Crashing on the mun!

[Joben]

Hi i have only been playing for a week and i want to know how to land on the mun.I can get there but i get pulled in to quickly and crash into it so how do i land softly.

PLEASE HELP!

[VintageXP]

Thread moved to Gameplay Questions and Tutorials.

[TheHockeyPlayer]

Honestly, if you're a newbie, it'd be best to land on Minmus, especially if you have trouble with landing. If you wanna do that before the Mun, watch this:

If you really are hard set on getting to the Mun, then watch this:

Scott Manley is a great help; he was the one who taught me how to play the game, in fact. Whenever I need help in Kerbal Space Program, I often times turn to him.

[Captain Sierra]

You will want to burn retrograde on your landing attempts to slow down. You should be going under 100m/s by the time you get under 4-5000m. I also suggest using MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer because they cna show you your surface altitude, not your sea level altitude. That comes in handy to know how high you really are. You want to be doing under about 50m/s when you get below 1000m. I believe both of those mods have a suicide burn countdown, which tells you how long you have before you have to burn full throttle to avoid crashing. That will also come in handy.

Once you learn, you will be able to gauge it better and you won't need the mods as much anymore. The Mun is the second hardest body to land on. If you haven't landed on Minmus, try there first. Less gravity, but harder to get to.

EDIT: totally forgot about Scott Manley (even though I'm subbed). Go watch his vids too. They help.

[AlamoVampire]

shame about scotts save file for his reusable space program but yeah, Scott Manley and Kurtjmac are 2 of the best YT's out there for this game honestly, scott explains the physics and the most efficient way to do things, and kurt, well, kurt has his own take on things and has a diff style, both excellent!

[MistaX8]

I'm assuming you are trying to put Kerbals on the Mun. If that is the case, you could also consider trying to put a small probe on the surface first, possibly just a one way trip. A small probe will have a lot less mass than a manned lander and that will make it easier to get to and land on the Mun, especially if you build a rocket that is overkill so that you have a lot more Delta-V to give yourself lots of room for error.

[Joben]

Thanks for the help:)

[Apollo13]

Surface altitude can also be seen inside the command module. It is the Radar Altimeter gauge.

I second the Scott Manley's videos. If you have a question, Scott has posted the answer.

[Spyritdragon]

You probably know this, but are you capturing yourself in a Mun orbit before you initiate your landing? I've found it to be easier to put myself in an orbit around the Mun first, then move in to land.

[Specialist290]

Seconding the above advice. If you try to go straight from an orbit around Kerbin to the Mun's surface, you'll end up heading towards that surface very quickly. Even if you managed to cancel out all that velocity so you can land safely, you'll be burning an awful lot of fuel you don't need to unless you do it just right, which is very tricky even for experienced players. Putting it into a low orbit (or at least an orbit with a low periapsis roughly above your landing site) lets you land using much less fuel overall, and it also gives you the advantage of being able to effectively pick the landing site you want if your first choice doesn't look that great once you get closer.

[capi3101]

Mun landing. Okay, so you've overcome the first major hurdle - you've screwed it up at least once. So that's out of the way and we can have fun with it.

(Not being facetious - it took me at least a dozen tries before I successfully landed in a state from which I could take off once again).

1) Go for Mun orbit; for a beginner player, I can't stress that enough. Being in orbit first gives you more control over what you're doing. I'd recommend anywhere between a 10k-20k orbit and it should be as circular as possible. Don't go lower; the new Mun has a bunch of nasty, sharp, pointy objects on the surface.

2) If you're flying a manned pod, go IVA (C-key) and look for a gauge that looks like this:

This is called a radar altimeter, and it tells you your actual altitude above the surface (the one in the cabin tells you your altitude above a reference level, which in most cases is totally useless information). Aim your camera at this gauge because you will need it.

2A) If you're flying an unmanned pod...well, I'd suggest planning your landing at a point near sunrise or sunset, like the Apollo guys did. That way you can use your shadow to help gauge your altitude above the deck.

3) If you've got a separate lander unit, man it, undock it, go IVA and point its camera at the radar altimeter, and then burn slightly retrograde to de-orbit. You're now headed towards the surface.

4) Put your gear down around 8,000 if you haven't already.

5) If you aren't burning by 6,000, begin a retrograde burn. Start watching your radar altimeter and your speed; the idea is to kill off your horizontal velocity.

6) When your radar altimeter starts moving, you're below 2500 meters to the deck. Some quick math will tell you what the surface elevation will be (if your radar altimeter is reading 2000 and your exterior altimeter says 4500, the ground's at 2500: 4500-2000 = 2500).

7) When your velocity gets below 100 m/s, reduce throttle to 2/3. When it goes below 50 m/s, reduce throttle to 1/3. Follow the prograde marker as it heads towards the dead center of the blue side of the nav ball - when it gets there, you should be travelling vertically (or close enough for jazz).

7A) VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure the velocity indicated is your SURFACE velocity! If it still says "Orbit", click on the word "Orbit" until it says "Surface". I've screwed up more than one landing because my speedometer was giving me the wrong reading...

8). When you're burning vertical, reduce your thrust to either the first or second click - you want to keep your velocity somewhat stable if at all possible.

9) Check your radar altimeter again and update your information on the altitude of the surface. It's not going to change much at this point.

10) If you're still well above the surface, you can kill your thrust entirely. Don't let it get above 30 m/s though. If you're within 500 meters, you want to keep your speed below 12 m/s. Preferably, you want to keep it below 10 for some additional safety. Adjust your throttle as necessary; you can still be travelling up to 10 m/s when you hit the deck and still land safely.

11) When you reach the deck, kill your thrust. You may bounce; that's alright as long as nothing breaks.

12) God willing, you built your lander short and wide and landed in an area that has relatively level grade; the lander's less likely to tip over on landing that way. If you do tip over and have enough RCS, it should be possible to upright yourself again; you may have to fiddle with folding up your lander legs to do that, though. It might be possible with torque thrust but I wouldn't count on it.

13) During this whole process, keep an eye on your fuel. Bingo fuel in my experience is usually somewhere around 80 LiquidFuel units remaining; if you go below that, hit space and try again later. Or land if you're planning to do a one-way trip...

Good luck; let us know how it turns out.

[Joben]

ok thanks i was trying to go straight for a landing instead of orbiting the mun first.

[Scarecrow88]

Once you get in orbit around Mun, remember to press F5 for a quicksave. That way, if you do screw up the landing, you can press F9 to revert back to that position.

[Joben]

I went to Minmus and landed thanks for the help