I may have made a terrible mistake...

[Mitchz95]

My Eeloo mission has run into trouble, and I'm starting to seriously wonder if it's possible to save. Here's what happened.

My ship (the U.K.S. Stargazer) entered orbit, going retrograde to take advantage of the Oberth effect. Once I had circularized at 110km, I deployed my lander (the Solstice) and its three-Kerbal crew to make a landing. The touchdown was a success, a flag was planted, and the team collected enough science to keep the scientists busy for months.

Then I looked at the fuel readout.

Solstice had less than 20% of its fuel left. Enough to lift off, but nowhere near enough to circularize even if I tapped into the monopropellant supply (most of which I'd still need to return to the Stargazer). Fortunately, thanks to the magic of quicksaving, I was able to determine that if I launched straight up, I'd be able to get the lander to an apoapsis of 40km before burning out, followed by an eight-minute fall back to Eeloo. I then had the (unmanned) Stargazer lower its orbit to 40km, and waited until a fly-over was four minutes away.

Then I quicksaved. And then I launched.

Solstice blasted into space with all the power its Poodle engine could provide. It burned out at 40km, exactly as planned, and then I switched to Stargazer and fine-tuned the encounter (by now about three minutes left) to get within 100m. I managed to do it, killed relative velocity, and immediately quicksaved. That's the terrible mistake referred to in the title: there is no going back, one way or another.

So now both ships are tumbling toward Eeloo with less than four minutes to rendezvous, dock, and burn back into orbit. The Stargazer has no command pod, and therefore no way to store science if two Kerbals decided to make heroic sacrifices while the third escaped. And on top of all that, Solstice has a very limited supply of monopropellant remaining. So using tons of it to close those 100m nice and fast is not an option.

Can I pull this off? Or are my Kerbals doomed to die far from home? Tune in later to find out!

[zekes]

you better connect quick, then get out of there!

[Lundmunchkins]

Good luck man.

[Decent Weasel]

The real genius is that you burned all the fuel in your lander, so you can't land again and wait for a rescue ship. You are really and truly up Eve creek without a Separatron. I... I salute you.

[JayKay]

Not that there's anything you can do about it now, but I would have launched and made like I was trying for orbit in the same direction as your mother ship. Then that ship could have come in low and still had speed at rendezvous, so after docking it wouldn't need so much time and fuel to acquire orbit again. Your lander would spend just as much time airborne either way, and there would not have been any significant penalty for your orbiter to have to come in lower.

Water under the bridge, now, though. Dock quickly is the only useful (and obvious) advice.

JK

[Mr.Feather]

It could be worse. In my situation I would get those two connected and put them in any stable orbit, make a long range tug or refueling ship and send it to the rescue...

But thats just me.

[Mitchz95]

I ... I did it.

Pulled it off on my second try. It wasn't actually that hard, but the fact that I got within ten kilometers of the surface (again, falling straight down) combined with the fact that

is what happened to play on my iPod throughout made it way more epic than I could have imagined.

After that, things went more or less as planned. I departed Eeloo's SOI (the landing had happened to coincide with my target's transfer window) and made a quick stop at Space Station Odyssey (orbiting Dres) to refuel before coming home. Finally, a good five years after the initial launch, my weary crew made landfall at the South pole.

That was by far my most dramatic mission in the game so far. Which was very satisfying considering it was always planned to be my final mission before upgrading to 0.24. Before I recovered the pod, I made sure to plant a flag to mark the occasion.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Mitchz95

[Scotius]

Well done, sir. Well done

[Tw1]

Now that is snatching victory from the jaws of doom. Well done!

[Decent Weasel]

Bravo, sir. BRAVO

[JayKay]

Glad you didn't need to use the "last words" messages the crew members made in case they didn't make it back...

JK

[Mitchz95]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

By the way, the reason I chose to burn straight up rather than at an angle was to make absolutely certain I'd make my target altitude. A gravity turn would have been more fuel efficient, but then I'd have a harder time predicting how high up I'd get (which would make synchronizing it with the Stargazer very difficult).

[Cydonian Monk]

Very Nice. I love it when a (cobbled-together and rushed) plan comes together.

[Brody Peffley]

There is no mistakes in KSP! Also nice landing on eeloo with suck an amazing feat.

[problemecium]

I suppose it ended up being for the best that you had parked the station up as high as you did. I probably would have left it at about 10km to begin with, so a mistake like that would have given me about two seconds to perform that emergency docking maneuver.