A trip to the Mun (a quick, fool-proof how-to)

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Since last time I got complaints that I don\'t include pictures with my guides, this time a full guide for a flight to the moon. It\'s nearly bulletproof (nearly, as in, this time (when else?) I managed to crash land and my rocket took off by itself... but it should still serve the purpose), and it should allow ANYONE to do a successful Mun flight.

First: Orbit

Screenshot72 is about where I start banking towards 90 degrees. The general idea is to achieve an orbit around 80,000 meters, so bank whenever YOUR rocket needs to, to achieve that orbit. Screenshot75 shows such an orbit, with a Perigee of 79,000 and an apogee of about 86,000. Anything will do, as long as Perigee is above 70,000 meters, you didn\'t use too much fuel and apogee/perigee are not too far apart. Preferably, the perigee is about where the rocket is in screenshot76. This is the point where we will initiate the TMI.

Kerbin -> Mun

In my experience, the best moment for a TMI is when you look at the overview map, put the Mun at about 30° to the right of the y axis, and when your rocket now crosses below Kerbin. As seen in Screenshot76. This is the moment to apply full throttle towards the direction indicator. Depending on your orbit, the position of your apogee/perigee and your orbital speed, you usually end up with a speed of 3000 to 3200 m/s. In the end, your orbit should look like Screenshot79.

Moon insertion

When you\'re close enough to the Mun, your orbit indicator will turn into something like in Screenshot80. When you reach the perigee, push full throttle against the direction indicator until you end up in an orbit around the Mun. Try to push the former perigee down to about 40,000 meters, turning that initial perigee into an apogee. Like in screenshot83.

Choice of landing site

You want to land inside one of the craters, and you want to land in a crater on the lit side of the Mun. Now, the Mun rotates towards the right, meaning areas at the right of the Mun will get dark while areas on the left of the Mun will become lit. It takes a few hours, but you\'ll be flying a few hours. So try to aim for a crater at the left side of the lit Mun, or at least one that\'s around the center of the lit area. You might have to incline your orbit, like I did in screenshot86. You want to avoid an oversight I made: The Mun rotates. So aim for the right edge of your target area because your orbit will move towards the left (actually, the Mun moves...). The more inclined your orbit is, the more you have to compensate for this.

Descent

Your next goal is to push the perigee towards your landing point. This can be accomplished by orbiting past the back of your landing point (i.e. past the point 180 degrees opposite of your landing site) and thrust. Your goal is to either reach a low perigee (like I did in screenshot89) or a flight path that ends at the far end of your target crater (i.e. you\'d crash into the wall exiting the crater if you didn\'t land).

De-orbit burn

When you reach the edge of your crater, or when you think you\'re about to reach an area where you want to land, it\'s time to stop. Turn your rocket away from the flight path marker on the artificial horizon and thrust. Full throttle. Your goal is to have that direction marker end up either on top of your horizon or bottom, as I have achieved in screenshot93. And keep it there! Note: If you\'re 'falling', i.e. if you see the crossed out marker, aiming your rocket towards the marker and applying thrust centers you. If you\'re climbing, aiming your rocket away from the marker accomplishes that.

Landing

Landing is a critical moment. It\'s easiest done by having an ASAS in your rocket and a belt of 4 or even 6 RCS thrusters. Then you simply turn SAS and RCS on and just try to keep the rocket coming down smoothly.

Liftoff

Also fairly easy. Apply thrust and take off. Try to head quickly towards 90 degrees and try to not waste too much fuel on climbing, just past about 700 meters once you reach the edge of your crater will do. Try to keep your orbit as circular as possible, since you do NOT want to have an apogee that points far away from Kerbin, that\'s energy you have to compensate. Try to have your apogee pointing towards Kerbin, more or less, but your best bet is still a fairly circular orbit. If your apogee 'runs away' from you, just stop thrusting until you reach it again and keep getting faster. Not higher.

TKI

The time to push the throttle up and head back to Kerbin is when you have circled the Mun almost once, when you cross that line that represents the Mun\'s orbit around Kerbin. Thrust towards Kerbin when it rises over the horizon (give or take, timing ain\'t critical here), the red 'home' marker makes a good direction finder. You want to push your speed to about 700-750m/s. Note that you don\'t have to push it so far that you actually 'hit' Kerbin with the escape path you will get to, the path I get in Screenshot99 is plenty. The reason for this is that Kerbin moves towards the left, relative to the Mun, since the Mun moves towards the right.

