Mun Candidates.

[Man of Stijl]

The thing about going directly into a trans-Munar orbit is that to get there you have to pass through a regular Kearth orbit to get there. It doesn\'t seem like there\'s much fuel used if you linger in a Kearth orbit until you feel like going Munward anyhow.

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

My Munar Module is

now. The only problem remaining is the carrier rocket (which I currently found unstable). I don\'t know if bug or something.

Here\'s the current rocket design, with a simple, 'no-frills' design.

All strategies are tentative. We can then draft our final strategies when 0.12 is out (since we already have the actual thing in).

[Ferrdo_Kerman]

The thing about going directly into a trans-Munar orbit is that to get there you have to pass through a regular Kearth orbit to get there. It doesn\'t seem like there\'s much fuel used if you linger in a Kearth orbit until you feel like going Munward anyhow.

sure you have to get Kerth orbit first and than leave it

thing is you have to first line up with Mun orbit - if it make sense (let say Mun will orbit around Equator (which is actualy stupid idea, but for example) and you will orbit around Meridian - you have to correct your orbit or count intersections (above poles))

now i start studying how it is done in real world

[Thunderbird]

hence why my ship has tons of solar panels on it and a twin bertha engine.... =P

[sarkun]

here are my thoughts:

see the problem is .... in time your vessel will reach Ap, Mun will be gone

this is low consumption very precisely planed trip

other way ..... just round same orbit as Mun ... and reach it, but this will be lots of burning corecting

or you can make same orbit as Mun in distance .... and time up intersection

anyway it WILL be fun

Well, IF when you reach your Apo, the Mun is not there, you can do a pro-burn to circulize your orbit, effectively doing a hohmann transfer. Seems like a waste of fuel though...

Does anyone know, at what speed will the Mun be orbiting?

[Thunderbird]

thats something id like to know... probably not so fast since its that far out... (in relative terms anyway,weve been staying close so far)

hohmann transfer is the safest method so far i think, and essentially what i meant but was too dumb to realize it...

Either way,i dont think many people (including me) will manage the right direct orbital transfer course offhand (wrong terminology?), especially since the required velocity will be halfway to escape velocity or something like that...

Im also pretty sure that if i try the brute force approach ill either miss the moon by few thousand K or create the Dumbass Crater.

[Ferrdo_Kerman]

Well, IF when you reach your Apo, the Mun is not there, you can do a pro-burn to circulize your orbit, effectively doing a hohmann transfer. Seems like a waste of fuel though...

sure you can round your orbit to be same with Mun that is a 'second' option

Does anyone know, at what speed will the Mun be orbiting?

about 509,5 m/s2 in distance 13M

srce http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/~kerbalsp/wiki/index.php?title=Tutorial:_Basic_Orbiting

v = 600 000 m * sqrt(9.807 m/s2 / (600 000 m + h))

[Man of Stijl]

Vanilla Munar Lander:

Well, 99% vanilla.

It\'s actually a little over powered, so you can screw up a few times and still successfully get to Munar orbit and back with (hopefully) enough fuel to land and take off!

Craft file included if you feel like taking it for a spin! You\'ll need Cap\'n Slugs Lander Legs http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=2251.0 and bT\'s Radial Stack Decoupler http://www.kerbalspacerepository.com/2011/08/01/radial-stack-decoupler/. Even pure vanilla enthusiasts should have these, they\'re awesome and uncheaty.

[SteevyT]

Jesus, Mary and Joseph Kerman. This monster looks like it could get my whole munar rocket to the sun and back! Is it even steerable under lag?

But i gotta admit... it\'s pretty KERBAL!

Nope, I have to let ASAS just take it straight up to about 30-40km where the huge stacks finally burn out.

[trbinsc]

Hey, if you manage to catch up to a orbiting booster stage with a remotely triggerable engine, couldn\'t it push you out of munar orbit without docking? you could also use a remotely triggerable decoupler to shut it off. you would need a way to keep track of it though.

[derhp]

Initially my mun run is going to consist of launch, orbit kearth, transfer, intercept mun... hopefully.

However what do you guys think about setting yourself up in an orbit slightly higher or lower than the mun, but orbiting in the opposite direction. This way it wouldn\'t matter if you missed the mun first time round, you just wait for your next intercept and the muns gravity should catch you. Then your just have to do a retro burn to make your mun orbit stable. Win win?

[iamwearingpants]

My mun rocket.

The Kapollo IV

Has more than 9000 ?v for extreme moon trips. I plan on adding verniers when .12 actually comes to stablize the 1st stage, it\'s a pain in the butt to keep straight.

[sarkun]

Initially my mun run is going to consist of launch, orbit kearth, transfer, intercept mun... hopefully.

However what do you guys think about setting yourself up in an orbit slightly higher or lower than the mun, but orbiting in the opposite direction. This way it wouldn\'t matter if you missed the mun first time round, you just wait for your next intercept and the muns gravity should catch you. Then your just have to do a retro burn to make your mun orbit stable. Win win?

