Delta-V from Low Minmus Orbit to surface and back?

[legoclone09]

Hey, I'm making a 2-part Minmus lander and need to know how much Delta-V I need to get to the surface and back into a 10 km orbit.

Edited July 12, 2015 by legoclone09

[Xannari Ferrows]

Very very low, needless to say. If I had to make a guess right off the top of my head, I'd say 500-600 m/s [not accounting for transfer or orbital insertion]

[legoclone09]

Very very low, needless to say. If I had to make a guess right off the top of my head, I'd say 500-600 m/s [not accounting for transfer or orbital insertion]

Ok, thanks. Mine has 826 m/s right now, should be enough for my rendezvous. Also, when do you launch on Minmus for a rendezvous? Same as Kerbin?

[Xannari Ferrows]

Not quite. This is a really varying question. You can do sub-orbits to allow the target time to catch up, you can wait until it's overhead and go full speed, or fly up and go in circles for a while.

Really you can judge it good yourself by eyeballing it. What typically looks right in this case probably is.

[legoclone09]

Not quite. This is a really varying question. You can do sub-orbits to allow the target time to catch up, you can wait until it's overhead and go full speed, or fly up and go in circles for a while.

Really you can judge it good yourself by eyeballing it. What typically looks right in this case probably is.

Ok, thank you!

[G'th]

Last I knew it was closer to 2-300ms to get to a low Minmus orbit.

And as far as when to launch for rendezvous, that depends on your lander. Depending on your TWR, you could either get to your target orbit well before your target is close enough, or you'll take so long your target will have made another orbit by the time you've established yours (Though I think only Ion-engine level landers would be that slow)

However, Minmus is fairly easy to get around, so I'd say raise your targets orbit a bit (provided its a return ship and not a station) so you'll have a bit more wiggle room. IN general, rendezvous in very, very low orbits are going to be very tough as you'll likely have to go suborbital in order to do it.

[FancyMouse]

10km isn't too low for Minmus. My station is at that altitude as well. Always make your orbit bigger than your target, that's how to do low orbit rendezvous. Using this approach I can do Kerbin 70~75km orbit rendezvous easily w/o ever touching atmosphere.

[Sharpy]

Eh, on Minmus all things are easier. Rendezvous too.

First, with all speeds lower all your maneuvers are like - 10m/s, 30m/s, 5m/s...

Then, with the moon being so much smaller, you set up your rendez-vous as on Kerbin, sure there's like 15km separation as the markers don't align perfectly - and its 300 meters.

Take it easy. The most likely thing to kill you there is yourself, as you get too twitchy bringing your Kerbin or Mun habits and, say, performing a full-thrust burn and smashing into a mountain instead of gently climbing it.

In my Science sandbox I got this weird impression... Kerbin is where you launch the ships. Minmus is Home.

[FancyMouse]

Eh, on Minmus all things are easier.

Umm rovers...

[Sharpy]

Umm rovers...

Flying!

The tiny reaction wheels are enough to assure they will stay level.

Just yesterday I got two contracts for seismic scans, Mun and Minmus. Used the same rovers. Mun was tricky, broke off at least three parts after some jumps, including the (vital) seismic scanner (luckily I was bringing them in pairs, so I had a backup.)

On Mimus, sure I had to use the rocket engine a lot, but the rover would safely land after 300m jumps, and when I once launched off a steep incline flying down good 200m to a frozen lake below, all I had to do was turn it around and burn to a safe landing. Didn't break a thing either.

Of course if you depend on wheels alone, you're asking for trouble.