Sending Probes to Duna
So I like Kerbal Space Program, I like it a lot. I just picked it up again after a bit of a break, and decided to try and build an interplanetary ship that would carry a number of probes to another planet. I chose Duna because it is close, and has a moon I can land a probe on as well. This is my first time building a ship in orbit (I have put together a station, but that stayed in orbit. I have also done a ‘lander capsule’ set up, a-la apollo, but that was assembled on the ground, and only went to mun.)
I don’t have any pictures from the launch and construction phases, but those were boring anyways (big rockets and delicate docking).
But here are some pictures of the final product: Dunar explorer 1!
The large cluster of engines was a left over from the ascent stage, and I left it on, and filled it with fuel left over from the probe ascent stages. There was enough fuel left in there that I was able to use it to escape Kerbin altogether. Once I had escaped Kerbin, I jettisoned that leftover stage, and used the LV-N for the transfer orbit (Below)
(Solid Blue Line: Orbit after Kerbin Escape. Dotted Yellow Line: Projected orbit after LV-N burn) You can see the Duna encounter in the projected path!
After the encounter with Duna, and a very long retro-burn (I just skimmed Dunas sphere of influence) BAM, Duna orbit. After a bit of circularization we end up with
Beautiful! Tomorrow, I land the probes!
