Is there any chance I can let my rocket that has been tipped over back up on the moon?

[RedMun]

My rocket tipped over when I landed on the moon and I need help

[Foxster]

One way is to use the VesselMover Continued mod. 

 

[bewing]

Are you willing to cheat a tiny bit? Or do you want to get it back off the ground according to default KSP physics?

 

[Aeroboi]

Create a rover with a Airbrake mounted horizontal at the front while sticking out, make sure it's rotated that extending it makes it move upright. Think about a forklift action using the airbrake and then add it to a action group. Also make sure the rover is not to light otherwise it won't be able to lift the lander.

Get the rover to the moon, drive the airbrake under the fuselage and use the action group to extend and hopefully upright the lander. If it fails try again until you succeed, plus point is that you now also have a rover on the Moon. So make sure you stuff it with anything useful like science or other goodies if your intention is to have a rover on the moon on future missions.

 

[mikey117]

If you are on a slope try rotating vessel so it is facing uphill , retract your landing gear ,then try to pull nose up using reaction wheel /rcs and if you can get it up past  30°Then quickly extend landing gear again. Hope this helps. 

[Jognt]

ALT+F12 -> Cheats -> Hack Gravity -> quickly slide it to 0. 

Your rocket will now start floating up. 

Or accept your new munar ornament and pay it a visit a year from now for the wise lessons it taught you. 

[HansAcker]

4 hours ago, Jognt said:

ALT+F12 -> Cheats -> Hack Gravity -> quickly slide it to 0.

Wouldn't this also affect all other crafts in the universe or is the effect constrained to the local physics bubble?

I had some luck recovering tipped-over Minmus rockets by activating RCS and telling SAS to hold surface radial-out. The craft would need some thrusters near the top for that to work.

 

[Zhetaan]

8 hours ago, RedMun said:

My rocket tipped over when I landed on the moon and I need help

First, welcome to the forum!  This is the right place to ask.

Second, I'm going to venture to guess that you are new to landing on the Mun.  That's okay; we all had to do it for the first time at some point.  However, if you are tipping over on your landing because you're new at it, it may mean that fixing the problem is beyond your skill level for the moment.

To answer the question you asked, there are a few ways to tip a fallen rocket back upright, so yes, there's a chance.  Some use mods--but you may not want or be able to use mods (console versions can't use mods, for example).  Using the cheat menu as @Jognt suggested may be unacceptable to you, though it certainly will work.  @Aeroboi's rover forklift is a great idea, but it requires you to have access to the rover parts and the ability to make precision landings with delicate gear and an unbalanced payload.  @mikey117's idea to use the slope is often a good way, though it risks damage to the rocket and requires both a slope and powerful reaction wheels or RCS thrusters.  Maybe you tipped over because you weren't upright when you landed, rather than because you landed on too steep a slope; I don't know.

To answer the question you didn't ask, unless you are lucky both with the slope and with your flying, you probably will not be able to save this rocket.  However, you can still save the crew.  By all means, build a rescue rocket.  You can do it in a couple of ways; one is to send a probe-controlled rocket, though that may not be feasible depending on your communications settings.  Another is to build a rocket with one seat more than the stranded crew and send a pilot to pick them up.  Be sure that the other seats are empty; I've seen many people quit in frustration after sending a four-seat rocket to pick up three stranded crew, only to find that all four seats were occupied and they forgot to empty the extra three before launch  Perhaps that behaviour has changed; I don't recall.

Another idea is to learn why this rocket tipped and send a new one that is resistant to that problem in the future.  There are many ways to make that happen; you can include powerful reaction wheels or RCS thrusters, if you like, but my preference in these situations is to design a rocket that is less prone to tipping in the first place.  Most of my Mun landers are very short, and most incorporate three widely-spaced landing legs.  Tripods don't wobble!  I normally include three FL-T100 or FL-T200 fuel tanks on radial decouplers, and put the landing legs on the extra tanks; this gives the rocket such a wide footprint that it usually can handle any slope up to the point that it begins to slide along the ground--but it won't tip.  The centre may be a Spark engine on another FL-T200 (or maybe an FL-T-400) tank with the science experiments and pod.  If you're making a rescue, you may want to use a crew capsule rather than a science package; if you can land on the Mun with an intact (if not upright) rocket, then I will assume that you understand how to design a return-capable rocket.  Flying a squat lander to orbit can be tricky, but if you have access to the 2.5-metre parts, then you can reduce the amount that the lander ruins the aerodynamic profile of the lifter.

