How do you get your Kerbals to Duna?

[SpaceLaunchSystem]

I'm a relatively new player to KSP, and i'm planing my first mission to duna (and back; I don't want to strand them) My duna mission will involve a multi launch, assembled in orbit, Copernicus-style Duna Transfer Vehicle. But, a thought occurred to me: Is it all necessary? Can I get to duna in one launch? Can a space station-like mess of a Duna Transfer Vehicle be avoided? I know some people view Kerbals as highly disposable, but not me. I want to bring my Kerbals to Duna and back.

[r4pt0r]

my first duna manned lander was a 1 kerbal capsule, a nerva engine, the small 180 fuel tank, and 2 of the small solid boosters to launch me back off the surface. you can land with parachutes and very very little engine with that layout.

[SpaceLaunchSystem]

my first duna manned lander was a 1 kerbal capsule, a nerva engine, the small 180 fuel tank, and 2 of the small solid boosters to launch me back off the surface. you can land with parachutes and very very little engine with that layout.

and can you get back?

[caba111]

Nope. The delta v requirements to get to Duna are not much greater than the Mun. You should be able to assemble something that can get there in one launch.

[r4pt0r]

sorry if that was unclear, that was what i landed on duna. there was the whole launcher and everything else to get there before that. it was all one launch though. I'm just giving a recipe that i know will get them home once they are there.

[Specialist290]

Just dropping a line in here to let you know this sort of thing technically belongs in Gameplay Questions, so I've moved it in there

[Xavven]

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If it's a "flags and footprints" mission (i.e. plant a flag, get a soil sample, and return without extensive exploring) then it's relatively easy to do with a single launch. If you plan on bringing more mission equipment with you, like a base, a hopper, a rover, etc. then you might need more.

[Dragon7722]

I just finished a mission to Duna. Landed on it, took off and landed again on Ike and returned home safely with about 3000 delta-v left.

I've basically stacked a few small fuel tanks together, seperated them with decouplers and connected them via fuel-crossfeed to 2x nuclear engines. Keeps the TWR high and the weight low.

Just as some inspiration:

In orbit, still with transfer-stage attached

Landed with ditched empty fuel tank

Edited December 2, 2014 by Dragon7722

[Zylark]

No need to go big if all you want is to get to Duna and back again.

Of course, this use quite a bit of mods. Some stuff that helps on the mass/dV budget like Science Gear stowed in Universal Storage wedges and the bimodal nuclear engines that are slightly more efficient than stock LV-N, yet give considerably more thrust. Nearly double actually at 110kN. Other stuff add to the mass/dV budget, like Life-Support and D-Magic science gear. But either way, if you got some 4500-5000dV with your ship when doing the burn to Duna from LKO, you're good to go.

Now, I'll grant I did not launch that in one go, though that is perfectly doable, as I think both lander and mothership together and fully fueled comes in somewhere in the 60-70Ton range. The 'mothership' was already in service - it's one of two identical and very useful multipurpose vessels I got that around Kerbin functions as crew transport, tug, fuel transfer and with a science payload slung underneath have even collected plenty of Science on Mun and Minmus.

If I'd made something special purpose for going to Duna and back with a lander attached, it would be quite a bit smaller and efficient. I wanted to save some funds however, as this is from my current career play. Why build something new when I already had something zipping around that was well up to the task? After arriving at Duna, establishing a nice orbit of 100km and detaching the lander, there is some 2500dV left in it for the return trip - which is plenty.

The lander at least was purpose built for going to Duna. It got a mass of less than 6 Tons when fully fueled, have some 300 days of life-support should something go wrong and is bursting with science gear. Much of the weight is actually from parachutes, as it got 1 Drogue, 3 XL and 2 Radial if I remember correctly. Fully fueled it got about 2100dV in atmo, 2500dV in vacuum. That will do nicely for going down and getting back up again, with a bit left over to meet up with the mothership and dock there to transfer the Kerbal and all the science. No need to return the lander back to Kerbin, would be a waste of fuel. Besides, it'll probably come in handy where it is a bit later.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Zylark

[I_Killed_Jeb]

I'm a relatively new player to KSP, and i'm planing my first mission to duna (and back; I don't want to strand them) My duna mission will involve a multi launch, assembled in orbit, Copernicus-style Duna Transfer Vehicle. But, a thought occurred to me: Is it all necessary? Can I get to duna in one launch? Can a space station-like mess of a Duna Transfer Vehicle be avoided? I know some people view Kerbals as highly disposable, but not me. I want to bring my Kerbals to Duna and back.

not only can you get to duna in one launch, you can even do it in an ssto!

[Superfluous J]

I would recommend either doing it "apollo style" and taking a lander AND return vehicle there, or remember to repack your chutes before you get back to Kerbin so you can use them again.

If you go the Apollo router, land with the lander, come back up to get your guy into the return vehicle, and then leave the lander in orbit while you come home with the return vehicle. Don't even need to dock, just get close and EVA over.

