How to Get a Rover Down to the Mun

[Little Kerbonaut!]

So I am trying to get a rover down to the Mun surface. But their is one problem I don’t know what to use to get it down I tried monopropellant engines but that just flipped the craft. I want to try parachutes but I don’t know if they can work when trying to get down to the lunar surface. Does anyone else have any ideas that isn’t to hard to build and fit on a small rover?

I got it to work with the monopropellant, but still feel free to list your ideas. 

[AHHans]

Well, one simple answer is that parachutes will only work in air, so they won't do anything on the Mun or Minmus.

About how to actually do it, let me just forward you to Scott Manley's video:

I personally use the method with the rover hanging below the lander, but then I construct landing legs that extend beyond the rover so that the lander can land normally with the rover attached.

[Cavscout74]

Parachutes will not work anywhere except Kerbin, Eve, Laythe and (poorly) Duna.  Well, they work on Jool too, but there is no surface to land on.  For a non-atmospheric body (like the Mun) your main options are (other than attaching to a lander like @AHHans suggested).  

1) Sky crane (rocket attached to the top of the rover that detaches - either to be reused or fly off and crash somewhere) - this one just uses an upside down decoupler on top the rover, once landed, leave the engines running at low power & decouple.  Once staged away from the mass of the rover, the sky crane flies off to (hopefully) crash somewhere safe.

Here's another rover being landed by skycrane:

2) landing cradle - build a platform with engines & fuel tanks with the rover docked to the top.  Land the cradle & drive off.  I've done this for smaller designs, but I'm really excited about a large one I recently made.  I turned the cradle into a relay as well.   This method is harder to pull off and less efficient (since the cradle will generally have more mass than an equivalent skycrane won't).  It DOES give a little extra protection to your rover during landing though.

3) Make the rover with built-in landing rockets - I've not done this much except for a few combination fuel tanker/rovers designed to bring fuel from a surface base to a station.  And I've never really made one I was happy with.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Cavscout74

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Little Kerbonaut! said:

... but that just flipped the craft...

I suspect you have an asymmetric landing craft. May you provide a picture? Preferable in the VAB whit Center of mass and Center of thrust indicator.

 

[Little Kerbonaut!]

29 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

I suspect you have an asymmetric landing craft. May you provide a picture? Preferable in the VAB whit Center of mass and Center of thrust indicator.

 

Sure, but it may be a while since I am still figuring it out.

[N_Danger]

 If you have the tech, A conical fuel tank with tall landing legs and radial engines like the the Thud can have enough room underneath for a rover to be placed under it with a de-coupler on the top of the rover.

 If you have access to the robotic parts you can do some interesting stuff moving the rover off a landing platform.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I vote skycrane: simple to do, easy to get rid of once you're landed and the rover itself can still be mounted on a stack for launch. You can also use the last dregs of fuel from your transfer/deorbit stage to make the skycrane fuel go further.

Just remember that the best way to fly a rover on a rocket is with the control point pointing up, but to drive it around it should be pointing forwards. Some probe cores (RoveMate, OKTO and a couple of others) can do this but some can't. You should also add some small reaction wheels into your rover to keep it stable on the ground especially as RoveMate and OKTO2 don't have any at all and the other probe cores' are feeble.

[Little Kerbonaut!]

Ok, what I plan on doing is using the second stage since it should have fuel left over to help slow it down and when that stage drains I use the Skycrane to slow it down more. But yesterday I tried landing the rover with just the Skycrane and it wasn’t turning or controlling it’s throttle.

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Little Kerbonaut! said:

Ok, what I plan on doing is using the second stage since it should have fuel left over to help slow it down and when that stage drains I use the Skycrane to slow it down more. But yesterday I tried landing the rover with just the Skycrane and it wasn’t turning or controlling it’s throttle.

You need either a command module (not a cabin) with a kerbal aboard or a probe core with electricity and, if memory serves me well, on default difficult options connection signal to be able to control the craft.

[Little Kerbonaut!]

I added a probe core and a satellite to it. But I’m thinking about changing it out for a larger satellite.

[Spricigo]

23 minutes ago, Little Kerbonaut! said:

I added a probe core and a satellite to it. But I’m thinking about changing it out for a larger satellite

I suppose you mean a probe core and an antenna. That's enough to reach the Mun. It may still be the case of the Mun getting in the way (landing in the far side). 

Well, is also possible that you forgot to extend the antenna or attached it to the wrong stage, (like anyone that played long enough, or rather like the very last vessel I launched ). 

 

[Little Kerbonaut!]

The first time I was trying to land I landed on the dark side of Mun so I suspect the solar panels didn’t get sun light since the Mun blocked it or it didn’t have connection to the KSC. When I tried landing on the Mun a second time I tried landing on the light side of the Mun so the solar panels would still get sun light. The same problem happened but now I know it’s probably connection to KSC and not the panels getting enough sunlight.