VincentMcConnell

I like to put myself into a 1.5KM orbit around the mun, deorbit to pick my landing site while on the far side, wait until I\'m DIRECTLY over my landing site, burn the descent engine retrograde and then start powered descent. It takes only about 30 seconds and you only need to kill about 500 m/s. It\'s the best option for fuel preservation.

I have named a mountain range after my Aquarius Lunar Module. See if you can find it and land next to it.

I modded my RCS tank and used the nova punch pack and was able to take off from Earth using nothing but RCS, wrap into lunar orbit, initiate a deorbit burn and then land, take off and return. My landing gear was just winglets and I did it all with RCS. Not that hard if you\'ve modded the tanks.

Lunar Module Aquarius standing by for PDI. Lunar Module Aquarius Initiates Powered Descent Burn with the Descent Engine. (I removed the Plume effects so that the propellants would burn invisible like in real life.) Lunar Module Aquarius Lands in the Frau Mauro Highlands. Below, the attachments are saved as 'Eagle' for the LM name, but I decided to change the name after I had saved the images in honor of the Apollo 13 crew\'s problems that prevented them from landing.

Locks your staging so that you don\'t accidentally separate while on the Mun. T and R stop you from sliding around by disabling your stabilizers and rcs thrusters.

I want to see if this is possible, really. Land on the moon. Leave a descent stage and as much debris as you possibly can. Now, with persistence, launch a mission to the moon and get into a 2km orbit and take pictures of your previous landing site. If you have to, go as low as you need to see your landing site. I don\'t have KSP so I can\'t try it myself.

No. You have to make a L.O.I. Lunar Orbit Insertion burn. If your Periapsis is on the near side of the moon (which it should be if you\'re using the Earth Orbital Approach) burn retrograde until you make an orbit around the moon. Correct it by trimming -- The same way you do on Earth.

Easy to land. Simply keep your engine aligned retrograde the entire time. If you velocity starts heading lateral, point your engine in the direction that you\'re moving and burn until your retrograde indicator dances back towards the center. As long as you align your spacecraft retro during the entire powered descent, you should touch down with little to no lateral velocity. You\'ll get the hang of it. Practice is all you need.

The best direct burn method that I use is to open my orbital map and warp until the mun is 3/4ths until direct left of Kerbin as viewed from the North Pole looking down. This all done while still on the launch pad. When the Mun is 3/4ths until direct left, I just burn straight up and keep SAS on detent. When my Apoapsis reaches 11,929KM, I shut my engine down and wait until I enter Lunar gravity. This always allows me to land on the far side (my favorite landing site. No LM shadow or indicators of how close you are. Doing it all with instrumentation requires more skill.) When it\'s a far side mission, I point my engine NOT retro-grade, but directly facing the Mun\'s surface and burn. That always puts me right on a collision trajectory and then I just land.

They weren\'t manned and they weren\'t Lunar Orbit Rendezvous.

Yeah that\'s good, but this method, as is stated, is a way of closely following a real mission to the moon. In real life, you insert into orbit and then make a burn on the far side to break the orbit and begin going down towards the surface. Firing the engines for the final phase during landing is called the 'powered descent'.

