How close to being totally out of fuel have you been?

[Commander Jebidiah]

After jettisoning the main fuel pod on the way to mun then realising I forgot to fill the backup tank

[Jovus]

You mean without actually running out? I finished a Minimus return (putting my craft for capture reentry at Kerbin) with exactly 0.5 m/s left in the tank.

[FlyingPete]

I've had a Mun lander run out of RCS fuel within 10m of the orbital station. Bob just collected all the science and abandoned ship, completing the rendezvous by jetpack. I eventually retrieved the lander with a resupply ship. I'm no stranger to sending the crew to get out and push too.

[DaPatman]

Not counting times when I've had to get out and push (which has happened more times than I'd like to admit, including once when Jeb's jetpack needed refueling 7 or 8 times before I got my periapsis low enough), I once did a rescue mission without RCS, and by the time the rescuee climbed aboard, I had just enough fuel to lower my periapsis to about 65km.

[Aragosnat]

Gotten out and pushed way to many times. Also why waste fuel by letting them go splate into Kerbin. Little thing called part count and most of the time never enough to use chutes to get a softish landing. I know I have gotten very low before. Just nt sure how low. I know I have had to use mono to lower my orbit enough to get back to Kerbin when out of fuel.

[Captain Sierra]

I dunno the dV, but I have finished the mid-course with a fraction of a unit of oxidizer left when returning from Duna once.

The original plan was to not have to use the ERV (this was a mission I actually brought an emergency return vehicle on for some unfathomable reason) but I underestimated the return costs and did not refuel the transfer stage fully (thinking I could actually make it) so I ran outa gas on the ejection burn. I had to decouple the ERV and make the remaining transfer burn. I guess that ERV was not as good of an ERV as I thought.

[Apature rocket science]

I once was doing s massive eva and I nearly ran out so I had to. Glide though space for a long time till I got back to my ship

[TheDarkStar]

0.11 units of RCS fuel after an Eeloo (or somewhere in the outer solar system at least) return.

Or this one: I realized that I did not have enough fuel to return a Kerbal from Moho, so I aimed for Eve. I had exactly enough fuel to get into an Eve orbit before running out. A second launch brought the Kerbal back.

[Dispatcher]

Well... I had to get out and push with my RCS pack.

Quite a few times.

This has happened to me a few times. Some other times I've used ship RCS to de-orbit.

[bitbucket]

Does completely out of fuel count?

I came up 30 m/s short of intersecting Kerbin on my first return from Duna in 0.18; the boys in orange had to get out and push with RCS for the last little nudge to get home.

[Tw1]

Completely. Many many times. Of course, the more interesting ones are when you run out just short of that last maneuver, or last correction burn.

[LostOblivion]

My first rover lander on the Mun had its engines cut off when running out of fuel while landing, however it was perfect because it was during the final stage of landing where it was only about two feet off the ground and it should have engine cutoff anyway. The lander had a re-orbit stage though with just enough fuel to get into orbit, so I don't know if it qualifies.

[SelectHalfling0]

I once had 3 units of LF left on a spaceplane as it glided into KSC. That took no room for error to a whole new level.

[drewscriver]

Not as close a shave as some of the other stories, but there have been a few times where I came back on monoprop after already manually firing off the crew abort system separatrons.

[FishInferno]

Recently in my career save, I landed on the Mun, but I only had 5 units of fuel left, so now my kerbal is awaiting rescue

[Wabbit]

I have a habit of being overkill, so one time I had way too much fuel on return and ripped my chutes.

[Freshmeat]

I had once where I had to wait for two hours while my ship slowly got decelerated with an AP half way to the Mun, and a starting PE of ~60 km. Increase time warp, see it slow down on atmos reentry, turn on phys timewarp, turn it off once out of atmosphere, increase time warp.

[ThreeMartiniLaunch]

[Richy teh space man]

I've run out of fuel once or twice and had to push my ship into Kerbin's atmosphere to get home.

[Hannu]

Once I had 12 m/s left when I docked to Jool Station (50000 km orbit). It is nearest I can remember. I had some monopropellant also.

Couple of times I have used all monopropellant just before docking.

[magnemoe]

My favorite all time was an rover probe I was landing on Tylo, it run out of fuel a couple of meters over the surface this disintegrated the laning rockets leaving the rover ready to roll.

Design was one rocket on each side of the rover extending below it with landing legs, below the rover it was a drop tank who was dropped during decent, this was also where the rover was mounted to the transfer stage.

has had some SSTO rockets running out of fuel during the landing back at spaceport and running out of fuel during the braking but still able to land safely.

One spaceplane run out of fuel during deorbit burn, I was able to land on the plain west of the spaceport so it was not an full recovery but still.

[Kerano]

I've had a couple of trips back from Moho to Kerbin in my Supership where I've been about as close as it's possible to get to the line.

1. Ran out of rocket fuel, switched to rover RCS.

2. Ran out of RCS, switched to satellite ion engines.

3. Nearly ran the xenon tanks dry, finally got an intercept with Kerbin.

Phew!

Edited February 6, 2015 by Kerano

[zxczxczbfg]

I once ran myself completely out of fuel on an attempt at a powered controlled Kerbin landing. The legs broke on impact but the rest of the ship was fine, no parachutes needed.

[Reactordrone]

On a visual survey of Kerbin mission my aircraft ran out of fuel heading towards the last target and I did a dead stick landing and just managed to roll into the final zone. Other than that I've had plenty of get out and push moments and done a Mun return mission with a Kerbal X that was a little tight on fuel.

[PnDB]

Jeb made it back into the command pod with 0.02 units of fuel left in his eva jetpack.