"Das Dunaprojekt" or Duna von Braun Style -- Now with SCIENCE and Finance!

[Death Engineering]

This is the bit I'm struggling to get my head around... you even said "However, I did battle with the challenge requirement to fly two parallel, identical missions." - to me, the same problem comes up with the two PPM's that stay in orbit... whoever manages to get both back within LKO before one or the other exits the SOI is a winner to me!

Can we maybe have this as 'bonus points'? After reading some of the meaterial you provided, I noted that the PPM's would be 'discarded' (Terrible waste of rocket parts/funds!), but would be much easier to recover them from Sun orbit when they pass back by Kerbin, probably half-way through the mission... or maybe some extra scoring system for our soutions to this problem?

Of course, those using KAC would be at an advantage here as they get the reminder to switch ships when they approch SOI change or a maneuver node, otherwise it would be very easy to miss the apropriate timings to do it...

I've decided to change the challenge to completing the mission with a single vessel to Duna orbit. Running two identical missions in parallel which require multiple deep space rendezvous and docking then returning to orbit around Kerbin is seems grindy and favors those using KAC. The vessel design requirements have not changed; only the requirement to complete the mission twice.

Regarding disposable PPMs, this challenge uses the variety which are remotely flown back into orbit where they started. From the source material,

"Two lateral PPM's. These were only partially fuelled*, enough for the necessary delta-V to set the spacecraft toward Mars on 12 November 1981. They then separated, and maneuvered back to rendezvous and docking with the earth orbit station. There they were refueled and reused for earth-moon shuttle service or a future Mars expedition."

* Reflected in challenge rule stating "The design of the Kerbin LKO departure 'booster' PPM can have a lower ÃŽâ€v than the PPM which travels with the PMM".

Edit: Oh that's odd spoilers severely crop the image so you are not seeing half of the module!

Thanks for the clarification. I suppose if the engineers ever do figure out the 12 into 6 thing, then my ships might not have to be so obscenely long

http://imgur.com/a/7RdtP

Looking great! Note the rule change below removing the requirement to fly the same mission twice. Of course, if you want to go ahead.. GOLD * STAR

---

Rule change

Removed requirement to fly duplicate missions as building and flying a single mission to Duna, Eve and back to Kerbin still captures the original von Braun mission plan. Having to fly the mission twice may favor those using mods and really doesn't demonstrate any more skill than doing it once.

The mission craft requirements have not changed; only the need to fly the mission twice. As noted above, the Kerbin-departure stage PPMs still need to return to LKO after pushing the PMM/MEM/EEM stage to Duna.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Death Engineering
grammar

[TopHatDragon]

Well I wish I had checked here before finally launching my ships, oh well.

Only visual enhancement mods used really:

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Cost of mission in LKO (lifters are "free") including all fuel, payload and crew Approximately 969,958 (Cost per ship without PPM(2): 420,257; Cost per PPM(4): 31,700; Refuel cost for PPM(2): ~1,322)

Propellant mass fraction as calculated by: Mass of Total Propellant Required / Mass of Both Vessels in LKO before Duna transfer burn Unsure of how exactly to calculate this

Mass per crew as calculated by: Mass of Both Vessels in LKO before Duna transfer burn / 6 (total crew) Average 34,635.58 per crew (Keimos: 34,741.66, Khobos 34,529.5)

(optional) Science points scored from Duna and Eve only 4434 (3735.7 recovered from KEM's, 698.3 transmitted from Eve)

Edited October 23, 2014 by TopHatDragon
adding part 3 + score

[Death Engineering]

Well I wish I had checked here before finally launching my ships, oh well.

Only visual enhancement mods used really:

http://i.imgur.com/vfyK6TS.png

http://imgur.com/a/3wBSK

http://imgur.com/a/E7Gl2

Wow what a fantastic mission.. thanks for sharing! Is there a part three as you swing past Eve and back home? If you're interested in joining the leaderboard, feel free to post your stats:

There are four leaderboards:

1. Cost of mission in LKO (lifters are "free") including all fuel, payload and crew
   
2. Propellant mass fraction as calculated by: Mass of Total Propellant Required / Mass of Both Vessels in LKO before Duna transfer burn
   
3. Mass per crew as calculated by: Mass of Both Vessels in LKO before Duna transfer burn / 6 (total crew)
   
4. (optional) Science points scored from Duna and Eve only
   

[TopHatDragon]

Yup, I'm finishing up part 3 now. Also for science, transmitted (from eve) counts right?

