Molniya Style orbit around Moho?

[Gargamel]

I have a rover enroute to Moho.  I already have a sat around it, but it doesn't have any relay antennas on it, so the rover mothership is carrying enough relays to cover the span between Moho and Kerbin. Of course, the rover is not carrying a big antenna, just the small fixed one. 

But, I only have one relay sat for this mission, the mother ship.   I was thinking of placing it in an equatorial orbit with a very high Ap, and very low Pe, similar to a Molniya orbit, to maximize the radio coverage it will receive.  Especially given Moho's slow rotational rate, this may give me enough coverage to do successful roving. 

But then I was thinking, if I land the rover near one of the poles, or at least deep into either hemisphere, I can then place the relay sat in a polar Molniya style orbit, so that is should have full coverage of the hemisphere with each pass, and the effects of the planets rotation would be negligible on radio coverage.  The poles should offer more daylight for the solar panels.

I should have enough Dv left after capture to get to a near polar orbit, low enough to deploy the lander, and then boost upto the high Ap, and then adjust to a true polar orbit. 

The polar method is sounding like my best option, but I'd like to hear some thoughts.   And which pole would be better to target on, I'm thinking the North because it seems to have more biomes, and the Mohole as a final destination. 

 

[mystifeid]

The Mohole seems to be the major attraction on Moho (and it seems that you can collect South Pole data at the bottom of it too) so a Molniya orbit might be best for the relay. Is it too late to turn around and go get a good pilot? Maybe an engineer too because the North Pole biome is about the most treacherous landscape I've encountered. There are a few flats where you can speed up but otherwise you should take it slow. It's easy to think sometimes that a slope for example looks safe and then whack - you hit the equivalent of a brick wall.

The pilot would have made a good sacrifice for the Mohole too.

To get in and out is the trick. It takes full EVA tanks to do either one. So to get out using EVA you need some other means of getting in. And you can probably count on crashing whatever you use but with luck, the Kerbal survives (with full EVA tanks).

[Gargamel]

It's a completely unmanned rover.  I'm using life support, and my 3 mother ships are awaiting proper windows before leaving, for Duna, Jool, and an Eve/Moho joint mission, with the last one just starting it's Mun/minmus shakedown trip to fuel up at an asteroid.  I build the motherships with only about 3k dv in it, enough to do the shakedown, but after fueling around the Mun, it will have about 18k dv (way overkill, I know), and enough fuel for multiple lander trips.   

  I have a comsat relay enoute to moho now, but it will be arriving ling after the rover does.  Part of the problem was building a transfer stage big enough to get to and orbit Moho, and still have enough for the manuevering I need to do to get the sats in place.   The sat clouds I have enroute to Eve and Duna just weren't upto the task. 

[mystifeid]

Well, good luck with that. Be careful with the landings. The North Pole can be pretty steep - there's mountains everywhere and your LZ may end up being shadowed by one of them.