Establishing Kerbin orbit

You might fall into a stable Kerbin orbit, or you might end up with some abomination like I did in screenshot100. That flight pattern would have led back to Kerbin, but also to a VERY hard descent. To soften that up, I increased speed until a Perigee appeared and I pushed that Perigee past 70,000 meters. A bit more wouldn\'t hurt, since we\'ll have to slow down considerably at that height to get our apogee down from beyond the munar orbit. Your goal in your first revolution around Kerbin is to get into a stable orbit that doesn\'t suddenly make you end up in a Kerbol orbit, i.e. get that perigee to above 80,000 meters and that apogee as low as time and fuel permits.

Choosing a landing site

Once you reaced an apogee/perigee pair like in screenshot103, it\'s time to find a landing site. In that screenshot, that huge sea area we fly over would make a great landing spot. Generally, you do not want to end up on land. More than one great flight I did went down the drain by hitting the ground too hard, hitting a rocky area and having my capsule crash after sliding down some mountains... very frustrating.

Hitting water isn\'t as easy as it first sounds, though. Kerbin rotates. Towards the right. Meaning, your orbit, your perigee, your apogee, they all move towards the left over time. If you have a highly inclined orbit, you again have to take into account that you will not fly over the same area you fly over now in your next revolution. In other words, if you choose a landing site, note that you will end up some miles to the left of it when you eventually touch the ground.

Coming back down

Well, the rest is fairly straightforward. At apogee, push against your flight direction, lower your perigee past 25,000 meters and you\'ll come down. Note again, you WILL end up considerably left of your perigee, depending on your apogee and hence speed.

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

Munar landing is only an ordinary pastime for you, but a brick-shattering maneuver for me... ???

[Ivan Ivanovich]

What seems to be the problem?

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

Killing horizontal velocity. That\'s the only problem that I\'m encountering.

[JupiterII]

I can never get enough fuel to the mun.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Fuel is an issue, I give you that. Getting enough fuel to the Mun is a matter of knowing when and how to apply thrust to use as little as possible. My Munar rocket makes use of the KW pack for the boosters and NovaSilisko\'s for some decouplers. The latter is more a matter of cosmetics, but the boosters sure make it much, much easier to get a lot of fuel to the Mun. I touch down with 2 fuel cells and 2 RCS to spare for the return trip, which is plenty. To get there, I waste ... umm ... 15 stock boosters, 6 Kyle&Wilson VL boosters and about 16 stock fuel tanks.

It IS possible to get there stock only, I\'ve done it. Just hard to land without sensible lander legs. And the rocket looks just plain out ridiculous with the two belts of boosters around it.

About horizontal speed... if someone tells me how to make a video I\'ll show you. \'til then, ... well, what exactly is the problem. Aim away from your direction marker and PUSH...

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

In my previous post in this thread,

Smooth landing went all apesh*t in the last few meters.

[Ferrit]

In my previous post in this thread,

Smooth landing went all apesh*t in the last few meters.

Watching the video I think I can see the issue you\'re suffering; and you\'re going to kick yourself

The intitial descent was fine but then (in the video) between :30 and 1:00 you applied thrust and RCS in the direction of horizontal travel increasing instead of decreasing horizontal speed. Remember the TVV with an \'x\' is the backwards direction (descending) so to slow down thrust needs to be applied in the same direction i.e. with the \'x\' TVV close to the centre of the navball or using RCS in the same direction as the \'x\' TVV (\'x\' TVV left of Navball centre use J to bring it back towards the centre). To complicate things this is reversed when not descending (as the TVV without an X is showing actual direction of travel). I hope this makes sense and helps.

By the way, that is one awesome crash! 8)

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

Watching the video I think I can see the issue you\'re suffering; and you\'re going to kick yourself

The intitial descent was fine but then (in the video) between :30 and 1:00 you applied thrust and RCS in the direction of horizontal travel increasing instead of decreasing horizontal speed. Remember the TVV with an \'x\' is the backwards direction (descending) so to slow down thrust needs to be applied in the same direction i.e. with the \'x\' TVV close to the centre of the navball or using RCS in the same direction as the \'x\' TVV (\'x\' TVV left of Navball centre use J to bring it back towards the centre). To complicate things this is reversed when not descending (as the TVV without an X is showing actual direction of travel). I hope this makes sense and helps.

By the way, that is one awesome crash! 8)

I see, I see... Thanks for the tip.

Anyway, I found it out now, and made it there:

8)

[Ferrit]

I see, I see... Thanks for the tip.

Anyway, I found it out now, and made it there:

image snipped

8)

Glad to be of some help

And that\'s a good looking lander, nice to see it intact and doing the job right