The beginners guide to KSP

[Ivan Ivanovich]

From your first launch to a Munshot - the complete tutorial

It\'s not easy coming into this game anew and expecting a Munshot. We, the players who spent our time growing with the game, are of course hungry for every 'next' feature, but for someone who might come in late it could well be overwhelming. Allow me to be your guide into this game and lend you a hand on your quest for the Mun.

My rockets, my strategy and even my approach ain\'t the only ones that lead to success. Many others have very different styles and they all can be successful. Take a look at the various threads and especially the different space ship designs people built. Some are mostly for fun, some are just hilarious bombs, but there are also a lot of very sophisticated and successful designs. Try them! Play with them! Find the ones that fit your style best.

One thing I want to suggest right away is to avoid the temptation of taking a shortcut. Do the 'missions' step by step. NASA didn\'t simply slap together an Apollo rocket when Kennedy said we\'re going to the Mun, so why should you?

Although, instead of 10 years it\'s more like 10 hours from the first flight to the Munshot.

Parts and player made parts

Let\'s get this out of the way first. There are quite a few player made parts and packs to be found at http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.net/kerbal-space-program-mods Some people consider this cheating, wanting to rely on the 'pure' and 'original' parts. But some of these parts make life a lot easier, they add flavor and some parts (like those lander legs) are only available from mods.

As of 0.13, when we were finally allowed to attach liquid tanks radially and hence we can now build rockets that can stand on more than just three legs sensibly, it has become possible to do a Mun shot on vanilla parts sensibly. Earlier, it was mostly a rather unwieldy monster made of boosters, some boosters and more boosters. The Stock craft attached is a vanilla-only parts Mun craft. But we\'ll get to that.

Parts and what they\'re good for

Try to resist the temptation to go to the page I just mentioned and download everything. You\'ll be overwhelmed by the amount of parts and you\'re in for a quite frustrating experience if you do. Plus, the more parts you have in your stock, the longer it takes for the game to load (not as much as it used to, but it\'s still going to increase your loading time by some margin). For now, I\'d suggest staying away from them and just use vanilla parts \'til you\'re comfortable with them, then add some mods for flavor.

Let\'s take a look at the various different parts and their meaning. Start the game, then go to the vehicle assembly building (the big one on the left). As of version 0.13, you\'re presented with a selection of capsules to use. For now, the only one you have is the stock one so take that one.

Take a look to the left of the screen. On top, you have six ledgers that we\'ll now discuss in detail.

Propulsion

The stuff in propulsion is what moves your rocket. It contains fuel tanks, rocket engines and solid boosters. For now, this is the standard fuel tank, the two different rocket engines, the RCS fuel tank and the stock solid booster.

Liquid fuel tanks and rocket engines

Since they belong together, they can as well be handled together. Every engine needs at least one fuel tank to work. Without, it\'s just dead weight. You can use two, three or even more fuel tanks for a single engine, likewise you can use couplers (we\'ll get to that) to fuel multiple engines from a single tank. They\'re quite a bit heavier than the solid boosters, but they can be controlled. You can decide to run them at half power, or shut them off and power them back on.

You\'ll notice that you have two different engines to choose from. One is a more powerful one, the other one gives you more control.

Solid boosters

Solid boosters have two settings: 100% throttle and burned out. The moment you start a booster, it will burn for its allotted time and then simply shut off. No control, no way to turn them off aside of jettisoning them (and then it\'s a gamble whether they may hit your rocket on their uncontrolled flight path...), but they\'re cheap and lightweight compared to their thrust and power.

RCS fuel tank

RCS fuel tanks are for position control. These are the tanks for the thrusters that offer you lateral movement and a lot of control, for the price of being fairly weak. We\'ll get to them when we need them, for now, let\'s ignore them.

Command & Control

Basically, things that let you control the craft better. In here, you\'ll find two different SAS modules and the thrusters for the RCS tanks. SAS modules make flying the craft a lot easier, so it\'s usually a good idea to have one of those on your rocket, especially if it\'s a HUGE rocket that is hard to control otherwise. For now, we won\'t really need them.

Structural & Aerodynamic

Basically couplers, struts and wings.

There are three couplers in the fold. The radial decoupler, to slap boosters to the sides of your craft. The stack coupler, to throw away lower stages that are spent. And the tri-coupler to have three instead of just one leg to stand (and thrust) on.

As for wings, they let you turn the rocket more easily. If you notice that turning your rocket becomes near impossible, this is what you want to add to your craft.

