Mun landing assistance

[kknight13]

I have yet to make a sucessful landing on the mun and i was wondering if i could get advice/assistance. I can get into mun orbit pretty easily but every rocket that goes down to the mun never returns. A couple of missions are still there but even more are just craters containing roasted Kerbals :\'(

I don\'t use mods on my missions and i would like to keep it that way I also want the crew to return alive after the landing (i know i am pushing my luck).

can people help me out with a lander and rocket (lander only for basic purposes now, possible more complicated later) as well as tips for getting the crew safely down. Also if you have a THIS NEVER WORKS i would appreciate to know before i have to inform 3 more kerbal widows of a slight mishap

Appreciate any and all assistance.

Thanks

[vexx32]

First, if it\'s your first landing, aim for the light side of the Mun. The dark side is a pain to land on, though I have done it myself. It\'s just harder to judge the latter stages of the landing.

Basically, always try to have a bit of spare fuel, just in case. No more than one small spare tank, though, otherwise it gets too heavy. You may want to try the stop and drop method. Once you get to about 60km above the Munar surface, click the little window displaying speed to calibrate it for surface. This means that it takes into account the Mun\'s rotation. Burn retrograde until your velocity is just about zero. This basically tries to control both descent speed and velocity relative to the surface at the same time, so that when you do the final descent, you won\'t end up flying sideways into a hill. Once you\'ve done this, reorient so that your ship is facing straight up, engines pointing downwards. Turn SAS on. It\'s a good idea to have ASAS so you needn\'t worry too much about keeping the craft oriented properly. You will need RCS if you want to fine-tune your horizontal movement so you don\'t snap off any lander legs as you touch down.

Then, wait until you get to around 20km up. You should still have your engines pointed directly down. Burn until your velocity is less than 50m/s. This allows you to keep the speed manageable, so you don\'t end up flying into the surface at 500m/s despite having full thrust. Then, wait once more. Wait until you\'re about 8km up. Then, burn again until you\'re going at less than 40m/s. Once you hit the 40m/s mark, adjust your thrust so you\'re just slowly decreasing your speed. Decrease speed at around 0.2m/s every few seconds. If you get below 10m/s while still a fair way off the ground, kill the throttle until you\'re up to around 25m/s again.

Note that almost all of the Mun\'s surface will be above the 0m on the altitude meter. Some places get up to around 2,500m, so beware. Start a very controlled descent (keep your velocity between 2m/s and 10m/s) around 3,500m. Lower your landing gear.

If your retrograde indicator is not directly upwards (the little dot in the very center of the blue region of the navball), make sure your rocket is oriented towards that dot, and activate RCS. Here\'s where you need it. By this point, the velocity meter should read 'surface', if you haven\'t bothered to change it yourself. Using the RCS translation controls (by default, I,J,K,L) to get your retrograde velocity indicator pointing directly up. The left and right (J and L) affect the indicator in reverse (using the Left -- J -- makes it move right and vice versa) whilst the forward/back (think of them as up/down on the navball) are not reversed. It\'s a bit confusing, but not difficult once you get the hang of it. Keep an eye on your velocity through this.

Once you start noticing the terrain coming up slowly around you (it is REALLY noticeable, btw), then prepare to slow down below 3m/s. Stay below 3m/s if you can, cutting throttle if necessary to avoid going back up again. Any speed under 6m/s is pretty safe, but under 4m/s is ideal.

Good luck!

[Vanamonde]

kknight13, what is going wrong and what does your ship look like?

Personally, I really don\'t like the stop-high-and-descend-straight method. There are too many ways to screw it up as you descend and descend and descend. Some of us like to bring periapsis down to about 3000m (on Mun), brake hard, and then bring remaining lateral speed to zero just by backwards-steering toward the retrograde marker. I don\'t want to muck with lateral RCS while I\'m already trying to steer, throttle, and watch terrain; it\'s just too many buttons to be mashing all at once. But I do use RCS at the last second, to brake from around 10m/s to 5 or less. I cut throttle about 1 ship-length from actual touchdown to prevent that *$^%! ship-killing bounce that the springy landing legs are prone to, and float down like a feather on RCS pulses, which are much more fine-controllable and responsive than the lagging throttle.

[Guest butt head]

if you think a better ship will help try out my MOONCRASHERs 2 or higher there stock and the MOONCRASHER 5 should be able to land you on minmus and the mun and maybe even back to another moon then back to http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=13373.msg220768#msg220768

[Nomer]

I have yet to make a sucessful landing on the mun and i was wondering if i could get advice/assistance. I can get into mun orbit pretty easily but every rocket that goes down to the mun never returns. A couple of missions are still there but even more are just craters containing roasted Kerbals :\'(

I don\'t use mods on my missions and i would like to keep it that way I also want the crew to return alive after the landing (i know i am pushing my luck).

can people help me out with a lander and rocket (lander only for basic purposes now, possible more complicated later) as well as tips for getting the crew safely down. Also if you have a THIS NEVER WORKS i would appreciate to know before i have to inform 3 more kerbal widows of a slight mishap

Appreciate any and all assistance.

