SRV Ron

Send a probe lander to Minmus. Leave RCS at home, it is not needed since you will use the Navball while steering your lander during descent to kill all drift. See photo below of an ideal Navball reading just before touchdown. When you get good at that, try a probe on Mun. Yes, you can land something as simple as this with no legs on a slope. Finally, go for a manned landing. Several design examples below. The drift here is acceptable at this near hover before touchdown. The legs on this design were ejected on takeoff. And, there was more then enough fuel to get back to Kerbal.

Look at the contract when building the test rocket or when ready to launch. if you see a Note, click on it for additional instructions. In the case of testing the escape tower, setting up the action group for abort will not complete the test. You will have to click on the tower and select Run Test when the test conditions are met. Parts to test while on the launch pad can be attached to the back of the launch clamp and activated by staging before you actually launch your rocket for missions or further testing of other parts. I use this vehicle for most flight test, water landing, and even some sub orbital tests. It is designed to be 100% recoverable. This one was set up to test the turbojet in flight.

Get a retroactive slingshot on one of the Jool moons and you can acomplish such a maneuver. This example shows using Laythe to go for a close Jool orbit. An orbital capture is possible in theory. Best bet is to aerobrake in Jool's or Laythe's atmosphere. The orbit after aerobraking

Strictly a texture mapping issue that, like in Train Simulator, took a lot of fiddling with to get something such as tiling textures, to show up seamlessly.

When you are getting down below 2% with the turbojet, you are skirting the flameout territory.\

The one part challenge really put the test on balancing such rockets. Tweaking thrust helped a lot on the design to get it to fly efficiently. Yes, the solar panels are the two variants of the 1x6 ans 2x3.

Think of this topic as being useful to all starting Career Contracts for their first time. Two more hints; While waiting for a launch window to open for Duna, Ike, and Eve, continue contract testing and refining your designs as you unlock more tech. You can then design a low cost contract vehicle for those destinations that will place a lander on the surface while leaving a probe in orbit. Launch those escape Kerban test at dawn or dusk so their orbits can be used to find the launch dates to use a direct Hoffmen transfer to Eve or Duna thus saving fuel for both contract and manned missions. Combine contracts so the cost of those no return missions is shared among them.

Swapping ends can be caused by a number of issues from certain parts in the payload section to broken struts on big rockets. Examples; This rocket with the cupola is unstable without fins while stable with the 3 man capsule. This rocket swapped ends until a broken brace issue was fixed. When fixed, it flew flawlessly.

Would this count? Might want to limit mods to rocket parts only.

I watch the video again in full screen. Your speed at burnout was OK. I did observe the upper sepatrons torch the fuel can which then vanished a second later. Be sure you are not turning when staging the SRBs and they will always slide off smoothly.

You may want to try my just posted Minotaur 5 challenge based upon NASA's program of a similar mission. The goal, how fast can you unlock the tech required to complete the Mun Exploration Contract.

Here is a new twist on NASA's Minotaur 5 program for KSP. After the success of those that built a low cost version that did more then expected, the new challenge will take a twist that it has to be done in 0.24.2 Career. The Challenge, Build the Minotaur rocket and fulfill the Mun exploration contract with it. The rules; 1. Start a new Career program 2. Your rocket is required to use the S1 SRB KD25, the big NASA design SRB pictured above. 3. The Round 8 fuel tank and LV-1 needs to be used on the payload stage. 4. You must unlock all parts needed for the mission. No using contract for testing the parts needed before you unlock them. 5. No cheats such as hacking science points so you can unlock the parts needed. 6. You must have the Mun Exploration contract. While it should appear in plenty of time for the mission, if you land Jeb on Mun to get science points, it may not show up in time. The goal; Conduct the Munar exploration contract with the Minotaur 5. The payload consisting of the Round 8 fuel tank, LV-1, probe core, batteries, solar panel, science instrument, antenna, is easily landed on Mun, landing gear is not needed. There is more then enough fuel for the Mun orbit and landing. Ranking consists of who can get there first under the restraints of unlocking the needed tech to complete the mission. Proof will be a photo of the Minotaur 5 launch vehicle, probe on Mun with the contract showing the mission stats as completed, and a third photo from the tracking station showing the date and time of your space program with the Minotaur probe landed on Mun. If there is a tie, the lowest cost, and or,fuel left in the Round 8 will be used as the tie breaker.

Sepatrons definitely took out the tank with their exhaust. Not a compression issue. I noticed that there is a stability issue with the SRB powered flight as the rocket wandered all around what should have been straight up flight. Try a ring of eight SRBs instead of the 4x2 ring. Mount them exactly centered to the decoupler. You should be able to position them so there is no clipping of the four engine first stage. Brace the ring at the top and bottom as usual. You shouldn't need bracing between the SRB and central tank. And, you won't need sepatrons as the entire SRB assembly will slide off cleanly so long as you are not turning.