Struts allow you to make your rocket more sturdy. If you rocket wobbles and looks like it\'s falling apart, if your outer boosters look like a cheap chairoplane, this is what you want to use.

And new in 0.13, the fuel lines. Fuel lines allow you to connect tanks that are, for example, attached radially to funnel the fuel in them to the main tanks. I\'ll get into detail with them in a separate tutorial... when I finally figured out reliably how they work. For now, attaching them is simple. Take one, attach it to the tank FROM which the fuel should be flowing, then attach the other end to the tank TO which you wish to draw fuel (in 0.13.1 it got turned around, in 0.13.0 it was attach TO tank first, then FROM tank).

Utility and Scientific

Just the parachute in here for now, but it\'s essential. Without, landing might be a tad bit hard on your kerbonauts. In various player made packs you\'ll find satellites, more parachutes and various other tidbits here.

The rest

Not so important for now. They are empty anyway.

To orbit

Getting to orbit is fairly easy, once you know how to do it. A common misconception is that you just have to point your rocket upwards and then somehow you magically end up in an orbit. That\'s not the case. To get into an orbit, you have to get some kind of horizontal momentum. In other words, fly to the side instead of up. The only reason we fly up first is, obviously, that it\'s kinda hard to do an orbit while your rocket is dragging on the ground, but also to overcome air resistance. Air, and hence its resistance, ends at about 70,000 Meters on Kerbin. Our first goal is, hence, to get to an altitude of over 70,000 Meters.

But while we\'re doing that, we also must somehow reach a serious amount of lateral movement. At 70,000 Meters, we\'ll need about 2200m/s horizontal speed to stay in an orbit and not fall back onto Kerbal. Our first goal is hence to combine those two.

Our orbital rocket

First, let\'s build a rocket. We want a rocket that can reach orbit and return our kerbonauts safely back to Kerbin.

Put underneath the capsule a stack decoupler, so when we return we can throw away any useless weight. On top of the capsule, put a parachute.

Now put 4 fuel tanks below the decoupler, and one of the powerful engines underneath.

Put 6 radial decouplers around the rocket. For symmetry, you can use the tool at the upper left corner of the hangar, to make six instead of just one decoupler.

Put a solid booster on every decoupler.

Now it\'s time to mess with the staging. We want the boosters and the liquid engine to fire at the same time. Simply grab the engine and its fuel tank on the right hand side staging display and pull them down into the lower stage.

Liftoff!

Hit the launch button (upper right corner in the hangar) and let\'s see how she fares. To launch the rocket, hit space and be prepared for a rocky ride! We have no SAS modules, so you will have to do some serious steering. Get used to it! Your first goal is to keep the rocket upright and pointing towards the sky. It will spin a little, correct that! The boosters will eventually burn out, jettison them as soon as they no longer provide thrust. The key to success is as little dead weight as possible.

Around 10-15,000 meters it\'s time to start banking towards the direction we eventually want to go. Since it\'s a good idea to make use of Kerbin\'s rotation, try to fly towards 90 degrees.

Now is also a good time to introduce you to the different speeds concerning orbit and surface. If you click on the speed indicator above the artificial horizon, you can see it. Orbital speed is the speed relative to the center of mass. It WOULD be equal to surface speed if Kerbin didn\'t rotate. Surface speed is your speed over ground. For now, just remember that surface speed is what matters during landing, orbit speed is what matters during orbiting.

Ok, back to our flight. Bank slowly. At about 30,000 Meters you should be aiming at about 45 degrees up. In a perfect world, you should hit the 70,000 Meters about the same time as you hit the 2300m/s. Since few things in this world are perfect, try to get a bit higher. We can use that hight soon.

Attaining orbit

Once you hit about 70,000 meters it\'s time to check the overview map. Hit M and let\'s take a look at our flight plan. Most likely, your flight curve indicator (the blue line) will show that you\'re in for a short trip. Aim towards the direction you want to go (90° if you followed my suggestion) and keep the throttle up \'til the apogee (labeled AP on the flight path) is a few kilometers ahead of you. In a perfect world, you\'d want to apply thrust ONLY while you\'re at apogee, to maximize your fuel efficiency. Since you probably won\'t have the luxury of that much thrust, you will have to start thrusting a little earlier than that. With time you\'ll get a feel for how much thrust your rockets can muster and how soon or late you may fire them to achieve best fuel efficiency. Your goal now is to lift the perigee of your orbit (the PE on the flight curve, which is right now still probably below Kerbin\'s crust, i.e. on or 'in' the Planet) to above 70,000 Meters. Once you\'ve done that, congratulations, you\'re in orbit.

