SRB Lander

[lucidLemon]

Congratulations iplop! You are the first to be put on the board!

Right now, I am using your MET for the original (sideways) landing, since it qualifies.

Unfortunately, I think you need a little bit more proximity to get the Scout achievement, but you did get Dedication. You are also the first to complete this challenge, which I have marked.

Edited September 10, 2012 by lucidLemon

[samiamthelaw]

Method for wasting thrust? You mean the out of control spinning end over end? Now that would be something to try in a glider...o

I've attempted this about a billion times, and it's really, really hard.

I the way to go is not a small craft decelerated by a single SRB, but a massive craft, decelerated slowly (in relative terms) by a series of SRBs. I know someone mentioned the lander-leg-thrust-toggle thing earlier, but that seems unnecessary. You can pretty safely jettison active SRBs to "cut" their thrust, since they'll zoom away and explode somewhere else.

[RC1062]

Why not try to land horizontally using SRBs to retro burn?

[Nao]

This is only proof of concept to my SRB control by closing exhaust with a hatch (landing gear).

Flew from LKO to moon on 4 SRB's being totally wasteful and redoing only the landing part several (4?) times.

SRB usage was: one for transfer, one for making a stable orbit around Mun with 100km Pe, one for stopping orbit to -40m/s and last one for landing.

I made a video mostly to mess around with VirtualDub and codec's, but somebody might find it useful. I still don't have anything to add notes on screen, maybe somebody can give me a hint to some free program for simple editing that has sensible compression/codec options.

SRB landing on the Mun:

http://youtu.be/hYCYf31YeiQ

At the end of the video whole craft is displayed, as well as my "hatch" technology.

@ OP if you think i qualify, you could give me Dedication achievement or something, but my MET is funny (1:01:25:00) since i have gone around Mun for 5? laps being lazy and missing time compression stops on Pe. Also i did use mechjeb so if that is considered a mod I'll do it properly without it next time.

cheers! =3

[The Destroyer]

This is only proof of concept to my SRB control by closing exhaust with a hatch (landing gear).

Flew from LKO to moon on 4 SRB's being totally wasteful and redoing only the landing part several (4?) times.

SRB usage was: one for transfer, one for making a stable orbit around Mun with 100km Pe, one for stopping orbit to -40m/s and last one for landing.

I made a video mostly to mess around with VirtualDub and codec's, but somebody might find it useful. I still don't have anything to add notes on screen, maybe somebody can give me a hint to some free program for simple editing that has sensible compression/codec options.

SRB landing on the Mun:

http://youtu.be/hYCYf31YeiQ

At the end of the video whole craft is displayed, as well as my "hatch" technology.

@ OP if you think i qualify, you could give me Dedication achievement or something, but my MET is funny (1:01:25:00) since i have gone around Mun for 5? laps being lazy and missing time compression stops on Pe. Also i did use mechjeb so if that is considered a mod I'll do it properly without it next time.

cheers! =3

im the first one to view vid

[lucidLemon]

Nao, I can put you down for an Honorary Award. As much as I love mechjeb, it isn't vanilla.

The fact everything else is vanilla is still very impressive, and with a bit of refinement, I think you can make a proper landing

[Banbite]

Did some tries and the concept is pretty easy, although hard to perform. The trick is to do burn the SRB in a sub-optimal way (aka in a direction which is not the retrograde one) and time that perfectly with the altitude that you start the burn and do that perfectly. And the big lander legs can absorb about 20 m/s or slightly more which gives you an about 100-200 meters margin of error.

But I did put it down in one piece! Altough I'm still working on landing it standing, but after about 100 quick-loads you get pretty tired.

But picture proof:

Note that these might have been taken during different tries

Not having such a long lander might help holding it upright just a bit.

And I even made the entire mission using only SRB's and even that isn't that hard if you know what you're doing (and have a lot of patience). The trick here is to abuse the Oberth effect when you burn with the last stage to the moon, aka burning at different speeds and then check if you hit the moon or not and if not, just quick load and try again and do the burn at a different speed, do it at a higher speed if you didn't really get there and at a lower speed if you overshoot it.

Very fun tho, and not impossible.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Banbite

[lucidLemon]

That's gonna be a hard time to beat! I'm assuming the last spoiler contains the SRB craft, but it's broken and won't open. I can't give you Way of the Master until I have seen the craft.

[iplop]

I made it back to Kerbin using SRBs! : D

And it only took two tries to get the trajectory right!

Edit:

I should've gone to the arch.. It's right there (first 2 screenshots). I didn't realize it was so close.

Edited September 10, 2012 by iplop

[lucidLemon]

Nice work iplop! Quite fortunately, one of your screenshots showed a spent booster in the staging that shows you did land with SRB's. I have updated your entry on the leader-board.

I am adding another achievement, Live Long, for completing the challenge in one go. It requires a screenshot showing liftoff from KSC in the flight summary.

