Mun Rover Communication

[ALaz1]

I am planning to put a rover onto the Mun to spam some science in my career save, and I realized that I need to have the necessary communication/ tracking equipment to do it.  I have a level 2 tracking station, communitron 16, communitron 16s, and the HG-5 high gain antenna.  I also have 1,208,008 funds.  Is there any way this is possible to do this without a satellite network, because I don't think I have the necessary tech to do so.

[Red Iron Crown]

Moved over to Gameplay Questions, you'll get better answers here.

[Reactordrone]

As long as you land on the Kerbin side of the Mun the HG-5 should give you good comms.

[bewing]

Do you want to be driving around on the dark side of the Mun (the side away from Kerbin)? If you are willing to only drive when Kerbin is in the sky, then a single communotron should keep you in direct contact. The HG5 should work even better. If you want to put a single, slow moving relay satellite at 1500km altitude on the opposite side of the Mun from Kerbin, then you should get coverage from it for weeks while you drive around -- but you'll need to make sure it's not equatorial.

 

[Human Person]

you have the HG-5 high gain antenna, put that on a probe core and you have a Communication Satellite! What makes you think you haven't got the tech to make a Network?

[Spricigo]

10 hours ago, Physics Student said:

you have the HG-5 high gain antenna, put that on a probe core and you have a Communication Satellite! What makes you think you haven't got the tech to make a Network?

THIS ^

a communutron 16 can link to a HG-5  up to 1580km away, HG-5 to HG-5 its 5000km away, HG-5 to lvl2 ground station 15800km away.

 

[WanderingKid]

If you can rover, you can sat network... as long as you've opened up the OKTO.  The rest of this is an opinion for avoiding your original concern.  However, as stated for your original question, when the face of the Mun the rover is on is facing Kerbin and you've got enough antenna, you can directly communicate with Kerbin to drive it.  Be aware, you will be in the dark during this time 50% of your communication time, so no power generation on the rover when you can actually talk to it.  This will severely limit you.

Let's talk distances then.  With a Tracking Station 2, which reaches 50 Gm range, the built in comm system on a MK1 pod/OKTO can directly talk to Kerbin.  Mun is roughly 10 Mm up, and you can reach 15.81 Mm with those built in comm systems.  Unless it's absolutely pinned on part count, however, I'd slap a 16-S or a 16 onto it for sanity.  For reference, three Comm-16 antennas on a ship to Minmus for Tracking 1 is fine (54.77 Mm comm range) if you don't need relay.  Tracking 2 is basically upgraded for near body interplanetary communications and Patched Conics/Maneuver Nodes, and can hit Mun without any help.

However, I really recommend you put up your commnet.  Three flat solar panels, two MG-5s for balance, two Oscar-B tanks, a Spark, and an OKTO 1 is a relay satellite.  Put up 4 roughly on the corners of a square around Mun equatorially and you're good for a while, and they're incredibly cheap to put into orbit riding a thrust limited BACC SRB inside a fairing for most of the trip to orbit.  You don't need to be too fancy.  For an added bonus, stick a thermometer on it for 'science from around Mun' contract requests.

Side note: You really don't want to rover the Mun with the little shopping cart wheels, so you should have the OKTO.  Wait for the orange ones for sanity.  The offroad looking ones are really where you want to be though, you're going to be doing ~50-100 kilometers of driving for some of the rover contracts, nevermind how well you can land it on target.  Those little ones are fine for minor base movers but they fall apart too easily going overland at speed in my experience.

[Spricigo]

6 hours ago, WanderingKid said:

Three flat solar panels, two MG-5s for balance, two Oscar-B tanks, a Spark, and an OKTO 1 is a relay satellite.  

A huge one for what is needed around the Mun. 

I use: 1xAnt engine, 1x Oscar-B tank,  3x solar panels, 1X OKTO, 1x  HG-5, 1x thermometer.  Light enough to launch one on top a Hammer or the entire constellation on top a Thumper,  and still have enough deltaV for the subsequent maneuvers (no balance issue, the off-center thrust is not strong enough to overcome the probecore's reaction wheel) 

Edited May 27, 2017 by Spricigo

[WanderingKid]

6 hours ago, Spricigo said:

I use: 1xAnt engine, 1x Oscar-B tank,  3x solar panels, 1X OKTO, 1x  HG-5, 1x thermometer.  

Fair enough, and that's certainly enough.  It's absolutely overpowered for what's needed, and still is pretty light and cheap .  Mind usually my commnet is doubled as a series of satellite launches for contracts, so I don't typically fly up just a commnet cluster.  I'll have to try your recommendation one day, it's about half the weight of what I usually launch and is only ~210 dV less.  Do you typically launch 3 or 4 for your constellation on the single thumper (and I presume, fairing)?

Edited May 27, 2017 by WanderingKid

[Spricigo]

@WanderingKid I launch then individually because contracts.  

I thought a BACC would be enough to put 3 in LKO but turn out I was mistaken. When I tried rhe best I managed was That  .  

Mind you it's not the most convenient way to setup a triangular formation around Mun/Minmus. At least it covers the part of launching a light and bulky payload without flipping.