Duna - science mission

[technion]

Hey guys,

I've been real appreciative of the career mode in 0.23. I first went to Duna in sandbox. I strapped together mainsails and jumbo orange tanks, then sat there adding struts until it didn't explode on launch. It's great looking at something smaller.

This mission explains how I gathered over 1000 science points from one launch. This was not rigged to involve any excessive or cheap options, we just did all the science on the surface and returned.

This is what we launched:

Take off:

Once the lifter does its job, a skipper helps us start the long burn:

[technion]

There's not a lot of aerobraking at Duna, it took a burn to circularise even at this altitude:

It's important to prepare the mothership orbit to be flat and circular. Note we only took one kerbal - once we leave, its' up to the lander to rendezvous.

After a which EVA, the lander goes down:

This lander has two mystery goo. We observe one while still in the atmosphere, on our way down.

Packed a tonne of parachutes:

[technion]

When you first EVA, you should perform an EVA report and take a surface sample.

Here's where it gets interesting. Climb up to the lander and "Store Experiments".

Climb in now and perform the experiments. There's a science jr, a goo canister, and four instruments sitting on top to be used.

Guess what! You can do another EVA report because you stored the first one. Although it will let you do another one on the ground, you won't get credit for the same report. Just jetpacking a little way up however, and we're "flying".

Then climb up to the top, and collect them all. You need to be very close to each unit.

When you climb back inside, the screen will make it clear that you've recovered ALLLL that science.

Now you can blow that decoupler. All those science materials are inactive and we don't need to keep them.

[technion]

Launch!

This was supposed to be asparagus staged. Oh well, it made orbit before the fuel was low enough to manually transfer some around.

Now for the most important bit. Once you start your EVA, "take data" from the lander. That means your kerbal grabs all your gathered science.

As before, climbing inside the rocket will clearly show you all the science you've just brought onboard.

Firing the external stages of the interplanetary unit. We were almost home at this point. There's a lot of extra dv on this tug.

[technion]

Coming in to land.

On the ground. You can clearly see there's 10 "stored data".

Woop!

I plan on repeating this on Eeloo and Dres. That should unlock the tree enough for a Joolian tour.

[Corbald]

Very nice! I'm planning a Duna mission, myself. First time working my way through the Science tree. I'm going to be landing (and ascending) the Science Lab, even though it's a beast! I'll also be landing a small, one Kerbal rover to collect data with. The rover will be able to dock with the Lab for cleaning via KAS, but I imagine that it'd be easy enough to set up something with just docking ports to do the same thing.

[Geschosskopf]

Impressive project. Thanks for sharing.

[KingPhantom]

thank you for sharing... i have some problems to reach duna. i dont like those atomic engines behause they have burntimes over 15mins...

but is it possible to share your ship-file? i can see that you dont use mods like me. so it should be possible to take a look on how you build up your ship. that would be great.

[Scotius]

Despite weak thrust of LV-N, nothing can beat their efficiency. Of course, you can always build a tug with more than one engine.

[KingPhantom]

i read about it but i dont work for me. i often use the 1x large to 4x small part to attach 4 atomics to one big tank. i have burntimes about 15 mins and half a tank... thats no efficient

[KingPhantom]

*push* is it possible to get the ship? i'm looking forward to analyze this... it's also possible with more assembling screenshots

[KingPhantom]

i tried to rebuild it from the pictures. i only added a remote module to the main vessel and the lander. so i can use them unmanned for a testlanding on duna.

http://www.omfg.ch/Duna_Lander_V3.zip

i used a skipper for the mid long burn stage and 7x skipper for the lift stage. but i dont get this thing into LKO... no chance. i used the moonsail in the middle... no chance... i used moonsails everywhere... they are to powerfull and need a good management. but they use too many fuel...

can someone take a look at that? is it because of the update? i think i can do it with more fuel tanks in the first stage and moonsails...

[KingPhantom]

it worked. i hat to tweak the rockte to 0.23.5... with the biggest lifter rockets in the first stage. than i managed it to duna, land, randez vous and get back to kerbin. +1100 science and the tree completed

edit: the ship: http://www.omfg.ch/Duna_Lander_V5.zip