Heavy lift advice

[Jerjare]

o I'm a Kerbal Space Program Newbie, and currently I've managed to crash-land a probe on the Mun and have another satellite in Mun orbit.

However, getting a manned mission to the Mun has eluded me. I must admit I'm jealous of other people who have managed to get Kerbonauts on other planets and back. Just getting one to the Mun is proving a challenge for me. I don't have any mods currently- I'm trying to do this with the current version of Kerbal Space Program. I know what I need to do to get to the Mun, its just all the rockets I've designed either dont have the oomph, or they fall apart on liftoff.

Any advice on getting into orbit with a Mun lander?

[sojourner]

Two words, "asparagus" and "struts". Search about the first one on this site for more information. Use more of the second one on all your rockets.

[dlmarti]

1. stay away from solid boosters, they look like a cool idea, but they are really designed to lift small loads.

2. Learn about the asparagus staging, and staging in general. Scott Manley has a few good videos on this, go look at his tutorial playlist.

3. Get Engineer Redux (its a mod).

[Captain Sierra]

With heavy lifting, learn asparagus. It is the best and most efficient for heavy lifts. Also remember, less is more. A basic asparagus is just as good as an overengineered one. Also, avoid putting engines directly on the bottom of orange tanks. They overheat faster.

[Sauron]

If you don't want to do a highly complex asparagus design, you really don't have to for the Mun. Though it's good practice for larger missions, so you may as well get into the habit.

For what it's worth my medium lift vehicle can move a 1.25m lander lander and CSM with a several hundred m/s of spare DV at all points for idiot-proofing. You get into orbit with over 1000 m/s for your Munar injection burn. It looks something like this:

Core Stage: 1 Big Orange Tank, 1 x200-16, 6 LV-T30s, 1 LV-T45

8x Outer Stages (Asparagus Staged): 2 FL-T800s, 1 LV-T30

This will launch a ~10 ton payload with enough fuel to make your Munar injection burn (and possibly enough to circularize) or a shade under 25 tons to LKO.

You can definitely go a whole lot smaller than my example, but that's a pretty solid size to keep a lifter. Big enough to be useful but not big enough that it needs struts. For newer players, you can also get a much simpler mission by not doing things Apollo style. This also cuts down on launch weight.

At a guess, a core of 2 FL-T800s with 6 asparagus-staged boosters of the same size will get a very respectable payload into orbit. I don't want to speak for you, but I imagine that should be plenty of oomph to get a lander up. If you really wanted to avoid asparagus, this configuration should still get a good amount to orbit. But avoid SRBs.

Edited August 3, 2013 by Sauron

[SRV Ron]

This simple design can be easily used to land a Stayputnik probe on Mun or Minmus using the thruster pack for final touchdown.

Redstone Probe

Probe Stage;

1. Stayputnik

2. ASAS controller

3. 2 2100 battery packs placed on Stayputnik

3. Set of the four instruments placed on top of the ASAS Controller.

4. FL-R25 RCS Fuel Tank

5. Set 4 RV-105 Thruster pack placed near base of the ASAS Controller

6. 8 fixed solar panels.

7. Stack Decoupler

Second Stage

1. FL-T200 fuel Tank

2. FL-T400 fuel tank

3. LV-909 engine

4. Stack Decoupler

First Stage

1. 2 FL-T800 Fuel Tank

2. LV-T45 engine

Boosters;

1. 4 TT38-K radical decouplers mounted at the first-800 fuel tank.

2. 4 Rockomax BACC Solid Fuel Boosters.

3. Set of braces that form a ring around the boosters to stabilize them

4. Launch stabilizers.

When you use boosters, they should be the very first thing used for launch.

Launch using only the boosters. They will push your rocket up to 6000+ meters. Fire the first stage engine after you drop the boosters. Start your gravity turn after firing the first stage. You should be able to nearly reach orbit with it with a small burn by the LV-909 to circularize. The second stage will get you into Mun orbit with just enough fuel to bring the probe into final landing stage. No landing legs are needed on the probe. Just set it down on the RCS fuel tank at 4m/sec or less. Turn off Windows Sticky Keys so it doesn't interrupt the landing.

