Igaluk Reusable Service Lander and Rover

[Colonel_Panic]

The Igaluk service lander is a fully reusable exoatmospheric lander and rover. It features Kerbin TWR of 1 and ample delta v, allowing it to land and return from all but the most massive barren rocks. It can reach, land and return from mun and minmus without refueling, and doesn't need a transfer stage to reach Eve, Duna or Jool and their moons (provided it can refuel before landing). It comes with a standard crew of 2 kerbals but has seating for 6 more, plenty of lighting, balanced RCS for docking, a wide landing base to provide stability on slopes, and a detachable rover capable of stability at high speeds, night operation, and reattaching to the lander for a return to orbit.

The rover is carried inverted atop the lander during ascent.

once in orbit the rover is released and picked up on the bottom of the lander, freeing the upper docking port for rendezvous and refueling.

The rover uses RCS to hover and return to the lander

It's always a party with Igaluk!

Video courtesy of Malkuth:

action groups:

1) disabled gimballing on outer engines press twice before every launch or the rocket will wobble

3) extend solar panels

4) open antennas

0) disable rover RCS thrusters (for docking with stations while the rover is attached)

MJ/Engineer pictured but not included. .craft file is as always 100% stock.

http://herpnderp.info/KSP/Munar%20Service%20Lander%20Lifter-S.craft

Edited June 23, 2013 by Colonel_Panic

[Sir_Tramalot]

That is not stock, it has mechjeb on it!

[Colonel_Panic]

That is not stock, it has mechjeb on it!

MJ is in the picture, not in the .craft. Same for Kerbal Engineer.

[malkuth]

This is pretty impressive. Would you mind if I gave it a shot and used it in my current Video series? Of course I will give you credit for the craft in video and have a link to this thread in the description..

Edited June 18, 2013 by malkuth

[Colonel_Panic]

This is pretty impressive. Would you mind if I gave it a shot and used it in my current Video series? Of course I will give you credit for the craft in video and have a link to this thread in the description..

Feel free, and please link me the vid if you do (:

[malkuth]

No problem. It will be a couple episodes but Ill get it going soon.. Thanks a bunch.

[malkuth]

Just a few questions. Do you use all 4 engines to burn to the mun from kerbin orbit.. Or do you shut some down.. At this point while using 4 engines having issues. Should have plenty of Delta-V but seems like the 4 nukes suck up all the fuel.. By the time you land not much left.. Of course Im doing a pinpoint landing at a base and you generally use a little more fuel to get it right.. But still seems like something is not right. Hmmmmm. I even did a efficient launch straight to mun with it as a test and used just as much fuel. If I shut 2 engines off, transfer the fuel back.. It seems to get a lot more bang for the buck. Anyway the video will be up friday showing what I did..

[Colonel_Panic]

Just a few questions. Do you use all 4 engines to burn to the mun from kerbin orbit.. Or do you shut some down.. At this point while using 4 engines having issues. Should have plenty of Delta-V but seems like the 4 nukes suck up all the fuel.. By the time you land not much left.. Of course Im doing a pinpoint landing at a base and you generally use a little more fuel to get it right.. But still seems like something is not right. Hmmmmm. I even did a efficient launch straight to mun with it as a test and used just as much fuel. If I shut 2 engines off, transfer the fuel back.. It seems to get a lot more bang for the buck. Anyway the video will be up friday showing what I did..

There's no point in using less than all 4 engines, since the delta V will be the same, just your TWR will be lower, which means you will bleed efficiency with less precise burn timing. Make sure you're keeping the main lifter stage with you until after you finish circularizing around kerbin (it has a probe core to deorbit it) and timing your transfer to the mun right, as well as doing your inclination change burn early at Munar capture to save fuel. IIRC when I tested it, I had around 1700 delta v left after circularizing around mun, which is more than enough to land and take off again (it's not meant to return to Kerbin, but to be refueled in orbit) When landing do 3 burns: a deorbit burn that puts you just past the landing site, a final braking burn to put you directly over the landing site at surface velocity, and a suicide burn for landing to slow your descent. The igaluk's rover gives you wiggle room for the precision of your landing spot since your kerbals and the rover can get around quickly on the surface.

[malkuth]

There's no point in using less than all 4 engines, since the delta V will be the same, just your TWR will be lower, which means you will bleed efficiency with less precise burn timing. Make sure you're keeping the main lifter stage with you until after you finish circularizing around kerbin (it has a probe core to deorbit it) and timing your transfer to the mun right, as well as doing your inclination change burn early at Munar capture to save fuel. IIRC when I tested it, I had around 1700 delta v left after circularizing around mun, which is more than enough to land and take off again (it's not meant to return to Kerbin, but to be refueled in orbit) When landing do 3 burns: a deorbit burn that puts you just past the landing site, a final braking burn to put you directly over the landing site at surface velocity, and a suicide burn for landing to slow your descent. The igaluk's rover gives you wiggle room for the precision of your landing spot since your kerbals and the rover can get around quickly on the surface.

Ah thats where I was confused then.. Ok Then I did everything correct.. I thought I could get back to Kerbin without refueling again.. No big deal I can adjust how I use it to make it work.. Be sitting on the mun for a little bit though until I can get kethane or refueler in orbit arond moon. Thanks.