You\'ll need more fuel for braking / landing then. Fuel wise, I think the best approach would be to go slightly slower (which also means slightly larger orbit) than the Mun and let it catch you.

[SteevyT]

You\'ll need more fuel for braking / landing then. Fuel wise, I think the best approach would be to go slightly slower (which also means slightly larger orbit) than the Mun and let it catch you.

Why not a slightly smaller orbit and catch up with it? It would take slightly less fuel wouldn\'t it?

[NovaSilisko]

[Crash]

Ok so this is my Munar Mission Vehicle. Im reasonably sure that it will make it. If I not Ill send some more Kerbanauts off to their death....errrrr...... I mean glory.

Iv also been thinking of ways to RV with the Mun and Iv come up with something I think might work; I wont bore people with the calculations....

Basically we know the Muns orbital period and its orbital radius. From that we know its speed.

My rocket takes 10 hrs give or take a few minutes to reach the 13000 Km mark. We can therefore work out how far the Mun will travel in that time. It turns out its about 20% of its total orbit.

The main problem with RV\'ing with the Mun is that we don\'t know its position relative to our ship. Not with any great accuracy at least. But there are two instances during any given orbit (of our ship that is) that we can get a very accurate measurement. Those are the instant that the Mun begins to Rise and Set.

If we can be sure that we have launched our ship and are orbiting Kerbal on the same orbital plane as the Mun we can use the Mun rise or set to plan our RV.

Using my own ship; Launch and achieve as near a perfect circular orbit as possible then calculate the orbital period. We know that it takes my ship 10 hrs to reach the Muns orbit. Again that equals about 20% of the Muns total orbital period.

Once Mun set occurs, subtract 20% of your own ships orbital period. You get a figure along the lines of 20-24 minutes or so. That is the countdown timer to the TMI Burn.

I believe that subtracting or adding the % of the Muns orbital period from your own ships orbital period at Mun Set/ or Rise depending on your orbital direction, i.e West-East or East-West, should put your ship at a perikee that is directly opposite the Mun future position.

Once you hit Zero, fire up the TMI engine and keep going until you have an Apokee of 13,000 Km.

If I\'m right this should allow you to arrive at 13,000 Km at the same time the Mun is entering into the area. My ships velocity at this point is around 160 m/s. Munar orbital speed at 10 Km is something like 335m/s which means that even if you have to do a retrograde burn your still only talking about 495 m/s of Delta V which isn\'t so bad.

If anyone can see a flaw in this let me know. I\'ve kinda set myself the challenge of making a successful landing on my first try after about 10 recce missions that is

[RedRockets]

My version of a KERBAL - MUN orbital mission!

Drew it in ms-paint

did my best to label it.

Any suggestions?

Changes?

Anyone take a college physics class?

[SteevyT]

I have determined after some testing that my lander was not designed to work in an atmosphere.

[Ferrdo_Kerman]

My version of a KERBAL - MUN orbital mission!

Drew it in ms-paint

did my best to label it.

Any suggestions?

Changes?

Anyone take a college physics class?

this could be easy, if you can see actual orbit of Mun on your 'MFD' sou you could have same orbit as Mun after launch

[Spiz102]

here are my thoughts:

see the problem is .... in time your vessel will reach Ap, Mun will be gone

this is low consumption very precisely planed trip

other way ..... just round same orbit as Mun ... and reach it, but this will be lots of burning corecting

or you can make same orbit as Mun in distance .... and time up intersection

anyway it WILL be fun

Surely, since your orbital period would be shorter than the Mun\'s due to the low altitude component of the orbit, you could simply remain in that orbit till the Mun is where it would have to be for this to work once you are already in the orbit, perhaps making small burns to enable capture at the optimum time.

[Ferrdo_Kerman]

here is my discovery apollo plan to reach moon

The three different Apollo flight modes. Credit: NASA

A diagram of the lunar-orbit rendezvous used on Apollo by John Houbolt. Credit: NASA

this si actualy one of my thoughs, as you will just miss Mun .... then you can change direction of rotation

and another nice founds - as you can see (by tide in/out s) orbit od moon is not circular

[sarkun]

Why not a slightly smaller orbit and catch up with it? It would take slightly less fuel wouldn\'t it?

smaller orbit would mean you\'d have to go faster than the mun (or the orbit would decay)... or so I think, but we\'re reaching the limits of my orbital mechanics knowledge

[Ferrdo_Kerman]

smaller orbit would mean you\'d have to go faster than the mun (or the orbit would decay)... or so I think, but we\'re reaching the limits of my orbital mechanics knowledge

sure you will be faster, much faster close to Kearth, than Mun, that is why you can find good spot and timing to initiate burn

only problem is ..... line up with Mun orbit, sooner, better, best way - when you leave atmosphere and start making you own orbit

[KustoM]

Basing my ship on the Ares V. Still need practice with the maneuvers but the ship seems to work.

On the Pad

Ready for Transfer orbit

Kinda worked. Like i said, still need practice getting correct distance 8)

[Zeroignite]

Resize those images.