[NavalLacrosse]

Will attempt this given the coming weekend! Hopefully I'll get something in.

[Fox62]

I might try this just for ....s and giggles.

[Laie]

I'm not sure if I'm getting it...

Three propulsion units shove the mission out of Kerbin SOI; two of them return immediately after the transfer burn, the third stays with the mission.

No aerobraking at Duna.

After return, a dedicated re-entry vessel picks up the crew in LKO and takes them safely back to the ground.

The Duna mission consists of

• Six kerbals, with food and lodgings for twice as many
  
• a three-kerbal Duna lander
  
• two unmanned landers
  

I don't see how Eve enters into this. Am I supposed to return to Kerbin by way of Eve? Why?

[Death Engineering]

I'm not sure if I'm getting it...

Three propulsion units shove the mission out of Kerbin SOI; two of them return immediately after the transfer burn, the third stays with the mission.

No aerobraking at Duna.

After return, a dedicated re-entry vessel picks up the crew in LKO and takes them safely back to the ground.

The Duna mission consists of

• Six kerbals, with food and lodgings for twice as many
  
• a three-kerbal Duna lander
  
• two unmanned landers
  

I don't see how Eve enters into this. Am I supposed to return to Kerbin by way of Eve? Why?

The mission profile from the original design took two forms: one, as you describe, where the crew returns to LKO before making their descent home in the onboard EEM (module designed only to land back on the home planet). The other, also accepted in this challenge as it's a bit more forgiving, is where the crew return from their mission in a direct landing aboard the EEM while the PPM/PMM return to LKO uncrewed.

Regarding the Eve flyby, from the original mission profile:

"• 28 February 1983: Venus swingby. This reduces the velocity at the return to earth, and provided an additional science opportunity. Four probes were dropped into the atmosphere of Venus."

I hope that helps.. thanks for your interest.

[Death Engineering]

Yup, I'm finishing up part 3 now. Also for science, transmitted (from eve) counts right?

(Sorry.. I missed this earlier..)

Yep - all science points scored from Duna and Eve count.

[Death Engineering]

Rule clarification regarding Duna descent

• 
  
• All chutes on the MEM must be cut/jettisoned at 3km above Duna's surface during descent (hint: use IVA radar altitude)
  
• Powered descent only below 3km above Duna's surface
  

[Laie]

The mission profile from the original design took two forms: one, as you describe, where the crew returns to LKO before making their descent home in the onboard EEM (module designed only to land back on the home planet). The other, also accepted in this challenge as it's a bit more forgiving, is where the crew return from their mission in a direct landing aboard the EEM while the PPM/PMM return to LKO uncrewed.

Read up a bit: the original mission plan wanted to get the crew back home early, not wait for the next Mars->Earth transfer window. This required a high-dV transfer and accordingly a high-dV braking maneuver. A Venus fly-by would have helped with the latter (but not allowed for a landing, only a quick drop of some probes in passing).

[Death Engineering]

Death Engineering's "Das Dunaprojekt"

This is an all-stock parts submission to the challenge, but used a few graphic mods and my trusty friend Kerbal Alarm Clock. Mission hardware details and final scoring/science results to come in a later post.

Until then...

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[Death Engineering]

Death Engineering's "Das Dunaprojeckt" Conclusion

Mission Hardware:

Primary Propulsion Module (PPM-Main)

Primary Propulsion Modules (PPM-outboard)

Main Mission Assembly

• Primary Mission Module (PMM)
  
• Mars Excursion Module (MEM)
  
• Earth Entry Module (EEM)
  

The crew of 6 Kerbals returned to Kerbin after a long, long mission and claim the mission a success! There were some issues with the probes, fuel was very tight on the Kerbin-return leg and missed some science points. No matter! It was a fun mission to fly; even doing the orbital construction went better than I'd expected.

