I'm having a really bad day

[TerrificToby]

Well then, after two attempted mun landings, I have the blood of two kerbals on my hands. Jebediah Kerman and Luke Kerman were both killed trying to land. Jebediah ran out of fuel en route back to kerbin and ran out of supplies, Luke kerman was killed when his craft colided with the mun's surface after attempting to launch back off.

my question is: does anyone know of a way to land on the mun using minimal fuel? (BTW, i'm in career mode so mechjeb is out of the question)

cheers,

Toby

[astropapi1]

Build a bigger rocket.

Just kidding, watch this tutorial.

[Peppe]

Landings are tricky.

The most fuel efficient is to burn at 100% throttle at the latest point you can and hit the ground just soft enough that you don't break anything.

To learn how to do that would probably take a lot more kerbal's lives or quicksave (f5) and quickload (hold f9).

I generally try to shoot for a speed of altitude / 10. So if you are 1000 m above the surface shoot for 100m/s velocity.

With no mods you will want to check inside the cockpit view to see what the difference is between the surface altitude and the altitude seen in flight view.

Another trick is to put some big lights on the bottom of your lander and aim them to the surface. Having 3 large spot lights that slowly get smaller and closer can help you gauge how close the ground is before you crash into it and explode (f9) -- land gracefully.

[Vanamonde]

Are you asking for help with piloting or ship design? As for a ship, the third one in my first post of this thread can do moon roundtrips, and uses only parts from tiers 0-3.

[BlackBicycle]

Just have to say, MechJeb fits pretty well in the tech tree.

That said, the stock node system will hold your hand all the way to the Mun. Even to a landing, but I'd rather not disclose how.

Best of luck, make sure you have ample fuel in your landing stage. A bit of a foot(erm, finger)work, and you will land on Mun no problem. Do make sure you overengineer your parts a bit though, just for reliability.

[Liowen]

One thing I would suggest is to use IVA mode to gauge how far you are from the surface. While your altitude might be 2km up, you could be landing in a low area, making you burn more often by thinking you are closer to the ground than you actually are. Once I learned about the radar gauge in IVA it helped me with my landings by letting me burn less often and still get down to about 5-6 ms before touch down.

[TerrificToby]

i do use the mechjeb readouts though

[Tank Buddy]

Try try again. You just have to learn by errors. First, you have to have a capable ship, and once you have that you can land.

To land: If you lower your periapsis to ~5 Km above your target landing site, and burn retrograde early enough that you are in a ballistic trajectory before you reach periapsis, you should be able to land by pointing retrograde and managing throttle.

To return to Kerbin, take of east roughly like you would on Kerbin, but begin the gravity turn earlier. Also, make LMO around 20-30 Km. Using a maneuver node or sight, which is not too difficult, put your craft on a free return trajectory by burning so your escape trajectory is in the opposite direction of the Mun's prograde. Lowering your Perikee at this point is more efficient than doing so in Kerbin orbit after escaping the Mun.

I can add pictures if needed.

[Markus Reese]

Hiya, as Tank said, learning by errors is the best way. However, you are probably like me, and poof Kerbals makes me feel sad.

That said, when I first started my moon missions, I planned for always having an escape route. Therefore I always make sure my landing engines, and launch engines use separate fuel supplies. In the early days before I had my lander design exactly how I wanted, I would attempt landing. If I got too low on lander fuel, I would jettison and just abort mission, returning to kerbin in my launch vehicle. To start, the MK 1 pod, medium 1m tank, and that 1m efficient engine which I can never remember the name of gives plenty of fuel for goofing around on your return trip or abort.

[maccollo]

The most fuel efficient way to land on any body is to put your periapsis as close to the surface of the body you are landing on as possible, same as in that video.

Once you reach the periapsis you burn horizontally as to kill all horizontal velocity, as you begin to drop you compensate if necessary by burning upwards a little bit.

You then descent slowly and safely.

It's the same approach as shown in the video in the first reply by astropapi1, and it is the most fuel efficient way no matter what your TWR is.

[irongut]

It's much easier to land on Minimus than Mun and not really any harder to get there. So you could practice landings on Minimus and then go back to the Mun.

If you're having terrain altitude issues try Kerbal Engineer Redux. It doesn't include autopilots like MechJeb but it does give you useful design and flight information that will make your missions much less trial and error and much more successful.