Landed on Minmus with very low fuel - possible to get home?

[Natima]

Hi there,

First of all, I'm totally new to KSP... Been playing for about two days in career mode.

Totally determined and after numerous failed attempts, I finally made it to minmus to collect some scientific data! SUCCESS!

I have such little fuel left though. Is it AT ALL possible to refuel my craft or guide it back to Kerbin?

I need that data!

Here's a pic:

[MrPopcup]

Hmmm.. I don't want to bring your hopes down but.. Nop.. With that size of craft and very low fuel I dont think so, BUT! Quicksave ( F5 ) and try to, if you fail hold F9 to load your quicksave.

I also belive that returning from every celestial body has phase angles, by this I mean that in the orbit of minmus there is some locations that it can be the most efficient, other locations can waste your fuel. Search for phase angles if you don't know what i mean.

NOTE*: it's late and I can't open my eyes but I love to see what people post here. Excuse me for any grammar mistakes !

[bobodamonkey]

Yeah, you might want so send for a rescue mission. I don't think that thing is coming home anytime soon, sorry.

[Sundancer]

Ouch, unlucky with that one. Your lander looks to be fairly similar to mine (mass-wise), and it took me between 50 and 100 units of fuel to get back. As has been suggested, quicksave and give it a go.

The way I did it was burning putting myself into a retrograde orbit compared to Minmus's rotation on it's own axis. I simply burned until I achieved escape velocity and continued until my Kerbin periapsis was sub-40km. Doing this you'll have to skip through the atmosphere of Kerbin once or twice, but you can land back home without burning again.

Also bear in mind that you can use your Kerbal's EVA suit thrusters to push your craft in a desired direction, should you run out of fuel on your actual rocket motor.

It does look like he'll need to be rescued though.

Disclaimer: My advice is probably rubbish due to my inexperience. One Minmus landing =/= knowing how to get there and back correctly. Despite having had resounding successes every time I've tried a non-Kerbin landing so far.

[Dave Kerbin]

No, I don't think you can return without pushing.

I can't clearly it perfectly, but I'm estimating that it weighs about 2.99t from what I can see (you can switch to the orbit map [M] and click the little i on the right to see the spacecraft's current mass and stats).

From that I would estimate total delta-v of 174m/s, which is not to overcome the 242m/s required to escape Minmus sphere of influence.

However in theory you could make it back - 174m/s would be enough to get you into a high suborbital flight at which time you could eject the engines, go EVA and push. However this is not an easy thing to do, especially since your first EVA will need to stabilize your orbit and then you'll need to contend with some difficult navigation to push out of Minmus SOI at the right time using only the EVA jets.

[Panzerbeard]

Yeah, I highly doubt that's ever getting home, unless you push (which I don't consider an option, personally).

Hey, take it as an opportunity to practice your precision landing with a rescue mission

[Runboy]

Use the DevCheats (Alt+F12) to give yourself infinite fuel,that should be enough to take you back home. Either that or simply fly your ship as far as it goes,then EVA all the way back home.

[KerbMav]

To refuel the craft you would need a mod that enables you to do so - else you could repeat the experiments (you planned on bringing back to Kerbin) with the rescue ship.

[Panzerbeard]

Use the DevCheats (Alt+F12) to give yourself infinite fuel,that should be enough to take you back home.

Surely that'd eliminate the entire point of the exercise?

[chrisb2e9]

Surely that'd eliminate the entire point of the exercise?

Yup, it would. Some people don't have any issues with the cheats though.

Personally I think it's stuck there. send a rescue mission!

On a side note, why do people take pictures with the sun in the back ground? Maybe my monitor is too dark, but I can't see the rocket that well. Flip the camera and do a screen shot with the sun lighting it up. then we can see what we are dealing with a bit better.

[Andrew Hansen]

I have a lander on Minmus that's a bit smaller than yours with a bit more fuel, and I'm struggling to get it back home as well. I can drop my Kerbin periapsis to about 2000 km, but not much less than that. I'm thinking of going EVA though and pushing it with my jetpack the rest of the way.

