To minimus! (how?)

[Matticus88]

I\'m struggling to get to minimus.

1st attempt my orbit ended up with me getting close to minimus but the shooting off into space with no fuel or anyway at returning.

My current attempt i am in orbit around the Mun but my orbit doesn\'t line up with Minimus\'s orbit, and i\'m not sure how to correct my orbit so when i do a burn, i reach minimus\'s orbit.. or when to do said burn

Shows what my orbit around the mun is, and the minimus\'s purple orbit line is.

Edit: And if it will be too difficult to get to minimus from my current orbit, is my orbit near any interesting Munar features? such as the arch or anything else?

[manuelasa1999]

I\'m struggling to get to minimus.

1st attempt my orbit ended up with me getting close to minimus but the shooting off into space with no fuel or anyway at returning.

My current attempt i am in orbit around the Mun but my orbit doesn\'t line up with Minimus\'s orbit, and i\'m not sure how to correct my orbit so when i do a burn, i reach minimus\'s orbit.. or when to do said burn

Shows what my orbit around the mun is, and the minimus\'s purple orbit line is.

Edit: And if it will be too difficult to get to minimus from my current orbit, is my orbit near any interesting Munar features? such as the arch or anything else?

Hi! Do you try to use mechjeb orbital operations, it´s very usefull:

Link to download http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=14066.0

[Khrissetti]

Ok, you\'ve worked out by now that Minmus, unlike the Mun is on an inclined plane to yours (about 6 degrees) and you need to match that before you get up there.

First put the ship into an Eastwards circular orbit of about 400km, that way it\'ll be big enough to see any changes you make.

The attachment is an exagerated version of the sort of plane-change maneuver you\'ll have to make.start by turning your map view so that both yours and Minmus\' orbits look like straight lines.. now, where they cross is where you\'ll want to make your burn to change planes. Tu make your burn, wait until you\'re at that point and turn north or south, depending where on the orbit you are. Fire north (or south) and wath as your orbit starts to incline. If it\'s inclining the wrong way then flip over (so turn south if you were headed north) and burn again until the two lines sit more or less on top of one another.

After that it\'s just like heading for the Mun, wait for it to come over the horizonand burn prograde until your orbit path changes to yellow to show you\'ll intercept Minmus. If your apsis goes more tan a 10km higher than minmus\' orbit then just hit the warp button until Minmus catches you up.

When you\'re captured by Minmus\' spere of influence, wait until you reach periapsis then burn retrograde until your orbit circularises, after that landing should be relatively easy, just wait until you\'re over somewere flat (those ice lakes are nice) and burn in the opposite direction to your orbit until you kill all your lateral movement, then control your landing to settle gently on the surface. Use RCS to kill any lateral movement you pick up on the way down.

[Matticus88]

Ok, i\'m going to try out this Mechjeb thingy. I\'ve Aborted my current mission (By sending the poor kerbals into a deep space grave xD)

[Khrissetti]

Ahh you\'ll never get the same sense of satisfaction of landing a ship on Minmus yourself with mechjeb.

[manuelasa1999]

Ahh you\'ll never get the same sense of satisfaction of landing a ship on Minmus yourself with mechjeb.

I think he is new in KSP, at first times a simple help isn´t wrong, when he takes experiencie he will can land a ship on minmus manually.

[hunter558]

Noooo dont use mechjeb. It takes the fun out of learning how to do things for yourself. All you do is get in orbit around Kerbin, then point your ship north on the compass and burn until your orbit is aligned with that of Minmus. Then just burn on a normal easterly trajectory until it intersects with Minmus or as close to it as possible. Dont waste your time getting into orbit around the Mun.

[Matticus88]

i\'ve done a few, near succesful landings on the Mun and other locations on kerbin, is just changing orbits manually i can\'t quite do too well. Once i\'ve seen Mechjeb do it a few times i\'m sure i will be able to do it manually myself.

[Matticus88]

Still need help.. I\'m not sure what heading i should aim for to get my orbit to match that of minimus\'s orbit. i knows 90 & 270 is the Mun\'s orbital plane, i can\'t work out what Minimus\'s orbital plane is

[hunter558]

It doesn\'t really matter what the orbital plane is, just face Kerbin from the side when your in orbit around it and then point your ship 90 degrees north and burn until the orbits are roughly similar and then burn 90 degrees east again until your orbit extends until it touches or wraps around that of Minmus. Then do what you would do to land on the Mun and presto.

[Matticus88]

that seems to use a lot of fuel to alter my orbit rather then having it lined up from the beginning. I worked out 96 is a perfect angle... only this time, After my burn to get to minimus, the Mun got in the way and altered my path i ended up landing on the mun just to get something out of the mission lol

[maltesh]

96 is only a perfect angle when the descending node of Minmus\' orbit is overhead at launch. Depending on when you launch, you could put yourself as much as twelve degrees away from Minmus\' orbital inclination.