After departing Kerbin, the first task was to get the two outboard PPM boosters back into low Kerbin orbit. As soon as the Duna encounter was lined up, I undocked the boosters and began retro burns to get them out of an escape trajectory. Then it was just a matter of docking them together in high orbit and a long burn to pull them back into low orbit. The boosters were in a circular 140km orbit before the Main Mission Assembly made it out of Kerbin orbit, which I was surprised at.

Since I don't use any engineering assists and haven't used the NERVA in a long time, I didn't really know what to expect with the fuel requirements. Turns out I brought along way too much fuel in the outboard PPM's, which hurt the final score for the challenge. I probably should have tested it first.

A deep space course correction put the mission into a Duna encounter using Ike to assist with getting into Duna orbit. Without Ike, the mission might not have been successful! The final orbit after passing past Ike needed only a small burn at Ap to get the Pe to the 55km target, the altitude needed to allow the crew and sample return crafts to rendezvous. Luckily, things came together in time before Ike came back around and tossed everything into deep space.

While at Ap, it was time to shed some mass before burning to low Duna orbit. The landing crew and the two probes were dropped to different altitudes with the crew doing the highest pass through the atmosphere to burn off as much velocity as possible in the thin Duna air.

After nearly an entire orbit through Duna's atmosphere, a landing was finally ensured. As planned, the 'chutes were jettisoned at 3km above the surface and a powered descent to the surface went well. The chutes too so long to come down, the surface mission was well underway before they even touched down on the surface!

Unfortunately, one of the probes landed on a steep incline and was unrecoverable. The second probe landed successfully and was able to return to the PMM with its Goo samples. The landing crew also brought some goo, so there was some overlap. Rather foolishly missed out on *all* Duna aerodynamic science! However, the crew did return safely to the PMM with dirt and loads of other tasty science.

Dropped the required life-support mass and the Duna ascent stage to and immediately left Duna orbit and returned to a near-circular orbit around Kerbol, once again using Ike's gravity to pull the crew out of Duna orbit. The idea behind getting into Kerbol orbit ASAP was to get the craft into an orbit where I could fiddle with the Eve injection burn as I really hadn't planned any transits after the Duna landing.

It was about 30 days before the Eve burn, which brought the Pe fairly close to Eve, but not low enough to get any low-orbit science. That also means a very high orbit burn from the probes to get to an Eve landing trajectory, resulting in a very similar Eve landing time (and thus only able to "view" one of the probes as the other was swallowed by Eve at the same time). The Eve probe landed in the water, but that's OK - everything floats!

No burn was required by the crew while in Eve's SOI.. just a quick and quiet high pass, using Eve's gravity to pull the Kerbol Ap up to meet up with Kerbin's orbit. And then... the waiting began. The crew orbited around Kerbol 12 times before Kerbin was close enough to get to. Really appreciated KSP's ability to plan nodes multiple orbits in advance!

While still outside Kerbin's SOI, the crew separated from the PMM in the EEM and adjusted their trajectory to a Kerbin aerocapture, making sure it would take at least one orbit to slow down enough to land. While the crew watched their home getting bigger in the window, it was time to set the main PPM to return to Kerbin orbit.

Luckily the mission requirements did not specify that the PMM had to come back with the PPM, as there was just not enough ÃŽâ€v left in the main PPM to slow it and the lightened PMM into low Kerbin orbit. While the PPM burned to a highly elliptical orbit around Kerbin, the PMM was tossed into deep space..

After just one dip into the atmosphere and back out again, the crew was slow enough to commit to their landing! Unfortunately, it was a night landing and since I couldn't do anything about it, there wasn't much of a photo-op once the crew landed. However, post-mission landing pics from the Space Center show the three amigos and their three buddies grinning madly after their extended mission.

Mission Album

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Final scoring:

Costs - Total: 361,979

Main Mission Assembly: 237,170

PPM Main: 54,095

PPM Outboard (total of both): 35,357

Propellant Mass Fraction - 85.6/183.17 = 0.467

Propellant Mass (fuel + oxidizer):

Main Mission Assembly: 13.6t

PPM Main: 36t

PPM Outboard (total of both): 36t

Total: 85.6t

Vehicle Mass:

Main Mission Assembly: 70.19t

PPM Main: 60.58t

PPM Outboard (total of both): 52.4t

Total: 183.17

Mass per crew as calculated by mass of both vessels in LKO before Duna transfer burn: 183.17 / 6 (total crew) = 30.53

Science points scored from Duna and Eve only: 2208.6

Overall, the mission was a success however the score could have been a lot better if I'd spent more time sorting out how much fuel was needed in the two outbound PPMs. Since only one of each probe was a success and all atmospheric science was missed, there's lots more science to be had as well.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Death Engineering
added 1 pic

[Speeding Mullet]

I think this challenge thoroughly deserves a bump back up into prime viewing territory, and I'm doing it for a good reason. I entered the challenge in October last year. this is my story.....