Note: You only thrust towards 90° (i.e. in the direction of your flight) to raise your orbit and towards 270° (away from your flight direction) to lower it. Don\'t thrust up (away from planet) or down (towards planet) once you\'re almost in orbit. Staying in orbit is a matter of horizontal speed. Not a matter of 'flying up'.

Getting back down

Getting back down is fairly straightforward: Aim your rocket against the flight direction indicator (the green thingie on your artificial horizon, it should be pointing towards 90°, i.e. aim your rocket to 270° on the artificial horizon where that green thingie with an X inside is located) and thrust. Your goal is to come down in water, for an obviously softer landing than on land. You needn\'t lower your perigee to the ground, getting down to about 30,000 meters is enough, the air drag should do the rest. Don\'t forget to jettison the rocket and deploy the parachute (i.e. hit space often enough), and welcome back to Kerbin.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Some advanced maneuvering and transfer orbits

Now that we managed to get into an orbit, let\'s try to get more control over our craft. A Mun shot will require us to change our direction a few times, and since fuel is precious in outer space, we\'ll want to use as little as possible of that precious fluid to get as far as we possibly can. Below you find my standard orbiter. It\'s a bit bigger than the basic orbiter. And with bit I mean a damn lot. Hence it has an Advanced SAS module to keep it manageable. It also features a gimbaled engine at the center of those first stage fuel tanks. Both will come very handy. But you\'ll quickly see how 'more fuel' doesn\'t necessarily also mean 'more fuel to spend'. Because most of the rocket will be gone when you finally manage to get into an orbit. The 'normal' engine powered legs of the rocket will be spent before the gimbaled engine in the center will eat through its fuel, so be prepared to get rid of those radially coupled tanks when they\'re dead (you\'ll hear a 'whoosh' sound when it happens, and the push suddenly falls to 1/8th of its original thrust). By then you should be in orbit, or almost there, so it\'s no big deal.

This rocket is meant to be my 'Gemini Project' of KSP. As soon as docking gets into place, this rocket is probably the one that I will use for docking practice. You can actually try some 'pretend docking' with it, I\'ll get to that later.

Liftoff

The rocket handles fairly well for its size. Turn SAS on (hit T), push the throttle to the top and launch. Separate the boosters as soon as they\'re spent, else there\'s usually little to do, the rocket is really stable and needs little input. Keep the speed at the maximum (I found out air resistance holds no candle to the impulse gain by thrusting at max power). As soon as you leave the denser parts of the atmosphere (around 32,000 Meters), start banking towards 90 degrees like you did previously. At about 45,000 Meters you should slowly start to level out, for a stable Orbit around 70-90,000 Meters, you\'ll need approximately 2200-2300m/s orbital (!) speed. The outer rocket legs should take you to orbit, leaving the inside stage for maneuvering in orbit.

In Orbit

That stage 'inside' the circle of six fuel 'legs' is meant to be the orbital maneuvering stage. I recommend using it to get a feel for how orbital mechanics work, how transfer orbits work, how to change inclination, and most of all, how to do all that while spending as little fuel as possible.

Transfer Orbits

A transfer orbit is, simply put, the way to change your apogee (highest point in your orbit) and perigee (lowest point in your orbit). As you see, an 'orbit' isn\'t necessarily circular. It can be highly ellyptical without failing to be an orbit. It only fails as an Orbit if your perigee is too low (and you hit the ground when you\'re at the 'bottom' of your ellypse) or if your speed exceeds escape velocity (i.e. if your apogee is 'too high', or rather, your speed too high to result in an apogee and forcing you eventually to fall back towards Kerbal.

The laws of physics also dictate that you\'re fastest while at perigee (closest to the planet) and slowest at apogee (farthest away from the planet). Which makes sense, to get to perigee, you 'fall', to get to apogee, you 'climb'.

If your goal is only to reach a certain height at one point in your orbit (as we will when we try to get to the Mun), the most fuel efficient way to do that is to thrust at Perigee. Thrusting towards the movement vector of your vessel will lift the apogee while not changing the perigee. Thrusting away from it lowers the apogee while not affecting the perigee. All of that of course considering that you\'re EXACTLY at perigee. Since perfect, unlimited thrust does not exist, your perigee will be changed ever so slightly by that maneuver as well.