Personally, I do my plane changes halfway out to Minmus\' orbit. The spacecraft is only moving at about 250 m/s there; for the delta-V price of tilting six degrees in LKO, I can change the spacecraft\'s direction almost sixty degrees out there.

Edit: Admittedly, for my typical design, the ~250 m/s delta-V for a six-degree plane change in LKO is chump change.

[vexx32]

Hum. OK. I\'mma write up a tutorial that is basically impossible to fail at. Give me a moment...

[Matticus88]

Thanks Vexx! it\'ll be much apprieciated.

[Markus Reese]

This is a bit long, something I did shortly, but specifically it was a Minimus landing and return. I make some mistakes, but it covers all the different orbital stuff.

[engiNERD]

What your looking for is how to align your orbital plane with minmus before getting there yea? you can search for that in the forums I found it a long time ago. what you do is burn in a direction that is perpendicular to where the orbital planes of your ship and minmus intersect. So say you shoot to minmus @ 90 degrees. then you can burn at about 180 or 0 degrees where the planes intersect and you will see the planes aligning.

[VincentMcConnell]

Getting to Minmus is rather easy. It requires a few Mid Course Corrections from a non-inclined parking orbit and several plane change maneuvers after arrival.

1.) Get into a 100KM parking orbit.

2.) Burn just before Minmus rises over the horizon.

3.) Extend your Apokee just beyond its orbit.

4.) You may notice that you are way off. North or south.

5.) Drift along until you\'re past the Mun\'s orbital altitude. It\'s time for MCC #1. If your orbit is too far south of Minmus\'s plane, burn Normal. If it\'s too far north, burn anti-normal.

6.) Try to establish a Minmus Periapse at about 100KM.

7.) Immediately after you enter the Minian SOI, make MCC#2. Burn retro to drop your Perimin to 14KM.

8.) At Perimin, burn retro. This is MOI₁ (Minmus Orbit Insertion #1. Nominally you want to end up with a 14KM Perimin with an Apomin of about 100KM and with your Perimin in front of you at engine cut off.

9.) At Perimin again, burn retroy. This is MOI₂. (Minmus Orbit Insertion #2.) When the engine is cut, you want to end up with a 14KM circularized parking orbit.

10.) Change your plane if necessary using a 'Plane change maneuver'.

11.) Land like a boss.

[VincentMcConnell]

I don\'t know why you guys are always on about changing planes in orbit. There\'s a simple way to do this. Launch into Minmus\'s heading... If you choose to do this the 'Inclined Kerbin Orbit' approach, it\'s all about waiting until Minmus\'s orbital plane crosses over the launch center. As soon as it does, launch into a 6 degree heading either north or south. You\'ll be perfectly aligned with Minmus\'s orbit by the time you reach MECO₂ around Kerbin.

[vexx32]

Why? Simple. It makes it so that there\'s less of a worry about timing a launch. My own method basically eliminates the need for any timing of launch and suchlike. I\'ve almost got the tutorial done. Just gotta go through it myself and get some pics to explain some of it.

[maltesh]

For me, there are three reasons.

1. Plane changing\'s a good skill to have when flying rockets, for a host of other reasons.

2. The fuel costs are typically chump change on most of my rocket designs, especially if you do it halfway to Minmus.

3. Running time acceleration on the pad snaps off one of my liquid fuel engines often enough to be annoying, so I just launch when the pad loads.

[Khrissetti]

It\'s simple if you\'re experienced. chances are good, though that if you\'re flying manually you\'ll get the incline or the timing slightly wrong and have to adjust your plane anyway.

[Matticus88]

thanks for your help guys, i\'ve managed to land on minimus now

Took quite a while to get my trajectory right after slinging past the Mun but i got there in the end ... unfortunately, after the kerbals wanted to change their landing site after landing once, it really was the end.. for them muhahaha.

[Khrissetti]

thanks for your help guys, i\'ve managed to land on minimus now

Took quite a while to get my trajectory right after slinging past the Mun but i got there in the end ... unfortunately, after the kerbals wanted to change their landing site after landing once, it really was the end.. for them muhahaha.

Congratulations! Did you take any pictures of your accomplishment?

[Matticus88]

i did indeed

posted them inhere http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=15382.0

[Khrissetti]

nicely done, sir. Just need to complete a return mission, now.

[Matticus88]

indeed! now that i know i can get there, and how to. next up is a rocket redesign with an extra stage to get back home! But first, i\'m currently attempting a cart rover landing on the Mun.