ESTABLISHING AN ORBIT OF 100KM The first important step for the more traditional and realistic way of flying to the mun is to establish an orbit around Kerbin. This whole phase is fairly easy, but most novice players just can\'t seem to get it. I was the same way. No fear.... You should already have built a rocket with the capabilities to get to the mun, so I won\'t go into that. But if you sincerely can\'t make a moon rocket, just modify all your .cfg files like a cheater and give yourself a low burn rate, infinite fuel capacity and high thrust. At T-1 second, you should lift off from the pad and head straight up until you are 6,000m from the surface of Kerbin. At this point, you want to begin a yaw to the left. Your rocket\'s nose should be pointed to the right of your screen. The degree on this is going to be no more than about 60 degrees. If you\'d like, roll your rocket until 'W' points you in the direction of orbit, but I recommend just pressing 'A'. Engage your stabilizers and adjust if you have to. Open up your orbital map and look at your Apoapsis rise above the Earth. If you\'re yawed over enough, your blue line indicating your trajectory should be extended fairly quickly. If you can get your blue line all the way around Kerbin to establish a PE before your AP reaches 100KM, that\'s your best bet. But regardless, shut your engine down (MECO) when your AP reaches 100KM. The wider your blue line is wrapped around Kerbin the better. Now sit in your parabolic trajectory for a little bit. Open up your orbital map and look at your Apoapsis. Warp a little bit until your rocket gets very close to that Apoapsis. When you reach it, pitch your rocket over until it\'s perfectly horizontal (on the right artificial horizon of your NAVBALL) and burn at 75% - 100%. You should see your blue line wrap around and have a PE extend out really quickly while your AP remains constant. When the two spin around each other and both say ~ 100KM, MECO your engine. Now you wait... MAKING A TRANS-LUNAR INJECTION BURN This is the phase where you launch to the mun. Sit in orbit, carefully pointing the nose of your rocket in your direction of travel (pro-grade burn coming up) and wait. You will constantly have to correct to keep your rocket on line. Warp for a little bit until you see the mun JUST START to rise over the Kerbin horizon. Return to normal time-rate. Point straight towards the mun -- if low over the horizon -- or just burn pro-grade. Your T.L.I. (Trans Lunar Injection) burn will be at 80-100%. Watch your Apoapsis extend outward towards the Mun\'s orbit around Kerbin. When your apoapsis reaches about 11,200KM (just below the mun), shut your engine down. You have approximately 4 DAYS in real time to adjust it exactly how you want it. TRANS LUNAR COAST During this phase, you are essentially doing NOTHING. A good use of this time would be just to take a look at your fuel gauges. If you\'re doing a landing mission, inspect your Lunar Module and make sure it\'s in good condition. If all of your systems are a go, go into your orbital map view and warp until you get 'captured' by the Mun\'s gravity. This will be evident by the green line that goes over the Mun. Congratulations, you have just exited Kerbin\'s gravity, possibly for the first time. LUNAR ORBIT INSERTION This burn is very important. It\'s called an L.O.I. -- or Lunar Orbit Insertion burn. Basically, what this will do is put you from a hyperbolic trajectory around the Mun into a circularized orbit around it. Watch your rocket head out towards your Periapsis above the moon. The closer you are the better. Execute a Retro-Grade burn at 100% and you will see those green lines extend RAPIDLY out into space on either side of the Mun. The will come together and turn into a blue elliptical line around the mun. Continue the burn until your AP and PE move into a fairly circular orbit around. If you have a PE that is too high, wait until you reach your AP and burn retro-grade. This is indicated by the little yellow circle with an x through it on your navball. If your AP is too high, wait until you hit your PE and burn retro grade. Both of these will circularize your orbit, which is called a 'Circularization Burn'. Burn Retrograde at each point to establish an orbit around the mun of about 15KM above the surface. Congratulations, you are now orbiting the Mun. There are two things you can do here. You can either make a 'Trans Earth Injection Burn' and return to Earth, or you can land. Since you\'re just learning, I\'ll teach both, but cover the return first. TRANS-EARTH INJECTION The Trans-Earth injection is not much different than the Trans Lunar Injection. Once in orbit -- you should be moving from west to East over the Mun -- you will have to point your rocket perfectly horizontal, ready for a Pro-Grade burn. Wait until you see the Kerbin rise above the Mun\'s horizon and point pro-grade. Execute a 100% burn. Watch your Apoapsis extend outward and let it reach 13,000KM. Shut your engines down. Now it looks like it\'s pointed way to the left of Kerbin -- which it is -- but this is a good thing... In fact, it is just what we need. Here\'s what\'s happening. As the mun rotates around Kerbin, so does your Apoapsis. If it points to the left of Kerbin, when the mun rotates towards the right, your Apoapsis is right on track towards Kerbin\'s gravity. Open your orbital map and WARP TIME! You should get captured into a really high orbit above Kerbin. Something like 8,000KM or less. This is how you return... RE-ENTRY INTERFACE Once you\'ve gotten this high orbit around Kerbin, point retro-grade and burn at full speed. Your orbit should head back down to Kerbin and make a return trajectory. Execute what I call, 'ALLSEP' or 'All Separation'. Jettison all your stages except your parachutes and get ready to reenter just like you do on any other mission. Once you\'ve come back to Kerbin, deploy your parachutes and enjoy the fact that you\'ve possibly made your first Mun mission. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LANDING ON THE MUN Landing on the Mun requires a little bit more skill than a simple orbital mission. Once you\'ve established your orbit around the Mun, burn retro grade at full speed. We won\'t even bother with precise landing spots on your first mission. If anyone wants to know, I have a full notebook filled with drawings of orbital mechanics and ways to get to Mars and the Mun that I\'ve drawn, and so I can send you a screen shot of how to determine a precise landing spot from orbit, but there\'s no need to right now. Burn retrograde at 100% until your orbital trajectory goes into the surface like a return to Kerbin. Here is where it gets good. Jettison all of your stages except your lunar module and burn retro grade until your velocity equals about 100m/s. A simple list of the velocities as you come down for powered descent is this- 2,000KM - 200m/s. 1,000KM - 100m/s 1,100M - 50m/s 8.6 KM - 20m/s 3.2 KM - 15m/s 1.1 KM - 14m/s 500M - 10m/s 200M - 6m/s 100M - 5.9m/s 71M - 4.2 m/s Lunar Contact - 4m/s. Your retro grade indicator will constantly dance around your navball. Every time it does, align with it and burn. This will kill all of your lateral velocity so that when you land, you are coming down perfectly vertical. You should hit the surface at about 4m/s. Here is a list of procedures after you have landed: Establish Firm Contact (stop sliding, etc.) Shut your engine down (Engine Stop.) (X) SAS (ACA) out of Detent. (T) Descent Engine Command Override off and Engine arm off (Alt+L) LUNAR LIFTOFF After taking in the sites of your landing spot, it\'s time to go home. Lunar Gravity is very low, so establishing an orbit is like a walk on the park. Burn straight up for about a second and then quickly pitch to almost 170 degrees. Burn at 50% and wait until your Apoapsis reaches 100KM. Your ascent stage should have a lot of fuel. Shut the engine down and wait until your rocket hits your Apoapsis and burn Pro-Grade. Like on Kerbin, this will wrap your trajectory into a near perfect 100KM orbit around the Mun. To see how to return, check the Trans-Earth Injection section of this tutorial. I hope you had a good (first?) mun mission and it will allow you to have a lot more fun with this game. With persistence now out, you can deploy orbiters around the moon, satellites, image future landing sites, leave retro-reflectors on the surface and much, much more. That is all. 8)

