Rover transport

[RizzoTheRat]

Keep getting "Plant a flag on Mun" missions, so decided to leave Danby on the Mun do them (he's one of the idiots Jeb had to rescue orbiting in his space suit so he clearly likes being on his own)

To stop him getting bored I decided to give him a rover to play with while he's waiting for missions, but that got me wondering how people carry rovers.

I opted to use decouplers to build it in to the structure

With a lander tall enough to drop it once landed

Danby seems be having fun showing off with it

So what's your solution for carrying a rover?

[malkuth]

I don't have any pics but I once hung a small rover off the side of a lander with test mobility enhancer planted at an angle below it. When I landed and wanted to deploy the rover I opened the Ladder up at its angle, and decoupled the rover. The rover slid down the ladder and forced it right side up by the time it hit the ground. On the other side lander I placed some other objects to try to balance out the other side of lander on another set of decouplers. Took a few reloads but it worked.

This was well before science and contracts though.

Pretty sure someone had a very similar idea on a craft file offered in the SpaceCraft Exchange forum.. Apollo Replica If I remember correctly.

[merendel]

I tend to include a small amount of RCS on rovers for those unplaned jumps that can happen in low gravity enviroments. (tylo and eve need not apply) With that in mind the rovers have a limited hover capacity so I'll often have them siting on the roof of the lander and will decouple and land on the RCS.

I've done the skycrane style such as what rizzo used as well. I just dont like launching in that configuration so my designs often involve a docking to put them under the lander at some point after launch.

Then agian I've also had a few times where the lander itself was a rover forgoing landing legs for wheels. More often I did this with a mod such as B9 where I can have wheel bays with built in moters.

[tater]

There needs to be a better solution for rovers. I landed one, but I consider most options shown to be pretty ugly.

[maltesh]

There needs to be a better solution for rovers. I landed one, but I consider most options shown to be pretty ugly.

I generally land the rover separately from whatever is bringing the astronauts. While that isn't what was done with Apollo, it's pretty much the kind of thing a space agency would /want/ to do if they were planning to stay long-term. If the lives of your astronauts are valuable, you want as much stuff as they need to live waiting there when they get there, possibly even waiting there before you send them.

As a result, I tend to have small rovers land under a craft capable of bringing them down , and depending on my purposes, may be able to take them back up again.

Larger rovers tend to pack enough fuel (and possibly drop tanks) to land themselves.

[KevinW42]

I've never actually sent a manned rover anywhere besides Kerbin. But for my unmanned Duna rovers I always use a skycrane.

Thrusters provide final deceleration, residual thrust flings the skycrane off into oblivion after I decouple.

[tater]

I generally land the rover separately from whatever is bringing the astronauts. While that isn't what was done with Apollo, it's pretty much the kind of thing a space agency would /want/ to do if they were planning to stay long-term. If the lives of your astronauts are valuable, you want as much stuff as they need to live waiting there when they get there, possibly even waiting there before you send them.

As a result, I tend to have small rovers land under a craft capable of bringing them down , and depending on my purposes, may be able to take them back up again.

I agree. The real issue is that I imagine most rovers would be collapsed at some level, and assembled in situ. I made something vaguely similar to your (very cool, I might add) design, and I took up the rover in a fairing, and used an assembly tug I built (monoprop and lives docked at station) to stick it to a lander stuck to a NERVA transfer craft.

[magnemoe]

Small rovers I tend to self deeply, small probe core, oscar tank or two depending on dV requirements, 1-2 small batteries, then the small struts too get some distance between wheels.

Solar panels on top of struts. 48-7S or two radial ants to land.

[Wanderfound]

So what's your solution for carrying a rover?

This:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1504987&viewfull=1#post1504987

[KerrMü]

or this

just ignore the ladder

[Duke23]

I usually just shove it under a weird purpose built lander and attach it with a docking port. For larger rovers though they tend to get their own dedicated drop system.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Duke23

[magnemoe]

I usually just shove it under a weird purpose built lander and attach it with a docking port. For larger rovers though they tend to get their own dedicated drop system.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b161/duke396/KSP2014-05-0803-12-31-26.jpg~original

Pretty smart, land, drop rover, use science module, on takeoff eiter leave science module behind or drop it at 30 m/s so it get destroyed on impact.

