How to get to Moho?

[elkar]

So, for my first planet I've pickup maybe the most challenging one, I know. But it seems it's not really that hard, only it seems now that I need quite a lot more DV than I thought.

So I needed 1500DV to escape kerbin at specific transfer window, 850DV for changing inclination, 200DV for finetune encounter into Moho's SOI ... in this stage I got left 2200DV, seemed planty, but suddenly it showed that I need 3400DV for breaking to get orbit around the planet.

Now, if I count it right I need frikking 6000DV to only get to orbit not to mention I wanted to drop a piece of space station there and fly back to kerbin with same ship.

My question is, is there any way around it to make it more efficient, or are those numbers roughly how it is to get there?

[tavert]

Moho's a pain, the inclination and eccentricity of its orbit means every transfer window's a bit different in cost - they're all expensive, some much more than others. There's an awesome new tool (not mine but I'm glad it now exists so will advertise) that can show you some of this variation at http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp

[El wonso]

That's how I do it.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/32652-Moho-Landing?p=407026&viewfull=1#post407026

[elkar]

Wow.. that's both .. useable. I just wasnt expecting it will take so much DV. I was thinking I'm doing something really badly, but it seems that you really need at least 9000DV getting there and back, so I need ... bigger ship.

Ty anyway.

[tek_604]

Watch out for the required dV for the Moho orbital injection. I have seen it as high as 5000 m/s. The ~3000 figure is best case.

A bigger ship is not always the answer. I modified my own Explorer II class probe, adding 4 radially mounted tanks, with fuel lines to the centre tank. This gave me ~4500 m/s on the probe alone, plus whatever bonus I had in the trans-Moho injection stage. And it wasn't a "bigger" ship in the way I was thinking before. My previous attempts included building a ~90t ship in orbit (took 6 launches to build it). Ended up using a better more efficient booster getting my payload into orbit, and bingo.

In fact, I'm now applying those lessons learnt to my boosters. If I have a TWR > ~1.8, add more fuel to that stage. Balances out the burn time vs. thrust and fuel.

[Coupon]

You must use asparagus staging to get to moho, or your rockets will be so big they will blow up before even launching. Landing on moho is hard because it takes thousands of m/s to orbital inject, and then around 4000 m/s to get in an orbit because you're moving so fast compared to it.