Best (or worst) coincidences?

[Iforgotthis]

So recently I launched my DARS- I (Duna Altimetry Radar Scanning) satellite headed for Duna. It's purpose is to provide provisional mapping for the surface of the planet until better technology can be applied. For a mapping satellite, a polar orbit seems fairly crucial, or else you'll miss parts of the planet off (made that mistake before...).

Through sheer luck and coincidence, upon entering Duna's sphere of influence, the orbit happened to be headed right over the poles (Albeit at 8,000,000km). With a bit of retrograde burning, I managed to get a great polar orbit at 100km. In no way had I planned for that, and actually I was kind of worried I'd run out of fuel adjusting the orbital plane, but I guess some things just work out that way!

So it got me wondering. What are some of your best and luckiest coincidences, that you never planned. For but the end result was perfect? What were your worst? Has any random event completely ruined a mission?

I'd love to hear your stories!

[Random Tank]

I had a probe doing a Moho fly-by (Periapsis was ~11km) that chucked it back out to Solar orbit slightly under 1 KAU; but the part of the orbit that passed Eve seemed to be very close to an encounter. I check it by targeting Eve, and a ~7m/s (dV) burn later I had an Eve encounter! I then used it to slingshot to low Kerbol orbit to get the low altitude science! I then forced its Apoapsis near Jool level orbit, so I'll see if I can get an encounter with that too!

[problemecium]

Every time I try to thrust an ion probe out of Kerbin's SOI, the Mun decides to come along and block the Sun so I lose power.

[velve]

Well on my mission about 20 minutes ago I accidentally forgot to add a heatshield for my close distance biome rocket, was aiming for the north pole....got it up to about 2,000m/s and on my descent only then realized there was no heatshield. So anyway, I do some aero braking and decouple my fairings (Procedural) they fly of staying close to my craft, I do one more aero brake and the fairing doubles back and clips itself to the bottom of my science jr!

It having more air resistance than my vessel kept pressure on the crucial part as I re-entered, with deadly reentry, keeping my craft safe haha burning up before my science jr, and mystery goo did....wonderful coincidence.

[Iforgotthis]

I had a probe doing a Moho fly-by (Periapsis was ~11km) that chucked it back out to Solar orbit slightly under 1 KAU; but the part of the orbit that passed Eve seemed to be very close to an encounter. I check it by targeting Eve, and a ~7m/s (dV) burn later I had an Eve encounter! I then used it to slingshot to low Kerbol orbit to get the low altitude science! I then forced its Apoapsis near Jool level orbit, so I'll see if I can get an encounter with that too!

Here's hoping! That certainly would be quite the science haul, and very lucky too...

- - - Updated - - -

Every time I try to thrust an ion probe out of Kerbin's SOI, the Mun decides to come along and block the Sun so I lose power.

Ahh, the scourge of the solar eclipse... happens all the time. I swear the Mun has a thing against ion probes.

[Iforgotthis]

Well on my mission about 20 minutes ago I accidentally forgot to add a heatshield for my close distance biome rocket, was aiming for the north pole....got it up to about 2,000m/s and on my descent only then realized there was no heatshield. So anyway, I do some aero braking and decouple my fairings (Procedural) they fly of staying close to my craft, I do one more aero brake and the fairing doubles back and clips itself to the bottom of my science jr!

It having more air resistance than my vessel kept pressure on the crucial part as I re-entered, with deadly reentry, keeping my craft safe haha burning up before my science jr, and mystery goo did....wonderful coincidence.

That certainly is lucky! Maybe the rocket knew to protect the science... At all costs.

[Cirocco]

On my second asteroid redirect mission (first one was plagued by bugs and ultimately eaten by the kraken) I had finally gotten my E-class asteroid close to Kerbin, but due to circumstances (mostly FAR being installed), aerobraking it was not an option. So I was relying on pure gravity brake and engine power. Because of a bug (or misunderstanding of some game mechanics on my part) I was burning super inefficiently and would not have enough fuel to capture the asteroid in a stable orbit. (Pro tip guys: do NOT attach multiple probe cores at different points on a single asteroid and then try to target center of mass. The navball goes crazy. Or maybe I do, not sure about that one). I was so enraged/disappointed that I was going to fail two redirect missions in a row.

And then a completely unplanned Mun encounter popped up. My heart leaped .

One additional gravity brake later courtesy of the Mun, Kerbin had a third moon.

One of these days I'm planning to send up another redirect craft (with a SINGLE probe core this time) to bring it to either LKO or KEO (not sure which one yet) and then it will be time to start building the Aleph asteroid station.

Man I really want a station on an E-class space potato.

[federicoaa]

On one redirection, I decided to put the asteroid first into equatorial orbit, and when I was planning the burn to set PE=200k, I just has a perfect gravity assist with Mun, which put my asteroid AP the same as the Mun, for free XD. When I said it was perfect I mean it, the path on Mun SOI was almost a circumference.

And actually the first time I decided to play with gravity assists, I made a random burn to use Mun to leave Kerbin SOI, and I got an Eve encounter, pure coincidence.

[Javster]

Every time I try to thrust an ion probe out of Kerbin's SOI, the Mun decides to come along and block the Sun so I lose power.

The Mun doesn't like ion engines because they use electrolysed Mun dust