Recovery from a Duna fly-by with limited dV

[-root]

However, turns out the orbital speed is way too high...

Now I just need to find out how to get it at Kerbin in one piece.

If you don't have FAR installed, its never too high. I'd run that sucker straight into the atmosphere (Pe < 40km) because nothing bad can happen in this version of KSP. Your craft can't disintegrate, your kerbals can't die and you don't have to have over 2km/s of DV on board to get down to a rough orbital velocity.

You're 98% of the way to a successful save mate, keep up the good work. Be sure to post your solution when you get it!

[Mast]

If you don't have FAR installed, its never too high.

With a orbital speed and Pe this high, it takes a crapload of dV to bring my Pe down enough.

Anyway, I've decided to use the release of 0.24 as a perfect excuse to start over and use everything learned from this (almost but obviously not completely succeeded) mission to make sure I know what I'm doing next time I launch. In the past, I launched and decided my trajectory on the fly. That works fine for Mun and Minmus (them being always in orbit around Kerbin), but I guess doing so for Eve and further makes patching up a half failed mission the default.

@ Kryxal, that calculator gives me figures which don't agree with my experiences. If there's some trick you're supposed to make an aerobrake with that low dV, I don't know it.

All of you, many thanks for the given advice!

[technion]

If you mean "aerobrake into a landing", dv doesn't really matter. I've entered Kerbin's SOE with < 50 dv once, and because the intercepting pe was about 20km, aerobraked all the way down to a landing.

[Mast]

If you mean "aerobrake into a landing", dv doesn't really matter. I've entered Kerbin's SOE with < 50 dv once, and because the intercepting pe was about 20km, aerobraked all the way down to a landing.

I mean getting the Pe low enough so you can actually aerobrake. If it isn't low enough, there's no air to brake in.