The opposite applies to thrusting at apogee. Thrusting towards the vector at apogee raises your perigee. Thrusting away from it lowers it. This is very convenient on your return trip, since you\'ll only need a little fuel to lower your perigee enough to get back to Kerbal, which will be very useful due to us not having a lot of fuel left when we get back from the Mun.

Try it! Thrust at perigee and apogee to lower and raise your orbits. Try to get into a circular orbit by thrusting at the right times in the right direction. Try to get into an insanely ellyptical orbit without going over the escape velocity (you\'ll see if you do on the map (M), if your flight path has a beginning and an end, and isn\'t an ellypse no more, you are too fast to ever return to Kerbal). Find out what happens if you thrust while you\'re between apogee and perigee. Always remember: Only thrust towards or against your speed vector to affect your orbit height. Never up or down.

Orbit inclination changes

Sometimes you don\'t want to rotate just east-west. Sometimes you\'ll want to have an inclined orbit, especially when we\'re going to the Mun, the best landing spots are unfortunately not at the equator. We\'ll have to tilt the orbit a little. Now, this will of course cost us fuel. But how much? And how to consume the least fuel?

As said before, your orbital speed is lowest at apogee. That also means that speed changes at apogee have the most impact. Or, in other words, if you want your orbit to change inclination, you should do that change at apogee where a little thrust is all it takes to change a lot of inclination. Try it. Get into a highly ellipitcal orbit (with a high apogee and a low perigee). When you\'re at apogee, thrust towards the north. You\'ll notice your orbit changing direction considerably. Count the seconds you\'re thrusting. Now do the same towards south at perigee. You\'ll notice that the effect is by far less. Be careful when thrusting, though, since if you\'re not pointing exactly 90° away from your orbital vector, you\'re either lowering or raising your perigee. And since you\'re changing your orbital vector when changing orbit inclination, that means that you can\'t simply keep thrusting towards north or south without eventually not being at 90° towards your orbital vector anymore. Don\'t forget to check your perigee and apogee when you\'re done and correct it. Now, at apogee, you can correct it for just a few drops of fuel. When you\'re down at perigee, it\'s a titan\'s work to keep the capsule in orbit if your perigee got too low.

Docking practice and RCS thrusters

When your second stage is burned up, you can use the rest of the time for some docking practice. Don\'t worry, that final stage should have more than enough juice to get you back from pretty much any orbit within the Mun orbit. That spent second stage makes a beautiful docking target. Get into a stable position (i.e. no banking/tilting), putting the game into 5x speed acceleration for a moment to put the rocket on rails helps a lot here and turn on the RCS control with the R key. Separate the stage and immediately put some backwards thrust onto the RCS to stop moving away from the jettisoned stage. Now turn your capsule around and pretend your nose cone is a docking adapter. Try to hit the side of the stage with your nose in an angle that would allow a docking adapter to 'lock'. The RCS control allows you to move your capsule sideways (with the i,j,k,l keys, and h and n for forwards/backwards thrust), which lets you align it perfectly with the stage. Try to move away for a bit, then approach it again. Eventually we\'ll get some docking in place and you\'ll want to be able to do it! Chances are that we\'ll get some kind of additional aiming equipment, but being able to do it without cannot hurt, can it?

But no, it doesn\'t aid you in your trip to the Mun and you can skip that part if you ain\'t as much a fan of docking as I am.

Back to Kerbal

The docking maneuvers should only consume the fuel in your RCS stage, so you have a full tank for your retro burn, that\'s more than enough for this. The procedure is straightforwards and not much different from earlier. Wait until you\'re at apogee, then thrust against the orbit vector to lower your perigee to 30k meters or below. Depending on your apogee, it might be a good idea to first lower that, in case you went for an insanely elliptical orbit (or, later, return from the Mun and are in such an orbit). The atmosphere might not be enough to lower your speed so you don\'t get back into an orbit. So far we do not have heat friction and G-forces in effect, but I guess it\'s not a bad idea to prepare for that time and try to neither enter the atmosphere at some 5000m/s, nor at g-forces that liquify our Kerbonauts.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

To the Mun

Ok, now\'s the big moment. The goal our nation has worked for so hard that last ten or so hours. Included you find the Stock Mun craft, the mother of all rockets. It\'s now a stock only design, thanks to the changes of version 0.13. If you have a hard time landing on those fins, download some lander legs from the mod page and attach them instead.

