A tragedy for Kerbalkind

[CkGordon]

I'm a little devestated. I got this game this morning and spent my entire day off fascinated. My first rocket attempts were hilarious failures full of huge explosions. Eventually i managed a successful flight and landing. Shortly after, my first taste of space as I finally send an astronaut to orbit and safely return him. Not long after that I had perfected a rocket that could actually leave Kerbins influence! That brave soul still floats in deep space but will always be remembered as a hero for science! Tonight I took it to the next level. I built a landing capsule, fitted it to a rocket, timed my launch to intersect the moon, and blasted off into space. As I approached I kept fine tuning my trajectory over and over and finally the blue line went right through the Mun on my map. I spent the last of my second stage fuel perfecting the meeting and decoupled. I then spun my lander around and started slowing down as I approached the lunar surface. I managed to get 2 screenshots of this momentous event as I prepared to touch down hoping to exit my space capsule victorious but then the unthinkable happened. I ran out of fuel and was still going too fast. At about 900m/s I smashed into the lunar surface and watched in horror as all that hard work went up in a huge explosion. Has anyone else had failure after coming so close to success? What could I do different next time? I cant really pack more fuel on my lander or the ladder wont reach the ground. Also what is the max speed you can touch down and survive?

[TheDarkStar]

I'm guessing your lander is too heavy. Make a smaller lander, and give it one of the efficient engines. NERVA + 400L fuel tank + 1 man command module + parachute can land and get back if you land without horizontal velocity on a flat area.

[Cby]

The same thing happened way to many times to me

[wired2thenet]

Welcome to KSP! The only game where failure means success!

Seriously though, the final insertion and de-orbit requires a less-heavy stage, with steady thrust (usually, but it depends on the lander design). My best Munar landings happened with one pod, one regular 1m tank, and the gimbal engine.

To LEARN how to land, get the mechjeb autopilot, which has a landing feature (may be currently broken in .17). Watch what it does and when, and then figure out why it does it. Practice the landing a few times, and then ditch the mechjeb entirely. That's what I did, and I can land currently on almost any body in the system as a result.

I had a very hard time landing on the Mun and Minmus in the beginning, but I started using mechjeb and watch what it did and when, and then figured out WHY it did what it did at those particular moments. After that, I only used mechjeb for the mundane stuff, and for information gathering. It (mechjeb) is not 100% efficient in it's landings, but it's so darn close you can practically do it in your sleep once you realize why it's doing what it does.

[p512]

Landing @ Duna:

100m above the ground - fuel runs out. Last hope are the parachutes. Deploy them.

Still going 60m/s - spacecrafts smashes into the ground. Only the capsule has survived.

Let's see if I can rescue this.

But wired2thenet is right - failure means success in this game. You'll often learn new things how you can do this or that better.

[flyfire2002]

I donno but I think maybe the best way to land is to enter a low orbit(20K or so) and then decelerate? I thought fuel used to enter 20K from .5M is much lower than it needed to drop vertically from .5M.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Watch the videos here:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/15652-Orbital-Mechanics-101-A-Kerbal-Space-Program-Tutorial

You will have many an "AHA" moment. At least I did.

[karolus10]

About mun lander - I think that design presented bellow is best for learning to practice efficient and precise landing (lander is even an little overkill, because he's able to get to mun,land on it and get back on return trajectory with dry tank), it's very simple, stable and easy to control without any support .

[Whatshtisthis]

My first lander for the Mun ran out of fuel while retroburning and I switched to IVA, and looked out of the window as the ground approaches and... boom.

[RoboRay]

I managed to get 2 screenshots of this momentous event as I prepared to touch down hoping to exit my space capsule victorious but then the unthinkable happened. I ran out of fuel and was still going too fast. At about 900m/s I smashed into the lunar surface and watched in horror as all that hard work went up in a huge explosion. Has anyone else had failure after coming so close to success? What could I do different next time? I cant really pack more fuel on my lander or the ladder wont reach the ground. Also what is the max speed you can touch down and survive?

Make sure you are launching to the east, heading 090. Launching to the west puts you in retrograde orbit, where you run into the Mun head-on rather than encountering it moving in the same direction. Both of these things cost you a lot of fuel to overcome.

I try to land at or below 5 m/sec, with as close to no horizontal speed as I can get.

[Rickenbacker]

Karolus' lander looks good, probably even a little too good . But for a total beginner, I'd use at least six legs, it's easy to tip over in the low gravity with only four.

And CkGordon, you described pretty much my first ten landing attempts . The trick is to slow down in time, and then lower your minimum speed as you get closer to the surface. At 10,000m it's OK to be going pretty fast, at 1,000m you should be descending more or less straight down and your speed should be low enough so that you can slow to a hover in a few seconds. What speeds to use depends on your lander, but the last 1,000-500m I usually try to remain at 10m/s or less vertical speed.

[karolus10]

In this lander 4 legs are enough, with small legs it has pretty low center of weight, so it shouldn't tip over .

Also most people make major mistake by killing their orbital velocity on high orbit or performing direct descent (that limit selection of landing site and need good timing).

IMHO, best method (you can use vehicle presented above as an example):

Get to the 25 Km Parking orbit around the Mun, it's good for rendezvous if you use multiple modules and this is lowest orbit with good warp rates if you need wait little more.

• Separate from departure stage
  
• Set IVA camera in comfortable position (you can't see anything from inside so, you are forced to cycle between views)
  
• Deploy gear and ladder
  
• Perform plane corrections if necessary
  
• Transfer to lower orbit, I recommend transfer to 5k meters in 3 burns:
  #1st burn change perigee to 10-13 Km
  #2nd burn (in perigee) change perigee to ~5000m (little more)
  #3rd burn circularization for in ~5000-5200m orbit
  
• PRESS F5 to quick-save before go next
  
• When you 1/4 orbit from target perform deorbit burn - your target should be on the middle betwen impact site and your ship position.
  
• Vertical speed shouldn't be more than -10m/s +/-5 (and that all the way to the landing site)
  
• Observe landing radar to know your altitude - try not fall bellow 1500m before your speed is over 200m/s and don't fall bellow 1000m before your speed are hit ~100m/s (or you toast )
  
• Reduce throttle to 2/3 and go to 40-60* when you go bellow 200-100m/s (depending from distance from target)
  
• Perform no more than 20* tilt for heading corrections during landing site approach
  
• Reduce throttle to 1/3 if possible
  
• Try don't kill all lateral velocity before 500 meters, better slow down 2/3 km from target and slowly kill most of lateral velocity during hovering to target at 60*
  
• Reduce vertical speed to -5m/s before touchdown and kill lateral velocity (100meters)
  
• Burst the engines to kill nearly all (not go up) vertical velocity before touchdown and cut the engines few meters above ground
  

You can send good news to kerbin and do EVA .

Edited September 24, 2012 by karolus10