Any chance of avoiding a rescue mission?!

[Project Pluto]

Jeb's gone done it again.

Any advice on how to right this mess without a huge explosion would be awesome!

Edited November 14, 2014 by Project Pluto

[Vaporo]

Short answer: you need a rescue mission.

Long answer: I think that you may have enough to get off of Duna if you pump all the fuel into the side tanks. If you can time the decoupling of those two stages that are on the ground properly, you might get yourself facing upward enough to not collide with the ground.. Or perhaps you could shut off the uppermost two stages, throttle up, allow the stage on the ground to explode, then decouple the top tanks when your rocket is facing upward. There's two or three different ways that you might be able to save it. Remember to quicksave before trying anything like this, though. Still, you probably won't have enough fuel to return to Kerbin afterwards (unless you have some kind of orbiter).

Remember to get all the science you can, though. Duna has low enough gravity to jetpack, so you can get back into the command pod if you get out.

Also, the staging on you ship is quite inefficient. The most efficient way to stage the ship would be to have the side tanks pumping fuel into the adjacent tank, then decouple the outer tanks two at a time.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Vaporo

[Alshain]

I dunno, if you can pump all the fuel into the top two tanks and raise/lower the gear while using SAS in the right direction, given Duna's gravity and the fact your on a hill facing just the right direction, it might just tip over.

What's the worst that can happen?

Edited November 14, 2014 by Alshain

[TechnicalK3rbal]

What you can probably do is (first quicksave of course, and quickload if it fails.)

1. Turn the thrust limiter off (to zero) of all but the bottom two engines, turn on SAS, and you might be able to get it vertical.

2. Transfer all of the fuel into the center tank, so you have the least weight (assuming it has a TWR of greater that 1, else you can use the two adjacent as well.)

3. Start the center/adjacent engines (the ones with fuel from the last step) and eject the empty tanks. Get it onto a suborbital trajectory going east (Just like kerbin). Your apoapsis only needs to be about ~45 km to be out of the atmosphere, so get it to roughly that height. If you still have fuel, circularize with that. If not, use your EVA pack to circularize your orbit. You'll still need to send a rescue mission, but it's much easier to rendezvous in space than do a targeted landing on a planet/moon with an atmosphere.

[bakanando]

Do you have RCS? It doesn't look like it...

You could try launching just like that, but retract the panels first. The rocket will slide for a while but thanks to Duna's low gravity it might take off before something breaks. Just retract the landing gear first and use push try to get lifted as quick as possible with SAS (as you are facing down, you should push 'w' to lift the ship).

There's a second idea I have, but I don't know if it works. Turn off the top two engines and retract the landing legs. Then start engines and try to lift the ship upwards (again, w). This will rotate your ship up. As soon as you get close to vertical shut down the engines, reactivate the two engines, lower the landing gear, and attempt landing again. Try to remove as much horizontal speed as you can before landing again. If possible try to land further up so you don't need to waste more fuel to return to that height (and you'll need to brake less).

[michaelhester07]

Possible, but I think a rescue mission would be more fun.

[RizzoTheRat]

On that much of a slop if you retract the lower landing gear and move as much fuel as possible from the bottom tanks to the top ones, a bit of thrust from the bottom engines might be enough to flip you back up.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

You have a hill. and half a G. You can try.

Retract the solar panels and landing gear.

Roll around until your nose is uphill and up is up.

Now rock up and dow on the SAS and at the apex of one rock, punch the landing gear.

maybe MAYBE you can get her upright,

[GoSlash27]

I concur with the others here. If you transfer the fuel to the high tanks, retract the low landing gear, and screw around with it, you *might* be able to get it vertical again.

Sending Jeb EVA to push is a little risky, but you'd be amazed what kerbals can do. Just be ready to transfer control back to the ship quick!

Good luck,

-Slashy

[DerekL1963]

All the solutions for get her upright are missing the elephant in the room... on that slope, she's gonna flip right back over. You need a solution to "get her upright and the heck off the surface in one move".

[Project Pluto]

thanks folks!

I had success (well, after many attempts). turned off upper engines, hit throttle, nosed up, decoupled and got everything into orbit (and even back to Kerbin). Problems was, I forgot that my quicksave was BEFORE I got surface samples and planted a flag (had a contract for a flag on Duna). Oh well, partial success! Thanks for the advice.