To orbit

This rocket handles a lot worse than the ones before and it requires quite a bit of practice to manage it. Again, try to get into orbit as quickly as you can, straight up first, then bank at about 32,000 meters and aim for a stable orbit at about 70-90,000 meters. Jettison the attached legs as soon as they get dry (you\'ll notice it when the three outside engines shut off, listen for the shutoff 'whoosh'). Any stable orbit will do, but try to spend as little fuel as possible. You probably have tossed the first stage by now and are burning through the second stage fuel, that\'s ok.

TMI

Once you\'re in an orbit around Kerbin, relax. You have almost a full orbit time before we do a TMI (trans-munar injection). To find the right time for the TMI, go to the overview map. Turn it so that you look at the Kerbin/Mun system from the top, with your rocket describing a circle around kerbin. Now turn it until the Mun is at about 60° right of the middle line (i.e. about in the direction of the right upper corner of your screen). Now wait until your rocket is 'below' Kerbin in this picture, then apply full throttle towards the orbital vector. Switch back to the overview map and watch your apogee rise. When it gets close to reaching the Mun orbit, slow down. You do not want to overshoot, your goal is to have an apogee that\'s just a little inside that Mun orbit. This maneuver will consume about all of your remaining fuel in the ascent stage. There should be a little left. No biggie if not, we don\'t need a lot of fuel for the rest of the flight.

Munar correction burn

Now it\'s waiting time. To shorten it, pump up the time compression but be ready to instantly cut it when you\'re in the gravity of the Mun. You will most likely end up a little 'ahead' of the Mun, with a vector that will probably intersect with it. In other words, unless you do something you would crash. So we do something. Point your ship towards the side your vector is already pointing (i.e. either 270 or 90 degrees, depending on whether you would hit the left or the right side of the Mun) and thrust. Not too much! Careful with the throttle, you have a rocket underneath you that can escape the pull of Kerbin, a body that\'s by some margin heavier than the little piece of rock you\'re heading for! In a nutshell, 1/4 thrust is about the maximum these engines will ever see in the rest of their short lifetime anymore! Once you have a perigee that\'s above the Mun surface (about 1000 Meters will do, more doesn\'t hurt, though), we\'ll wait again to reach that perigee. Be prepared to align the rocket away from the thrust vector. If you already see a 'PE' marker when you get into the gravity well of the Mun, you could have skipped that last section, all you have to wait is to reach that 'PE' marker.

Munar orbit insertion

Once you\'re at Perigee, thrust against the speed vector to get into orbit. Ok, I lied, you can now go full throttle again. Push that damn thing! Just be careful to not jump the gun and thrust too early, at least if you\'re at a fairly low perigee. That might not be good for the health of your rocket! Maybe it\'s not a bad idea to even wait until you passed perigee if that perigee is below 20,000 meters. Your goal is to lower the speed to about 600m/s, give or take. Check the overview map every now and then, as soon as you\'re in a stable, ellyptical orbit, you\'re good.

Aligning with a landing spot

Now, first of all, you want to land in a crater. And preferably in a crater on the light side of the Mun so you can see what you\'re actually doing. That shadow you cast is a really neat way to tell how far away from the ground you are, and since we do not have radar height sensors (at least not yet), it\'s your best indicator to avoid that 'oops, ground already?' moment.

There are no craters at the Mun equator. At least not on the lit side. Now, you could of course wait a few days or weeks for the Mun to circle Kerbin and make the other side lit... I frankly don\'t know for sure if that works, I never tried it... or you could change your orbital plane to cross over a crater in the sunlight. Note, though, that the Mun moves a little while you wait, i.e. that craters on the 'left' side get lit while craters on the 'right' side will move into darkness. Depending on just how ellyptical your orbit is, and hence how long an orbit takes, this might be a problem.

When you decided for a crater, do an inclination change, just as you did during the second phase of the missions around Kerbin. Keep an eye on the overview map to see whether your inclination change works out. Try not to burn the whole fuel in that second stage, but even if you do, no big deal. When the outer tanks go dry (they get used up faster since the gimbaled engine in the center uses less fuel) you should be ready for the descent burn, so try to time it so that your fuel runs out when you\'re actually about to touch down.

Keep in mind that the Mun is rotating. It will move towards the right, so if you incline your orbit, aim to the right of your target or it will move out below you! That also means that areas that are at the left side of the Mun will come into the light, while areas on its right side will soon see sunset, choose a landing spot rather at the left side of the lit side.

