Expedition to the planet Eve (second planet from Kerbol) and its moon Gilly.
I sent a Mark Twain to Eve by a rather sloppy trajectory. But it got there.
First, Milski Kerman took the Clark lander down to Eve's tiny moon Gilly. This is the smallest body I've landed on yet, and dealing with such a tiny object has its own set of problems (like being really easy to accidentally break out of orbit while maneuvering). Gilly has some vast stretches of very steep terrain, and things move VERY slowly in orbit around it (and you can't time warp close to the surface), so there were long waits moving around and finding a good spot to land. Then again, the gravity is so low that I can land the lander using RCS thrusters.
And the kerbal can't walk on the surface of Gilly. Taking a step results in shooting off in a long hop. It was much easier to get around using the rocket pack.
Here's Milski on top of his lander. The landers still has loads of fuel left, and I hopped it to another landing location...but it takes sooo looong to get anywhere. I always like to see how high the kerbal can jump compared to the height of the lander, but there was a problem on Gilly: Milski was able to jump 220 meters into the air, so there was no way to get a good picture of the relative size of the jump compared to the lander. Kerbals are one meter tall, by the way.
Desdin Kerman got the honor of becoming my first kerbal colonist on Eve, the purple planet. I say 'colonist' because there is no way he can ever get off the planet with the Lewis lander. Eve has a much thicker atmosphere and stronger gravity than Kerbin. The thick atmosphere meant that I could use the parachutes for landing, but I had to drop the side tanks and burn off most of the fuel to get the lander weight low enough that the chutes opening won't just rip the capsule free of the rest of the lander (I found this out when landing these landers from Kerbin orbit, and the situation is even worse on Eve where the thick atmosphere results in a lot of sudden force when the main chutes snap open). Below is the ring of lakes that I targeted Desdin into.
Below, the reefed chutes are out and I have most of the fuel burned off...with a brief pause in thrusting to take this shot. You can aim the landing location somewhat by using the RCS to tilt the ship as you are thrusting under the reefed chutes. The chutes really should be mounted at the top of the fuel tank, not on the ASAS and RCS tank area, since the ship can be pulled apart if the main chutes open too hard (although this would safely land the capsule...I also found this out during testing in Kerbin's atmosphere).
Below the mains have just fully deployed and I have stopped thrusting. I have a little fuel left to burn just before landing.
And here is Desdin on the surface of Eve. You can send all of his future mail to the Eve post office.
Landing site of Desdin and the Lewis Eve Lander.