Any way that you choose to address the tipped lander, good luck, and if you have any further problems, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Kryxal]

It's probably worth trying a rocking motion after you line up.  Retract the gear, if you can pivot up - great!  If not, if you can pivot even somewhat towards up, do so, extend legs, pivot DOWN and retract legs, and pivot UP again when the rocket stops.  If you can clear 30 degrees up and have a TWR over 2, full throttle and SAS on, then plan your next moves.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Kryxal

[Jognt]

6 hours ago, HansAcker said:

Wouldn't this also affect all other crafts in the universe or is the effect constrained to the local physics bubble?

Yes, it would affect all other craft in the save file. However, like Schrödinger's cat, there's no effect unless you check. (like you say, there's the physics bubble, outside of that, there's no physics)

I've also used it to get craft back to kerbin when it didn't work due to "not my fault" stuff (mod errors, inconsistencies, bugs, lazy moods) by setting its orbit to Kerbin and then increasing gravity until I had a suborbital trajectory .

Edit: Bonus points if you can get a craft to the Mun (or even another planet) without touching its controls/throttle. Purely by influencing its orbit by hacking gravity

Edited May 29, 2019 by Jognt

[cantab]

You can try. There's a few ways to do it:

If you have multiple fuel tanks, transferring fuel between them may help righting efforts. In career you might not have this unlocked yet.

The first thing normally tried is using the reaction wheels or any RCS to rock it back and forth until it tips upright, possibly with the help of extending and retracting parts such as landing legs or antennae. (Note that solar panels will probably break if you're rough with them.)

You can also try having the Kerbal fly into the lander with their jetpack, the right impact angle might tip the lander upright. I've never had much luck with this on Mun, it works better on Minmus.

Otherwise you can try using the engine anyway, you may be able to take off, but it's very risky. Quicksave first if you're using them. If it's a two-stage lander, decoupling your ascent stage and flying it may work but you'll have to be quick on the controls.

Often, though, it's just time for the rescue mission.

[Ron Devu]

Then there's the Kerbal way. Retract landing gear. Hit V until you are in locked view. Roll the ship until you are pointing uphill, or at least not straight at a mountain or crater wall. Now, play with the the WASDF controls until you are sure you know which button will pitch the nose up. (Watch the rocket nozzles and which way they respond to figure this one out.)

Set SAS to radial out if you have that option, otherwise set to hold course. Lean on that pitch up button and fire the main engines. With a bit of luck you'll get enough of a bounce to get you "airborne" without destroying the ship.

The reason I say this is the Kerbal way, is that it does work about 30% of the time and the rest of the time you get really cool explosions. As soon as you have 50-100 m/sec in an upwardsish  direction, you can usually cut the engine, get properly oriented and burn for orbit with time to spare. You'd be amazed how fast you can get a suborbital trajectory that peaks at 20+ km, and once you have that you have several minutes to get organized.

 

Due to the 30% success rate you MIGHT want to quicksave before you try this.

Oh and don't do what I did .... I had several hard bumps , somehow managed to stay intact.I got up in the air, saw blue on the navball, locked into that course , then pointed the nose 10-20 degrees above the horizon burned for dear life. After circularizing I was in a nice orbit, only inclined six degrees from the orbit of the fuel ship waiting above. I set up a rendezvous, though the numbers did not look very good. Soon I was approaching the fuel ship. At over 1000 m/sec. I was in the perfect orbit, but retrograde.

[Laie]

20 hours ago, HansAcker said:

Wouldn't this also affect all other crafts in the universe or is the effect constrained to the local physics bubble?

In terms of tipping, falling, and so on, it will only affect the currently loaded vessel.

For purposes of orbital mechanics, it will affect everything. Check map view for a few surprises. The beauty is that it all goes back to normal as soon as you unhack gravity.

[Klapaucius]

On 5/29/2019 at 9:13 PM, mikey117 said:

If you are on a slope try rotating vessel so it is facing uphill , retract your landing gear ,then try to pull nose up using reaction wheel /rcs and if you can get it up past  30°Then quickly extend landing gear again. Hope this helps. 

This worked for me just the other day.