Descent initiation

That happens on the point roughly opposite your landing target. If you do not know where exactly, you did not practice apogee/perigee changes often enough.

Your goal is to reach an orbit endpoint at the far end of the crater, or a bit behind that crater, so that we would cross it and crash into the far side of it if we didn\'t land. If you can\'t get that, just get a Perigee that\'s above the crater, anything\'s going to work as long as we\'re not about 20,000 meters above our target crater. And now, it\'s waiting time again.

Landing on the Mun

Now\'s the moment to get your blood pressure up to 180, now everything stands and fails with how well you fly that last few meters. Until now, mistakes could be corrected. Now there is very, very little error margin.

As soon as you cross the edge of the crater, keep your eyes peeled for a spot that looks flat, then start thrusting. Your goal is to get to zero horizontal movement (turn the artificial horizon back to 'surface speed'!), your vector indicator should point exactly down (or, if you\'re getting too low, up) until you are PERFECTLY hovering. Do NOT attempt to land while you still have lateral movement, the rocket is very top heavy and it WILL tumble and crash if you have too much sideways movement. The RCS thrusters help a lot here. When your speed indicator points down (i.e. if you\'re 'falling'), thrust the RCS TOWARDS that marker. I.e. if the marker is right off center, push right. If it\'s above, press 'k' (i.e. 'pull' the steering lever to go up, like in a plane). If you\'re climbing, it\'s AGAINST the marker. Remember that!

Turn that SAS control system on when you\'re aligned vertically. It keeps you upright and especially it keeps you from going out of control if you have to change the attitude of your craft. There is a REASON I put that heavy ASAS system into this rocket!

Your descent should be slow. Less than 10 m/s is preferable for the touchdown. Try to aim for a flat surface. Once you touch the ground, cut engine power but keep RCS and SAS on! They will aid you a lot in keeping your rocket upright! Once you\'re halfway certain that the rocket won\'t fall over, cut RCS and SAS.

Welcome to Mun.

Launching from the Mun

Getting there is only half of the ticket, our Kerbonauts have families, ya know? They want to see them again. Let\'s get them back home.

You should have a few drops of fuel left in that descent stage. Use them to take off, don\'t bother going too high, just stay above the ground and head towards a 90 degrees orbit. Since you are not on the equator (at least most likely you\'re not), this will end up in an inclined orbit, but that\'s no worry right now. The worry right now is to get that vessel up to speed again and keep it from falling down onto the Mun. Try to get to about 400m/s before even considering anything else. Your rocket will probably run dry before you reach that speed, dump it, turn RCS on and use RCS to build up more speed.

As we have learned, it\'s best to thrust at apogee to raise the perigee. Since we\'re not aiming at a high apogee, just one that keeps us from crashing, take a look at the overview map. Note that your RCS thrusters have precious little thrusting power, so waiting right for apogee is probably not an option, but you shouldn\'t burn much earlier than reaching it. Also, we actually needn\'t get into a stable orbit. Just one that takes us once a bit more than half around the mun and still keeps us above ground when we cross that white line on the overview map that indicates the Mun\'s orbit around Kerbin. This is where we\'ll thrust for a TKI.

Actually... try to aim for a flight path that keeps you above ground for a little longer than just that line. We\'ll thrust normal to it, and you don\'t want to crash into the Mun just because there was juuuust a little too little orbital speed.

TKI

The trans-kerbin injection happens at or about at the moment you cross the Munar orbit around Kerbin. Aim towards the thrust vector indicator and apply thrust. You\'re aiming to reach about 800m/s. Once you have that speed, it\'s waiting time again. time compression on and let\'s wait for us to end up in an orbit around Kerbin. Yes, I know that we aim 'left' of Kerbin, don\'t worry, it will be there by the time we get there.

Return

Once your overview flight path indicator changes from a Munar to a Kerbin orbit display again, it\'s time to check our stats. You should NOT hit Kerbin right away. You should be able to get around it, no matter the height of the Perigee (it is probably going to be something like 400k Meters), with an apogee just outside the Mun orbit. That\'s fine. If it\'s not, and you would hit Kerbin, pick up some speed. Lithobreaking at this speed is most likely lethal. If not now, then when g-forces and heat are in.

