Minmus return mission gone wrong

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Prequel: That time when a Duna mission goes horribly wrong

So, one day I was looking at my first KSP save file, inspecting all locations my space program had set foot on; Doughroll Valley(Mün), Borealis Lake(Minmus), Starshade Valley(Duna), Rolling Hills(Duna), Mt. Roundview's feet(Duna) and Windstorm Plains(Duna). Afterwards, I thought; "Hey...maybe I should go to Gilly. An Eve window is about to arrive, it's proximity to Kerbin makes it easy to reach, and I always wanted to go to Gilly".

And so Gilly was confirmed as my next destination. I made the rocket for Gilly and everything, and I was ready to launch until I remembered I left six Kerbals on Minmnus for several days(around 108). They'd pretty much snap(except for Johnlorf and Jebediah, who were constantly happy) if I forced them to stay there for more time, so I decided to send them back to Kerbin. However, the Kraken thought it was the perfect time to strike, and ripped off the Mk1-2 pod out of the ship, taking the ASAS module, solar panels and parachutes with it.

The ship was still functional because it had a Mk2 Lander Can AND a MechJeb unit, and the crew that were on the Mk1-2 pod were transferred to the Hitchhiker Container(now I'm glad I did that), but without solar panels, they would have limited time until the batteries supplying the Mk2 lander can's built-in reaction wheels died. Bummer. Regardless, I took the ship into Minmus orbit, and taking one last look at the mint-colored moon, burned Prograde when my rocket was moving retrograde relative to Minmus' orbit, so I would quit Minmus' sphere of influence while having a Periapsis of about 40km.

The plan was to use the 10 EVA parachutes packed with the ship to land the Kerbals safely into Kerbin's surface, one at a time. Sounds easy, I know, but unfortunately I learned that deorbiting Kerbals is (much)easier said than done. The plan was scratched. So...without a method of safely landing the rocket in Kerbin's surface and without reaction wheels, the only thing I could think of is to just start the Gilly adventure and leave the Minmus crew to die.

So, yeah, end of mission. Farewell, Johnlorf, Doodvan, Jebediah and other Kerbals I cannot remember their names.

...

...

!!!

An idea popped up in my mind, though that'd require some work on Fate's side. The plan was to pray that, during the Apoapsis, the rocket would be facing Retrograde, and fire the engines to generate some power for the reaction wheels, and then burn until the Periapsis was low enough to perform a full-fledged landing aerobrake at Kerbin.

Fortunately, Fate decided to give me a chance and left the rocket facing around 45° away from Retrograde. Not exactly what I hoped for, but that'd work. I burned the engines, then used the Poodle's thrust vectoring feature to spin the rocket into Retrograde. Pressing M, I noticed the Periapsis was now at 9km. A bit lower than I wanted to, but hey, close enough. It was only a matter of time until I reached there. Knowing the batteries would run out again, I used what remained to have the rocket face Prograde, so once it reached Periapsis it would be facing Retrograde.

After a couple of in-game hours, the rocket was now aerobraking at Kerbin's atmosphere. It sank deeper and deeper into Kerbin's inner atmosphere, increasing the speed of the aerobrake. Finally, the rocket was just above the perfect landing spot, so I fired the engines Retrograde and moved it to the very top of the NavBall, and began to perform a safe descent, Tylo Styleâ„¢. After a lot of adrenaline, the rocket landed on a silly pose, but the work was done.

Impossible Mission...

ACCOMPLISHED!

[Hunter54711]

Good thinking!, I might try something like this for my 4 stranded Kerbals at Minimus!

[Specialist290]

Nicely done! A genuine "successful failure" -- glad to see your kerbonauts made it out safely, despite the fact that you didn't accomplish your original mission.