[OUScooby]

Good job, looks nice. What is the reason for switching the rover from the top to the bottom. Was there a reason you didn't just build it on the bottom?

[Colonel_Panic]

Ah thats where I was confused then.. Ok Then I did everything correct.. I thought I could get back to Kerbin without refueling again.. No big deal I can adjust how I use it to make it work.. Be sitting on the mun for a little bit though until I can get kethane or refueler in orbit arond moon. Thanks.

You might be able to get back to kerbin orbit from mun if you're really efficient with the fuel and use proper aerobraking, it will be close though. It's really designed for simple landing and return to orbit from non-atmospheric bodies, in order to transport kerbals, rovers or other supplies from orbit to the surface and back to orbit. The fact that it has enough to reach mun from kerbin and still land and take off without refueling first i just a bonus. Normally you'd use all the fuel to reach orbit around a destination body and then refuel before landing and taking off. Since it lacks parachutes or atmospheric engines, I don't recommend using it to land where there's atmosphere, including kerbin (although you could probably land it on kerbin if it had full fuel before entering the atmosphere, and used atmospheric drag to slow you down enough on the way in)

Good job, looks nice. What is the reason for switching the rover from the top to the bottom. Was there a reason you didn't just build it on the bottom?

I couldn't attach the liter to the bottom if the rover was there, so the rover is moved to the top, so the rocket can attach solidly to the bottom.

[malkuth]

Hi again.. This is the link to the Video that I said would be up in a few episodes.. Just live today.. Thanks for a great craft.

Malkuth

http://youtu.be/u--OgkiUENw

[Colonel_Panic]

Hi again.. This is the link to the Video that I said would be up in a few episodes.. Just live today.. Thanks for a great craft.

Malkuth

http://youtu.be/u--OgkiUENw

Hi, nice, do you mind if I link the vid in the first post?

I did have a couple comments. I'm not an expert, but I -think- it's pronounced ig-uh-luck.

Burning with the LV-Ns during late ascent increases the overall specific impulse of the burn, since their high isp offsets the low isp of the mainsail engine. You could possibly save more by using a cluster of LV-30s around an LV45 as the core stack, but that might also cost you more in weight and part cost, since it seems like you're going for low expense.

It is definitely true that by having fewer LV-Ns on the lander, you would increase efficiency, and you could probably land fine with 2, however this is only the case if you're actually removing the engines from the design, and not just disabling them (since it's the weight of the engines that you're burning extra fuel to support. -using- them just trades off burning fuel -faster- for faster acceleration, but your total delta v does not actually change, and in fact may suffer with less thrust due to less precise burn timing (due to the Oberth effect, you burn the least fuel if you can complete your entire ejection burn closer to the prograde vector, and closer to your periapsis, aka, faster.)

I used to include clamp jr ports on all my lifter stages to siphon off unused fuel in orbit, but I kinda stopped caring about it since cost wasn't an issue, and just minimized waste by fine-tuning most of my lifters for ascent efficiency to not have a ton of fuel left. Another thing you -can- do if you want, though, is to begin your transfer burn with the lifter stage attached, and using only LV-N engines (disable the mainsail), and then decouple it just before the lifter tank runs out of fuel, then continue on with just the lander, and de-orbit the lifter with the last bit of fuel when it reaches its apoapsis (however, for this particular lander I did NOT include a solar panel on the lifter, so you'd want to add one first.)

Also, the amount of fuel you use for an inclination change is proportional to your current velocity (the actual formula is something like delta-v=sqrt(2)*v where v is your current velocity), and the most efficient place to do it during your transfer is somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way to your apoapsis. (since changing it earlier takes a smaller change in degrees to line up your orbits, but changing it later takes less fuel per change in degree, because you're moving slower.) You want to fine tune your inclination to match your landing site or rendezvous orbital plane immediately after entering the target body's sphere of influence, since you're moving slowest.

For best rover use, turn on your SAS with T, turn on precision controls with capslock, and then switch to docking (translation) mode, so your input won't cause it to try and torque forward/back or side to side while turning. If you use a soft touch on it you can cruise pretty safely at 35m/s, just be prepared to tap spacebar to switch back to rotation mode in case you manage to get airborne and need to re-align yourself to land flat and in the right direction. Also this rover has enough spin torque due to all the attached probe cores to right itself and to pitch up and down without using its RCS, and you could use that to drop the towing hitch by pitching up while holding the brakes.

I didn't actually test the towing hitch yet, so it might just be bugged. sorry. The game doesn't like cubic octagonal struts near docking ports very much. The original plan was to make it so I could tow fuel tankers along and use the upper port to connect to a ship to refuel.

If you are looking for a good way to transport kerbals to and from munar orbit for rendezvous, you might check out the Arrow or Dart SSTO I have in the link in my sig, as it can carry 2 (1 for dart) and return unmanned using nothing but fuel (needs to refuel in LKO before going to mun). I might be working on an even more efficient shuttle for those purposes soon.

Edited June 22, 2013 by Colonel_Panic

[malkuth]

Yes feel free to link the video:) and thanks for the tips.

[Colonel_Panic]

Yes feel free to link the video:) and thanks for the tips.

np, hope it helps!