What happens next depends on the fuel you have left. If there\'s plenty, you can lower your apogee a bit when you\'re at perigee to ease the descent. If there\'s not, wait for reaching apogee again and lower your perigee enough to hit the atmosphere (30k Meters should do). Aiming for a nice water spashdown is probably not an option if you\'re low on fuel, but if you have some, try to get your apogee down to something sensible (about 400k Meters) before lowering your perigee into the atmosphere.

Have a nice flight!

[SteevyT]

Return

Once your overview flight path indicator changes from a Munar to a Kerbal orbit display again, it\'s time to check our stats. You should NOT hit Kerbal right away. You should be able to get around it, no matter the height of the Perigee (it is probably going to be something like 400k Meters), with an apogee just outside the Mun orbit. That\'s fine. If it\'s not, and you would hit Kerbal, pick up some speed.

What happens next depends on the fuel you have left. If there\'s plenty, you can lower your apogee a bit when you\'re at perigee to ease the descent. If there\'s not, wait for reaching apogee again and lower your perigee enough to hit the atmosphere (30k Meters should do). Aiming for a nice water spashdown is probably not an option if you\'re low on fuel, but if you have some, try to get your apogee down to something sensible (about 400k Meters) before lowering your perigee into the atmosphere.

Something that I learned quickly on my second return. If you do not think you have enough fuel to attempt a soft landing, you can put your perikee at about 40-45km for some aerobreaking to lower your apokee significantly. I came in from an apokee of 12Mm without pulling more than 5Gees because I only put my perikee at 41km. It took four orbits before air friction slowed me down enough to land, but it was a soft and successful landing.

[Plymouth]

Something that I learned quickly on my second return. If you do not think you have enough fuel to attempt a soft landing, you can put your perikee at about 40-45km for some aerobreaking to lower your apokee significantly. I came in from an apokee of 12Mm without pulling more than 5Gees because I only put my perikee at 41km. It took four orbits before air friction slowed me down enough to land, but it was a soft and successful landing.

When i was landing my spaceplane, my orbit\'s Apokee was 100 km, and Periapsis was 60 km. Everytime when i reached atmosphere, Periapsis was slowly decreasing, it tool quite a long time(12 or so orbits) before air broke my orbit completely, and then i\'ve landed on water and started to sail.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

I just noticed, if you fly very carefully, my Mun rocket has even enough oumph in its first stage to last until the Mun descent burn. I almost had to dump it with fuel left before touching down.

[Stevenator1]

I just noticed, if you fly very carefully, my Mun rocket has even enough oumph in its first stage to last until the Mun descent burn. I almost had to dump it with fuel left before touching down.

Most of my Munar-grade rockets jettison fuel at various stages, just for simplicity and planning.

[Luigibro606]

Umm, wow. Nice job on this Ivan, must have taken an age!

[Ivan Ivanovich]

It was actually pretty easy to write, easier at least than the rocketry 101 I\'m preparing now.

[Stevenator1]

It was actually pretty easy to write, easier at least than the rocketry 101 I\'m preparing now.

O.o *sits here twiddling his thumbs waiting for new guide*

But I don\'t need no stinkin guide, I already got this game down (until more stuff is released, then I get to learn more)!

[venku122]

Found a small flaw. The mun is tidally locked ie the kerbin facing side will always remain in sunlight and the opposite side will never never face kerbin.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Found a small flaw. The mun is tidally locked ie the kerbin facing side will always remain in sunlight and the opposite side will never never face kerbin.

Correction: One side will always face Kerbin. That does NOT mean that this face will perpetually be cast in Kerbol\'s light. That would only be the case if the time Kerbin needs around Kerbol was equal to one 'month', i.e. one Mun trip around Kerbin. Which isn\'t the case.

[venku122]

Correct. I completely forgot the mun has phases

[Saaur]

I also noticed your standard orbiter has multiple ASAS modules. You really only need one. Any more than that and they start fighting each other for control. If you need more stability I guess you can add multiple SAS modules, but I personally never use them.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

That\'s correct, I eventually replaced it with another fuel cell in the TMI stage and rebuilt it to add another stage, the whole ship is now more stable and less prone to getting 'tilt stuck' in orbit.

My current Mun craft is attached. Needs NovaSilisko\'s pack, nothing else as far as I remember from building it.

[taekwondeal]

Hello, I\'m having a problem with the Mun Shot craft. I\'ve downloaded all 3 spacecraft and the first two work great, but when I try to load the third it fails and tells me to pick a command module. I have both SIDR and the KW Challenger pack installed, so I don\'t know what\'s wrong. Any idea what the problem might be?