Edited August 3, 2013 by SRV Ron

[SRV Ron]

At a guess, a core of 2 FL-T800s with 6 asparagus-staged boosters of the same size will get a very respectable payload into orbit. I don't want to speak for you, but I imagine that should be plenty of oomph to get a lander up. If you really wanted to avoid asparagus, this configuration should still get a good amount to orbit. But avoid SRBs.

I did it with a 4 onion staged booster with plenty of fuel left for Mun or Minmus landing of the probe stage using thrusters and landing it on the RCS tank. Second stage was the same as your core design. The third stage was a single FL-800 tank with an LV-909 engine.

[Jerjare]

I tried to set up the asparagus configuration for a Mun lander- I used 7 of the big orange tanks, set up the struts, staging, everything looks good. But it barely gets off the launchpad before it starts flipping like crazy! What am I doing wrong? When I had them fire all at once I never had any problem, but this complicated staging sequence is giving me fits.

I'm trying to use the Mun lander preloaded from Kerbal Space Program (2 stage Mun lander) but its really frustrating. So far I can get a probe into Mun orbit and crash others into the Mun in a futile attempt to land but no Munshot. Any other tips?

[Johnno]

My advice would be KISS (keep it simple stupid). The equivalent of a 7 orange tank asparagus staged rocket in terms of pancake staging would be 5+5 with mainsails in first stage and skippers in second stage, capable of lifting around 45 tons to a 100k orbit or so. The upside of pancake staging is that it's a lot faster/simpler to build and in my personal experience at least, safer.

The building process is quite simple; after you finish your payload add a decoupler, then start building the lifter. Orange tank - skipper - stage separator. Orange tank - mainsail. Alt left-click the top orange tank (below the decoupler your payload is attached to) and set your symmetry to 4, then attach the stacks onto the sides. With 4 symmetry add struts, winglets and launch clamps.

Note that engines overheat easier when placed directly under orange tanks, so keep an eye on your engines. I usually keep my mainsails at around 80% thrust.

Launch profile: 80% thrust, launch. Drop first stage on burnout (around 7km). Start gravity turn around 10km, tilt to 45 degrees, turn off engines when AP gets to 75km, coast up to AP and circulize.

Here's a demonstration picture (don't mind the payload design, just threw it together quickly to show mass):

[Vanamonde]

Do you want advice on how to build your own ship, or an example ship you can download? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25029-A-moon-rocket-for-newbies

[Sauron]

I tried to set up the asparagus configuration for a Mun lander- I used 7 of the big orange tanks, set up the struts, staging, everything looks good. But it barely gets off the launchpad before it starts flipping like crazy! What am I doing wrong? When I had them fire all at once I never had any problem, but this complicated staging sequence is giving me fits.

I'm trying to use the Mun lander preloaded from Kerbal Space Program (2 stage Mun lander) but its really frustrating. So far I can get a probe into Mun orbit and crash others into the Mun in a futile attempt to land but no Munshot. Any other tips?

I'd start smaller for one. Controlling big rockets is a skill you'll pick up eventually, but not something that's great to jump right in to. It's very much a function of learning where the best places to strut are (you can't just tack on struts willy-nilly). Advice the second: Do. Not. Use. The. Example. Crafts. Seriously, they're pretty bad I'm fairly sure that you can do better on your own. Failing that, the forums here never cease to inspire me.

[blenderman]

You could try going with one of the stock rockets ... but go to Minmus (the smaller moon around Kerbin) instead of the Mun first. Minmus is further out yes... and even on an inclination... but... landing on Minmus is much more forgiving than the Mun because of its lesser gravity.

do you have photos or description of the rocket you were trying to use?

[Sauron]

The Kerbal X isn't set up very well for a Mun landing. Also it's not really new-player-friendly--it's a badly designed and difficult to control thing. Which is the OP's main problem as far as I can tell.