Stranded on Duna - way to recover ?

[Psykikk]

Hey there,

I recently stranded a ship on Duna.

I know, I am noob but having stopped for a while and not having mechjeb took it´s toll on my landing skills.

anyways. this is what I am at right now:

as you can see, I lost a tank / engine and therefore the ship tumbles uncontrollable when I try to launch.

is there any way to save my men and recover the data ??

what would you do ? how would you proceed ?

thx in advance

[Zwer.ch]

Simple: launch a rescue mission In the meantime, let your Kerbal enjoy the view

[Psykikk]

Simple: launch a rescue mission In the meantime, let your Kerbal enjoy the view

that what I wanted to do. but: there´s no way to recover the ship, right ?

thx

[TheDarkStar]

If you want to recover the science, you can just tell the Kerbal to pick up the data and bring it to the rescue ship.

[Red Iron Crown]

If you're willing to install a mod, Throttle Controlled Avionics allows the use of differential throttle control to make piloting unbalanced engine configurations much easier. If losing the tank didn't reduce your delta-V too much to make orbit it should be recoverable.

If you want to try it manually, tweak the thrust on the engine opposite the missing one way down until the ship is controllable. Might take a few tries to get that right, and it may lower your TWR enough that making orbit is difficult or impossible. Worth a try, though, and I recommend judicious use of quicksave.

[1D-1()T]

With all the RCS on there you might be able to get back to orbit by just turning off the rocket that's uneven. Or you could use whack-a-kerbal to knock that part off, and just pretend your brave kerbals MacGyver'ed it off using a spare oxygen tank and a bobby pin. Also, if you try launching with the rocket turned off, move the fuel in that tank into the others, to keep the centre of mass as close to the centre as you can. With the lower fuel and thrust you may not be able to get all the way back to Kerbin, but if your lucky you'll make orbit, which will simplify any rescue missions, as long as you can rendezvous.

[Bit_reaper]

Its duna meaning its very low grav so it not like you need a lot of thrust to get the thing in orbit. What I would try is transfer all the fuel out of the remaining side tank and turn that engine off. Then gently try and take the craft up with the remaining two engines. If you use only the minimal needed amount of throttle the SAS might have enough torque to keep the craft controllable.

[Othuyeg]

Definetly, as said before, try turning off the offset engine and escaping with two engines.

[Greenfire32]

You can always put a claw on a rescue ship and *try* to bring it back home but...I think you're best bet would be to turn off the offset engine and try getting into orbit around duna with just the other two.

At least you'd have a much better chance of rescue from orbit than you would from the surface.

[Red Iron Crown]

Might be better balanced to tweak the odd engines thrust way down rather than disabling it completely. Hard to say without trying.

[700NitroXpress]

Launch a rescue mission and transfer all of the data to the kerbal so that he'll keep it with him as he goes to the new pod. Use parachutes as well on the landers, Duna has atmosphere, even though it's thin, it still assists a little with safe landings and lets you use less fuel for a soft landing.

[Ziff]

How much fuel do you have remaining? It looks like you could still have a high enough TWR if you used just the two engines. You only need like 1500-2000m/s to get back into orbit, and if your tanks are relatively full you should be able to do it.

Here's what I would do. Right click the engine that is unbalanced and click shutdown. Then alt-right click the main center tank followed by alt-right clicking the fuel tank with the shutdown engine. Transfer whatever fuel you can out of the tank we aren't using. This will help with the center of mass problem, and give you more available fuel to the remaining engines. Now you can trim the pitch/yaw a bit to counter for the extra weight of the now dead tank/engine by holding down ALT and using AWSD depending on which side is dead. It looks like the rear engine is dead? If that's correct then I would hold ALT-W until the pitch is trimmed about halfway , to the next full line.

Your craft is now flyable.

[Ziff]

Might be better balanced to tweak the odd engines thrust way down rather than disabling it completely. Hard to say without trying.

It might be possible but I think there will be a fuel problem due to that engine using far less fuel than the others. Once that main center tank is empty the one pair of engines at full thrust will use fuel quicker, causing yet another weight imbalance. I imagine with the lower gravity that the engine would have to be trimmed way down. That fuel would be better used in the other two engines if it has a high enough TWR without it.