Biggen

I didn't even think about keeping it inflated... I'll play with some designs in VAB and see what I can come up with. Thanks, Snark! The question isn't why but how... I get that lighter crafts are better. But I've been playing for less than a month so you will have to pardon me if I don't have all the expertise some do around here about building rockets...

Thats all well and good, but the dV requirements to get to Moho, land, and get back require a lot of fuel. A bare minimum of 4500dV is required just to get there and get a capture burn. Still have to budget for landing, return, etc... Sure I could send a flotilla there but that has its own issues as well...

How is aerobraking being handled with larger intersteller ships (~150t+) when arriving either at a destination with an atmosphere or Kerbin? I successfully tested aerobraking my ship coming from an orbit height of Minimus to Kerbin at a 37km Pe. Speed was 3200m/s at Pe and it took me a few orbits to slow down enough to drop my Ap close enough to reach my fuel depot in LKO. However, Im at the end of my Moho mission and Im about to bring back my 4 kerbals on that same ship. Ill be coming in around 5500m/s from Moho. I have plenty of fuel to do a retro burn but it just seems wasteful to have to budget ~2000+ extra dV for each mission just to capture burn back at Kerbin or send a rescue tanker to "top up" that amount. Ive looked at the inflatable heat shields but those cant be reinflated so Id have to ferry up a new one from Kerbin after each return. This isnt a deal breaker though as I also have to ferry up new full drop tanks and a new lander (landers are jettisoned to save weight on return). How would I even attach that inflatable to the rear with 4 nukes taking up space? Offset tool I guess? I could put the inflatable between the 4 nukes and attach it to the fuek tank with a docking clamp so it can be replaced?? Just thinking out loud. Here are a couple of pics of the mothership before I left for Moho.

Extremely helpful as always Snark! If you have multiple engines of the same lsp and want to figure burn time then the thrust does get combined, correct? Here is the spreadsheet I created. Would you mind taking a peak to see if I made any errors? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxtu3LnzAChjWlNaaC00Ymtqd1E/view?usp=drivesdk

Mothership is enroute with 4 brave kerbals! Updated pictures...

Thanks guys. I was finally able to whip up a quick spreadsheet that allows me to see burn time given my requirements. Makes it nice to look at this while playing with ship design in VAB. I still have to figure out how to combine ISP for more than one engine but at least I've got it working for single engine designs

I wanted to create a spreadsheet to calculate burn time when given (A) dV needed, (B) Engine ISP, and (C) total weight. I thought I could do this myself but my head is spinning from doing searches here on the forum and google. It seems some of what I found was incorrect, and the other half I'm not sure how to interpret and put into an Excel document. Is there a calculator or spreadsheet anywhere that has this information available?

Thanks Red Iron for that information! I think for my Moho transfers, I may just end up raising my Ap enough to do the burn in one full go. That way I can incorporate my anti-normal burn at the same time as the prograde burn. With the method in the OP, I'm not sure how to do it properly with the normals. But I will definitely use this method for going to other planets where you don't need to combine burns like this!

Three sats around Moho for autonomous ops.

So I've done some limited landings on the Mun and Duna and I even having a mining base setup on Minimus with a refueling depot in LKO but I haven't done any real "planning" as far as getting something into interstellar space. I *only* have about 150 hours poured into KSP so I only know enough to be dangerous at this point. With than in mind, I figured a trip to one of the hardest planets in the game was in order and a visit to it's famed Mohole couldn't be left off the list! The plan is as follows: Send three sat probs into orbit around Moho that are evenly spaced to get 100% communication coverage for Moho. - Completed! Send an autonomous science lander equipped with a two man rover to Moho and have it land as close as possible to the Mohole. - Completed! Send a mothership containing at two Kerbals to Moho and have them land near the autonomous landing site. - Partially completed! Have the kerbins get into the rover and explore the Mohole, get science, and eat snacks while keeping warm at 300C! - Work in Progress Have kerbins depart from Moho, dock with the mothership, and return to Kerbal. - Work in Progress Optional requirement is to send a refueling tug to the mothership in Moho orbit. Getting back will be tight! So, with all of that said, here is where I am. http://imgur.com/a/99n5f A couple notes: 1. Want to thank @Raptor9 for his craft designs. I used a heavily modified Bullfrog lander and I built my own rover but designed it very closely to his Ferret rover. Kudos for the job very well done these. 2. Leaving from Kerbin when Moho is at the AN is where it's at. That way your encounter with Moho is parallel with your orbit around Kerbol. My worst attempt at stopping and orbiting at Moho cost me 2500 dV. I've did it on another attempt for as little as 1500 dV before. 3. Flying over the Mohole at low altitudes (10km) causes issues. My craft would spin out of control, I'd lose camera alignment, etc... I had to readjust my orbit after the flyby picture I took. There is some weird crap happening close to the hole itself. You have been warned! 4. The rocky area surrounding the Mohole is a hazardous. I tried a dozen attempts to land close but it's simply too rocky and hilly. Think of the terrain as the Mun times 10! Forget landing there. I picked a nice flat crater to the southwest. I hope it's within range of the rover. 5. I had to time warp to find that nice crater in the daylight since Moho rotates so freaking slowly. Actually, it's closer to dawn. The sunlight in that landing site will increase as the planet rotates. I'll work on next getting the mother ship into orbit in pieces and assembling it so I can send some kerbins off to their doo... uh, adventure...

