Scientific Mission to Moho

[gilflo]

I did not know that Moho was the hardest planet to reach, but I thought it was better to send a Tanker in orbit because it was obvious that with a 3200DV Lander I would not get enough DV to fly back to Kerbin after a landing to Moho

Here is the Tanker with a docking port and at the top 1600 fuel unit and maybe more if I do not burn to all the stage's fuel to reach a 200km orbit around Moho. So I can refill completely my Lander who needs a total fuel around 1200.

The last stage of the tanker is a center 1440 fuel tanker with a Maverick engine VESTA VR-9D (power 600 and high vacuum ISP) and 6 asparagus 1440 fuel tank with 4 atomic engines on each.

The big center stage is composed of 19 Tanks (1440 fuel) with a cluster of 3 Maverick 1D engines (power 350 each) on each; Around is the first stage of 12 fuel tanks 720 with Maverick engine VESTA VR-9D (power 600)

Total weight is 1691T and 11800DV, not including the top 1200L fuel to be delivered to the docking Lander.

Center Stage separation

Orbit around Kerbin before departure

Orbiting around Moho, 250km, and the last tank is nearly full 1440L and still 1660 DV

Now let's see the Lander launch

The launcher conception is roughly the same except that the lower stage has got 720L more on each of the 17 tanks in the center and there is a supplementary stage around the last asparagus stage

Total weight is 1725T, 11200DV for the launcher plus 3200DV for the lander, total DV 14400.

That should be enough to reach,orbit and land to Moho, even use the last stage of the launcher to retroburn on landing in order to use minimum fuel with the lander

Separation of center stage

Before orbiting Kerbin

En route to Moho, separation of First asparagus atomic stage

preparing Moho landing

Final descent

Manual landing, and as you can see I have only got 1540DV left on my 3200. I did not expect to burn so much, so my tanker was a good idea and i am gonna have it orbiting at 60km rather than 250, because I am sure I won't reach a 230 km orbit for rendez vous with the 1540DV left on my lander. Hoppefully I got a lot of fuel left in my tanker for this maneuver.

Kerbal EVA to get sample.

Take off to join a 45km orbit

Establishing maneuvers for approach

172m from the tanker

Final approach before docking

Transferring fuel. You don't need TAC fuel balancer for that, but it's just more practical.

Undocking. As you see, my orbital inclination is 20° and after undocking I realized that if I wanted to fly back to Kerbin it would be better to try this with a 0° orbital inclination, so I docked again, shut my lander engines and used the tanker to establish a 0° orbit, than undock again and restart the lander engines. These engines are 5 LV909 liquid engines (power 50 each, high vacuum ISP)

Burning to Kerbin

Approaching Kerbin, I was wondering if I got enough fuel to land somewhere on the land, even near KSP base or if I had to land directly without performing a aerobraking orbit.

I decided to try an aerobraking and I aim to 30km periapsis

My aerobraking did not allowed me to aim at KSP base but I was able to land on a continent

Parachutes deployment

Final retroburn for manually landing

On the ground

And the final result: 1774,5 points earned for this mission

Thank's for watching.....

[elkar]

I dont know to this day how do you guys put such a monstrosities onto orbit.

[gilflo]

Just a matter of DV. Engineer redux and Mechjeb help a lot.

And struts, struts and struts....