Can't gather data near Mun

[dylanh88]

Okay so I'll start off by saying I've started a new career with the most recent update, I've gone to orbit, set up relay sats, and what not. but then i got my fly-by the mun and return contract. so i build my vessel launch it and send to the Mun. Then when i get there suddenly the probe will not connect to my relays. i checked to make sure they were in the proper position and sure enough they were. FYI i have 6 HG-5 high gain antennas on my probe i sent to the Mun. And on the relay, i also have 6 and 2 extra communotron 16's. I'm not sure whats going on here but its quite annoying considering my probe is connected to the relay 100% before i reach the Mun, but when i enter the Muns sphere of influence it just disconnects. I am not in a Mun orbit, just a fly-by. Thank you in advance if you can answer my concerns!

[NSEP]

Do you have electric charge on your spacecraft? Is your spacecraft on the opposite side of the Mun?

[dylanh88]

1 hour ago, NSEP said:

Do you have electric charge on your spacecraft? Is your spacecraft on the opposite side of the Mun?

Yes there's plenty of batteries and solar panels. And no it's between Kerbin and the Mun. 

[NSEP]

3 hours ago, dylanh88 said:

Yes there's plenty of batteries and solar panels. And no it's between Kerbin and the Mun. 

Strange, im going to think about. Maybe i will have an explanation.

[LordFerret]

You say a 'fly-by', but that you're not in orbit around Mun? Are you within Mun's SOI? If not, no, you won't get any science (related to Mun).

Don't know what's up with your antenna, sounds like a different issue.

How about a picture of your craft, or the craft file?

[Starman4308]

Do CommNet antennae need to be activated to work? I know with Remote Tech that would be one of my guesses.

[Vanamonde]

This question about how to play the game has been moved to Gameplay Questions. 

[Ohm is Futile]

Yeah, only thing I can think of is that the HGs are not extended... Also, do you have any mods that could affect the strength of antennae? What about the difficulty settings?

[HvP]

Hi @dylanh88 let's see if we can figure this out.

If you are in sight of Kerbin then it looks like a problem with the antennas on your probe rather than the relays since you should be able to connect directly to Kerbin.

The first thing I can think of is that both the HG-5 antennas and the Communotron-16's have to be deployed in order to work. Right-click on the antennas and you should see an option to "Deploy". The reason you can connect before you get to the Mun is because the capsules and probe bodies have simple antennas built into them but they aren't powerful enough to transmit long distances and they can't send science.

Also, the Communotrons can not function as relays, but the HG-5s can. Be aware that the HG-5 is still pretty low power for a relay since it's the first one you have access to, so you will need to keep the HG-5 relays in orbit of the Mun to connect to a probe on the Mun's surface. It's your large ground stations on Kerbin that will do the work to resolve such weak signals from the relays.

Edited June 6, 2017 by HvP

[bewing]

There are several settings that you could have changed that would change all this behavior.

The Difficulty setting of your game changes the range of all the antennas -- or you might have reduced the ranges manually. You might have turned off all the extra tracking stations on Kerbin. You might have modified the occultation value. Or you might be using mods. Or you might have a corrupt download of the game.

With default settings, what you are seeing should be impossible -- assuming at least one of your antennas is deployed, as said above. A single HG5 antenna can easily connect from the Mun direct to Kerbin. No relay sats are necessary -- and even if they are there, they will not be used.

(Note: as said above, Communotron 16's do not provide any benefit on a relay sat.)

 

[Ohm is Futile]

I just realized this but how many relays do you have? is it possible the relay itself is losing sight with the KSC? Because I ran the numbers in Poodmund's signal calculator and as long as all the antennae are deployed and one of the satellite has KSC connection, then you should at least have a red bar if not two orange ones. It definitely should not be completely disconnected.