For my example, lets ingore radial burns. For Moho one always leaves on its AN node and ignores launch windows. So if im doing the method listed in the OP, I'd need to have my first Pe kick 11 days before reaching that point, right? Then all subsequent Pe kicks take place at the Pe I created at the 1st burn? The problem is that I dont know "when" Kerbin hits the AN node other than looking at it in map mode. I guess I could eyeball the phase angle pretty easily (there is probably a calculator somewhere that could figure this out for me). Similarly, I should be able figure out an ejection angle once I figure out the proper phase angle. Once I have these two pieces of info I should be able to create a maneuver node but set it so that its 11 days into the future when the angles are correct. That would get me my first Pe burn I believe. Complicated stuff this rocket science! Ive made Moho a few times now. Just trying to get it more fine tuned, Building a small outpost out there with plans to a Mohole exploration from a rover (around the top anyway).

I know this is an older thread but since its a tutorial I figure its still fair game for questions. When you say to raise the AP in each burn, these burns are happening at the original maneuver node each time, right? You arent arbitrarily burning at some point in the orbit to create an AP anywhere are you? So if I have a node set for Moho that requires a 25 minute burn am I supposed to start the 1st (and subsequent) burns at the original maneuver node? Or am I supposed to create a new maneuver node at my PE after each burn? I incorporate the antinormal in my ejection burn for Moho and I know you say this method doesnt take that into account but Id still like to try it. Normally I manually pilot for about 3/4 of the ejection burn since its such a long burn. Woukd like to try another method.

Great! I'll give it a try when I get home!

Majorjim, it's hard to tell the size of your hinge as I haven't downloaded it yet, but I'm wondering if this hinge would work on a small door (2x2 structural panel). I need a deployable rover ramp and I'm tired of messing with placement of antenna hinges!

Yeah, I tried for an hour getting a single door to drop properly without coming out of the hinges. Didn't happen and I gave up. I'll just have the door decouple and hit the ground when I land on a planet. The kerbals can hit the gas on the rover and "catch some air" when they are deploying it. Eh. My time is more valuable then messing around with a freaking antenna hinge for an hour. It would be much easier for squad to just give us a basic hinge.

Thanks for that info. But id rather use a mod still being actively developed than modify it myself. Looks like blizzy hasnt even been on the forum since November.

Great! Ill use that instead. Thanks!

Is this mod now defunct? Error message when using KSP 1.2.2. Seems to still work but would have thought it would have been updated to get rid of that error message upon startup.

Ah I didnt know that! Thanks for that info! Its a shame we have to resort to silly things like this for doors. Even making hinges out of antennas seems ridiculous. I know there is a debate all the time about clipping but, in my opinion, Squad has really tied our hands behinds our backs with their limited editing system. I dont see clipping at all as cheating seeing as how the half baked editor doesnt give us better tools.

hmm. Im having a hard time picturing this. How is the docking port connected to a structural panel when its not physically touching it? Is there a video of this being done anywhere?

Never mind. I spent the last hour playing with offset, rotation, and clipping and I got pretty good and modifying to suit my needs. What I can't figure out is how the docking ports "connect" to the gravity dropped ramps and the rovers. I don't see any attachments Is this a trade secret?

How does one edit your craft but then put things back together properly? For example, I downloaded the LV-3B bullfrog. I wanted to delete one rover, remove the full cells, etc... I took one door off to make my changes but then couldn't put the darn door back on after that. Your hinge system is great. I've been trying to figure this out for days and had just about given up.

Ok, so these are encounters we are talking about. This has nothing to do with calculating dV to arrive at Moho in a polar orbit instead of an equatorial orbit.

The cheat sheet shows a number for each body called "Maximum Plane Change". What is this? Is this figure the total amount of dV needed to go from a 0 degree inclination a 90 degree inclination plane change? And, if so, is this maximum being referenced from within Kerbin's SOI before you leave or from the SOI of the targeted body after you arrive? From the limited experience I have with KSP, it's always better to change you to your desired inclination furthest away from your desired target in order to save as much dV as possible. So, for example, if I want to go into a polar orbit around Moho in order to visit the Mohole, I'd plan a maneuver node in LKO to combine my ejection burn and a normal burn to get a 90 degree inclination upon arrival. This would be about a 83 degree inclination change as Moho is already at 7 degrees inclined from Kerbin. Following this example, am I expected to budget the extra 2520 dV needed for the normal burn in addition to the regular dV needed for the ejection burn or is that figure the ABSOLUTE max I need once captured in Moho? I'm just trying to understand where the maximum dV figure is coming into play. If that is within the SOI then I could reduce that figure dramatically and combine my burns from LKO as is my intention.

Ahh Great! I'll read up on that now! I finally got to Moho, btw. I ended up manually piloting out of Kerbin SOI and ended up pointing my craft between the prograde and maneuver marker. This allowed me to miss Kerbin but keep some of my anti-normal burn going as well. After I got to the correct side of kerbin for the maneuver node, I locked the maneuver marker back in and was on my way. I got within .4 degrees off the inclination (from 7 degrees at the start) of Moho after the burn was completed by doing this so I'm quite proud of myself!