Contract: Build a station to land on the surface of Duna

[Kelderek]

I found this wonderful contract to build a large station to land on the surface of Duna. It was a pretty simple station as far as the requirements go, the main challenge is you had to have space for 19 (!!!) Kerbals and it needed a processing lab -- I used 1x Mk1 landing can, 1x processing lab, and 4x hitchhiker storage.

So I built this large station so that I could fly it unmanned, sent it all the way to Duna (it cost somewhere around 200-250k funds). After I start my descent toward the surface from low orbit I realize that my transfer stage engines will not be enough to slow me down in the thin atmosphere, so I hope that my parachutes are good enough to finish the job -- but they aren't -- my station needed a couple more chutes at least.

I had to reload from my quicksave a few times trying different descent tactics. The most useful change was to manually adjust the parachute deployment altitude for all of my parachutes to the maximum of 5000m. But even with this change, they still only slowed down my station to about 23m/s which made for a very loud bang upon landing. After the dust settled, I see the contract icon in the upper right of my screen flashing green with a (1) showing a mission success. Apparently enough of the station was still intact to get credit for the contract. I think the landing struts were the only parts to break.

The mission had a payout of 1,200,000 funds -- well worth the adventure and challenge! These new contracts are a nice change and certainly make upgrading the KSC a lot easier.

[2001kraft]

Good job actually, when I attempted my base I made it completely differently. I used the old Mk3 parts and other stuff, and it turned out to be pretty neat and Fine Print decided that I did a good job, with all my hard work and all that. Just a tip for next time, I suggest assembling the station @Duna, and not in Kerbin/Duna/VAB/SPH(?!!!). It is much easier to dock all the parts on the spot. Just make sure the docking ports and wheel height are all matching up. Other than that, noice. Also, can give a pic of the station? XD

[Sampa]

Good job actually, when I attempted my base I made it completely differently. I used the old Mk3 parts and other stuff, and it turned out to be pretty neat and Fine Print decided that I did a good job, with all my hard work and all that. Just a tip for next time, I suggest assembling the station @Duna, and not in Kerbin/Duna/VAB/SPH(?!!!). It is much easier to dock all the parts on the spot. Just make sure the docking ports and wheel height are all matching up. Other than that, noice. Also, can give a pic of the station? XD

yeah...or at least what's left of it?

[Kelderek]

Both imgur and steam are not working for me to upload and link images, so I had to use another site.

I noticed that the radial attachment point has moved on the [crashed] station, so I guess that is another area that broke other than the landing struts.

I also got some science from a new biome with this trip (though not much since I had no Kerbals there).

Here you go:

[2001kraft]

The station indeed looks nice. Gr8 job.