Getting a rover onto Minmus?

[strider3]

Like most things "surface" oriented, I have no idea how to get many things onto the surface of a moon or planet...unless they are ships and landers designed for the purpose. Currently I need to get a small, one Kerbal rover, on to the surface of Minmus very near my mining operation. The need is so my engineer can motor around and make pipe connections, etc. I have no idea how I get a small rover onto the surface. I can build the rover but, after that, where does it "go" in the actual spacecraft that takes it to Minmus and how do I get it on the surface?

Any help with this frustrating question is appreciated.

[Foxster]

Perhaps the easiest way is to couple it to the bottom of a lander and drop it off when landed at Minmus.

You can mess about putting it into a fairing or cargo bay but in the end it will probably just make it more complicated. 

[strider3]

Here's a picture of the rover I'm trying to get to Minmus. I'm not quite sure how I "couple" it to the bottom of a lander, Foxster? If I do manage that, will uncoupling damage the rover?

[Gargamel]

Move the panels so you can mount a couple Octogonal struts to the top, inline with the COM, plop a tiny separator or docking to it, and then attach that to to bottom of your lander.  Do something similar to then mount it to the transfer stage of your rocket.   Adjust as needed.   That way it will be suspended beneath the lander, and gently plop down upon release.  Make sure the lander legs are tall enough to allow for the rover, you want to land on the legs, not the rover.  

Or take a look at the skycrane premade rover, and do something similar, and land it near your lander.

And since it's minmus, you can lose the ladders, the kerbals can easily jump over the rover, and probably the lander too.   Save on the part count and FPS. 

Edited February 6, 2018 by Gargamel

[Geonovast]

Remember that you can attach stuff to docking ports in the VAB that aren't docking ports.  Then you can decouple them when needed.  They essentially just "let go" instead of pushing anything away.

You can also turn down the ejection force on any decoupler.

[Capt. Hunt]

also, minmus's gravity is so low, you may find it easier to just have your engineer jet around with his backpack.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I've made these for a Minmus base, they are pretty sweet- just watch your speed

 

[foamyesque]

Honestly, for Minmus, I'd just attach a fuel tank and some engines -- probably monoprop & RCS quads -- to the thing and land it with those. As a bonus, since you're running an ISRU operation, you can then use it to fly around at will.

[GKSP]

Just don't do what I did: just about land your rover and have it ready to jettison from the crane/tug and accidentally press shift thinking that will let you scroll to move the camera up.  TL;DR Don't get sloppy and think you're in the VAB.

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Gargamel said:

And since it's minmus, you can lose the ladders

Actually since it's Minmus, lose the entire rover. It won't work there and you'll just become sad and frustrated.

Why it won't work is because it's super light and won't get any traction. Assuming you can get any speed on it, you'll need several km to slow down.

[Gordon Fecyk]

Yes driving a rover on Minmus can be frustrating due to the lack of traction, but I wouldn't count it out entirely.

I find that heavier craft and better wheels seem to help a lot. The tiny S2 wheels on this example wouldn't do for a Minmus rover, and neither would the brown dune buggy M1 wheels. A larger, 2.5m craft with the TR-L2 wheels seems to do much better for me, along with some patience.

For RoveMate-sized rovers, I had much better success with a bunch of monoprop tanks, some RCS blocks, and a pair of O-10 engines for landing it than I ever had with wheels.

[Spricigo]

7 hours ago, Foxster said:

You can mess about putting it into a fairing or cargo bay but in the end it will probably just make it more complicated. 

A fairing can actually make it extremely simple, given the insane impact tolerance of the fairing itself (not the base).

1.(crash) land

2.deploy fairing

3.????

4.profit

 

 

[Guest]

You can also strap an engine to each end, with decouplers to... decouple them. You might need to put octagonal struts to create points that accept the decouplers.

Here's that technique being used on Tylo. This would be obviously stupidly overpowered for Minmus; for that an Ant + Oscar at each end would be more than enough, or you could even make do with RCS ports and monopropellant.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Guest

[RizzoTheRat]

For a minmus rover reaction wheels are essential and RCS highly desirable IMO, but as others have said if it's just for nipping around between ships in a fairly small area I'd have the kerbals fly on backpacks.

