Curiosity rover with skycrane

[Szkeptik]

Hi everyone.

A tribute to the awesomeness that is the Curiosity mission!

This is a result of about 10 hours of work and testing.

No mods, stock parts.

On the launch pad:

After liftoff:

On our way without the booster stage:

Starting landing procedure:

Coming in:

Watch the sycrane fly away:

Speed around and EVA

CRAFT file:

[ATTACH]31501[/ATTACH]

The craft is not in perfect balance so here are some quirks you need to know:

1. Start the launch on full throttle and with SAS on. The skycrane arms sometimes go into a vibration feedback and tear the craft apart at ~7000 meters if you don't. I think I mostly fixed this issue with added struts, but you never know.

2. After the booster phase detaches you'll need to make a decision about conserving RCS fuel. If you don't turn it on the craft will become unstable even with ADV SAS above ~1/2 thrust. With RCS on it will be stable but it consumes disgusting amounts of fuel.

3. The rover legs aren't the most stable things even with the reinforcement they have. When you come in for a landing make sure you are coming perfectly straight down, or are aproaching either forward or reverse from the rover's perspective. Aproaching from the side will likely tear off your wheels.

4. The rover can survive a good 10 meter drop, but make sure you are almost on the surface when you release the skycrane.

5. When using the rover's horizontal thruster be careful with the throttle. A miniature bump can tear you apart or send you into orbit if you put the pedal to the metal. I recommend short bursts of no more than 1/4. Also, you'll need to use the RCS manually while cruising to stay on the ground, brake and turn.

6. The rover has a bottom thruster on the last stage because I wanted it to be able to return to Kerbin, but because it's not balanced perfectly it's very difficult to do so and even on manual RCS control I couldn't fly it back. Feel free to try though. PS. If you feel like it you can use it to jump around doing somersaults.

I only tried flying this to the Mun. It probably has enough fuel to get to Minmus. The frozen lakes would be a great candidate for some high speed fun.

Edited August 19, 2012 by Szkeptik

[Giggleplex777]

Wow, I've been trying to do the same thing. Only thing is, I gave up on the sky crane and a descent stage underneathen the rover was what I ended up doing. I'll make a download for it later. Anyways, great design you have there. BTW, for the rover, why not power it with rcs?

[Szkeptik]

Thanks!

I never did a rover before and didn't know if RCS would be enough to push it.

[colmo]

I built a helicopter that can take a 100 (one hundred) metre drop...in Kerbin gravity (link in sig). It would be easy to adapt the suspension for use in a radially symmetrical rover.

Using the Katerpillar wheels, this also solves the business of roving, as they are self-powered.

P.S. You can fix that 5 degree angle on the rockets using Shift + WASD to straighten them up.

[Giggleplex777]

Well, here's the download: https://sites.google.com/site/giggleplex777/-crafts/Mun%20Rover%20II.craft?attredirects=0&d=1 (My random site)

I'll make a post later.

Pics:

On the moon

The rover

Edited August 20, 2012 by Giggleplex777

[Giggleplex777]

Inspired by your rover, I made my own: Kuriosity. It is't the best rover, but it's pretty good for 1 hour of work (building the rover, testing the rover, building the skycrane and launch vehicle, launch, landing on the moon, and finally, exploring the moon). Controls: q right turn, e left turn, L forward, j, back, b brake, g landing gear.

Downoad: https://sites.google.com/site/giggleplex777/-crafts/Kuriosity.craft?attredirects=0&d=1

Landing it is quite similar to your rover but has to be closer to the ground.

Pics (sorry, I forgot how to use spoilers):

Cruise stage

Sky crane fly away and crash

Beside Mun rock

Edited August 20, 2012 by Giggleplex777

[Szkeptik]

Nice rovers. I tested the first one but had some trouble leaving the landing unit and ended up upside down.

[Giggleplex777]

sas on, rcs on, tap h, then k. BTW thanks!

[heikkik]

The skycrane. That is absolutely genious. I didn't even think of that when I made my small 3.8 ton rover using the katepillar wheels.

BTW the katepillar wheels are harder to drive as they tend to turn your craft. Aaand the speed... top speed on flat around KSC with 6 katepillar wheels was something a bit over 6 m/s. My 4-wheel rover has a top speed of 5.2 m/s on the Mun

[Giggleplex777]

Well, for my rover, that was intended, as I wanted it to look like curiosity and because the only time I tested the wheels was after it landed.

Edited August 20, 2012 by Giggleplex777