EDIT: I just saw the second post of the moon shot craft, and that doesn\'t seem to work for me either :\'(

[Fleebnork]

I\'m having the same problem. I have loaded both of the parts packs, but neither Mun shot nor Moon shot crafts will load.

[Seanoog]

I\'m having the same problem. I have loaded both of the parts packs, but neither Mun shot nor Moon shot crafts will load.

Hello, I\'m having a problem with the Mun Shot craft. I\'ve downloaded all 3 spacecraft and the first two work great, but when I try to load the third it fails and tells me to pick a command module. I have both SIDR and the KW Challenger pack installed, so I don\'t know what\'s wrong. Any idea what the problem might be?

EDIT: I just saw the second post of the moon shot craft, and that doesn\'t seem to work for me either :\'(

I am honestly not sure how to help you guys!

Are you\'s both running KSP .12, an assuming that that is the version Ivan created the ships with.

My only suggestion is have fun, creating you own.

It was the single biggest factor that attracted me to KSP, building an experimenting with ship designs.

Still crashing learning 4 months on...

To Ivan, great read, but really needs pictures to help explain your self, in simple crayons english.

[Newman]

This is definitely one of the best guides for KSP. I\'ve read all guides you wrote, and all were quite helpful. I find stuff like doing a Mun shot easy now. The thing with pictures is true, though. I\'ve seen one guide where you added pics, but have done so using forum attachments. This is a bad idea for two reasons - one is, the pics are actually small thumbnails that have to be clicked on to expand them, and the other, they\'re all at the bottom of a (very long) post, meaning every now and then in text you have a reference 'like you see in pic #32' (or whatever). When this happens you have to scroll down, find and expand the pic, then scroll back up and find the segment where you left off - interrupting the flow of reading. This will probably put off a lot of people from even viewing the pics.

The solution is easy - use one of the image hosting services, like imageshack, tinypic, photobucket, or something that allows you to just hotlink the images using the IMG tags. Pics will be loaded large, precluding you from having to expand them (just make sure they\'re not too large to not wreak havoc on the formatting) and you can place them smack in the middle of the text, allowing you to put a pic right at the segment of the text that\'s relevant in relation to it. This makes for a much smoother reading experience as you don\'t have to have a scroll-click fest every time you want to see a pic for example. Another advantage is, pics will still be there by the time forum attachments will be gone (most forums delete attachments after a while due to limited and costly server space). Just a suggestion for any future guides (hope there\'ll be some, you write excellent guides and when we get planets they\'ll be of much use).

I don\'t want to come off as spoiled. I found your guides excellent and useful regardless - just making a suggestion that I think would make them a tad better and easier to read.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Actually, you\'re right. You also need

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/575558/SIDR/landerparts_1.1.zip

Sorry, I thought they\'re part of NovaSilisko\'s pack.

And yes, I should finally get acquainted with the various picture hosting pages. It\'s rare that I have to add pics to what I make guides for. There\'s usually very little pretty pics necessary when most of what you do is math.

[Tim_Barrett]

Very nice! Got the main ideas down pat and the detials explained exponentially. Great guide.

I\'m also even more impressed how you handled the modded parts situation, and what to look for. It is very important to check their balances so you get the most out of the challenge, or even how they work together. Well done!

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Made a few edits to the guide to reflect a few tweaks I made to my Mun routine.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Some more changes to reflect the changes in 0.13. Now with a stock-only Mun craft and a few words about the fuel lines.

Edit: Minor adjustments to the 0.13 stock Mun rocket, somehow it didn\'t really work anymore between 0.13beta and 0.13. And it\'s now a little lighter and more efficient. Just make sure you give the first stage a few seconds to get some distance before powering the second stage, it seems it\'s a bit explosion prone.

Jeb, hands off the thruster! That was a warning, not a wager!

Edit2: Now also with a new standard orbiter, since 0.13 changed the format it seems. I removed the basic orbiter, it\'s in the description anyway, and if everything fails, just use the standard orbiter for mission 2 also for mission 1.

[Panichio]

Could you write about getting back to Kerbin from a Kerbol orbit? I can never get back...

[Ivan Ivanovich]

I don\'t really spend a lot of time in Kerbol orbit, mostly because it\'s boring as hell. I\'ll get to it when we have more planets and it becomes a necessity to be able to intercept planets.

Hmm... I guess it will be necessary for orbital rendezvous maneuvers too... Badger Harvester to get me docking finally, and I\'ll write you one.