As for carrying rovers, my preferred method is to build the rover around a central vertical materials bay or stack of batteries, this means you can use it as a structural component in your launch stack.  I then have long landing gear on the lander so the rover can be under slung.  If the rover also has a docking port on top you can re-dock it by retracting the lander legs.

[TheFlyingKerman]

The lazy man's method:

Actually it does not matter which way the rocket lands, the rover can always right itself with reaction wheels.

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, TheFlyingKerman said:

The lazy man's method:

Exactly how I do.

Laziness have such a great RoI

[Foxster]

Loads of good ideas here. My first thought was a mini sky-crane...

[Mr. Peabody]

All rovers designed for low-gravity bodies should have RCS. This will also allow you to mount the rover over the land and return vehicle and move it off with the RCS system. I used this method to land my ultra-heavy rover on Ike.

[Gargamel]

21 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Actually since it's Minmus, lose the entire rover. It won't work there and you'll just become sad and frustrated.

Why it won't work is because it's super light and won't get any traction. Assuming you can get any speed on it, you'll need several km to slow down.

Very good point!  A hopper may your best bet.

The only rovers I've used on minmus have been multi ton tanker trucks for ore, and they took a while to stop too. 

Edited February 8, 2018 by Gargamel

[strider3]

Some great ideas, gang. The problem with backpacking my engineer is he's carrying to much stuff and wont leave the ground. I've thought of dropping all the stuff he doesn't need in a pile near my drilling base but I never seem to be able to pick the stuff back up with any consistency. I also have a scientist at the base, I suppose I could transfer the extra stuff from my engineers inventory to hers so he's light enough to backpack. I'm going to try that as it seems the easiest way. Ideally I would have put the Command Seat on my fuel truck and solved all my problems...but I didn't think of it when building the truck.

Waxing Gibbous...that runabout is pretty awesome!

Thanks all!!

[Guest]

Bit of a tangent, but on low-grav bodies miniature landers work better than rovers. I used this to survey Bop:

It's very easy to fly a mini-lander under such conditions: you just set the navball to surface/radial out, puff the engine to control altitude, and "nod" to control your horizontal direction. Fuel expenditure is very low and you can move much faster than with a rover with a much lower risk of launching yourself into a hillside. 

(This might even be a practical application for an ion drive. One of those would keep going practically forever...)

[Spricigo]

one solution for lack of traction for rover on low gravity bodies is using artificial gravity ,

a.k,a. some engines pointing down  up*

 

*Thanks for the correction @Brikoleur

Edited February 8, 2018 by Spricigo

[Geonovast]

12 hours ago, Victor3 said:

Some great ideas, gang. The problem with backpacking my engineer is he's carrying to much stuff and wont leave the ground. I've thought of dropping all the stuff he doesn't need in a pile near my drilling base but I never seem to be able to pick the stuff back up with any consistency. I also have a scientist at the base, I suppose I could transfer the extra stuff from my engineers inventory to hers so he's light enough to backpack. I'm going to try that as it seems the easiest way. Ideally I would have put the Command Seat on my fuel truck and solved all my problems...but I didn't think of it when building the truck.

Waxing Gibbous...that runabout is pretty awesome!

Thanks all!!

Since your kerbal is carrying stuff, you're obviously using KIS/KAS, yes?  Or is it a different mod?

If you are using KIS/KAS, then send up a small container that your engineer can either store the stuff in (so you don't have to pick it up or have the game delete it as debris), or stick a screw gun and a command seat in it and have your engineer bolt the command seat to your fuel truck.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Spricigo said:

one solution for lack of traction for rover on low gravity bodies is using artificial gravity ,

a.k,a. some engines pointing down 

I take it you mean up.

I've tried this and it's a good solution for some special cases, e.g. a tanker that you need to be able to drive up to an ISRU for docking.

For exploration though, if you're putting on an engine, IMO you might as well go the whole hog and make a lander instead of a rover. 

[Mr. Peabody]

On 2/6/2018 at 10:07 PM, 5thHorseman said:

Actually since it's Minmus, lose the entire rover. It won't work there and you'll just become sad and frustrated.

Why it won't work is because it's super light and won't get any traction. Assuming you can get any speed on it, you'll need several km to slow down.

Every use who has ever done an Elcana circumnavigation of a low gravity body is face palming.