Munar landing

[NovaSilisko]

Did another one with my Extended Stay Lunar Vehicle

[OtherDalfite]

Did another one with my Extended Stay Lunar Vehicle

Wow Nova. Aside from all the explosions I guess KSP can be a pretty beautiful thing. *sniff*

[Jarnis]

My fourth landing, with a heavy two-stage lander - with separate ascent stage and full return trip.

More Pics here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=3727.0

[Rocklion]

Success! So awesome.

(However, yes, kerbanauts returned to kearth, even if ehr.. this wasn\'t on the plan.)

[kerpollo]

Success!! This lander seems to be the best possible use of standard parts. I didn\'t use a standard rocket all the way, though.

Packs used: Nova Silisko 0.9 (can\'t get the 1.3 due to the dropbox fiasco), Down Under pack.

Mission profile:

- Discard boosters as they are spent.

- Climb to 12k, then gently being rotating. Bearing East, get the nose to about 60º up.

- 1st stage separation. If surface speed is at least 1000m/s, we\'re looking good.

- Keep the nose at around 45º. We still need lift as much as groundspeed. If the speed vector drops below the horizon for too long, mission may become unviable.

- Once a perikee becomes evident, start lowering the nose, ultimately aligning it with the speed vector.

- Build speed until apokee intercepts the Mün\'s orbit. Interception is too far ahead of the Mün for capture.

- Right before apokee, burn prograde to widen the orbit until perikee is >2M. Thus the ship lingers longer around the Mün\'s path and capture window expands. Also, with such a high perikee, warp never slows down.

- Orbit Kerbin a couple times and wait for Mün capture.

- Upon capture, burn as necessary to assume an orbit with ~10km perikee.

- At perikee, burn retrograde and lose all surface speed. Drop straight down.

- Keep burning the 2nd stage until it\'s spent, to control the rate of descent. Use vectoring and RCS to lose horizontal speed.

- Separate 2nd stage. Use main engine to control descent, RCS for fine tuning.

- Touchdown!

- Look around.

- Lift off back to Kerbin. KSP crash. Wonder forever whether Jeb made it back alive.

[Omnivore]

Finally after uncounted attempts and dead Jeb clones, I can report a complete success. Really liking these vectored thrust engines, used them in my first stage and wow, talk about an easy trip to orbit! Also used one on the lander but mainly so the winglets would hit the ground first.

The two key pieces for me were saving lander fuel by using the cruise stage for primary descent, jettisoning it at about 5km up. That along with choosing a landing spot so that straight up launched till Munar escape velocity gave me a retrograde Munar orbit that was easily turned into an atmosphere braking maneuver on the trip back.

Oh and yeah all stock parts - who said I wouldn\'t need wings on the Mun!!!

[Herra Tohtori]

I also can report successful landing. I didn\'t document this particular mission from the beginning because frankly I didn\'t expect to be successful. However, at the first successful trans-münar injection, I also managed to stabilize an orbit, de-orbit, descend and land without breaking anything.

The mission control has reportedly suffered several casualties of shell-shocked, paralyzed by shock, and foaming in the mouth as they were in no way prepared for this type of mission outcome. KSP director has ordered full crisis management group to be established.

This was done with my personally constructed Saturn V-esque launch vehicle (using Wobbly Rockets):

Note that the craft used in the Münar mission is not exactly this configuration; I removed escape tower and solid stage separation assistance rockets as un-necessary, but otherwise that is the ship I used.

First stage uses five petrol-burning engines, control provided by controllable fins at the rear (I suppose I should modify those engines to be gimballed as well).

Second stage uses five liquid hydrogen-oxygen rocket engines with gimbals providing guidance and control.

Third stage is the Trans-Münar Injection stage and is powered by one gimballed hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine similar to those in second stage.

I managed to get on a stable orbit around the Mün, and used the remaining fuel on third stage to decrease orbital altitude.

The rest of the craft consists of a two-staged lander and command module on top of the stack. The descent stage uses one fission engine for maximized fuel efficiency. It can, if fuel remains, also be used in ascent from the Mün surface. Ascent stage uses a small liquid fuel rocket engine, and is primarily meant for the voyage home. It remains to be seen if it has enough juice to get the intrepid Kerbals safely home!

I shall post a more detailed mission report with more images in a dedicated thread.

This is so awesome.

[Zeroignite]

That\'s twice now KSP crashed on me while trying to return from the Mun > :\'( :\'(

At least I know now that I can probably still do it with Silisko Edition v 0.6 after he increased the small engine\'s burn rate.

[Gyuji]

So now that landing on the moon is starting to seem rather pedestrian, how about a race? fastest time to the lunar surface (intact.. no kamikaze runs)! I wasn\'t using stock parts and not really aiming for speed, but i\'ll pitch in with my score: 1:23:57.

