What Has the Forum Population Accomplished: Manned Return Missions

[Whirligig Girl]

Minmus Landing/Return

Mun Landing/Return

Mun then Minmus landing/return in same mission. (The craft was totally powered by Mainsails, no throttle control, only action groups to activate/deactivate the engine.)

Duna Landing and return

Duna/Ike Landing and return

Low-Kerbol Orbit return.

Eve Flyby and return.

In 6.4:1 scale Kerbin I accomplished a Minmus landing, and two distinctly run Mun landings, one of which was Apollo Style, the other was Gemini style.

[Mitchz95]

Laythe was my hardest mission site so far, but also the most rewarding. On my first trip I didn't really know what to expect. I was fairly confident my ship (U.K.S. Intrepid) had enough fuel to make the trip, but just to be safe I stuck an ion-powered emergency engine to the back of my lander, the Enterprise. And I put a fuel station around Dres in case I needed to stock up on LFO.

Anyway, I launched and made the transfer no problem. Will Kerman landed fine, but turns out the lander didn't have enough fuel to get back into orbit, let alone rendezvous with its transfer stage. I had to launch a rescue mission (an unmanned rover) from Kerbin to deliver fuel, and of course it crashed thirty kilometers away from the landing site. Fortunately the Enterprise had some contingency systems and I was able to repair the rover and get it back to the landing site where I refueled the lander. I made it back into orbit and had the Intrepid make the rendezvous. Docking went without a hitch.

At this point, I was a bit concerned about fuel so I decided to head over to that Dres fuel depot. The transfer stage ran out of fuel, so I ditched it and activated the ion engine for the inclination change. Those things are really hyped for their efficiency, so I never bothered to consider the possibility that they could actually run dry. Guess what happened.

At this point, I had about 500m/s left in the LFO tanks. Enough to get that Dres encounter, but nowhere near enough to circularize. At that point, I gave up on Will and self-destructed the ship.

---

My second attempt was better. I was just getting the hang of SSTO spaceplanes, and decided to use two of them to function as Laythe landers out of the new carrier vessel, U.K.S. Will Kerman. But I was still fairly paranoid, so I decided to send a second, near identical ship (the U.K.S. Kerbol, carrying unmanned planes stuffed with liquid fuel) to help out if needed.

The Will Kerman and the Kerbol arrived in orbit at roughly the same time. I sent Frank Kerman down to take surface readings, no problems whatsoever. But I'd consumed some fuel making the descent, so I sent a fuel plane to refuel it. Turns out I'd accidentally attached radial mounts instead of fuel pipes, but fortunately the SSTO had some pipes for emergencies. So I refueled and returned to orbit with my precious science. The second plane went down for some water readings; I didn't burn any fuel during the landing so I felt comfortable taking off again without refueling. Again, I returned to the Will Kerman with no problems.

Unfortunately, the Will Kerman didn't have enough fuel to return to Kerbin. So I had the Kerbol rendezvous with it and transfer all available fuel to the Will Kerman. That, plus the Kerbol using its remaining fuel as a booster, was enough to return my brave crew to Kerbin with more science than they knew what to do with. I don't think I've ever been as proud of my KSP skills as I was then.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Mitchz95

[Mr.Rocket]

I marked Eeloo/Moho, as i have been to Eeloo and back more than once, although i have not sent any kerbals to Moho yet. Tylo i have never been to individually, only as part of the Jool-5 challenge. Eventually i will land on Moho...Eventually.....

[LethalDose]

Since Eve is the "hardest" on here, I assume these are manned surface missions...

My most difficult return mission that was successful so far was to Ike

[Looks for Ike]

Well, okay, I have a Gilly mission underway...

[Looks for Gilly]

Uhm... well, then I've been to Minmus...

How is Minmus harder than the Mun? And how are you supposed to land on Kerbol and then get back?

[dryer_lint]

Maybe the "lower the better" part should be removed, since everyone has different opinions...

[cantab]

Not been beyond the Mun and Minmus myself. I have a Duna and Ike mission en-route and a Laythe mission in the design stage. We'll see how they go.

[theend3r]

Maybe the "lower the better" part should be removed, since everyone has different opinions...

