Elcano Challenge: My ongoing mission to drive around the Mun

[Aslad]

Hello, KSPers! 

While not new to KSP, I'm pretty new to forums  but anyway, let me introduce myself. My name is Aslad and for the past few days I have been attempting to drive around the Mun in a rover. So, I thought you might be interested in seeing my progress thus far. I've created several albums on imgur, so here's the first one of my launch from Kerbin to the Mun landing:

http://imgur.com/a/N4pkl

After landing I immediately realised the Explorer I rover was unsuitable for travel on the Munar surface. It would flip over when attempting to drive anywhere, so I went back to the original rover and re-designed it greatly. Presenting the Explorer II Mun rover!

http://imgur.com/a/XyUYj

Note: From here on in I will be copy/pasting my reports as I was posting them on the Elcano thread. I will edit them slightly so they make a bit more sense.

So Day One was spent mostly re-designing and launching the Explorer II, so I only made 5.7km before stopping. I was on a large incline, plus I was only driving for about 15 minutes. The RCS was incredibly useful - I would have crashed at least twice without it - but it will need topping up at some point. I'm glad I added extra tanks!

Day One: http://imgur.com/a/dEfdf

 After the short 15 minute trek I had a break then began once more. My first attempt to continue climbing the hill ended in disaster (I fell down it, basically) but after almost an hour I managed to reach the summit, constantly battling the rover's attempts to veer left off the side of the hill and using up alot of monopropellant in the process to keep the rover on the ground. My Kerbal also slid the entire way down the hill when I tried to repair a broken wheel. I had to walk the entire way back up. It sucked. Then began the descent down the hill and over even more hills / around even more craters. After an hour and a half's driving and several near-disasters I stopped for a break, planting a flag in what I dubbed 'Crash Crater' as on the way down (It was too big to go around and the rim was incredibly steep so I chose to go through it) I broke all six wheels and lost my Dawn engine. Looking back I was delighted to see I'd covered 34km which considering the terrain I considered to be pretty good progress. I then continued on out of the crater and onto some slightly flatter ground. Another half an hour of driving and I stopped for the night and planted a flag. I'd covered another 17km, bringing it to a total of roughly 46km covered. I still have a looong way to go but I'm planning to do another 1-hour drive later tonight. After that I need to figure out a way to refuel the rover's monopropellant supplies as I'm down to about a third of a tank left. Luckily I added two docking ports before I launched the rover from Kerbin so I just need some sort of lander equipped with a docking port and alot of RCS. Then if it has fuel left I can fly it ahead for more refuelling later on. 

http://imgur.com/a/aTRWO

So three and a half hour's driving leaves me well over 180km at least from the start point , if not further. I found a very flat area of land and after checking my monopropellant tanks I began procedures to bring my orbitting refuelling lander down close to the rover. The space-tug I brought the lander to the Mun with was used for the deceleration burn before it was let loose into space. 

The lander touched the ground 2.3km away from the rover which was a 20minute drive away - I would have done it except it would have brought me massively off course. So instead I flew the lander (almost crashing twice by overusing RCS) to the rover and touched down a mere 704m away. I then drove the rover to the lander and after some hassle managed to get it to dock. Promptly I refuelled the monopropellant tanks which ensure my rover doesn't go flying out of control. After I had refuelled the rover I undocked the two vehicles and sent the lander into a rough polar orbit (seemed smart at the time as polar orbits mean you can access anywhere) but I've now realised that I'm not driving pole to pole so it would have been better in an equatorial orbit. Oh well. 

I then drove the rover for a while longer before stopping for the night. I'd driven another 3 and a half hours worth since my last report. [Above]

Almost had to scrub the mission after I went too fast and the rover flipped for ages before the RCS managed to slam it into the ground on its wheels. Still, any more incidents like that and a new rover will soon be on its way..

http://imgur.com/a/sRZaA

Just noticed I forgot to include any screenshots of the monopropellant refuelling so here's another album:

http://imgur.com/a/44hIr

This is as far as I've got so far! School begins again tomorrow so travel time will be reduced greatly; however I hope to have finished the journey by the end of January. I hope you've enjoyed reading so far!