But other than that I agree with everybody else. A Duna mission isn't that much more dV than a Mun mission, mostly because you don't have to spend fuel on the way down thanks to parachutes.

[Landge]

I'm in the middle of a Duna mission myself. Even though I could send a single ship there and back. I decided to RP this time and also send a habitat for the crew to live during their stay with plenty of fuel to make several trips back into orbit, refuel and land elsewhere on Duna or Ike. Insert shameless plug here.

If you want to send probe satellites with landers or rovers for starters to give you a sense of how you might tackle the mission. Or just cut right to the quick with manned test flights to Mun and landing back on Kerbin. Whichever way you decide to attempt a Duna mission. There's nothing quite like your first landing on your first planet outside Kerbin.

[UmbralRaptor]

A reasonably efficient Duna mission only runs ~8 km/s. This means that if you have a Mun capable craft with much in the way of ÃŽâ€V and TWR margin (quite possible, especially with asparagus staged launchers and Toyota Corolla type landers), you already have a Duna capable one. And if you have a Mun capable craft without much margin, getting it to Duna might be as simple as strapping on a few boosters.

[tsotha]

Duna is not that much harder to get to than the mun. Your lander has to be slightly better than a mun lander, but not much. You'll need more juice to get back into orbit, but you can parachute down.

If you wait until the right launch window you can do it all in one shot without any fancy (nuclear or ion) engines. If you give your lander a little bit of extra dV you can easily use it to return to Kerbin. Don't forget to repack your chutes.

Edited December 2, 2014 by tsotha

[Scarecrow88]

My last trip to Duna used a ship I originally designed to go to the Mun. The only change I made was to add some chutes to the lander.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Scarecrow88

[Rusty6899]

Getting to Duna and back in one launch isn't too taxing, but you'll need to know the Delta-V of your ship, so either get a spreadsheet out or use a mod. You could make a detachable lander, but realistically it doesn't take too much delta-V to get from Duna orbit to Kerbin, so you can probably just do it in one. To do this successfully it's also worth mentioning that you'll probably need to aerobrake. It'd be difficult to have enough delta-V if you need to perform capture burns around Kerbin and Duna without refuelling.

[technion]

I highly recommend a lightweight lander. My current standard involves an FL-T200 under a lander can, with three more radially attached, with decouplers and fuel lines and those tiny 47-8S engines.

A parachute on each of these is enough to manage the landing, and there's more than enough dv to deorbit, reorbit and rendezvous. A command module with a nuke and one grey tank is plenty to get home.

[capi3101]

I'm a relatively new player to KSP, and i'm planing my first mission to duna (and back; I don't want to strand them) My duna mission will involve a multi launch, assembled in orbit, Copernicus-style Duna Transfer Vehicle. But, a thought occurred to me: Is it all necessary? Can I get to duna in one launch? Can a space station-like mess of a Duna Transfer Vehicle be avoided? I know some people view Kerbals as highly disposable, but not me. I want to bring my Kerbals to Duna and back.

I've done it both ways my own self. Really, it's a matter of how much you want to bring with you.

I don't have a screenie of a single mission launch, apparently...that one definitely was not single mission...

As others have mentioned ad naseum at this point, a round trip Duna mission doesn't cost much more delta-V than a Mun mission, so it can be done all in one. I would caution, however, that if you're not sure of your piloting skills you should pack a bit more in terms of delta-V than what the numbers say you'll need; a 25% delta-V "reserve" should be sufficient. The numbers also assume you'll be aerobraking at Duna and again at Kerbin, and that you'll be using the optimal transfer windows.

[SRV Ron]

If you plan a direct transfer, no parking in a solar orbit before doing the Duna transfer, it takes little more then a trip to Mun and back. Do an aerobraking to enter Duna orbit at little additional fuel cost. Pick a landing zone in a valley to give your parachute more atmosphere to brake with, short use of the engines at the last minute to reach a safe landing speed, repack the chute, lift off into orbit, and wait for the direct transfer window back to Kerbal aerobraking to land.

[Landge]

I don't know if this was mentioned but you will need to assign "Deploy Chutes" to an action key in the VAB. Spacebar to stage chutes only works the first time. After repacking chutes you can't redeploy them by staging.

[DrD]

I don't know if this was mentioned but you will need to assign "Deploy Chutes" to an action key in the VAB. Spacebar to stage chutes only works the first time. After repacking chutes you can't redeploy them by staging.

Now that is good to know. Hasn't come up yet but boy would I be mad if that's how my first interplanetary mission ended!

[EdFred]

You can always right click a chute and redeploy it after it's been repacked, which is what I do when I use them more than once.

[Landge]

You can always right click a chute and redeploy it after it's been repacked, which is what I do when I use them more than once.

That's fine if you only have one chute. But it can turn into a panic click fest when there are several. Not that it has ever happened to me

[tsotha]

That's fine if you only have one chute. But it can turn into a panic click fest when there are several. Not that it has ever happened to me

You can "deploy" them before you even enter the atmosphere, so you have, like, a year to do it as you come back from Duna. In stock, anyway.