How To Land SSTO on Airless bodies?

[TronX33]

Title says it all. So far, all my SSTOs are crew transfer vehicles, an I would like to go to the Mun or Minmus in one. How would I go about landing? Use RCS for retro-thrust, and approach it as a normal landing? Or Do a rocket style landing, and flip onto my belly when I'm close to the ground?

Edited October 6, 2015 by TronX33

[Van Disaster]

SSTO what? if it's a rocket, then land it like a rocket. If it's a spaceplane then land it like a rocket too until you're near the surface, and then lay it down. If you land a spaceplane on the flat bits of Minmus you can take off like normal, just give it a jolt of RCS or reactionwheel to aim the nose up after you get some velocity going.

[FyunchClick]

If you take for instance Kuzzters Hummlebee (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/134375-Hummlebee-Mk2), it uses a very user friendly approach with Vernors.

* Burn off most of the dV using the main engines.

* switch "control form here" to the belly docking port, turn on RCS.

* set your SAS to turn to prograde in "surface" mode (you may want to turn in the right direction manually first to prevent the SAS overshooting).

* Use the translate-back key ("N") to touch down smoothly.

Since you're tracking prograde on SAS in surface mode, when the speed counter on the NAV ball reads 0 you'll have come to a complete stop relative to the surface.

Works perfectly on the Mun or Minmus.

[Mastikator]

If you can find a big flat surface, like the big flats of Minimus then retroburn almost all the way down so you're 10-20 meters above ground, then as you flip over you burn your rockets. Horizontal speed is not a problem for spaceplanes as long as you got brakes.

[Clipperride]

Vernier engines are really effective on Minmus especially. The trick is getting them balanced so your vechile doesn't suddenly start changing attitude when you use them. I get them evenly spaced each side of the CoM by temporarily adding some extended ladders to use as a ruler. I also put a couple on the top of Minmus bound surface vechiles to counteract the "bounce" the landing gear can generate.

[Starhawk]

Title says it all. So far, all my SSTOs are crew transfer vehicles, an I would like to go to the Mun or Minmus in one. How would I go about landing? Use RCS for retro-thrust, and approach it as a normal landing? Or Do a rocket style landing, and flip onto my belly when I'm close to the ground?

I have had very good success with the second approach. You may need a vernor under the nose to lift it up for take-off, however.

Happy landings!

[Edax]

If it's a LF-SSTO, you can just gently land on the LV-N engine bells, then let the SAS topple you over onto your landing gear (this is the simplest and safest technique). You can also zero your velocity just a few feet above the ground and just flip over and land on your landing gear, I've had success with this technique Minmus, Mun and Duna, but there's always the risk of misjudging where the ground is and hitting it too hard and rcs thrusters alone wont overcome gravity, even on Minmus, and vertical twitch engines tend to destroy attitude control from imbalance, so it's not rec commended to use when landing, but they can help you take off.

Also, using hills as a take-off ramp is surprising easy since gravity will naturally roll you down to the bottom of the incline, you will need to use slight thrust to turn around on the ground though.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Edax