Yeah, many things should be edited, unfortunately it seems that the system doesn't allow it and if it does I don't know how.

[Stratzenblitz75]

Of both of my grand tours, the Eve landing and return was the most difficult segment. Eve has just about everything to make designing a lander as painful as possible. Firstly, it has a high surface gravity which forces your lander to have a high TWR, which means you have to put an excessive amount of engines on it. Secondly, Eve has a very thick atmosphere which not only reduces the efficiency of your engines, it also puts a lot of drag on your lander and forces you to ascend at terminal velocity which, depending on your altitude, can be less than 100 m/s. Factoring for both of these, your lander will need 8 Km/s Delta V MINIMUM to lift off and return to orbit from the highest point on Eve. This gets inflated to about 9-12 Km/s if you launch from a lower altitude. Heck, A full Moho mission from LKO to landing to LKO can take less Delta V than that. For these reasons, I'm sure a lot of KSP players that have attempted an Eve return mission, will agree that Eve is the most difficult planet to return from. After Jool that is, but I've never heard of anyone attempting a Jool "surface" return mission. (get on it guys!)

[Dingbat1967]

I found Tylo Easier than Eve. Tylo I managed to nail in two tries, using a multi-stage lander. A large Descent stage with a Skipper engine and some LV30 outboards for the descent phase that gets dropped at the last minute, with the lander barely touching its fuel, and the lander itself which is a small ship that is capable of 4 km/s of dv from ground level. With EVE, I had to try several times before I got it right. Your usual monster asparagus staged lander with 4 command seats to be able to bring back 4 Kerbals. After that harrowing ordeal, I got Hooligan labs Balloons and Airships and I use Rockoons now for my EVE landers. Makes life a lot easier.

[Hodo]

I said Duna for me. But I have been to Eve and back, didn't land a Kerbal there because I run FAR+DRE, but I did land a probe using Remote Tech 2 and a 7+ minute signal delay. Which was the hardest mission I have completed. Landing on Ike in orbit of Duna wasn't that bad.

[magnemoe]

Of both of my grand tours, the Eve landing and return was the most difficult segment. Eve has just about everything to make designing a lander as painful as possible. Firstly, it has a high surface gravity which forces your lander to have a high TWR, which means you have to put an excessive amount of engines on it. Secondly, Eve has a very thick atmosphere which not only reduces the efficiency of your engines, it also puts a lot of drag on your lander and forces you to ascend at terminal velocity which, depending on your altitude, can be less than 100 m/s. Factoring for both of these, your lander will need 8 Km/s Delta V MINIMUM to lift off and return to orbit from the highest point on Eve. This gets inflated to about 9-12 Km/s if you launch from a lower altitude. Heck, A full Moho mission from LKO to landing to LKO can take less Delta V than that. For these reasons, I'm sure a lot of KSP players that have attempted an Eve return mission, will agree that Eve is the most difficult planet to return from. After Jool that is, but I've never heard of anyone attempting a Jool "surface" return mission. (get on it guys!)

Twice

First time had an twice as large lander.

More fun this was one launch and no refueling or anything. put a small return craft on one of the nuclear boosters who took me from LKO to Jool.

[Stratzenblitz75]

snip

Impressive! As usual, I guess I was wrong in my poorly researched assumption.

[magnemoe]

Impressive! As usual, I guess I was wrong in my poorly researched assumption.

Here is a link to the first mission, http://imgur.com/a/dahmU#0

Main mistake was using LV-N on top, was far smarter to use an 48-S7 asparagus like on Eve landers, so the new design is just 60% of the old weight.

And yes the SLS part made this possible to launch in one stage, still was not exactly easy, three stages with 8 boosters in each,not only 25x4 but also two mainsails on outriggers to get more trust.

[jfull]

I guess my most challenging manned return mission would have to be the time I went to Moho and back. It wasn't very hard in the end, but I had to make a few attempts before I got it right.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[r4pt0r]

I said Duna for me. But I have been to Eve and back, didn't land a Kerbal there because I run FAR+DRE, but I did land a probe using Remote Tech 2 and a 7+ minute signal delay. Which was the hardest mission I have completed. Landing on Ike in orbit of Duna wasn't that bad.

