~ Landing on the moon ~ [SUMMARY] *I fail to return safely*

[Nomer]

After I lift-off, T+1:05:00, I reach 500 meters per second,

I must burn 90 degreese then 270 because it flows with the orbit of kerban and is more efficient,

After I get an encounter with the mun I make sure its a fly by,

after I reach near the perapsis, I will look for my retro-grade on my NavBall,

Then burn towards it to gain a somewhat eliptical orbit,

After I get parallel with the landing sight [Light side, flat, etc.]

I keep burning at my retrograde and my orbit will come down and become a drop-down

After I reach 30,000 meters I must cut my speed in half.

At an average of 650 meters per second from the drop down,

I must burn down to 300,

once I reach 20,000,

I will keep burning on retro-grade to get rid of all lateral movement,

At around 10,000 - or when I reach the surface on my NavBall,

I should be down inbetween 40 - 50 meters per second, and no lateral movement, or very little.

After I reach 4,000 meters I should start judging how far away I am from the ground, by doing that, I shall release the 2nd stage exposing the lander, and I should measure off the explosion/debree,

By 2,000 meters I should start coming up really close to hills,

I choose to land on the Sea of kerbility (That giantic grey crater)

Which is relativly flat, around a max height of 50 meters.

So I start my powered descent, no lateral movement, I\'m going no more then 20 meters per second, and I remain patient.

One thing I learned from this game is that if you have no patience, you can\'t go far in it.

So I start seeing my shadow by around a 150 meters,

I start lowering the throttle, 5 meters per second,

literally half a meter from touchdown,

I increase throttle just a little,

Kerbility base here. Jebediah is scared shitless.

At 3.5 meters a second I manage even to scare jebediah,

and finally make touchdown.

So after I take some screenshots,

scream a bit,

I start gaining some lateral movement to explore the mun, with my max exploration rate of 3 meters.

So I notice I have %5 of fuel left,

I\'ll take what I have and use it ascent me off the mun, after that, I just push my speed to 800 meters a second for escape, but by 300 my descent fuel already ran out so I jettison it and fire my ascent engines 200,000 meters into the air, after I reach that rate of 800 meters a second and gain an escape tradjectory,

I speed up a bit and get into my mun-like orbit with kerban, then aim towards my retro-grade and fire, untill my perapsis reaches 0 and I am now in a collision orbit with kerban,

But I currently have no clue how to re-enter properlly,

So I just let it flow, by the time I gain atmosphere and lose altitude, I deploy my parachute at 600 meters per second and slowing,

Though Right when I touchdown I fire retro-boosters just incase, lowering my speed to 14 meters a second, touchdown,

and

K.I.A

K.I.A

K.I.A.

Dafuq just happened?

Jebediah is always alive in my heart

[E. F. Kranz]

Remove the retro rockets from your re-entry stage. They aren\'t necessary, and worse, they, like every other KSP part, are constructed of pure dynamite.

[Matticus88]

14m/s seems a bit fast too.

[Vanamonde]

Compass heading 270 will keep you in the same plane as Mun\'s orbit, but approaching it head-on at high speed, which velocity you\'ll have to burn off before landing, using a lot of fuel. It can be done, but compass heading 90 puts you and Mun heading the same way at a lower closing speed.

Are the marea 50m elevation? I think it\'s closer to 600m, isn\'t it? Maybe I\'m mis-remembering, because the altimeter lies anyway, so what it says doesn\'t really matter.

The chute should be enough to slow you down without rockets. How high were you when you opened it? It doesn\'t hurt anything to open it early, though you won\'t travel as far if you\'re trying to splashdown at a specific spot. But the crash might not be anything you did wrong. I also had a capsule come down nice and slow on flat ground, then blow up. I think it just happens sometimes. A little glitch of some sort. Not that this makes it any more fun when it happens.

14m/s seems a bit fast too.

Maybe, but the chute automatically lands you at 12m/s second, right? So shouldn\'t 14 still be within the capsule\'s tolerance?

[Bluejayek]

Remove the retro rockets from your re-entry stage. They aren\'t necessary, and worse, they, like every other KSP part, are constructed of pure dynamite.

It is much more fuel efficient to use the retro fire then not. This way he can save the enormous 0.8 mass of the decoupler from his ascent stage off the mun, saving a lot of fuel, easily enough fuel to do a semipowered landing on kerbin.

I personally like to use a capsule, halftank, fulltank, legs as my ascent/decent/return stage. It easily has enough fuel to do the full maneurver, and a fully powered kerbin landing.

The velocity you can touch down at scales with the mass of your craft. 14m/s is probably ok for a capsule, but too high once you add in your engines and such.

[vexx32]

14m/s is within the capsule\'s tolerance, but most parts have a lower tolerance, and the heat generated from the explosion of those parts will in turn destroy the capsule.

[Nomer]

i\'ll must mod 1 giant ass parachute...

[Bluejayek]

14m/s is within the capsule\'s tolerance, but most parts have a lower tolerance, and the heat generated from the explosion of those parts will in turn destroy the capsule.

The capsules tolerance depends on what it is attached to. Try landing at 14m/s nose first with only a capsule, and then repeat with a stack of full fuel tanks behind the capsule. The first will likely survive, the second will blow up. This is because the force required to stop the second rocket is much higher for the same landing velocity. It would be like taking a car, and smashing it into a cliff face at 20km/h. The front end won\'t be pretty, but the car will be intact mostly. Now attach that car to the front of a fully loaded freight train travelling at 20km/h and smash it into the cliff. I guarantee you that the car will be utterly and completely totalled, because there is more mass behind it that had to be slowed down. The cliff might be gone too.

[vexx32]

Yes, that is also a factor. I was assuming the capsule was on top of the lander that had exploded.

[Matticus88]

use more parachutes

[Bluejayek]

Yes, that is also a factor. I was assuming the capsule was on top of the lander that had exploded.

Same deal.. The fuel tank on bottom has tolerance that are exceeded because of all the mass above, causing big boom. Because metal explodes, we all know that.

[Freddy72nz]

Same deal.. The fuel tank on bottom has tolerance that are exceeded because of all the mass above, causing big boom. Because metal explodes, we all know that.

Yes! Sodium is a metal and it explodes very nicely, just add water

[Nomer]

we need to be able to put parachutes anywhere on the capsule,

[Cykyrios]

You should try to add a decoupler right beneath your capsule, so you only have the capsule and parachute left when landing. This will ensure your Kerbals survive. If you really want/need something more for your return stage, then be sure to go slow enough (less than 10 m/s), and even if something explodes, it should only cushion your fall (yeah, Kerbal landing, I know ).

[Kreuzung]

we need to be able to put parachutes anywhere on the capsule,

You can radially mount them to other parts. There is even a mistake in their config that allows to radially attach things to parachutes, which you can use to build strage chute towers...