksave and quickload that's holding you back. I have about as many failures as you do, if not more, but I manage to get to other planets through the use of quicksaving everything important or that I haven't done very many times yet.

Atmosphere is also driving me mad, because landing on Duna is thrice as hard as landing on the Mun, which is alterady insanely hard(mainly due to it's highly cratered landscape).

[thereaverofdarkness]

I made landing on the Mün easy by putting RCS on my Mün lander. I pointed it straight up and down (as exactly as I could), and used the engine to slow it down on approach. As I get closer to the surface, I'd follow the green x on the navball and try to push it to the center of the blue so that I'd be coming in straight. But when I'm on final approach, I have to concentrate on hovering and coming down gently. So I point it straight up and down again, and this time use RCS translation with IJKL to keep the craft from "sliding" over the surface. This makes that level of control super easy, allowing me to focus my attention on the throttle. Now I just have to find the hover point where the velocity doesn't change--and what level of throttle that is goes down as the fuel depletes. So I get the lander coming in slower and slower as I get closer, till I see that shadow and can stop looking at the navball entirely.

Can also use RCS translation to adjust a bad landing spot into a good one. Just get your self hovering or descending slowly, then start translating in the direction of a nearby flat surface. Slow your horizontal velocity when you get over it, and then focus on bringing the rocket down. Easy!

Bring this ship to Mün: Mk1 Lander Can, FL-R25 tank, FL-T200 tank, LV-909 engine. Put 4 total RCS multiblocks in 4-symmetry on the front, back, left, and right, aligned slightly lower higher than the ship's center of mass. Put on any landing gear you like. Under that put TR-18A decoupler, FL-T800 tank, LV-T30 Engine. Build a launcher capable of bringing that to the Mün. Use the lower stage for most of the descent or however long it lasts--you can use some of the fuel to bring yourself into a nice straight path down, then use the rest in a heavy burn starting at about 50km or so. Shoould slow you down real quick, and then you'll have plenty of fuel in the top stage to come in for a nice soft landing.

Now I give you this lesson not because I think you can't land on the Mün, but because I think these principles learned here could help on a Duna mission. It's a technique that has worked well for me, as I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy. Learning to interpret the nav ball, understanding orbital mechanics, that stuff is all extremely useful. But I still have to build rockets that I can fly, because I'm not gonna use MechJeb to do it. Thus I get creative with the designs to solve problems I have in handling them. I've actually gotten pretty good at landing on the Mün, so I usually don't bother with RCS on landers. But I also crash sometimes due to not having it...

Edited November 30, 2013 by thereaverofdarkness

[Mustanger]

My first trip to Dina was going perfectly. I had an aerobrake set up at 14.6km from the surface and carefully picked a landing zone rich in Kethane using a combination of parachutes and rockets I lowered my landing speed to about 15m/s. Unfortunately I had landed on a hill and as soon as the ship touched down it rolled over breaking off two of three of the boosters I would need to reach orbit. The rescue mission landed over 200 days later 37km away and Jeb had to walk all the way there then ride shotgun all the way back to Kerbin but was eventually recovered after over a year of total time away from Kerbin.

This is without a doubt my most spectacular failure and success in KSP.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

My first trip to Dina was going perfectly. I had an aerobrake set up at 14.6km from the surface and carefully picked a landing zone rich in Kethane using a combination of parachutes and rockets I lowered my landing speed to about 15m/s. Unfortunately I had landed on a hill and as soon as the ship touched down it rolled over breaking off two of three of the boosters I would need to reach orbit. The rescue mission landed over 200 days later 37km away and Jeb had to walk all the way there then ride shotgun all the way back to Kerbin but was eventually recovered after over a year of total time away from Kerbin.

This is without a doubt my most spectacular failure and success in KSP.

And Jeb was alone all that time? He sure gets exposed to lots of danger...I'm surprised he never snapped.

[Mustanger]

He can't snap its not written into his coding but it would be curious to see if the psychological effects of long term space travel will be worked into KSP at some point. Like on long journeys you have to make sure that you Kerbals get along and you get better science if they are all happy.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I know they cannot snap, I was just commenting. ._. But yeah, interesting idea.

[Monkeh]

Well that just sucks. Next time, there's always the next time.

I also had a Duna mission go horribly wrong recently, my problem was an upside down girder connection. Upside down...that was all.

Reduce your pain by reading about mine here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60009-The-harsh-realities-of-engineering-Home-Sweet-Home-Mk2-To-Duna-and-back . You're welcome.

I managed to take far too many pictures

Edited December 12, 2013 by Monkeh

[Mustanger]

I meant it sarcastically but I don't have a sarcasm font, no offense was meant.