[Banbite]

Ok fixed it, gonna do another try some other day and see if I can make it any better.

[samiamthelaw]

I've attempted this about a billion times, and it's really, really hard.

I the way to go is not a small craft decelerated by a single SRB, but a massive craft, decelerated slowly (in relative terms) by a series of SRBs. I know someone mentioned the lander-leg-thrust-toggle thing earlier, but that seems unnecessary. You can pretty safely jettison active SRBs to "cut" their thrust, since they'll zoom away and explode somewhere else.

Well, I can confirm now that this method works. There (6:06) and back again (11:49) with a nice light touchdown, all stock parts. A heavy lander plus releasable SRBs lets you decelerate slowly. I quicksaved quite a lot on the way, but this could actually work with only a little trial & error.

Arrived at 6:06, then used the half-giant liquid fuel tank to return at 11:49. Plus a nice view of an arch off in the distance during the return trip.

Edited September 11, 2012 by samiamthelaw

[Nao]

It's still work in progress but i want to clear that red font =3

This also was a test mission so i didn't get pictures. The ship was capable of returning kerbonaut safely to the Kerth but i landed in rather unfortunate spot and couldn't really make a shot toward it.

Still it was all stock and only SRB. Btw while there is no achievement for it, I'm shooting for pure SRB Mun and back mission, it's not even hard, just needs proper landing spot to be able to shoot straight at Kerth.

cheers!

[lucidLemon]

Good work guys! I have updated the leaderboard.

I'm curious about how to incorporate Minmus, the low gravity would create entirely new circumstances.

[The Destroyer]

Well, I can confirm now that this method works. There (6:06) and back again (11:49) with a nice light touchdown, all stock parts. A heavy lander plus releasable SRBs lets you decelerate slowly. I quicksaved quite a lot on the way, but this could actually work with only a little trial & error.

Arrived at 6:06, then used the half-giant liquid fuel tank to return at 11:49. Plus a nice view of an arch off in the distance during the return trip.

i thought u couldnt use liquid engines to land?

[Exclipse]

i thought u couldnt use liquid engines to land?

He didn't use liquid. Notice his tank is full, unless he is trying to be slick and saved and then exited the game to get the full tank bug.

He used the two solid boosters in the prev pic to lower himself.

[sal_vager]

Exclipse, that bug just makes it look like you have a full tank, it can still be empty, it won't update unless he fires a liquid engine.

[The Destroyer]

Oh okay. pics werent clear.

[Exclipse]

Exclipse, that bug just makes it look like you have a full tank, it can still be empty, it won't update unless he fires a liquid engine.

Does not change what I was saying though

I doubt he did, but he could have landed on liquid, exited game came back in and it would appear he had a completely untouched fuel tank, regardless of if it were empty or not.

He clearly showed pictures of descent though.

[samiamthelaw]

Does not change what I was saying though

I doubt he did, but he could have landed on liquid, exited game came back in and it would appear he had a completely untouched fuel tank, regardless of if it were empty or not.

He clearly showed pictures of descent though.

There's also a picture of ascent on the liquid fuel tank. The better proof is probably the staging visible in the fourth picture (Mun Landing) -- the stage with the liquid fuel engine hasn't fired yet when the craft lands.

Also, for folks' future attempts: having a bunch of mass (e.g. a nice big fuel tank) is a great way to make all that SRB power more manageable.

Edited September 12, 2012 by samiamthelaw

[AmpsterMan]

I was thinking about this during work today. I am going to be taking a part in this challenge.

Edit 1: I've been trying to finish this challenge and I have made it... sort of. I didn't take that many screenshots because I was DYING of laughter through out this whole ordeal. Enjoy!

Edited September 13, 2012 by AmpsterMan

[Felsmak]

This challenge is impossible.

Rolling a 7 with a single, six-sided dice is impossible. This is not, you just need careful planning and timing.

[Bluejayek]

Rolling a 7 with a single, six-sided dice is impossible. This is not, you just need careful planning and timing.

Did I just prove you wrong?

That being said, I believe whoever was saying this is impossible was just trolling anyways.

I tried this once using SRBs from kerbin; I made it to the Mun, but I was attempting to land with just a single SRB and mark I pod... I figured I had about a 50m window to start the SRB burn, and this was travelling at 500m/s. Despite many attempts, pegging that 0.1s window didn't work. Ballast mass is the way to go!

[Felsmak]

Did I just prove you wrong?

My world view has been shattered.

[AmpsterMan]

Well I would like to present my candidate for achievement of the Challenge (and to prove you Naysayers wrong)

I think the flight results show that I did a copious amount of savescumming. The Fuel used in my liquid stages where to get my orbit inclined so I can land on the only mun arch I know about and to circularise my orbit at 21km before killing ALL of my horizontal velocity and plummeting down.