Delta V needed to land from Mun orbit, perform operations and re-dock in a Mun orbit?

[Tigermisu]

Trying to create a mobile science base designed to explore all of the moon with the same ship, it needs to land and then resupply in a station the low Mun orbit (50-70km) . How much delta V is required for it to be able to land+ascent+orbit and dock? Consider spare ~150m/s for maneuver errors (I'm not very good at this )

[Taki117]

This dV map should help. Just add all the numbers together for where you want to go to and from. Also, you can go way lower on the Mun, like 20km. but using my map you would need about 1160 total dV for each trip.

[BudgetHedgehog]

As orbital velocity is around 500 m/s, I'd hazard a guess at a tickle over 1.2km/s (500 to kill your orbital velocity and land, 500 to gain it again, 200 for spare). I know it's not exact, but I always bet on 1.5km/s when making a Mun lander/rdv vessel (but then, I do overbuild almost everything). I think my last one had about 1.2km/s but I was cutting it fine and only had about 50m/s in the tanks when I docked.

[Superfluous J]

This dV map should help. Just add all the numbers together for where you want to go to and from. Also, you can go way lower on the Mun, like 20km. but using my map you would need about 1160 total dV for each trip.

Add some margin for error to that or you'll be forever running out of fuel unless you do things PERFECTLY. I say at 10-20% so 1300-1400dV is nice.

[Tigermisu]

Thank you guys!!

[Nich]

I like the 26k orbit allows for 1 more level of time warp. Otherwise don't put your stations at 8k. The orbial mechanics come into play at very short distances because your turning so fast.

[Prepper-Jack]

When doing Mun orbital refueling, I like to have my landers more around 4k dV. This way they can hop to a couple different biomes and complete a temperature/gravity/whatever mission to boot (or simply more biomes if so inclined). Making a number of short hops is more efficient than going in and out of orbit, and docking every time. Also, remember that your initial orbit (unless it's polar) isn't going to be able to reach everything. Many of the biomes will require normal/anti-normal corrections, which will cost a great deal both ways.

[ajburges]

If you are running a lander from a mother ship, budget an extra hundred plus dV for inclination changes. For equatorial targets run a bit shy of a full tank, but repositioning the mother ship for landings at different latitudes is horridly wasteful. A lander is light so dV for it is relatively cheap.

In a similar vein, give it RCS but no extra tanks. The command module with 6+ units of monoprop is fine for a single dock before refuel. And it is easier and more efficient to have the light craft do the docking maneuvers.

Giving a lander an inclination change budget also allows you to run the mother ship in an inclined orbit which gives more more potential, "easy" landing spots.