Duna Express

[whiterafter]

So, President Kerman made a vow to go to Duna at the next launch window. It had been about 2 years since I made my last trip to Duna in a different save, and I ran a tiny bit short on Delta V. In my new save I had more advanced rockets and I was prepared for space.

Using the Jedsey A1 rocket used for the BOPlus lander mission, Laythe Explorer, and I believe a failed Duna ion-powered probe, I created a lander. Last time I had copied Scott Manley's design, but when I made it on my own it came out close to him, so I feel justified using it now.

Jedsey A1 rocket carrying Laythe Explorer (not Duna Express)

Made it into orbit successfully but Mainsail Alpha was not enough to make it to Duna. I was forced to use my two Nukes for about 300 m/s of the burn, but I had a hefty about of Delta V left over so it was not an issue.

The burn was about 1060 m/s from LKO to a Duna encounter, which was fine by me.

It's Duna!

I had a highly inclined orbit but by luck I was projected to land half a degree north of the equator, which was relieving.

I had a very steep re-entry. The parachutes slowed me down to 15 m/s but I still had to burn a bit at the end. It was an incredible lightshow. I love the MK2 lander can and I tried to watch as most of the mission as possible from there.

I attempted to seperate the Dunbuggies I brought along for some minor exploration from the rocket. Dunbuggy 1 decoupled but refused to move upwards and was a bit part clipped into the lander can, so it was 100% stuck. I was depressed but decided to try Dunbuggy 2, which for some reason worked perfectly fine and flew right off the rocket to a nice safe landing, and was promptly renamed Dunbuggy 1.

Sheluki and Samley Kerman were supposed to be the kerbonauts headed to Duna, but at the last minute they were "determined to have been running a drug smuggling ring at KSC and arrested by the NSA" (or maybe there was a VAB error when I set to launch, you might never know...)

Either way they were replaced by Bill and Jeb Kerman.. I never liked Jeb for some reason, so I let Bill plant the flag, then Jeb came down and planted one next to it. There are no pictures because I forgot to screenshot.

Although I did despise Jeb, I allowed him to drive the rover because I figured he would have more fun with it. However, I accidentally had mounted his chair sideways so he probably did not enjoy the ride.

Duna Express had landed in a very nice and scenic area. There was an eroded and old crater (more like a valley now) just south of the main river-like canyons. There was a giant mountain to the south I christened K3, it was supposedly 6KM tall but it was unvisible due to smaller mountains (like Mount TC) blocking the horizon. To the north was the main canyons but it was all blocked off to me from view from a giant plateau called Everest Plain, a rocky plains I named Nuida, and a small but horizon-blocking ridge I called Jedsey Ridge. (Jedsey was first man on Gilly, returned with 1.78 unis of fuel, 100% man power).

The rover scenery picture is of the rover facing towards the Jedsey Ridge across Montana Valley. I only drove the rover to the edge of Montana Valley because I wasn't sure the rover could go back up. Anywhere interesting on the other side was too far away.

Ike was *precisely* above the landing platform, which was interesting. I will be able to perform more observations with Ike in this position later. It was so close to being straight above it acted strange sometimes and would fade in and out of view.

I took off a year and a half later and slowly but surely got into an orbit. I spent most of my time observing from the LanderCan. By the time I was in orbit I had about 1,000 m/s. I was uncomfortable about this giving that I expected almost a 2 KM/s surplus, but it was quite enough to meet the 680 m/s I needed for Kerbin return.

280 days after departing Duna I was back at Kerbin's SoI and performed a tiny burn to adjust landing predictor to say I would land on the land.

Zoom!

Successful touchdown -- 1130 days later!

384 Science! Would've been more but I've already used some Duna science. It's pointless anyway, I paid for my science using the cash-to-science strategy (I regret this in retrospect, it was really easy )

Happy flying!

Edited January 8, 2015 by whiterafter

[Vanamonde]

Interesting driver's seat arrangement.