The Duna Dillydallyer (with space bus!)

[Wabbit]

PSo, I went to duna again. After the launch of the space bus, which was never documented, I decided to give my two lonely Kerbals some friends to ride on their bus. I sent three Kerbals to Duna to ride on the Space Bus, and I plan to have a base there eventually. Right now I will focus on Laythe.

So we launched the rocket. One of my designs I usually use for Duna, Jool, Eve... Just about anywhere I need a 3-Kerb capsule. So Sonfrey, Dudfrod and Billy-Bobbal were sent in the Duna Dillydallyer. Below you can see the ship, just after leaving the pad.

After separation of booster set one, the gravity turn. You can see that the discarded boosters have actually collided, and their nosecones were knocked off.

After getting into orbit, I fiddled a bit with my trajectory until I got a suitable and rather efficient Duna encounter. Here is the ship just after the start of the burn.

Skip ahead a couple years, and we are at Duna! A short aerobrake and apoapsis burn later, here we are in a (roughly) circular orbit. From here, we will wait until we can get a landing spot suitably close to the Space Bus.

After retro-burn and separation of transfer stage, we are coming down about ~10km from the Space Bus. Not my best targeting, but it could be a lot worse. Coming in through the atmosphere at a gentle trajectory, there were no entry effects, making for quite a boring entry.

Drogue chute deployed, coming in over landing zone and killing horizontal velocity.

Main chutes deployed, going down now.

Safe landing!

Alright, here comes the Space Bus! Its two drivers know they have a long drive ahead, but know that it is in the direction of friends!

In this picture, near the middle of the hill the capsule is faintly visible.

Our bus drivers are greeted, and the crew of the Duna Dillydallyer board the Space Bus. Farewell, capsule, and may the Kraken be with you!

- - - Updated - - -

Adding pics now

Edited February 12, 2015 by Wabbit