How to Land Near Something

[Little Kerbonaut!]

So I want to send a rescue mission to Minmus to rescue Jebediah, Bill, and Bob. But I don’t know how to land near the command pod. Does anyone know how to land near the KSC or a command pod on a different moon/planet.

[AHHans]

Well, on Minmus (or any other airless CB) I do:

1. Have a rescue craft with lots of dV to spare. Precision landings eat up a lot of fuel!
2. Get into a suborbital trajectory that passes over the spot where I want to land.
3. Once I get close to the target kill my horizontal velocity so that I come to vertical fall or a hover more or less directly over the target.
4. Fine tune the approach while slowly lowering to the ground. SAS in surface mode set to radial out can be very helpful here.
5. If needed I can do another "hop" to get even closer than my approach.

But on Minmus you don't need to get all that close. The EVA jetpacks have enough juice to fly a Kerbal for several kilometers.

[Little Kerbonaut!]

Oh ok, thanks!

[jimmymcgoochie]

You can actually get into orbit from the surface of Minmus, just by using the EVA jetpacks. I don't recommend it though as it can be difficult and it will be pretty slow.

There's an easy (but some would say cheaty) way to land right next to something: MechJeb's landing guidance mode. It'll plonk you down within a couple of hundred metres (or often even closer!) of the target and deal with all the plane change/deorbit/landing burns for you as well. Simple, reliable and doesn't waste too much fuel either- but on Minmus, you shouldn't have too much trouble with fuel due to the really low gravity.

[Little Kerbonaut!]

Ok.

[Spricigo]

Keep in mind that precision landing is a combination of landing and rendezvous. That means you will use the same techniques but need to take in account how the landing will mess the rendezvous and how the rendezvous will mess the landing. 

Some people are good enough to do a very efficient landing and still land few meters from its target. Most of us just expent a lot of fuel to land within a few hundred. 

Anyway, minmus low gravity make it a good place to practice. 

 

[Dan Kerman]