So I was in the middle of the Dunaprojekt challenge around November last year. I had everything nailed. The design and testing phase had taken over 4 weeks and the level of detail in the craft was extraordinary. Parachutes were individually tailored dependent on payload to surface, rocket fuel exactly calculated, and staging planned perfectly for each portion of the mission. Even the probes were configured with full EDL packages tailored to their approach. I had flight tested, ground tested, and retested everything to ensure no problems. Maximum bragging rights were lined up.

Finally 3 beautifully designed rockets lifted off and joined in an orbital ballet to make the huge (no seriously) ship that would travel to Duna. Everything went beautifully as expected and mission was nominal on arrival in Duna orbit.

With an expectant grin on his face Dudvan (that really should have been a clue thinking back) fired the multi-joint fairing and floated over to oversee the release of the probes.

Check out the short gallery of a few interesting pictures of the mission detail. For scale the Nuke engines are the Big ones!!:

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annnnnnnnd then my (heavily modded) game broke, along with my spirit and will to play the game for quite some time. All of the docking ports stuck on with no amount of fiddling in game or with code able to fix and effectively ended the mission. I stopped playing really until 0.90 was a few weeks in and am now back in the game (whoop) with my own rocket company and enjoying KSP again!

I'm going to re-enter this brilliant challenge shortly, but I thought the above might serve as some more inspiration and information for other people entering this re-found challenge.

SM

[Death Engineering]

[NECROMANCER ALERT..]

Found the T.R.A.I.L.S. Plus Gemini part pack and felt like this challenge needed a revisit using the Big G configuration of the Gemini parts. Also used this opportunity to clean up some of the wording in the challenge OP and added a note that "World's First" science points for Duna and Eve count in the score, where applicable. However, any "World's First" points scored for anything other than Duna and Eve do not count.

On to the mission...

In this attempt, there were only two launches instead of the four used on the previous attempt. Spent a little more time on the propulsion stages to avoid bringing way too much fuel on the Kerbin departure PPMs like last time and developed a lighter more efficient MEM.

The Duna landing and return to orbit went well but once again lost one of the Duna sample return probes. Turns out the fuel margin for the probe was tighter than I thought making return to orbit from 774m impossible, but wow Duna looked amazing in the Western Canyon bottom with the latest SVE and SVT installed!

Found a reasonably optimal window to transition from Duna > Eve > Kerbin by leaving Kerbin on Year 12, Day 69. This gave the crew about a year and a half at Duna before leaving for Eve. Total delta vee from Duna to Kerbin encounter was about 1200 m/s, and used Eve to help lower the Ap and re-enter Kerbin orbit.

Was able to get a little bit of Eve science but lost both probes due to a design oversight. Okay, I was lazy and reused the probes from my first attempt at this challenge - turns out the reaction wheels were removed from the OKTO2. Did you know that? I did not know that so the Eve probes were a lot more like pinwheels in space when the engines lit up. 

Total mission time was 3 years, 164 days. There is still more science points to be had on this challenge and I'm sure someone could lighten things up to improve the mass fractions/fuel needs. However, I'll probably not submit a third entry to a challenge no one else has completed (however I've read some good attempts on this thread..).

Scoring

(1) Total Mission Cost: 204,907

Total Mass: 97.661

Fuel Mass: 43.367

(2) Propellant Mass Fraction: 0.444

(3) Mass per crew: 16.277

(4) Science: 2668.4

 

The pics or it didn't happen album

 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Death Engineering
add annotated pic

[Servo]

This challenge looks like something that would be right up my alley, mission recreations all. I may take the time to do this one soon

[Thor Wotansen]

I saw this challenge and got inspired to build this.  I'm not sure if I could run the challenge with it, seeing as I play KSP on a potato, but I can at least dream, right?

