Landing on mun is harder than on minmus?

[Chillayy]

I\'ve been playing the game for about 3-ish days. I\'m starting to understand basic orbiting and such. My first real mission went to the moon. It ended up catastrophically because jeb crashed into the ground at 300m/s.

My velocity is usually about 700m/s when I\'m trying to land on the moon. With my rocket design I usually end up having 20 to 60-ish litres of fuel left. It usually isn\'t enough to get me back to kerbal. Do I need to change my lander design, so it would have more fuel, or am I missing some tricks necessary for small fuel usage?

Also, what is the pink thing in the navball?

[TerranCmdr]

You shouldn\'t be going more than 10-15 m/s if you\'re trying to land.

Ah, hold on, I think I see what you\'re saying now. I would say try to use as little throttle as possible, slow yourself down early so you don\'t have to do a full-throttle burn to slow yourself down closer to the Mun. I usually burn down to 200-300 m/s when I get captured by the Mun, then go to about 100k and then go for a slow burn to get down to 50 m/s or so by the time I\'m at 10k. Then I keep the throttle very low to keep my speed down around 20-50 m/s until I\'m about 1k up, then I reduce to about 10-20 until I see my shadow. I guess the main point is that smaller burns consume less fuel.

I\'m sure someone else will be able to give you a much better detailed walkthrough on this though. I think I\'ve managed to successfully have a total of 1 return trip ;P

[Endeavour]

Landing on the Mun is much harder than on Minmus.

I would recommend getting into Mun orbit before landing. The direct decent style is much harder. Your touchdown really should be between 1-2 m/s.

How do you try to return? The amount of fuel that is needed depends on how big the lander is. When you return, go into a 10km orbit, and burn so that you leave in the opposite direction the Mun is orbiting.

The pink markers point towards the KSC.

[CrashnBurn]

I agree, I think a Mun landing is a bit more difficult. I usually go into orbit around the Mun, then burn for landing. To return to Kerbin I go into a 5Km orbit around the Mun, then burn for home.

Circular orbits make it easier but aren\'t 100% necessary.

[Chillayy]

To be honest, I haven\'t tried returning yet since I landed my first ship with 60 litres of fuel today. I believe It\'s useless to try with the 20 litres that the 2 other ships have.

What do you mean by getting into the orbit? I quess I\'ll watch a tutorial from youtube, I\'m sure a video explains it clearly for me.

[CrashnBurn]

Sorry Chillayy. I didn\'t mean to confuse you.

I start from KSC and go into a circular orbit around Kerbin.

I transfer burn to the Mun and go into Munar orbit (usually about 15-30 Km circular above the Mun surface)

Then I do a de-orbit burn to land on the Mun.

When leaving the Mun for Kerbin, I launch into Munar orbit (about 5Km)

Then I transfer back to Kerbin\'s SOI

I Orbit Kerbin

Then I do a de-orbit burn to land on Kerbin.

[Chillayy]

Looks like I\'ll just need more fuel. I couldn\'t even get to mun\'s orbit with the 64 litres.

Do you need more fuel to land on the mun than on minmus? Since my rocket design can go to minmus and back easily.

Now I have bob, jeb and nedwell on moon.. That\'ll require two rescue missions some day.

[Excalibur]

You could actually use DYJ\'s crew pod for the future rescue attempt. It can hold up to five kerbals at once. Only one trip required.

[Chillayy]

I\'m somewhat of a purist when it comes to mods. Two rescue trips aren\'t the problem, the fact that I don\'t have a good rocket is.

[amore555]

Hey Chillay, I was having the problem of using up so much fuel on my descent to the moon that I wouldnt have enough to get back to Kerbal.

What I do now is have seperate landing and take off stages, so I leave the bottom part of the lander with legs etc on the Mun, and have a small tank and engine left, which is just enough to get me home.

If you look on my thread 'Help rescue Halley Kerman' in General there\'s a pic on the first page of my lander on there.

[Excalibur]

I\'m somewhat of a purist when it comes to mods. Two rescue trips aren\'t the problem, the fact that I don\'t have a good rocket is.

Here\'s a rocket design that I made for you. The Munar Explorer uses a staged lander like amore555 suggested. Totally stock, it can land on Mun with it\'s descent tanks more than half-full.

Although it\'s nice and stable to launch, you better have good control for the Munar landing as the lander does not have an ASAS. If you decide to add an ASAS to the top of the capsule (there\'s more than enough power in the design for this) be sure to use a few struts to secure it to the pod. Otherwise when you pop your parachute the ASAS and \'chute will detach from the pod....

Still, precision landings aren\'t impossible...

.craft file attached.