[0.14][stock][mun lander] Koalemos II

[Kosmo-not]

*edit* I decided to give this thing a better name.

This is one of the most fuel efficient munar land and return craft I\'ve built. It gets there and back on 5 tanks. I really don\'t think I can get it there on less while packing legs and a chute.

*WARNING*

This rocket is not for noobs. It has a tight fuel budget, and had me quite nervous on the way home.

On another note, this craft is unable to leave any debris in orbit.

KSP tutorial: Mission to the Mun and Back

[Stockosi]

I tried it. I got to the Mun, probably with enough fuel to get back, but I crashed into the Mun, I still need to work on landing efficiently. If I hadn\'t been worried about fuel, it would have been a lot easier.

[AlexanderB]

So, I suppose I\'m a noob.. Made it to... about 4km off the surface with 50 m/s... and ran out of fuel, crashed.. Reproduced this twice, then added 2 tanks to the sidestack and made the roundtrip. So thumbs up for your efficiënt piloting skills. Apparently I fly like I drive, lead-footed. ;D

[clee-saan]

No ASAS and no RCS ? Man you\'re hardcore.

[chillman1212]

Made it to the Mun and had just a bit of fuel left but couldnt make it back to Kerbal :\'(

[Kosmo-not]

Made it to the Mun and had just a bit of fuel left but couldnt make it back to Kerbal :\'(

Video added to first post. It might help you if you haven\'t seen it already.

[sal_vager]

I just saw the video, it\'s beautiful.

And I learned something, I have been doing my return orbits wrong all this time, wasting fuel.

My Apoapsis on the TMI side is usually only 10,400,000 meters though and I end up on an eastward orbit around the Mun.

Thanks for making this, and introducing me to a wonderful piece of music as well.

[Androsynth]

I see you\'re using a stack decoupler - those things weigh a lot. Ditch the stack decoupler, and instead of stacking, side-mount (directly, no decoupler) the two full tanks. Give them each an LV-909 engine. Replace the return stage tank with a half tank. Throw in a couple of extra fuel lines, and suddenly you can use the land/return engine in the initial launch. You\'ll only have 3/4ths of the thrust of the original LV-T30 during launch, but you\'ll also be lighter by 1 stack decoupler (0.8m), half a fuel tank (1.25m), and half the weight of the LV-T30 (1.0m).

The tricky part is decoupling the side mounted tanks/engines without having decouplers. For that, you use a carefully controlled crash-landing on the moon. I\'ll try this later tonight, unless someone can beat me to it.

[Mr_Orion]

Don\'t be silly. The only real way to stage is by using landing legs to clip into whatever you want gone!

[sjwt]

Don\'t be silly. The only real way to stage is by using landing legs to clip into whatever you want gone!

Damm straight!

I want legs to only operate when they are in the active stage.. Such weight savings!!

[TheBlaster]

Wow that is a really great video and I like the music choice.

[foamyesque]

Man, that\'s pretty.

[antbin]

FINALLY managed to complete a return Mun mission with this thing! What a ship.

Now the Krew did push 19Gs on the re-entry, but that was my fault for burning 875m/s on TKI and wasting the last of my fuel.

I think this ship will stand for all 14.4 as the minimalist Mun lander. Well done Kosmo-not.

[chillman1212]

I can\'t find anything about the Goddard Problem. Can you please explain what its about!?

[sal_vager]

There\'s a good challenge about it here.

Basically full thrust all the time is not the best strategy, as air resistance increases with speed you waste fuel pushing against the air, by reducing throttle you save fuel and still accelerate at the same rate.

[Kosmo-not]

I think this ship will stand for all 14.4 as the minimalist Mun lander. Well done Kosmo-not.

If you want the minimalist Mun lander, look at this.

[Ninja possum32]

Does this require mods

[sjwt]

Does this require mods

All stock!

[Robo336]

Beautiful.

[Androsynth]

If you make a craft with just SRBs, how few can you do it with?

Yes, i realize this is an absurd challenge. which is why i\'m asking you.

[SynMonger]

I decided I needed to try this out, but I\'m not expert enough on the controls to get it back with such a tight fuel budget.

So I stuck a MechJeb pod on the side and went to work. I didn\'t know if it would work, so I only got pictures of the re-entry and landing.

During the return I noticed I was only 30km or so from being able to land at KSC, so I had it set up the landing. Ran out of fuel at 10 meters, dropping to a nice, safe landing.

Thanks for sharing your .craft, it\'s been a lot of fun!

[Krugz]

*edit* I decided to give this thing a better name.

This is one of the most fuel efficient munar land and return craft I\'ve built. It gets there and back on 5 tanks. I really don\'t think I can get it there on less while packing legs and a chute.

*WARNING*

This rocket is not for noobs. It has a tight fuel budget, and had me quite nervous on the way home.

On another note, this craft is unable to leave any debris in orbit.

Fantastic! I really thought this was good, well done. I\'ll give it a shot some time, using your ship to land on the mun.

If you make a craft with just SRBs, how few can you do it with?

Yes, i realize this is an absurd challenge. which is why i\'m asking you.

I\'m attempting that, basically. It\'s going to take a lot of SRBs just to get out of orbit. If you plan to land on the mun (rather than just crash into it), you\'d need to do some clever tricks or else use RCS. I have any idea for how to land with an SRB, but it would require doing some math and experiments ahead of time.

[jake4]

*edit* I decided to give this thing a better name.

This is one of the most fuel efficient munar land and return craft I\'ve built. It gets there and back on 5 tanks. I really don\'t think I can get it there on less while packing legs and a chute.

*WARNING*

This rocket is not for noobs. It has a tight fuel budget, and had me quite nervous on the way home.

On another note, this craft is unable to leave any debris in orbit.

KSP tutorial: Mission to the Mun and Back

Wow. A noob stands in awe. What a great video!

After installing the demo and spending a long night building, crashing, flying off into space, getting stuck in orbit, and finally landing my Kerbs safely, I think it\'s safe to say I\'ll be buying this soon. ;D

[SynMonger]

I tried this out, and it\'ll work for a Minmus mission as well.