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

[Death Engineering]

Dusting off from Duna and exiting for Eve..

Well, so far so good. Of my attempts at this mission, this one is coming off with the best success!  Not only did the crew land safely and return to the Dunaprojekt 1 in orbit, but both surface return probes made it down and back to the orbiter. This mission was timed based on the successful encounter from a previous attempt at the Duna > Eve > Kerbin trip, so as soon as the crew got back on board and, ditched their DAV, and pressed on to Eve. 

With any luck, Eve will lower the Ap of the mission before returning to Kerbin for a safe landing. The last critical part to make this my most successful attempt at this mission will be the Eve probes. I've not had much luck with the Eve probes on previous attempts, so this will be tricky.. especially with how fast they going to be moving as they approach Eve. No second chances..

 

  

Surface return probe landing and return to orbit

 

Crew returning to orbit

 

Crew back on board, the mission departs Duna for Eve

Edited April 25, 2020 by Death Engineering

[Speeding Mullet]

On 12/6/2019 at 2:58 AM, Death Engineering said:

BTW.. which version of KSP was this completed in?

It was completed in 1.7.0   Sorry for the massive delay.  I've had a huge amount on with my RL including a large new job, and diagnoses of MS which has taken a lot to process and come to terms with.  I'll try and find time to do another large mission soon I think.  Stay safe!

SM

[Death Engineering]

13 hours ago, Speeding Mullet said:

Stay safe!

SM

You also!

Lots of changes there for you, hope all is going well. RL-ing can easily leave little time for KSP-ing. 

[sturmhauke]

@Speeding Mullet wow, I'm sorry to hear that. Take care of yourself.

[Death Engineering]

Eve flyby and crew recovery

After dropping a few probes into Eve's aerosoup, the crew got a look at Eve from 106km.  Too bad that I left this save in the default folder, as some mods broke (ie Scatterer) when KSP auto-updated., or Eve might not have looked so odd.

 

Probe falling through the Purple Haze

Once within Kerbin's SOI, the crew moved over to the EEM and departed their PMM. The PMM was discarded, but the main propulsion module was returned to LKO and could be reused, but came in on a very steep inclination so probably easier just to fly another one if I want to repeat the mission (not..).

 

Scoring

Total Cost: 430,239

Mass in LKO: 116.271

Dry mass: 67.251

Mass / Crew: 19.3785

Propellant Mass Fraction: 0.4216

Can it be my third time playing through this challenge? However, this was the first time I finally hit all the mission objectives (darn those Eve probes!).

This time, the cost was quite high as the effort to make the ship resemble its 'real-life' counterpart added plenty of parts. Optimizing the dV needs kept the propellant mass fraction reasonable but didn't attempt the SCIENCE points.  Maybe this will get a revisit when KSP2 comes out..

[borisperrons]

So, I have a small question.

I'm planning on doing his challenge (actually I'm already flying it, but I'm stranded at duna for reasons that will become apparent later).

I have tried using the flyby finder, but it's a royal pain to properly set up the maneuver node in game, or even understanding what the numbers are trying to tell me.
Is there any magical tool that sets up maneiver and all for me, avoiding me a mental breakdown? Thank in advance for all the help!

Since we are already here, have a sneak peek at my juggernaut of the skies:

[sturmhauke]

Some people use MechJeb for that and more. I use Transfer Window Planner + Kerbal Alarm Clock + Precise Maneuver for maneuvers, and Kerbal Engineer Redux for data readouts. I admit that I've never actually used MechJeb, largely because it tends to be disallowed from challenges and I do a lot of those.

[borisperrons]

Thanks! Managed it, but now my kerbals have clocked around 4 years rolling their thumbs in space. Soon on your screen, my Dunaprojekt!

[borisperrons]

And as promised, here's my take on the Dunaproject!
I tried to design the craft to look the most historically accurate as possible, with the notable exception of the EEV. I'm especially very happy how the MEM turned out!

The flyby was very difficult to nail (I've actally ended up just using Eve to brake to Kerbin's altitude and just wait for the next encounter), end some components were overengineered, like the side PPMs or the totally unnecessary droptanks on the MEM, but still, I'm very happy how it all did end up looking in the end.

Without further ado, here's the mission album:
https://imgur.com/a/htfFotf

 

The scores are as follow:

Total Cost: 306,188

Mass in LKO: 223.351 tons

Dry mass: 125.201 tons

Mass / Crew: 37.225 tons

Propellant Mass Fraction: 0.439

Edited August 1, 2020 by borisperrons

[Death Engineering]

On 7/16/2020 at 4:18 PM, borisperrons said:

And as promised, here's my take on the Dunaproject!

Well done!  This mission has so many steps, requirements and places where things can go wrong, but looks like a perfect execution.  

The MEM looked great. I've found that tweaking the legs' spring rates/damper rates can make landings easier. So, it looks like you entered the atmosphere at interplanetary speeds with a aero-craft and not ballistic but you didn't blow up.  Why didn't you blow up?  I can't build a plane that comes back from Mun without turning into high-altitude firework shows.

LMK when you've got your scoring together for the OP!  

[borisperrons]

20 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

Well done!  This mission has so many steps, requirements and places where things can go wrong, but looks like a perfect execution.  

Now now, I think that perfect execution is a bit exaggerated... It's just that I like to play it safe, and I haven't pictured the tens of test flights of the hardware. It would make a nice bloopers reel, tho, with explosions 'n' stuff. 

20 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

The MEM looked great.

Thank you! Have I said that I'm really proud of it? because I am really proud of it u.u

20 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

Why didn't you blow up?  I can't build a plane that comes back from Mun without turning into high-altitude firework shows.

I gave it lots of pitch authority, other than the ludicrous amount od RCS ports I've used, center of lift and center of mass are very close together, so it doesn't want to nose dive into the atmosphere. Then, I've aimed at a 35-ish km periapsis, and kept it at between 30° and 50° pitch angle to bleed speed while at the same time remaining in the upper atmosphere, thanks to the lift generated.  This way it bleeds speed at a reasonable rate, with enough time to shed the reentry heat without fireworks.
Also, using a lifting body reentry vehicle will avoid to squish the poor kerbals with a 15+ G reentry. After all they've spent several years in 0 G, it wouldn't be nice for their poor, poor bones...
Were I more confident in my piloting skills I would have pulled some fancy looking S-turns, and, well, landed horizontally on solid ground. But eh, one step at a time.
Then again, it likes to enter flat spins which are not that bad, or to go in uncontrollably back end first, without slowing down enought for the chutes to open, which is very bad.

20 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

LMK when you've got your scoring together for the OP!  

Of course, as soon I've recovered from the battle to upload the photos to Imgur, I will do the maths and post it!

[borisperrons]

Added scores for OP to my mission.

[Death Engineering]

On 7/16/2020 at 4:18 PM, borisperrons said:

The scores are as follow:

Your mission was great to follow in the imgur album!  

A pleasure to update this OP's leaderboard.     This isn't really a challenge about the score, though, is it? The score is there just as a documentation of completion, but I think this is really more a challenge for people who like to build and paint models. (or was that just me? haha)

Great mission, and I'm sure it doesn't matter but what was the KSP version...?   

[borisperrons]

Indeed it is! Frankly I see the score just as a way for you to know how efficient were you in your mission design, the important is to make something functional and sezy to look at u.u

 

This was done in 1.10, now I'll go back to 1.9 for a nice modded run. I have my sights set on another goal...