Re-learning Mun Landings

[The Jedi Master]

"You must Un-learn what you have learned."

--Yoda

It would seem that I learned to rely too heavily on MechJeb, and now I have to re learn Mun landings. I need help from construction to splashdown back on Kerbin. Can someone help me? Thanks!

Edited May 23, 2013 by The Jedi Master

[Vanamonde]

As for the construction part, there's still my newbies rocket. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25029-A-moon-rocket-for-newbies

[Guest]

I love that rocket, Vanamonde! It was my first successful Mun landing and return. Solid and dependable.

[The Jedi Master]

I love that thing, didn't know it still worked in 0.20!

[Specialist290]

The Mun landing and Apollo 11 re-creation tutorials should be useful jumping-off points.

A few additional tips once you get to the Mun, from my own personal experience:

1. Unless you have absolute confidence in your ability to "suicide burn," don't try to come in for a landing straight from your Mun intercept. Circularize into a low orbit first, usually somewhere between 5 and 10 km.

2. From your low orbit, you basically want to do a reverse gravity turn -- start killing your horizontal velocity, then follow your retrograde marker as it approaches vertical.

3. If, during your final descent, you start to find yourself drifting, don't turn all the way to the retrograde marker; a slight nudge in its general direction is usually enough to correct for any lateral movement and is much less likely to result in a situation where you'll need to "panic burn" to get control over your descent back.

[The Jedi Master]

Well, they don't have nearly enough fuel to return, but:

Thanks, everyone!

[CalculusWarrior]

Quicksave, quicksave, quicksave. Just try different approach burns and see if they end in fiery death or not. As for your Mun launcher, simply aim for about 7500 m/s total. I myself had to unlearn Mechjeb landing, and I transitioned to using Kerbal Engineer Redux, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of rocket building.