How do I lift a shipwreck off a planet?

[Zosma Procyon]

I have never successfully recovered a shipwreck from a planetary surface, and just accepted a contract to do so on Moho. I think the best way to do it to land right on top of it with a klaw on the bottom of the rocket, Mechjeb will make that easy enough. Anyone have good craft designs?

[Cavscout74]

The only successful time I tried it, that's basically what I did.  My landing legs were too short to straddle the wreck, but I had stuck plenty of reaction wheels & was able to get it upright & launched.  It was only a recovery from Mun however, so I needed minimal dV to return home.  I suppose you could always dock a larger vessel with it for the transfer back from Moho.   The reason I never do these, however, is that the next 2 I tried had the wreckage get launched into space from a game glitch when I got within physics range & explode when it came back down.

 

[Gargamel]

3 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

Mechjeb will make that easy enough

Ehhhhh..... I dunno.   I have found that MJ usually has about a +/- 100m accuracy when it comes to precision landing.  Probably going to have to use MJ to get it close, and then finish it off manually. 

[Plusck]

4 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

I have never successfully recovered a shipwreck from a planetary surface, and just accepted a contract to do so on Moho.

Well, that's certainly one way of making things difficult for yourself!

I personally tend to avoid these contracts because of the potential glitch factor that @Cavscout74 mentioned. Add in the relatively high Moho gravity and the dV requirements of getting there and back to start with, and I'm sure I wouldn't touch it.

And I certainly wouldn't rely on my piloting skills to come down exactly on my target. I've done that on Minmus a few times and it was frustrating enough. With Moho's gravity, that gives a huge potential fuel loss just trying to line up. No, I'm sure that I'd use a wheels-based design to move to the target and latch on.
Moho's gravity, again, would make me wary of a design that lands on its tail then drops on its belly, leaving a sideways-pointing Klaw. That means the Klaw has to be central and downward-facing at all times.

Therefore I'd go for a short, wide and squat design, a klaw under a 2.5m core tank with Aerospikes (probably) on a pair of side stacks (which would also hold rover wheels and docking ports fro driving purposes). Yes, it'll need a burst of the engines to jump on top of its prey, but that's only at the very end. All of the approach would be on wheels.

[bewing]

I'd go for the tail-first landing with a rover that then rotates down to its wheels, with a klaw on the nose. A Vernor under the nose to soften the impact. A selection of wheels of various heights to allow adjustment of the klawing angle/nose angle by extending or retracting various wheels.

Edited January 24, 2019 by bewing

[Kryxal]

In all this talk about how to get the Klaw applied to it, don't forget to consider how you're lifting off again ... a tail-lander that can't either rotate back to vertical or take off horizontal is going to have a bad time of it.  It's too bad there are no powered, retractable wheels...

[RealKerbal3x]

53 minutes ago, Kryxal said:

It's too bad there are no powered, retractable wheels...

In Making History there are some.

[Rauko]

Related answer/question. With KIS/KAS, would you "stick" the shipwreck to your ship? Does it count for the contract?

[bewing]

1 hour ago, Kryxal said:

In all this talk about how to get the Klaw applied to it, don't forget to consider how you're lifting off again ... a tail-lander that can't either rotate back to vertical or take off horizontal is going to have a bad time of it.  It's too bad there are no powered, retractable wheels...

You don't have to get all the way to vertical. You just need to have enough of an angle on your nose, plus a hillside to climb, plus some decent gimbal on your engines ....

[Foxster]

21 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

I have never successfully recovered a shipwreck from a planetary surface, and just accepted a contract to do so on Moho. I think the best way to do it to land right on top of it with a klaw on the bottom of the rocket, Mechjeb will make that easy enough. Anyone have good craft designs?

What's the mass (or parts) of the shipwreck?

[panzerknack]

I would do a  plane-like landing nearby the target object, then motor-wheel over to on top of the object where you could use a stratenblitz-like winch system in a cargo bay (a Klaw connected to a flat surface which aerobrakes lift up or down - storing it in the 'top' position to a clamp-o-tron)

[Zosma Procyon]

1 hour ago, Foxster said:

What's the mass (or parts) of the shipwreck?

It's a lunar lander command module without any fuel (If I've interpreted the size and mass characteristics listed in the contract correctly), massing 1.6 tons I think. I'm away from my computer atm so I can't check the contract.

[Duck McFuddle]

I think you pretty much have it... I've never done this myself but attacking a klaw to the bottom sounds about right.

[StrandedonEarth]

I'm surprised nobody has suggested KAS/KIS yet. I built a salvage rover for Duna and placed cubic octagonal struts as needed to be able to move the scrap cockpit from the ground to the top of my salvage rover. Remove what was no longer needed from the core, blow the side tanks and burn for home.

Edited January 26, 2019 by StrandedonEarth

[Rauko]

5 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I'm surprised nobody has suggested KAS/KIS yet. I built a salvage rover for Duna and placed cubic octagonal struts as needed to be able to move the scrap cockpit from the ground to the top of my salvage rover. Remove what was no longer needed from the core, blow the side tanks and burn for home.

mmm  I did on thursday!  (In fact, I was asking if it was a viable solution)