>7 minute delay

whoa

[SlyReaper]

I've done Eeloo, but not Tylo. It's news to me that Tylo is easier than Eeloo, that can't be right surely? Tylo has such harsh gravity, you have to carry a preposterous amount of fuel and heavy engines. Eeloo can be landed on by the same lander you use for the Mun.

[theend3r]

I've done Eeloo, but not Tylo. It's news to me that Tylo is easier than Eeloo, that can't be right surely? Tylo has such harsh gravity, you have to carry a preposterous amount of fuel and heavy engines. Eeloo can be landed on by the same lander you use for the Mun.

Tylo is harder than Eeloo, surely. I pointed out in the OP that this isn't all that much about difficulty but about exploration. (Except Eve )

[NecroBones]

Yeah, I think the order of difficulty here is pretty good, except for Eeloo (Though I'd include Ike with Duna, and I'd put Gilly on its own line ahead of Kerbol or Duna). Moho is much worse than Eeloo in terms of the dV requirements to get there and back.

Tylo's only problem is that the lander has to be very robust, and when you're landing, you have to be good with the throttle control, because your downward gravitational acceleration will pick up much more quickly than you're used to on other bodies (for example, if you cut your engines by mistake, you will fall quickly).

When I did these, I took on Moho and Eeloo long before Eve and Tylo, but needed rescue missions to refuel them. Then I did Eve before Tylo, and found Tylo to be much easier than I expected.

[SlyReaper]

Moho doesn't require that much delta-v if you get a gravity assist from Eve. If you try and brute force it with a standard hohmann transfer orbit, then yeah it takes a ridiculous amount of delta-v. I've not done the maths, but I know from experience Moho is much easier to get to after an Eve flyby.

[Overfloater]

...If you try and brute force it with a standard hohmann transfer orbit, then yeah it takes a ridiculous amount of delta-v. I've not done the maths, but I know from experience Moho is much easier to get to after an Eve flyby.

NO KIDDING... I once took my RSS Moon lander...

Landed the thing on Eeloo, had way too much ∆V... thought "I bet I could perform a Moho landing as well... xD"

So I escaped from Eeloo, & the Moho circularization node has shown some ~8000m/s GOOD LORD!

Edited July 5, 2014 by Overfloater

[PTNLemay]

I'm wondering, why did you group Moho and Eeloo together? It seems to be inflating the value above the average of the others.

I've not done the maths, but I know from experience Moho is much easier to get to after an Eve flyby.

Does that help with the inclination change? To me that's always where my mission dies, I launch the biggest baddest rocket I can build, then when it comes for the inclination change I have to burn away all the fuel I'm carrying. I can just about make it there, but I don't even have enough fuel to slow down into a capture orbit (certainly not enough for a soft landing and subsequent return to Kerbin).

Edited July 5, 2014 by PTNLemay

[Red Iron Crown]

I try to get my intercept with Moho on an ascending or descending node, that way the inclination change is not much of a factor. The capture burn is big, though.

[cantab]

I'm wondering, why did you group Moho and Eeloo together? It seems to be inflating the value above the average of the others.

They're a similar sort of challenge, the landing itself isn't the hardest bit (although Moho is the second-largest airless body), but the getting into orbit to start with. Though I would rate Moho as rather harder, and Tylo on balance is still harder than both.

Does that help with the inclination change? To me that's always where my mission dies, I launch the biggest baddest rocket I can build, then when it comes for the inclination change I have to burn away all the fuel I'm carrying.

It can do, but it's a bit tricky. You want to meet Eve at the Moho-Eve ascending/descending node, which you'll more or less have to eyeball. I had a job setting those encounters up for a couple of probes.

[Superfluous J]

I'm wondering, why did you group Moho and Eeloo together? It seems to be inflating the value above the average of the others.

I don't know why those in particular were chosen, but the reason there are grouped ones is because there's a 10-item cap on polls.

I personally would have made 2 polls, "What planet have you successfully done a return mission from?" and "What moon have you successfully done a return mission from?" Then you could include all of them.

Also, instead of "Kerbin" I'd have put "None"

[PaladinFoster]

Never made it further out than Minmus before. I would have no idea what I'm even doing attempting to go to another planet.