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How Do I Get to the Moon?


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I\'ve been launching rocket after rocket, but I haven\'t figured out how to aim my ship so that it ends up at the moon. Is there any way to see the orientation of your ship in the map view? That would be really helpful.

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The easy way, get into an orbit that somewhat resembles a circle around Kerbin (heading East). Once you have a nice stable orbit, watch the horizon for the Mun. When you see it start coming over the horizon, burn until your apoapsis is at about 11,000-12,000km. Then wait, it should get you close enough to get into the Mun\'s sphere of influence.

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Just tested your method and works well i suggest keeping a eye on your escape path and speed. I have tried to hit the moon for about a hour now with no success but I am getting closer. One thing I noticed is you gotta plan your escape path to meet the moon where it will be and not where it is now.

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If you get out to the Munar orbit, and you aren\'t any where near it, just bring your periapsis up to 10Mm or so, if your orbit is smaller than the Mun\'s you can catch up to it, if you make your orbit larger than the Mun\'s it will catch up to you.

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stupid question... when returning from the Mun... how big of an issue is the velocity retained from the Mun and its gravity?

my landers return stage burners are 4 miniboosters, that enough to get me home?

(well,and a small LFE, but id rather keep that for fine maneuvers and braking as thats what im going to use for the actual Mun landing too)

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The TKI (trans kerbin injection) burn will require the same delta V as TMI (trans munar injection) burn. Of course you\'ll be dragging a lot less mass along.

Wait, thats wrong the energy change is the same, but not the delta v, what he said vvvvv.

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The easy way, get into an orbit that somewhat resembles a circle around Kerbin (heading East). Once you have a nice stable orbit, watch the horizon for the Mun. When you see it start coming over the horizon, burn until your apoapsis is at about 11,000-12,000km. Then wait, it should get you close enough to get into the Mun\'s sphere of influence.

Yup, Harvester made it nice and easy by having the Mun orbit pretty much on the equator. And an orbital altitude where a \'visual approach\' actually works.

However if you aren\'t orbiting on the equator or just don\'t feel like doing it that way, go into map mode and look at the muns orbit top down. It takes 7 hours to get from kerbin to the mun, so imagine the mun 60 degrees ahead of its current position and you\'ll know where to go.

stupid question... when returning from the Mun... how big of an issue is the velocity retained from the Mun and its gravity?

my landers return stage burners are 4 miniboosters, that enough to get me home?

(well,and a small LFE, but id rather keep that for fine maneuvers and braking as thats what im going to use for the actual Mun landing too)

orbital velocity is 500 m/s roughly, escape from the moon is ~800. Which means your final velocity will be ~200 m/s. If you plan your escape vector correctly you\'ll fling yourself retrograde to the mun\'s orbit and just fall back to kerbin.

Example:

ROuiD.png

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Well I figured out how to get to the moon but how do I get back? every time I tried I end up in orbit around the sun... or out of fuel in a real big orbit around kerban....

what do I aim at on the nav ball to return?

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So, I used my astrphysics knowledge to figure out the perfect time to boost into the trans-munar injection orbit, I computed the exact angle you should boost relative to the Mun so that your Apokee is close enough to the Mun to get captured.

And... it turns out that if you\'re in a 100km orbit (travelling eastwards) then the best time to boost is the time that the mun rises over the Kearth!

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Well I figured out how to get to the moon but how do I get back? every time I tried I end up in orbit around the sun... or out of fuel in a real big orbit around kerban....

what do I aim at on the nav ball to return?

Head west when launching from the moon, achieve a small orbit, and burn on the 'dark side' of the moon until your apogee is mostly towards the earth, you should do a Figure S naturally and descend in an eastern orbit.

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Once i get into Munar Low Orbit, i will usualy use my Munar Orbit stage to slow down and then discard it on the way down. Afterwards i fire retro thrusters till i reach 100 m/s, speed up time till i reach 300 m/s and fire them again. Once i get to a good distance down i will fire my main lunar lander thrusters as well as fire my retro\'s in between coming down to a nice soft 20 m/s and i am usually at 400m from the surface. The main lunar rockets burn out and i then use my retro thrusters to slow down to 10 - 5 m/s inbetween those numbers and while i do this i also cut horizontal speed, coming down to a nice soft landing. Then i fire off and head back to Kearth. I will upload a video sometime documenting my landing and heading back.

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