Reaching Other Planets

Necessary Tech

TBD

Communications

See the RealAntennas Wiki for help with planning. Make sure to use the highest communications tech level available and upgrade your tracking station if you can.

Using Transfer Window Planner

TBD

Making the Transfer With Principia

TBD

Making the Transfer Without Principia

TBD

Landing on Venus and Mars

Heat Shields

Venus needs interplanetary or lunar (I think), Mars can do fine with Earth.

Parachutes

RealChute can be programmed to do calculations for other planets. Note that standard parachutes will be melted on Venus, so you'll have to use Kevlar and open them fairly low, but the thick atmosphere makes slowing down easy. You may not even need parachutes. On Mars, parachutes can be quite useful, but, like in real life, they won't be able to slow your craft all the way to a soft landing. Kevlar may be the material to go with here as well. There are some small throttlable engines you can use, or you can use an engine with an RCS config. If you're very skilled, you can even use a skycrane for style points, though you may run into bugs with the cable.