RCS based Mun lander 100% stock

[Cezary]

The Ascento is a very tight ship that only has 5 stages, but will get you to the Mun with tons of fuel to spare, and uses a multi-stage, RCS-based system for the return home.

Download it HERE

[witeken]

Download? I had to copy and paste the .craft code manual...

I\'ll try it tomorrow.

[Cezary]

Right-click and Save As...

Browsers tend to open .craft files as text rather than auto-download

[closette]

Kind of you to give me a shout-out at your blog.

That\'s the slowest launch I\'ve done in a while! - I am typing this as your Ascento is, well, ascending. You should try to be at ~ 100 m/s by 1000m and accelerating for fuel efficiency, so I would suggest some SRBs on the first stage.

(Later):

Well I crashed on the Mun - not enough fingers to hold down the H, F, and other keys - but had a lot of fun with this craft.

Thanks for sharing it, and it was a good way to advertise your blog which I\'ll be checking into more.

[Cezary]

Oh my... When I posted this, the Ascento was my primo ship. A mere half a day later I have already made several generations more and feel like Ascento was a rickety pile of bolts. How very Kerbal of me...

By the way, not sure if you\'re using the \'F\' key out of choice or you don\'t know about the \'T\' key. I played KSP for a month before realizing I didn\'t have to hold the \'F\' key the whole time.

[closette]

F key was by choice for fast toggling. Please feel free to post later versions of your .craft file when (if!) the design converges.

[Cezary]

Busy day. Cooking and cleaning left little time for KSP, and by that I mean I did a Mun mission without using time warp while I cooked and cleaned. I find that I am EXTRA careful when it took eight and a half hours to reach the surface of the Mun.

Back to the topic at hand... The successor to Ascento has arrived. The boringly named RCS Probe is ready to scour the Mun for landing sites and mountain tops. Complete with 3 RCS tanks and 36 RCS thrusters, you\'ll be able to cover a nice area.

Check it out here

[closette]

May I suggest this for an alternate lander/ Mun hopper?

3RCS tanks, and 1 stack decoupler (mass 0.8) instead of 3 radial decouplers (total mass 1.2). I only put 18 RCS thrusters on this example but you could go for more - not sure that more are needed in the Mun\'s gravity though.

When done with hopping around using the fins and bottom RCS tank, you can leave them behind and return to Kerbin with the 2 RCS tanks remaining.

Just a suggestion.

[Cezary]

Efficiency wasn\'t my main priority the first time around. I focused on impact tolerance (the 3x decouplers + winglets can take a big hit) and lots of thrust for quick maneuvers (thus the 36x thrusters). I also had no intention of returning the Probe to Kerbin; Apologies to Bill, Jeb and Bob.

Once we get not only persistence, but docking as well I plan to create a Mun shuttle/lifter that lands on top of cargo, attaches, and moves it elsewhere.

[closette]

I also had no intention of returning the Probe to Kerbin; Apologies to Bill, Jeb and Bob.

Oh, OK! How did I not notice that? Or the lack of parachute when I did return to Kerbin! (I almost made a controlled landing with the remaining RCS fuel, which I had saved from not hopping around a lot).

With all those RCS thrusters it was a very fast return from the Mun as well compared to what I\'m used to.

Users will have a lot of fun with this craft, as I did.