Based upon another player's design, this 3 kerbal Jool explorer was tested. It is design to do fly by of the system after aerobraking in the Jool atmosphere to slow to orbital speed. Slingshot manuvers are used to advance to the system moons and eventual escape to Kerbal return. Probes are then released during the flyby to drop into Jool or land on the system's moons. The modified launcher; Test launch on SRBs In orbit ready for the Jool insertion burn Jool aerobraking The aerobraking place me into a slingshot orbit ready for fine tuning to the destination of my choice.

Lifting capacity can also involve being able to land on Mun or Minmus with enough fuel for a safe return. In fulfilling a contract to test a turbojet engine on Mun, I selected to use my manned Mun lander replacing the capsule with a probe and the heavier turbojet engine. That choice appeared OK since a return from Mun was not required and there should be fuel enough for a one way flight. While the flight did take more fuel as expected with the higher payload weight, experience gave me a more efficient flight profile to Mun with only a tiny amount of lander fuel needed to finish the low orbit. (Normal flight leaves enough fuel in the transfer stage to deorbit it during landing.) Locating a flat landing spot helped with the results that after dumping the turbojet after testing, the lander has more then enough fuel for return. But with no parachutes, I am writing it off and leaving it there should I get a contract to test the probe in a Muner escape of something as rediclous.

All new users should learn how to fly manually. Once they get good at it they can make the choice to use Mechjeb to automate the repetitious process of launching payloads into orbit or to another location for the purpose of building stations, bases, or assembling that big rocket for deep space exploration.

Actually, the Moon lander and service module used a fuel oxidizer mix just like their launch vehicle. They just used fuels and oxidizers that could be stored at normal temperatures without vaporizing. The two chemicals in use ignite violently upon entering the combustion chamber. You can redesign your lander to use the far more efficient Kerbal fuel oxidizer mixture since it can also be stored long term before use.

KSP lets you try realism, as others have posted, or try direct landing and returns.

Once you get the orbital speed down to zero, tilt your ship to be vertical to the retrograde marker and 90* on the nav ball. You should have aimed to get vertical around 5000 meters on Mun or 2000 meters on Minmus. Get a feel for controlling vertical speed while keeping the retrograde marker on the vertical marker to control drift. Let the ship come down fairly fast slowing down as you near the surface. Touchdown around 5m/sec or less. Have drift near zero to avoid tipping over. Why be vertical at 5000 meters on Mun? Check the altitude as this lander approaches the surface.

Using an old SSTO orbiter design on top of an SRB, I made this two stage design to fulfill contracts for data from Mun and Minmus. The heavy expensive RCS, used on a previous Minotaur design is not needed for fine tuning orbit. The Orbiter; The bare bone more expensive Minotaur even landed successfully on Mun.

My Mun or Minmus contract explorer; A simpler one is used to place a orbiting probe to fulfill those data request contracts. The upper stage alone can achieve Kerbal orbit. For a Mun landing and return, this more expensive design is used. (Stock parts can be subbed for the KW ones.) For EVE and Duna contract explorers; (May even make it to the Jool system.)

In a later contract design, the Jeb Poodle was built. It's sole purpose, to test the prototype Poodle engine and radical decouplers while on an escape trajectory from Kerbal. This crazy all SRB design flew straight up to escape velocity thus fulfiling those two contract requirements to net both science points and lots of Kerbal Bucks for Jeb's growing space program.

The Basic Jeb, a cheap SRB test rocket from the first tier of Career. Jeb successfully flew this rocket for his first contract flight for successful launch and 5,000 meter altitude record. He later tweaked the thrust level and use the same design to fulfill the 33,000 meter altitude record contract. By landing in the ocean, the SRB was recovered along with the capsule and parachute. To fulfill the suborbital contract, the Basic Jeb 2 was developed. It consist of the Basic Jeb with a decoupler and second SRB below. That design reached over 200,000 meters on its suborbital flight. With tier one and some tier two science unlocked, Jeb's Junkyard's space program was well under way.

That explains your nonstandard parts when I went to load it for testing. I would suggest a ring or six or eight SRBs to assist the launch stage of the flight. That will get it moving high and fast enough for the first stage engine to operate more efficiently. Proper bracing on the command to lander to booster will stop the wobble during launch.

I'll give this a test when I get back home. Quick observation is it is so heavy that the first stage is using up it fuel to fight gravity. A set of SRB and some weight reduction above may be enough to get it to the ideal TWR for the first 10K or so. Have you done single Kerbal flights to Mun and back non apollo style? That is so much easier to do. An example rocket below from Career. (Mods used but not required. The lander is stock.) This probe will go to Mun and return. Edit, Found the all stock design that did the mission If you need more boost, this design gave more fuel for landing and return. Early Career, nothing complex, no separate lander, no complicated asparagus staging.