MUN landing.

[bunnescreed]

Hey Community,

I bet you have heard this one often enough but I am sry for being to lazy to search for a thread fitting my question.

So here's my question:

I tried landing on MUN a several times now and it always worked, but always my craft was flying to one site, so it moved down to the ground but also sideways and then when I hit the ground it would roll over very quickly and mostly something broke.

What can I do to prevent my Lander from doing this?

I hope I get someone to answer me back.

cya all sincerly Bunne

[HeadHunter67]

You need to kill your lateral velocity during descent. Aim just above the horizon, in line with your retrograde marker, and thrust. As it moves, tilt towards it, always keeping yourself between the navball horizon and the retrograde marker. Continue until the retrograde icon is at the top of the navball (the little dot in the middle of the blue half of the sphere). At this point, you are dropping straight down. Point to retrograde and begin to burn away your vertical speed.

[AlexinTokyo]

Also, a nice wide lander with a relatively low center of mass might help.

My early-career Mun/Minmus lander has three Science Jr. modules radially attached to the central core, with landing legs attached. Let me see if I can find a pic.

EDIT: Found one

Edited April 18, 2014 by AlexinTokyo

[iBeej]

What can I do to prevent my Lander from doing this?

You need to kill your angular momentum. Simply point your craft at the retrograde marker (circle with an X) on your navball and burn until it moves toward dead center. That will allow gravity to pull you straight down.

Keep in mind, if your navball is set to "surface" mode, the retrograde marker may shift a bit as you approach the ground, because it reflects surface angles. (Landing in the rim of a crater for example)

Hope this helps!

[Sirrobert]

Make sure you have your navball set to Surface mode when landing (click on the speed to switch it between modes)

[Amaroq]

I used the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod to keep track of my lateral speed during my descent, and especially in the late stages. Even slight speeds led to tipping for my first craft.

Also, assuming you have a well-balanced RCS thrust, you can use the RCS docking "translate", letting your main engines deal with the vertical velocity, letting SAS deal with keeping you vertical, and using translate to kill your lateral momentum.

[Jeb Polo]

Face your lander prograde and use your engine to bleed off lateral speed. If you are doing it correctly your prograde marker will move (slowly) to 0 degrees, you will be moving stright up/ down. Keep your speed less then 10 m/s and you will have a smooth landing.

[Pecan]

As soon as you touch-down engage SAS (T) to help hold you in position. You can counter any tendency to tip over using the rotation (WASD) keys. If that's not successful and you still fall over it is sometimes enough to right yourself again.

[iBeej]

Face your lander prograde and use your engine to bleed off lateral speed. If you are doing it correctly your prograde marker will move (slowly) to 0 degrees, you will be moving stright up/ down. Keep your speed less then 10 m/s and you will have a smooth landing.

No. Burning prograde will slam you in to the Mun. I think you either mistyped or have your terms confused. You burn retrograde to slow down. Designated by the circle with an X on the navball.

[MarvinKitFox]

Make your lander with a low center of mass.

Then, add a stonking tall tower at the top, built out of something very light. Cubic octagonal struts come to mind.

Put a couple of RCS right at the top.

When landing, be sure to have both SAS and RCS switched on.

You will be *amazed* at how stabile a low-center-of-mass lander, with nice wide legs, and an RCS-onna-stilt system can be. You can land on a 45degree slope, and not tip over until your rcs fuel runs out.

P.S.

IMPORTANT!!

You never, NEVER want a lander with lots of RCS, all mounted below your centre of mass.

SAS will quite faithfully try to use your RCS to balance when tipping, and promptly swipe you upside-down!