Edited January 12, 2017 by Thor Wotansen

[Death Engineering]

29 minutes ago, Thor Wotansen said:

 

I saw this challenge and got inspired to build this.

 

So awesome!  I want to fly it!

[Thor Wotansen]

56 minutes ago, Death Engineering said:

So awesome!  I want to fly it!

Very well, I shall upload it to KerbalX shortly.  I haven't made any launchers because my Pteradactyl Mk2 SSTO can handle all the bits.  I also neglected to add the Kerbin return capsules and probes, I will remedy this before I upload.

EDIT:

Added probes and Kerbin Return Vehicles.  I have not put any science equipment on the lander except for 2 science Jrs.  There is also space for a small rover in the service bay on the lander.  The huge solar panels will have to be stowed for launch and will require an orbital tug to put in place (not included).  None of the modules except the PPMs and the probes (duh) have probe cores or RCS so you will definitely need a good orbital tug to assemble the thing.  KerbalX link here.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Thor Wotansen

[Thor Wotansen]

Cheated into orbit for testing purposes.

[ottothesilent]

I love to see another Death Engineering challenge revived. Yours are some of the best I've ever seen, and are definitely really immersive. I may give this one a try!

[michal.don]

Wow, this looks great! I'll probably have a go at it in a few weeks, now I'm properly devoured by my Realism Overhaul carreer. It's great to see an original and this difficult challenge here.

Michal.don

[michal.don]

Well, instead of a few weeks, it took me two days

 

Stats of the mission:

Cost in LKO: 242 969 funds

Mass in LKO: 180.155 tonnes

Mass without PPMs propellant: 91,550 tonnes

Dry mass: 78,745 tonnes

Propellant fraction: 0.563

 

Further specifications (for my own RP reasons)

The DEM and the sample return probes must be single stage vehicles, they are to be left in LDO to be reused by the next missions.

The vessel must have communications powerful enough to stay in touch with Kerbin through the whole mission

There must be more crew capacity than strictly needed, I don't want my astronauts to suffer in one seat for three years

 

 

Mods used

KJR, KER, Better Burn Time

Procedural tanks and fairings

SpaceY (for the lifters)

The MK2 to MK3 pod - I can't recall the mod

The 2,5 m NERVA engine (same ISP, mass and TWR as 4 NERVAs, advantages of gimbal and looking awesome)

 

Mods installed and not used

Probably too much. I tried to use as few modded parts as possible, with the exception of these stated above.

 

All the important stuff is documented in an imgur album:

http://imgur.com/a/MVJFW

 

I hope I've done and documented everything properly, if there are any issues or unclear parts, I'll try to explain.

Thanks for the challenge, I've had a great time designing and flying this mission (though i could do a lot better, all the propulsin modules had lots of fuel left after parking in LKO).

And is there possibly a badge for this mission? I love nice badges for my signature

Thanks,

Michal.don

[Death Engineering]

9 hours ago, michal.don said:

Stats of the mission:

Cost in LKO: 242 969 funds

Mass in LKO: 180.155 tonnes

Mass without PPMs propellant: 91,550 tonnes

Dry mass: 78,745 tonnes

Propellant fraction: 0.563

Hey great mission and really enjoyed the pics! Thanks for the submission.. leaderboard updated!

[Ourworldalpha1]

If you let Me Use Tweakscale+SMURFF

I Will Do this Challenge in HalfRSS-Stock scales X5 to Smooth over the fact i am using Mods

Example-

Stock Kerbin-2400 m/s

5X HalfRSS Kerbin orbital Velocity-6500 m/s(this is going to be Fun LOL

 

Instead of going Mentaly Nuts in 5X of the bat

I will do Three Missions

1: Stock with SMURFF-FAR-DR(Easy Mode)(To see if i have the patience to do this at all) i picked this one

2:Stock with-FAR-DR(Normal Mode)

3:5X Scale Kerbin(Final Mission)

Jeb picked that one /\

                                 I

 

I can do a lightly Modded mission Replica

P.S can i use Tweakscale because i am stating that this will be modded

P.P.S I have made some cool in game RL replica Spacecraft-Rockets(LADEE-Minatour V was a pain in the A**) if you want pics msg me