However system looks a bit overkill for Minmus even from LKO.

[Francois424]

There needs to be a better solution for rovers. I landed one, but I consider most options shown to be pretty ugly.

Wouldn't mind the Airbag solution from Spirit/Opportunity rovers. Maybe not 100 feasible for all bodies in RL, but a good alternative for KSP.

I haven't tried the "Crate" solution myself, but a friend of mine did and it was pretty good idea, beside for part count.

I went for the "square around the rover" personally... where you have 4 engines, 2 Fuel tanks (usually the long, white, small ones), and space tape to link both sides. Delivered most of my rovers that way.

Had to try something new for a plane tho, and that was very annoying.

[Kowgan]

This album explains one of the ways I like sending Rovers to space.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I like maintaining certain level of realism, and as such, I don't much appreciate enormous fairing payloads for tiny rockets. Or exposed strut pillars during ascend.

That said, I have a few different approaches on how to put a rover in a ship, but they all have the same principle of fitting inside the payload.

I like the solution shown in Apollo 11 a lot. It's pretty neat and useful to bring the payload in whichever position it fits better in the rocket, for a rearrangement later up in space.

TL;DR: My basic personal rules are that the payload gotta fit in the size of the tank below it, and it gotta keep the conic-rocket general shape.

The down side is that I still gotta find a solution to bring large rovers into space. But who doesn't love finding solutions?!

[Hidden Gunman]

I'm seriously considering designing one as a spaceplan and flying it to the Mun...

[Sir Nahme]

Independently delivered under their own power to the Mun this launcher was a few versions back. Seeded 8 rovers across a number of different bodies. The launcher in the image was scaled for the Mun and Minmus.

[LordFjord]

This was a couple of KSP versions back. Holy crap what kind of monstrosity of a launcher I built for those 2 rovers + lander

The rovers are radially docked, with a girder under the rovers so they glide down gracefully instead of plummeting down/tipping over.

Its fun to dig out and look at old pics.

[electronicfox]

Mounting a rover delivery system/garage to the bottom of a lander, land the whole thing down. Detach lander, fly a couple meters to the side, land again.

[aleis]

No pics add I'm on my phone but I tend to deploy them off the bottom of my lander like you,

however I usually flip the lander upside down on the booster stage so it can securely attach and I avoid the complicated system of have the rover between booster and lander .

Tricky part through is unless you have a probe core some where your flying the launch with grav ball inverted

[JayKay]

Tricky part through is unless you have a probe core some where your flying the launch with grav ball inverted

Actually, if you have a docking port on the nose of your ship (like I almost always do) you can select that port to "control from here" and it will straighten your nav ball problem out.

[Wanderfound]

I'm seriously considering designing one as a spaceplan and flying it to the Mun...

Half a dozen Vernors balanced around CoM on the ventral surface of the ship allows for very gentle landings:

Once you're down, either use powered landing gear from a mod or puff yourself about with RCS (or a few rear-mounted Vernors).

[Levelord]

This one was old, but I liked the way I did it.

[aleis]

Actually, if you have a docking port on the nose of your ship (like I almost always do) you can select that port to "control from here" and it will straighten your nav ball problem out.

Hadn't thought of that. I was building them with decouplers since those stage

Although I also tend to put probe cores on all my ships just incase something happens to the Kerbal. The super thin one is small enough you can always find a spot, and I've lost a number of mission when done one went Eva and the rocket thrust got bumped or the guy didn't quite bounce of that hill so well

Edited November 5, 2014 by aleis

[Biff Space]

I made a lander which drops the rover from about 1m,

then raises the landing legs, which positions the ship's docking port at just the right height to re-attach.

On Minmus it can hop to several different locations before needing to re-supply, Mun it can do a couple of nearby locations, Duna it needs to go back to an orbital fuel depot every trip.

NavyFish's docking port alignment indicator is pretty handy for lining up the rover.

[Torquemadus]

I'm seriously considering designing one as a spaceplane and flying it to the Mun...

Mine has landing legs fitted at the back for a vertical landing. I then use the undercarriage as wheels for surface travel. The trick is to land on high ground and explore downhill so that you can exploit frictionless wheels to travel long distances. Gentle bursts from the engine can be used to give the lander a push if needed, the fuel useage for this is negligible.