Sending a probe to the mun... using RCSs

[Guest Aaack]

So I was thinking in get away from the behemoths I use to make and build something really light, but I didn't know what...

Until I realized I had 2 Kerbals on my Mün base and my lander needs a pilot... To take both kerbals using it, I would need two trips from the Mün surface to the station on the Mün's orbit.

So I needed that very same lander with a probe core.

But, instead of build a new one I've decided to make the tiniest possible core kit and send it to the Mün.

I needed 2 standard docking ports, the core, some power for it and some engine to take it there. Now the problem with an engine is that it broke a clean design of Dock--Probe--Dock, so instead I added a small RCS tank and 4 RCSs nodes.

And that was it, I slapped a couple of FL-T800 tanks, two white SRBs and an LVT45 engine, the setup was enough to put the micro core in orbit and a bit of push to the Mün, the rest was pure RCS power!

The core in it's way to the Mün

HUm, yeah that's good enough...

When I did the orbit circularization (is that a word?) I got very close to the surface, thank gods for the lack of athmosphere!

Ok now I'm waiting to get closer to the station i have very very little fuel left and if everything fails Ill use the lander to catch the probe...

[Guest Aaack]

Success!

I've managed to rendez vous with the Mün station using only 3.2 units of monopropellant.

The issue here was something completely new for me. Lack of mass! the thing is so light that the RCSs behaved like mainsails every tiny correction of the docking procedure was like kick an empty bottle to move it an inch.

And now I can take both kerbals from the Mün to the station... at the same time.

Edit: To the mods, I'm sorry for the misplacing of this thread and thanks for moving it!

Edited July 24, 2013 by Aaack

[Captain Sierra]

In the future, try fine controls (caps lock by default). It barely kicks your ship at all (but I've never done anything that small). That aside, wow. RCS only FTW!