Land on the moon in career mode

[Kasuha]

7000 meters close to the surface, but then, I ran out of fuel

Er... if you were burning downwards to get to the surface, you were doint it wrong. You must clear your horizontal speed if you want to land.

[SRV Ron]

Note, my lander design uses onion staging. That is, when the descent stage is out of fuel, they eject to leave the core stage with a full fuel tank. Anyhow, once in low Mun orbit, a small retro burn will start you down to landing. Landing is like launch in reverse. Keep your marker centered as you get vertical so all horizontal drift is eliminated. If you run out of fuel on the outer tanks, stage them and abort the landing.

Do a F5 to save before landing. That way, if you mess up, you can press F9 to get back to where you started.

BTY, as pictured, the launch vehicle will place your lander in low Mun orbit with full fuel tanks.

[Cerberus738]

Can someone post a lander design that includes a science jr. and uses all tech up to tier 3?

i built this with all the science pieces. it can make it down to the moon from 10km, land and back up to 10km. i haven't tried returning it to kerbin as its part of a orbiting science lab. it just goes down and then docks with the lab to transmit... or whatever the lab does i've tested the lander but not the lab.

Here it is after landing on the moon and doing SCIENCE!

Edited January 27, 2014 by Cerberus738
Pictures not work!

[ShadowDragon8685]

I've yet to achieve a successful Mun landing, though I have once gotten a Landercan to the surface without it exploding hilariously on impact. (Everything under it served as the crumple zone.)

The one and best piece of advice I can give you, though? If you're using an untested lander, attach a Probe core and send it unmanned first. Heck, the probe cores have reaction wheels even if nothing else has been unlocked in that size category except the capsules themselves that have reaction wheels, so you may as well go and attach a few for really good control. If it runs out of fuel half way down and scatters its parts over five kilometers of Munar surface, that lander is not sound and you most definitely should not have a Kerbal inside. If you bollocks up the landing but the design is sound, you should hopefully have a better idea of what to do next time.

[wasmic]

I put a crewed vessel just above Kerbin Escape Velocity, got it in orbit of the sun, did science and returned to Kerbin. That makes a lot of science points, and makes it easier to mun.

[Name Lips]

Have you gotten all the science from the Kerbin biomes yet? It's much easier to get those first, so you can unlock the higher tiers.

Also, Minmus is actually easier to land on than Mun, and gives more science.

[Belgiumruler]

Have you gotten all the science from the Kerbin biomes yet? It's much easier to get those first, so you can unlock the higher tiers.

Also, Minmus is actually easier to land on than Mun, and gives more science.

not all of them. Only those from Highlands, Mud, Water and Artic. And, I am going to take a little bit more fuel with me next try. This way I should get there (not planning of returning ).

[Cerberus738]

Have you gotten all the science from the Kerbin biomes yet? It's much easier to get those first, so you can unlock the higher tiers.

Also, Minmus is actually easier to land on than Mun, and gives more science.

I find Kerbin really annoying to collect science from. except for the biomes that are fairly close to KSC. Minmus is the best place to go. it doesn't take much more fuel to get there and landing is way easier. especially for a beginner. the science is worth more and its easier to get back to Kerbin. It does take a lot longer to get to and from though.

I currently have flags at all the Kerbin biomes but i haven't gone back to them with the newest science parts. I opted to go to Minmus and maxed my science tree

[technion]

I find Kerbin really annoying to collect science from.

imo it's actually the hardest place ... because it's the least entertaining. Sure, there's no real effort flying in one direction in a suborbital path until you land somewhere new, but it's boring as heck when you have the tech to reach orbit very early on.

[Belgiumruler]

well, I am heading straight at the moon's surface, but, I have no idea how to slow down enough. Any ideas how I can do it? Here are some pics:

[ShadowDragon8685]

It might help if the pics in question were (a) not the size of a postcard, and ( actually showed your craft.

It looks like you've got five engines, though, presumably four radially arranged around a fifth. If they're anything but those junk "What is this, an engine for ANTS?!" engine, you should be able to slow down by following a very simple formula.

Step 1: Point engines towards Mun.

Step 2: Fire engines until no longer zooming zooming towards Mun.

If you want more specificity, it would help if I could actually see what you're flying.

[Belgiumruler]

is this better?

[xnorb]

With 30 hours in you should know how to use manuever nodes, so there's no guessing when you need to do what

and it tells you exactly what you need to do to lower your orbit.

Landing on Mun is quite tricky because the ground is horribly uneven (i never had problems with killing vertical

velocity or fighting the gravity, just the uneven ground made landing a horribly hard task)

That's why it's better going for Minmus first.

It's valleys are flat as pancake and it's super easy landing there.

If you use too much fuel, most likely your rocket is way oversized.

I see you got 5 fueltanks on your lander - my lander only has 1!

(And it's easy to come home with just 1 tank)

Try again, but this time go small - and use the power of the manuever nodes.

[Tw1]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/541/21tv.png is this better?

You're still coming in at an incredible speed. Are you doing a retrograde burn (turning so the X thing on the navbal is right in the middle, then firing the engines) to slow down first?

This should make you slow down enough to orbit the Mun. Then, you do it again so the PE marker gets close to the Mun's surface. Then, warp till you get to the PE maker, do the retrograde burn again to slow down for landing.

Then it's just a case of slowing yourself with the engines as you drop down vertically.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Tw1

[WhiteKnuckle]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/541/21tv.png is this better?

Ok in this pic see the neon yellow/green marker on your navball? That's your retrograde marker. When you put it in the middle of the navball it means your engines are pointed towards the direction you're traveling. So when you fire them you'll start to slow down. Your velocity is the green number in the box right above the navball, you want to bring that down to zero just as you get to the surface.

A few problems I can see from the pics you've provided:

1. You're trying to land on the dark side. Don't. Even if you have lights it's very difficult to do.

2. You're going really, really fast. Your velocity is over 1000m/s, and you're only 11km up. At this height you should be down to 200m/s or less.

[Belgiumruler]

I quitted KSP for a while due fading interest and lack of time, and recently I picked it up again and gave it another try... This was the result

Thanks everyone for helping!