[v1.1] Lunar Lander Parts

[Shuttle]

I have a strange issue: after I deattach linar module from the rocket in horizontal flight, it starts to swing from side to side, SAS is turned off. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxQA3WZEQd4

In open space everything is fine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWWiPONzFdc

[geb]

Luna is a name specific to Earth's moon, so.... Munar Lander parts?

[Seaborn111]

Shuttle, you're encountering atmosphere so your lander is attempting to go down aerodynamically. Just do a little piloting to smooth it out, you'll notice the legs want to point the direction you're moving.

[Herra Tohtori]

I think if this is going to be a little more reliable you need to be able to instantly cut power to the engine rather than throttle down. Otherwise your timing has to be perfect or you will either crash from gaining too much speed or bounce off the surface in a random direction.

It's not necessary. Your throttle should be set on neutral thrust (thrust equals gravity, vertical acceleration zero) at the moment of touchdown. If you land slow enough to not break the lander, you'll find that the ship will settle on the ground regardless of whether you cut the throttle instantly or just gradually reduce the throttle to zero. You should have enough fuel onboard to reduce vertical speed to hover before final descent and touchdown.

If your touchdown is hard enough that your craft bounces up, you're doing it wrong anyway and the bounce will happen regardless of throttle setting.

The biggest challenge right now is that the entire remaining aircraft needs to land as one piece, instead of a separate landing module like in Apollo mission profile. This means you need to lob more weight down and back up again, which is technologically more challenging that a lightweight, two-part lander.

My lander design can easily land on Kerbin after atmospheric entry, but has no hope of getting anything back to orbit afterwards. It's a massive contraption that uses Captain Slug's Lander Legs and it sits on top of my (sort of) Saturn V design - the legs stick out through the 2m cargo fairings since they can't fold...

You can see the lander sitting on top of the rocket here:

And landed, it looks like this:

I'll be attempting to adjust my lander's design so that it could somehow make it back to Kerbin's orbit after landing, then return to KSC again. Though, I'll probably experiment with this Münar Lander design as well, since it has shiny golden foil coating.

[Jarnis]

Well, at least it allows building of a proper Mun rocket that is ready to go as soon as we have a Mun to aim for.

Here is mine, all stock except for the lander parts, ready to go. Can put the upper stage (2xLFT + LFE + lander) on escape trajectory with two full tanks for course corrections and initial braking at Mun. The only open question is if the ascent stage has enough oomph to put the capsule on a direct trajectory from Mun surface back to Kerbin. If Mun is small enough, it should be doable in which case... this config should work.

Have already test-flown it around Kerbin; Launch -> 100km circular orbit with most of stage 2 left over, boost from 100km to escape velocity (2222m/s -> 3200m/s) with stage 2, staging, return burn with the upper stage and soft landing using the lander.

Note that Kerbin landing is very tricky with just one descent stage fuel tank - the fuel is barely enough for the final brake for touchdown from about 1km, no extra for hovering. If you stack two descent fuel tanks it becomes much more manageable. On Mun you can use the upper stage to take care most of the braking (unfeasible in atmosphere as the rocket is not very controllable until the final stage is dumped).

Funnily if you mess up the landing by coming in slightly too fast, you end up with a boom, couple of detached lander legs, the capsule on the ground and a stain on Jeb's spacesuit...

[Douglasdtlltd]

Don't know if like... *Fry Face*

[Heimdall]

for a safe landing on Kearth, simply go FULL BURN! (without throttling up, just full burn) at 600 meters, you should decelerate enough to get to 6-8m/s at 60m, just throttle down after that and you should land safely without any bumps, and with some fuel remaining.

only problem is that the descent module isn't protected againt the exhaust of the ascent module, so it just go boom when ignition.

[AtomicRocketBooster]

When could we get a dedicated shroud for this? I\'m finding it obscenely difficult to get it to fit in the 3m bulkhead.

[tiger336]

will tis work on 0.11.0 x3

[ForumHelper]

It works, I\'m using it.

[venku122]

We need some rcs powered landers asap

[Dynd]

Bumping this.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Dynd

[NovaSilisko]

http://www./?4177cbvghy18j3g

Mirror added on request.

[Aiyel]

any hope of you rebalancing them and including them in Silisko Edition 1.0? When you get around to 1.0 I mean, i know you\'re taking a (much needed) break right now.

[NovaSilisko]

any hope of you rebalancing them and including them in Silisko Edition 1.0? When you get around to 1.0 I mean, i know you\'re taking a (much needed) break right now.

Eh, I already have lander parts in there...