Need pointers for building vaguely realistic Munar lander

[Esme]

Hello!

Having got to grips with getting to, exploring, and returning from Minmus, I'm now turning my attentions to the Mun. The trouble is, I seem to be apallingly bad at designing a decent Munar Lander, and would be very grateful of some tips or even a simple parts list for a lander/return ship that's up to the job and meeting my requirements below. The best I have managed so far is to land a Mk1 capsule on the Mun - but it didn't have enough dV left to return to Kerbin

NB: I also want my ships to be if not utterly plausible, then reasonably so. As in, I don't want to have engines and tanks clustered around a central core in a way that would be horribly unaerodynamic in real life. At this point, I don't mind if lander legs, RCS thruster blocks, solar panel packs and batteries are exposed. (I can work on getting things faired away once I have a design that can actually do the job!). At this point, I'd also prefer to keep the lander/return ship mass as low as possible (I seem to be OK with designing launchers to handle up to about 12 tons, 15 at a pinch) whilst allowing a reasonable fuel margin, I don't mind whether the ship is 1 or 2 crew, and I want to avoid use of 3.75m components if possible, for now (am still getting the hang of 2.5m components).

This is because ultimately, I want to do a game where I mimic the Mars Direct plan, and to do so as realistically as I can handle. But if I can't reliably get crew to the Mun and back, I certainly won't be able to handle a Duna landing and return!

Thanks in anticipation,

Esme

PS: I have KSP Interstellar, KAS and KW Rocketry installed at the moment (as well as Mechjeb and some purely visual bits and bobs), so designs using parts from them as well as stock are fine by me. I did look at the Alcor mod - looks beautiful, but I think it'd kill my system, unfortunately.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Esme
addition of postscript

[technicalfool]

I guess you know of the Toyota Corolla lander? That's a basic design that has enough delta V to get back from Mün, assuming you can get it onto the floor with most of its fuel still on board.

If you need more dV, and if you've unlocked fuel pipes, try strapping two small extra tanks on each side of that lander via some decouplers, and put some fuel pipes going into the central stack. You can detach the outer tanks when they're empty. That should give you plenty enough fuel to play with.

Failing that, you can always stick another small stage underneath the Corolla design and use that to land with, then separate and take off with the upper stage, Apollo-style.

Whatever rocket design you used to get to Minmus should be easily enough to get the lander to Münar orbit. The problem with Mün isn't the getting there, it's the landing and taking off in the heavier gravity.

And just in case you don't know of the trick for guaranteeing a Mün intercept with no need for manoeuvre-node twiddling: Get into a low orbit around Kerbin, wait until Mün rises above the horizon, point yourself pro-grade and start burning. You will get an intercept.

[SSSPutnik]

The LLL mod has a copy of the NASA lunar lander including legs, capsule etc. Worth a look, it looks like the real thing.

[Scarecrow88]

These are some of my 1 man landers, all of which are capable of landing on Mun or Minmus and either returning direct to Kerbin (those fitted with parachutes) or back to orbit to dock with a command module (those fitted with docking ports). Some are two stage, so they leave the legs and descent engine/fuel tank on the surface, similar to the Apollo way of doing things. They are all stock.

The one 3rd from right (looks a bit like an airgun pellet) may meet your brief most closely. It is aerodynamic, in looks at least, and is a 2-stage design, with the capsule having enough Dv to return direct to Kerbin.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Scarecrow88

[Esme]

Thank you for your responses. Technicalfool, I've tried something like that, my problem is in getting it down with sufficient fuel to get it back to Kerbin. Hmmmn.. Your talking about a small stage under the lander.. in my attempts thus far, the stage previous to teh lander itself has always been larger than the lander, and discarded at latest on the way down. Hadn't thought of adding a smaller stage (slaps self - doh! Obvious once 'seen'!), thank you! (Btw, whilst I prefer career mode, have resorted to sandbox temporarily to try to get over this problem I'm currently having. Once I get a 'feel' for the right sort of design, I'll be back to my career mode game)

SSSPutnik: thanks, but for the moment, I'm just wanting something as simple as possible to give me a feel for building ships that will work, so I'd rather avoid for now the added complexity of all the docking involved with a good Apollo-alike, especially given I'm liable to crash my next few attempts! I will give it a look once I'm ready to start a new career game for my Duna Direct campaign :-)

[SRV Ron]

With practice in landing, all the designs above will work. But, if you can't land using this and return safely, you need to reevaluate your flying skills.

Even this is fully capable of a Mun or Minmus landing and return. Note, the assent stage wasn't even used in this Minotaur launcher experiment.

Edited May 24, 2014 by SRV Ron

[Esme]

Thank you Scarecrow88; how did you construct it, though?

[SRV Ron]

Proof of concept, this design did Minmus and back safely with fuel to spare.

[Scarecrow88]

A close up in the VAB to give an idea of how it all fits.

As you can see from this image, you need to turn on part clipping in the editor so that it fits. The fuel tanks on the ascent stage are clipped in to the capsule.

The fairing around the descent stage is just two flat plates attached in 8x symmetry.

Finally (or originally when actually building) the descent stage consists of 5 small tanks and a small Rockomax engine. Again clipping is utilised to allow 4 of the tanks to be squeezed in to a smaller space, and to which the landing legs are attached.

Hope that helps.

[Esme]

SRV Ron - I perhaps didn't make it sufficiently clear that I can't land and return with a design that tries to meet the limitations stated in my original post. I can - and have - created designs that are horribly unaerodynamic which KSP will happily let one perch atop a rocket and launch successfully, currently. But my wish is to use designs that , if not fully realistic, at least look close to credible. And the target I'm having problems with is the Mun, not Minmus. Minmus I can do, easily. Thanks for responding, anyway :-}

Scarecrow 88 thank you! I'm not keen on unrealistically squeezing tanks into a smaller space, but you have given me an idea re using plates to improve the look of things. :-)

Edited May 24, 2014 by Esme

[cantab]

Remember that the real Apollo LM was horribly unaerodynamic. That's why it went up inside a fairing.

In stock KSP you can make fairings using the structural panels, though it can be a bit fidddly. I've seen people use the structural wings (the rectangular ones) too. Attach them to decouplers or separators to jetisson them, optionally aided by sepratrons. You'll get sleeker results with mod parts; Procedural Fairings you can reshape to fit your payload, while I believe KW Rocketry has fixed-size fairings.

[Pecan]

And again; two designs for Minmus & Mun (ignore the docking drone in the first 3 pics):

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[Scarecrow88]

Here are a couple of designs that may give you further food for thought.

The first is a simple 3 man capsule lander. The second stage has enough fuel to insert to Mun and start the descent to the surface, leaving the lander with virtually a full fuel load to return to Kerbin. The lander legs are the only un-aerodynamic bits to spoil an otherwise fairly clean lined rocket.

A different approach to the problem of flying an un-aerodynamic load in a more aerodynamic manner, is to enclose the load in the delivery vehicle. Ignoring the actual design of my lander in this rocket, you could possibly do something similar with your own lander.

The rocket top stage.

Inside the 'fairing' is the lander.

[Esme]

People, I'm happy to say that The Broken Sparrow has just returned to Kerbin after successfully landing on the Mun! It wasn't the prettiest of landings (there were a couple of near-disastrous bounces), but at least I know the design I came up with does have enough dV for the job, and the ships you showed me did give me some ideas that helped me improve my design. Now I just need to improve my reflexes and ability to pick flat bits on the Mun! 8-}

Edited May 24, 2014 by Esme