Attempting to launch a Mobile Munar Laboratory

[Kottabos]

So, last night I tried to launch a Mobile Lab to the moon to meet up with my small base there ... and well things got a bit interesting. Hope you enjoy, and I would of course appreciate any tips on the matter.

[Uncle Mort]

I have a similar design but only used one landing leg on the base unit but four on the rover:

Engines off:

Beginning to tip:

Further:

Time to decouple the base unit:

[Kottabos]

oh thats a good idea to put secondary legs on the rover for when you tip it over. I may have to add those to my next rover as I am worried my current one may damage its wheels when it tips over. Thanks for the idea

[DMagic]

I had the same idea for my Mun rover. I put a single RCS thruster on the bottom of the cockpit so that I could tip over gently. The fuel tanks were empty though, so everything was pretty light.

[Kottabos]

Ya I thought about doing the rcs idea myself but for some reason I decided against it .... and it'll probably come back to bight me when I try tipping mine over lol. I'll definitely have to give this a go in my next version I try to build, thanks.

[SoldierHair]

This is my rover+the rocket that landed it and at the first glance they look pretty much the same.

At start i was pretty much confused when i saw the video ._.

[Trux]

that really didn't work out for you did it...

[SoldierHair]

For me?Actually , that was a perfect landing.

When i tested it on Kerbin the rover's landing gear snapped off , but it was still a great success (since they are there to stop any other damage during landing).

[Trux]

I was talking to the OP but fair enough Nice looking rover though

[SoldierHair]

Oh ,haha , ok

And thanks

[magnemoe]

I thought you had landed safety then you blew up. probably to high horizontal speed but it appeared low.

One problem was probably the high profile of your lander

This should not have any problems tipping over during landing. The wide footprint is for driving. as its 20 ton then full I needed to keep the center of gravity low and have many wheels, reason for all the fuel is that I can land and take off again on places like Mun,

[SoldierHair]

@OP , asuming you tested it on kerbin.

How much speed did you got with it?

[Tw1]

My aproach to landing long things has been side thrusters.

Like my first successful Mun vehicle in 0.18

(Driving that canyon was so awesome.)

I soon learnt the value of using aircraft wheels as anti-roll wheels, and low centre of gravity for not rolling over. Its descendants made clever use of drop tanks, to change from a high CoG for flight, to a low one to drive, and back again to return.

High CoG (this was a prototype)

Low CoG.

High CoG again. (This was a test run to the Mun)

For things I've no plans to take anywhere else, like my Munar Ground Shuttle, I've been using thrusters in the side, that then get dropped of. (Or, smash into the ground, that works too.)

Very important to get them right over the centre of mass.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Tw1

[RoboRay]

I've landed large rovers with detachable "descent modules" on each end...

It can take some tricky maneuvering to detach them and get clear. I recommend releasing one, moving away from it, turning, then releasing the other one.

While this one used parachutes and rocket motors, you could do the same thing with just rockets.

[Temstar]

My aproach to landing long things has been side thrusters.

I think that's the best approach for large vehicles or vehicles with awkward geometry that makes it hard to build landers around it. This is the approach I ended up using for my MOLAB heavy manned rover

If you look carefully at that second picture you might be able to spot the exhaust from the 24-77 engines. The whole rover lands with three pairs of them.

MOLAB on the Mun.

[RoboRay]

Oh, and I once used a large drive-off platform as the descent stage for a mobile kethane miner...

[Tw1]

I like that platform idea. That's clever.

I used a kind of skycrane thing once. Just a tank with 24-77s on the side.

As I triggered the decoupler, I turned up the throttle. The engines, which could no longer be controlled, carried that tank far into the sky. They are pretty powerful, aren't they?

It ended up on an orbit that passes the orbit of Eve, and is considered a lander for some reason, despite lacking any core or pod.(or mechjeb.)

So you could say, well clear of the rest of the base!

Getting clear of landing systems can be hard. I'd like the kerbals to be able to kick them away.

Many of my early Mun landings ended up like yours, OP. But without the funny scene of wheels bouncing away .

If you look at the rescue rocket, note the double set of legs it featured. I added them on all landers for a while, after my first Mun landing was made one way, after a leg broke.

I reckon you should be able to drive that thing though, if you use Mechjeb Smart ASS's "surf" function.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Tw1

[Kottabos]

Wow you guys have some amazing landers here, thanks for all the great ideas. I think I am definitely going to try detachable side mounted engines with landing legs for safety on my next attempt at a rover. That seems to be fairly popular amongst you all and it would help me avoid needing to tip my rover over.

that really didn't work out for you did it...

no, it really did not. Though Off camera I end up successfully landing it .... after about 4-5 attempts, gotta love the quicksave.

@OP , asuming you tested it on kerbin.

How much speed did you got with it?

I did, thats actually why it has 8 wheels as when I tested tipping it over the wheels would pop with only 4 ... which is why I can't believe I didn't think of using additional landing legs. It just makes so much sense now. as for top speed, I honestly don't remember. It was quite quick though and with the 8 wheels proved to be pretty stable ... unless I did a sharp turn of course with it being a bit top heavy.

[SoldierHair]

I had a problem with rolling over too , but i found out that if you activate docking mode you no longer roll when you press w,s,a,d.

[RoboRay]

I've only done skycranes for fairly small rovers...

Edited May 3, 2013 by RoboRay

[Tw1]

My solution to popping tires is:

Impact wheels!

Also helps with the bumps. Another feature all my latest landers/vehicles have, as a result of one earlier lander's misfortune.

Also, if you remap the controls to IJKL, you can still use WASD to stop your rover going front down when you go over an unexpected cliff...

(I tend to only drive in the day now.)

Edited May 3, 2013 by Tw1

[Kottabos]

hmm I hadn't thought about those little wheels for a large rover, I might have to test that. And thanks for the rebinding idea, that should help.

[Shrike42]

I made a rather simple rover design based on the lander can. Sure, it's not much for docking/return, but if you want to mess around in a mobile base or lab, it'll serve very well.

I give you Munbuggy 3.

Completely vanilla, using the Rockomax X200-8 tank to keep the center of mass low. It's exceedingly difficult to roll, and can't lift off on Kerbin, but it can use the radial engines to slow descent.

The wheel base is just the 650 I-Beam with girder segments, secured to the rover with struts above and below.

The landing legs on top can fully right the Rover Base, as I tested on the moon. No pictures, I'm afraid.

And, of course, you get the unparalleled IVA view of the landercam.

I haven't sent this version up to the mun for testing yet, but the previous version (not as reinforced with struts, and with a higher CoM) did quite well up until the point that I was gunning along and managed to blow up on something. It is certainly possible to add docking ports and such to the design, but I'm quite happy with this lil' dunebuggy.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Perhaps being a n00b I'm missing something obvious here, but why not skip the whole tricky tippy business & set up the rig to land "sideways" in the first place?

[Kottabos]

Perhaps being a n00b I'm missing something obvious here, but why not skip the whole tricky tippy business & set up the rig to land "sideways" in the first place?

I originally was going to but since I decided to go with the habitat module and 3 person capsule I decided to try vertical as I figured it would be a bit more efficient launching up. But as you can tell I had some issues lol, so I'll be going back to my original horizontal design for my next rover using some of the ideas people have had on here (live and learn I guess).

and Shrike that is a really cool lander you have there, I like the use of the girders for the wheel base that is a nice idea. I may have to try to do something like that myself, thanks for the ideas.