However, I don't think your craft can make it. I've tried many times with mine, and mine has a bit more fuel than yours. What I'd recommend though if you want to try is for you to minimize the time spent in Minmus' gravity well, because it means you get slowed down. So disable your engine, put your throttle on max, then enable it as you blast forward with full thrust in the retrograde direction to Kerbin. As well, you might be able to take advantage of the 9.8 m/s rotation velocity that Minmus gives you if you fire at the right point in it's orbit.

It might be possible!

[Natima]

So if I sent a 3-seater command pod and landed nearby, would I be able to collect the goo sample and other science stuff and get my kerbal to board the new ship?

[BloodyAxe]

I have the similar problem on Eve, I got there with lots of gas but at full burn it was all but a controlled crash... I'm building a rescue vehicle in Career but the parts I need are not available yet.

good luck with your rescue mission I think that ship is Tango Uniform!

[Crowdpleaser]

Use the DevCheats (Alt+F12) to give yourself infinite fuel,that should be enough to take you back home. Either that or simply fly your ship as far as it goes,then EVA all the way back home.

Eva Home from Minmus? Even if he gets out of the Sphere of influence and in an Orbit around Kerbin AND manages to deorbit the Kerbal (all of this just with RCS) he would fall from the Sky and die. Or do you mean pushing? oO

[Spyritdragon]

If you want to get back from the Mun or Minmus, i highly advise trying to get a Mun gravity assist. Its great for lowering periaps.

This is an exempt of a crew report from a highly audacious and unplanned mission to Munar orbit. After having attained the first Kerbal orbit, circling the planet and collecting numerous reports, Jebediah decided to preform a burn for the Mun. This lead to the discovery of a principle called 'Gravity assist', or in this case 'Gravity slingshot into Kerbin escape trajectory'. Jebediah managed to use what little fuel he had to put himself in a really really high, but closed nontheless, Kerbin orbit. He then caught onto the mun, which assisted him nicely back to Kerbin on only a few units of fuel left. He probably wouldn't have made it without that.

[gsurus]

This may be a slightly nooby question, but what does "pushing" mean?

[Senshi]

If you are not hostile towards mods, you could use a small unmanned probe with a reserve fuel tank to drop near your landing site (hehe, good way to train your precision landing skills...), then use KAS to put a pipe between the refuel probe and your lander to refuel. Kind of like any Kerbal does with its car back down on Kerbin.

Certainly would be my way to approach this issue, trying to minimize costs (and the risk of stranding the rescue party as well ).

[Natima]

I'm so new to the game I'm just keeping with the vanilla for now. I've already stranded about 4 more rescue parties anyway XD and killed another 5!

[Dave Kerbin]

This may be a slightly nooby question, but what does "pushing" mean?

It means that once your ship is in orbit (it won't work on the ground or suborbital, except maybe on Gilly with a really small craft and a huge amount of skill) you point you ship in the direction you need to move (and get rid of extra weight like useless engines and empty fuel tanks), you get your Kerbal to go on EVA and using his jetpack fly around to the back of the spaceship and literally 'push' the ship by bumping into the bottom and then thrusting. When jetpack fuel gets low you reboard the ship which causes the jetpack to refuel. On even a small ship the amount of force a Kerbal's jetpack can apply is small, but in orbit you have all the time you need.

[Person012345]

Hmmm.. I don't want to bring your hopes down but.. Nop.. With that size of craft and very low fuel I dont think so, BUT! Quicksave ( F5 ) and try to, if you fail hold F9 to load your quicksave.

I also belive that returning from every celestial body has phase angles, by this I mean that in the orbit of minmus there is some locations that it can be the most efficient, other locations can waste your fuel. Search for phase angles if you don't know what i mean.

NOTE*: it's late and I can't open my eyes but I love to see what people post here. Excuse me for any grammar mistakes !

It's not phase angles. But if you burn from minmus towards kerbin's retrograde it will lower your kerbin periapsis. That's the best way to do it.

[Starwhip]

The thing with Minmus is that the gravity is so low that any craft can get off the surface with very little effort. Nothing like the Mun. BUT, this is where the quicksave button is your friend! I suggest you quicksave (F5) and try it. F9 to go back. I know you could most likely make it to a small orbit (Keep it above 5000, otherwise you'll hit a mountain!) but not sure if you could return. Launch a rescue vessel if necessary.