Thanks

Do you happen to have XFire, because I can help you step by step.

[kknight13]

no xfire

what is a good number of lander legs to use?

how do you use them when the rockets are too big for the lander legs?

[Nomer]

Do you have the full version?

I can build you a ship and explain it to you.

[you can get xfire at xfire.com, it films, takes screenshots, you can chat ingame etc, so I can help you while you\'re doing it]

[Markus Reese]

It is a longer series, but this is a group of videos containing assortet parts of moon landing. I landed on Minmus, but Mun principles are similar, just more gravitational effect. Part 1 is some tips to rocket construction. Part 2 is launch and orbit controls, Part 3 is landing and landing location selection, Part 4 is return trip and alignments.

[Vanamonde]

I was having a lot of trouble with crashing too, so I built this lander. It\'s bigger than most players\' landers because I made it low and wide to prevent tipping over. I put the legs on hardpoints so they\'d stick down far enough to prevent the engines from hitting the ground, and it can break off up to 3 legs and still come to rest in flyable condition. It\'s got more engines and fuel than it needs, but I figured it would be good practice for the time when we need bigger ships to deliver actual cargoes and stuff. And it can easily fly home from either moon. Hope this helps.

Here it is, with scenic arch:

[Nomer]

I use a rover because the suspension on those carts are amazing and can withstand falls from 25 meters per second.

[LaydeeDem]

if you think a better ship will help try out my MOONCRASHERs 2 or higher there stock and the MOONCRASHER 5 should be able to land you on minmus and the mun and maybe even back to another moon then back to http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=13373.msg220768#msg220768

*facepalm*

Here is how I normally land:

1. Get in a low orbit around the Mun 5000 meters is ideal

2. Choose a landing spot

3. Burn retrograde until yor path hits where you want to land. Overshoot it a bit.

4. When you near your landing spot start buring to kill horizontal velocity.

5. Once you slow down enough and are ready for landing keep your speed below 12 m/s

6. Below 10m/s is even better

Hope I helped!

[kknight13]

thanks for the advice, videos and offers.

i do have full version so if i still fail i would appreciate others working designs

will let you know

[Nomer]

kknight, I can build you a vanilla part munar lander, but if you have mods tell me, you can use the interpied, nova punch, put I enjoy using my own.

[kknight13]

i don\'t use mods, not sure why, just choose not to have them.

i would like to stress that any design should be able to survive a completley ungifted pilot.

[Nomer]

Ok,

I can build you trydyingtolive\'s

model of his munar rocket.

It\'s pretty huge, unstable, and laggy,

Thats the main reason I use mods.

[kknight13]

is there a stable, sleak and smooth running version of his rocket?

[Nomer]

well i don\'t know,

maybe it\'s laggy to me, here, 1 sec.

I\'ll make you one, where can I upload it?

[kknight13]

you can attach the .craft file to your post

thanks for the assistance

[Nomer]

I will post utube link, he puts a quick explaination, but some height related issues with 0.13 have been fixed and the rocket is uncompatible in its current forum, I gotta tweak it a bit.

[the_bT]

Here\'s an all stock design that works for me...

I did a quick test run to mun and back, had enough fuel to do two mun landings, returned to kerbin, again enough spare fuel to do powered landing, but used extensive aerobraking...

[kknight13]

thanks for the assistance, managed to get a rocket to mun, somewhat landed on mun (more like scraped across), lost 10 out of 12 landing legs, only 6 of which exploded. Also managed to get crew back safley (a first).

will keep trying

Thank you

[Nomer]

do you wan\'t a cart?

I just built a pretty decent rocket that can carry kerbals to the mun, and minmus(not in the same mission), and back

that has a rover attached. I used it for searching munoliths, didn\'t find any

[kknight13]

is it stock parts?

is there any benefit to a cart, apart from exploring mun. i have trouble landing a basic rover, cargo may be harder

[Nomer]

You aren\'t going to land on the rover, here is a picture of the rocket with diagram:

Though to be honest, landing with the rover is quite easier due to the suspension and the ability to move around,

it\'s no problem if you land on a slope.

Here is picture:

You touchdown with expandable legs,

then quicksave, release the rover, use RSC tanks, turn and start exploring.

[kknight13]

how exactly does someone save, mid flight?

would make things easier just getting to keep trying rather than having to fly a new rocket every crash