Here\'s a good picture from a mission I have been launching and relaunching many times to the point where I can almost do it with my eyes closed. Basically, it\'s a docking mission.

Wow! Nice Space Station. I am waiting for persistence and docking personally. My plan is to construct a permanent spacestation at 300KM that can be docked with. It will be kind of a platform to land on the Mun. From there I will build another space station that will be used to take me to Mars. I have big plans for the next few updates and just a day ago, I became one of the first people to actually 'dock'. I was able to tap my nose into a jettisoned booster and fire in such a way that I stayed attached to it. All of us here are going to be the people who shape spaceflight for Kerbin lol.

It\'s a lot of Saturn, but there are some mods. For example, the middle stage has been omitted. Liquids have been added to the bottom, staging had been changed, the entire front end of the rocket is now mostly stock. It has extra winglets on the bottom. An aerodynamic nose cone, a different kind of CM from the Apollo pack and no Lunar Module. It\'s designed to launch satellites at 700KM and a spacestation at 300KM. Here is the rundown of how it works. Ignition sequence start. Burn 8% fuel from bottom Liquid boosters. Liftoff. Liquid boosters burn until empty at exactly 7,110M above Kerbin. Jettison Liquid Boosters. First stage main engine burns while pitch-over occurs to about 75-80 degrees. Main engine shutdown and jettison when AP reaches 220KM. OAAB engine burns to reach AP to 300KM. Shutdown. Spacecraft reaches AP. OAAB engine burns along orbital vector. Successful 315x320KM orbit (on average) Jettison booster. Dock with it. Nose-cone jettison Main tank retro burn. Main tank jettison Pitch to proper reenty angle (this is to avoid too much speed so as not to lose my chutes when they open). Chute deploy at 680m Splashdown.

As soon as persistence comes out, this will be my first space station. I have a rocket capable of launching a spacestation and docking. Just waiting for the updates. Thanks!

This rocket is designed to make an orbit up to 700KM, but currently launches to 300KM in preparation for the space station I plan to launch with the next update. On the pad. After liquid booster jettison After first stage jettison After panel jettison After OAAB (Orbital Altitude Achievement Booster) separation After Nosecone jettison Command Module returning

EVERYONE, THIS IS FAKE AND GARBAGE!! IT\'S JUST A RED BOX THAT TELLS YOU TO FAKE THE MUN LANDING ON THE MUN. DELETE THIS MOD!!

Is there anyway to go into the files of the game and drastically lower the gravity of Kerbin? I\'d like to have gravity equal to or even less than the Mun\'s so I can practice using this Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (prototype LM) that I built. Doing it on Earth is easy, but it\'s not accurate to the kind of gravity I will be encountering with it on the Mun. (By the way, I have landed on the Mun, three times, but I\'m interested in trying to land with this new thing I built.)

Buzz Aldrin said 'Picking up some dust'... Not Neil Armstrong. Buzz was LMP and therefore had to basically tell Neil everything that was happening and what should happen. Neil simply followed Buzz\'s readings during the descent.