[foamyesque]

After much travail, I have succeeded. All stock parts, excepting a decorative nosecone:

Landing gear? I don\'t need no stinkin\' landing gear. Or parachute, either!

[Jarnis]

Bah, I never found a site that flat when I played with stock parts and always ended up toppling the thing...

Need Munar height/inclination charts for safe landing areas! And a bulldozer to flatten the place a bit... too many mountains and slopes that are hard to judge when landing

[foamyesque]

Bah, I never found a site that flat when I played with stock parts and always ended up toppling the thing...

My ASAS went absolutely raving mad trying to stop me from toppling on touch-down. It\'s a good thing I had the thing swathed in RCS jets.

[Letum]

I just hover around until I find a flat spot.

[DaHitch]

First Münar Landing:

Mission time: 1 day, 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Only vanilla parts were used.

[Shvabrov]

Landed a bit too vigorously, and all my fuel blew up.

After rolling around in Mun dust for a while, my parachute pops off (and explodes in a vacuum).

Bob seems to be the only one aware of the gravity of the situation...

[s20dan]

Finally we have touchdown!

On approach for landing:

An earlier botched attempt before the landing legs were added:

Is it just me or is the surface ridiculously slippery? I was only able to come to a rest when the legs hit the slight incline of another hill.

[Omnivore]

Is it just me or is the surface ridiculously slippery? I was only able to come to a rest when the legs hit the slight incline of another hill.

Landed in a bowl of Mun dust?

I was never able to land successfully with any appreciable horizontal velocity so most I\'ve seen has been more of a shudder at touchdown. Of course, I\'m so busy at that point I might be sliding a bit and just not noticing for trying to get everything shutdown before inadvertent catastrophy strikes.

Congrats to everyone on all the successes and near successes, thanks for posting the details and pictures, it has been a blast reading them.

[Inglonias]

Still trying to figure out the orbital mechanics. Been playing Shores of Hazeron for so long that I need to get back into the swing of things. Oh well.

[OtherDalfite]

Finally we have touchdown!

On approach for landing:

An earlier botched attempt before the landing legs were added:

Is it just me or is the surface ridiculously slippery? I was only able to come to a rest when the legs hit the slight incline of another hill.

Agreed, the Munar surface is ridiculously slippery. I have trouble landing on it with even my best landers.

[Entroper]

On the launchpad:

I forgot to take screenshots on the way to the Mun, so I\'ll have to take some on my next mission.

Here I am in orbit around the Mun after my final burn on the far side to bring my Perimun below the surface. Great simultaneous sunrise and Kerbrise... do I hear Richard Strauss playing?! I swear I didn\'t plan this shot, but I had to hit F1 when I saw it:

Coasting over the big crater, my chosen landing site:

Braking:

Zeroing in:

Almost there:

Touchdown! Nothing snapped off, this time:

Blast-off and eject the landing gear:

On the Mun, you can pitch-over almost immediately to achieve orbit, just make sure it\'s at the right heading:

Climbing:

Circularized:

Trans-Kerbal Injection:

As the Mun orbits Kerbin, your Apomun moves closer to Kerbin:

Not much fuel left, fingers crossed that I can still de-orbit:

Success! With some fine-tuning using linear RCS, I put the Perikee at 30 km:

Entry interface. I ejected the pod from the final stage a while back, but for some reason, the parts stuck together anyway. They finally started to separate in the atmosphere:

One of my smoothest-ever reentries, max G load was about 2.0:

Couldn\'t have picked a better landing site if I tried!

Safe and sound, ready to go again!

[Omnivore]

Congrats! Very nicely done and great pics. Impressed by the small size of your rocket design compared to my monstrosities.

[s20dan]

...Impressed by the small size of your rocket design compared to my monstrosities..

You might not think much of this beast

Its mission \'Get as much mass as you can to the moon!'

Picked the landing spot:

Sorting out excessive horizontal velocity before setting down:

Landed, minus one landing leg

Jeb can now get started on that moonbase he always wanted

Btw, this time around there was no skidding, I toggled RCS and ASAS off as soon as I landed and it seemed to stop the perpetual sliding.... But it could also be related to how bloody large this thing is.

[Omnivore]

Congrats on the landing! I\'ve never thought about it but the idea of putting as much mass on the Mun as you can makes for an interesting challenge by itself. I\'ve been sticking with vanilla but the lack of a LFT that I can attach to a radial decoupler is going to soon send me to looking through mods.

[OtherDalfite]

Jeb can now get started on that moonbase he always wanted

I know what I want for the next update.

[Key of door]

I know what I want for the next update.

Another planet?