I dusted off my old KSP save file from 1.2 recently, updated the mods and went on exploring the system.
Well, to be honest I just got to Duna. With the stock comm system I actually managed to upgrade everything before getting to Duna. The Munar Orbital lab in the screenshot from last year in this topic fed most of the science. It was difficult to acquire it otherwise as I did not focus on relays, and even with an upgraded tracking center you are not getting far without the second strongest relays. Unless you saturate the system with relays. On the other hand I cannot just send Kerbals everywhere because I installed USI life support, which makes manned missions a bit more of a hassle. Well, its not that bad once you figure out what you need. But it does add a lot of dry mass.
Either way, my Deep Space Cruiser Antares just got into a stable 200ish by 1000ish orbit around Duna:
Its actually 2 ships docked to the Antares at the moment. One more than planned for this mission. This is my first Deep Space Cruiser in this save file as mostly I needed the cash and tech to unlock the very basic nuclear reactors and the magnetoplasmadynamic engines. Of course the whole mission must have cost at least 800k to launch.
It's mission was not just getting to Duna and back. It actually completed a grand tour contract of Mun, Minmus and Duna.
At the Mun it rendezvous (but not docked) with the Munar station I showed earlier, picked up both scientists (they sucked the data in the lab anyway) and refuelled the lander (it picked it up in LKO).
It did a flyby of Minmus slightly before the Duna lanuch window. But of course I should have done it at least 40 days prior. I missed the launch window by 30 days because it takes so long to get to Minmus. Luckily the whole thing has (without stuff docked to it) around 10 km/s of delta-v.
The lander comes packed with a full science package (although I might have lost the thermometer somewhere) as usual. I barely managed to cram everything essential into it.
It has a small cylindrical supplies container and 2 small recyclers. Probably enough to prevent kerbonauts from complaining for 30 days.
The main means of landing are the parachutes in the four small utility bays beneath the nosecones. Two pairs of regular and drogue chutes are in the main payload bay to ensure it lands on the right end (this was a problem when I tested it on Kerbin).
At the moment it will be idle for at least 50 days. It will bring one Kerbal down to Duna, probably a scientist. The second seat will remain empty as a mobile base (not shown) will be landed with an engineer who will repair the wheels after landing.
Between the lander and the actual Antares is an ad hoc solution to a problem I discovered. The very efficient big recycler of the Antares only supports 3 kerbals. That is one problem. The other is that the small radial gardening modules effectively can grow only convert one kerbal's worth of waste mulch into supplies. I had 4 with 5 kerbals. So while they were derping around the Mun for about a year they ate through a lot of supplies and lost a bit off mulch as there was no way to process it or store it.
I launched a re-supply ship that was docked as an extra hydroponics/supply module between the lander and the Antares proper and you can see here. It came with extra supplies, two gardening domes, fertilizer and a bunch of empty containers for waste. It is possible I will leave it as a re-supply depot in orbit. However I will soon research the K&K algae farm so it might make the depot redundant as I might end up building a self-sustaining farming outpost on Ike.
In hindsight it might have been better to launch the Antares in two parts but I managed to get it into LKO in one piece. It has room for 5 kerbals with the lab. Having a lab on a deep space ship is a very good idea. While waiting for a transfer window you have two scientists process the data and deliver lots of science without needing to desperately look of untapped biomes or getting everything back to Kerbin.
The Antares also has the second (and best available so far to me) relay mostly to help with any gaps in comm coverage wherever it is stationed.
The lithium fuel tanks also have some radial docking ports and KAS fuel ports for easy refuelling.
Speaking of Lithium, this is the engine section of the Antares. It is powered by 2 Garnet nuclear reactors delivering a total of 800 EC/s when at full power. The radiators are sufficient to keep them cool, although I think it is in part because I use them economically. They are only set to full power during burns. In all other times only one reactor toggled to 3 or 5% output is used to preserve nuclear fuel (it is expensive and needs an engineer on board to transfer).
Even with two reactors the single MPD thruster is not powered enough to run at full thrust but only about 80%, which is sufficient. Overall with full lithium tanks it would take over an hour of burning to deplete the tanks and output the 10 km/s of delta-v the ship has.
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