Is this lander good enough for the Mun?

[Phesired]

I am doing Career mode hence all the scientific things on it, but the question is, will this lander be good for landing on the Mun?

[Kerbart]

I think you need more batteries. And your goo canisters are mounted upside down (note the arrow at the top pointing downward)

[Mr.Rocket]

What do you mean by good? If you mean landing and return capable, i don't think that's enough fuel, but i'm no expert. It probably can land though. Also, i'm hoping you have landing legs on the other side too. One thing that i don't see are fuel lines from the outside tanks to the inside. Without them, you have all of that extra fuel that you can't even use!(unless you haven't unlocked those yet and just put the fuel tanks there to hold the capsules). definitely enough batteries though. Just to put it out there, that thing could probably return from minmus if you have parachutes. I actually landed on minmus before mun because it was easier.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Mr.Rocket

[maccollo]

Oh man... batteries XD

From lunar orbit, this lander should have enough deltaV to land, orbit, and go back to Kirbin.

At least if you ditch the RCS, which you should. The pod torque is more than enough to control a craft that small.

[Phesired]

I was going to do it manually by holding ALT and right clicking both of them then transferring it. But thanks for the advice! And I will land on Minnimus as I did not know that lol. You'd think landing on the Mun is easier with it been closer and the astronauts in real life going there first.

[Phesired]

Oh does it make a difference if they're upside down I did not know that if it did lol. Thanks for the advice!

[kurja]

yea definitely ditch the RCS, you have 3 pods providing torque, RCS is totally unnecessary.

Another thing, change the antenna - you're going to need all the electricity you have if you're going to transmit experiments, the first antenna that you got in career needs less (the one you got on now transmits a bit faster but there's no other benefit).

[kurja]

Oh does it make a difference if they're upside down I did not know that if it did lol. Thanks for the advice!

Shouldn't make any difference, what's up or down in space anyway

And it's definitely more Kerbal with some parts upside down!

[kurja]

You'd think landing on the Mun is easier with it been closer and the astronauts in real life going there first.

....are you saying that Apollo-era astronauts could have went to Minmus instead?

[Phesired]

All my changes have been made Thanks peeps!

[Phesired]

Don't know enough about it to place a judgement.

[maccollo]

Oh... for some reason I didn't see the extra pods... That's an extra 1.6 tons which makes the mass fraction significantly worse.

Changing my prediction. It MIGHT be able to land, orbit and go back to Kirbin... And it might not.

It'd wager that it can, but only if you pilot it well.

[Oddible]

Not sure the single parachute is enough to slow you down to a comfortable landing on Kerbin with all 3 bots and everything else you've got attached to it. Also, if you pop that single parachute attached to the top of your command pod while you're still operating at transfer speeds it may pop that pod right off the top of your fuel tank.

[Sirrobert]

Why does it have 3 commandpods?

I can understand that you bring the batterys to transmit data back, but if you want to do that, switch out the transmitter to the antenna. The one you have now uses 50% more electricty per transmission. That's ALOT.

My advice:

Ditch the 2 extra commandpods. Nothing but extra weight. Especially if you are going to transmit the experiments anyway, they don't even add extra capacity to bring back samples.

Ditch the transmitter dich for the comunicatron 16 (the antenna). This one transmits faster for the cost of way more power. Not worth it if you don't have solarpannels.

Spread out your legs. My lander has 1 tank in the middle and 3 engines radially attached around them, instead of 1 engine in the middle and tanks around it. WAY more stable.

More parachutes. That single one is not enough to slow it down for a safe landing back on Kerbin. If you somehow want to keep your design, one chute on each pod. If you follow advice, one chute on each radial tank/engine.

Ditch the RCS. You don't need it for a munar landing. Extra weight you don't need.

Ditch the transmitter. Bring the samples back to Kerbin instead, and send a few landers (each to land on a different biome on the Mun). Not sending it back reduces the risk of running out of power and getting stranded significantly (and you can safely ditch part of the batterys, also saving on weight)

Also: It makes no difference which way up the goo container faces. None. Nothing. Not at all