Trouble Getting Into Mun Orbit or Mun Landing

[Nataris]

You guys are great. I seriously hope this gaming community stays this way. Mature and helpful seem to be rare traits these days.

Mission 12 was a semi success. Ive came the closes to landing as I have thus far. No orbit was necessary as the ship seemed to intersect the Mun perfectly in front which resulted in a direct landing as opposed to an orbit.

Anyway, I landed just barely too fast and with too much movement that I ended up slowly tipping over. My lander is in pieces but didnt explode. Now, this is a rescue mission!

What is the general, gameplan towards launching from Mun and landing back home?

Great help so far guys. Hopefully I can rescue them successfully.

[VincentMcConnell]

A word to the wise: Always go into Munar orbit first, especially if you\'re a beginner. Munar orbital velocity is only 500m/s and that\'s really easy to kill. The lower you are in orbit, the shorter your powered descent burn will be, therefore, less fuel consumption.

To return home, it\'s very simple. Easier than launching from Kerbin. What I do is: Launch and pitch quickly towards the East horizon. Get into a Munar Orbit of 100KM. Now sit in Munar orbit until the Kerbin rises over your horizon and then point pro-grade and burn 100%.

Watch your orbital map. When you reach an Apoapsis -- it will be pointing way to the left -- of about 15,000KM, shut your engine down. The Mun will rotate around Kerbin, putting your trajectory on a direct path towards the planet when you enter its sphere of influence (gravitational pull).

[Kosmo-not]

My game plan is as follows:

1. Get into Kerbin orbit

2. TMI

3. Wait until at periapsis with the mun and then lower the opposite side of my orbit to around 5km. If trajectory initially intersects the mun, I burn 090° or 270° until periapsis is above ground.

4. Look for a landing spot around new periapsis and burn level with the horizon in the retrograde direction. Cancel out horizontal speed.

5. Final descent and landing.

6. Liftoff heading 270°. Burn until apopsis is above my TKI burn point.

7. TKI burn

8. Adjust Kerbin periapsis to 30km

9. Pour a glass of wine and enjoy the ride home

[VincentMcConnell]

Kosmo-naut. Except for the wine part, we pretty much have the same standard operating procedure. I\'ve been doing less and less Mun landings lately and more Kerbin Orbit with the Gemini capsule. I ended up calculating the duration of a single 100KM orbit around Kerbin and was only off by a factor of .04. To orbit Kerbin at 100KM, it takes ~33 Minutes. I used an average orbital velocity by adding and then dividing my AP and PE, so it was a LITTLE bit off.

Eventually, the OP will get the whole orbital mechanics thing. About 4 months ago, I couldn\'t do ANY of this. It just takes a little practice. He\'ll be building Mun bases within 2 weeks. That\'s my prediction.

[SmiteZero]

Yep. I\'ve never had good success with a direct descent to the Mun. Establish an orbit first before descent.

Getting off the Mun is easy as pie. No atmosphere and no gravity. You\'ll need very little thrust. Do it the same as on Kerbin, basically, but gentler. (MUCH gentler) Get an orbit, wait for the window and blast off home. Coast for a bit and you should fall back into Kerbin\'s SOI. From there unless you\'re coming straight in you\'ll have to do more burns to push your Pe into the atmosphere.

KSP - Returning From the Mun: A Brief Instructional

[Kosmo-not]

A word to the wise: Always go into Munar orbit first, especially if you\'re a beginner. Munar orbital velocity is only 500m/s and that\'s really easy to kill. The lower you are in orbit, the shorter your powered descent burn will be, therefore, less fuel consumption.

To return home, it\'s very simple. Easier than launching from Kerbin. What I do is: Launch and pitch quickly towards the East horizon. Get into a Munar Orbit of 100KM. Now sit in Munar orbit until the Kerbin rises over your horizon and then point pro-grade and burn 100%.

Watch your orbital map. When you reach an Apoapsis -- it will be pointing way to the left -- of about 15,000KM, shut your engine down. The Mun will rotate around Kerbin, putting your trajectory on a direct path towards the planet when you enter its sphere of influence (gravitational pull).

You actually want your trajectory ending up in the mun\'s wake. It gives you the most bang for your buck. From a low mun orbit, shoot for around 850m/s on your TKI burn. That should get your periapsis within the atmosphere at not too steep an angle. I do my burn on the east rim of the crater along the equator heading 270°. I have attached a picture showing this spot.

[SmiteZero]

He\'s right. Come around the backside towards the direction the Mun is coming from is the most efficient because at the same time as you\'re accelerating away from the Mun, you\'re also slowing your orbital speed to drop back to Kerbin.

[Nataris]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Vincent

I\'ve only been playing for a week as of today and feel I am picking things up pretty quickly. Especially since I knew very little about space mechanics to begin with.

Anyway, mission 13 will happen sometime today. Hopefully it\'s a successful rescue mission and I can get the boys back home. I\'ll keep you guys posted. I\'m a bit nervous about the return trip home tho. I\'ve never done it and so far the first time I\'ve tried anything in this game it was a failure.

But failure is NOT an option!

[VincentMcConnell]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Vincent

I\'ve only been playing for a week as of today and feel I am picking things up pretty quickly. Especially since I knew very little about space mechanics to begin with.

Anyway, mission 13 will happen sometime today. Hopefully it\'s a successful rescue mission and I can get the boys back home. I\'ll keep you guys posted. I\'m a bit nervous about the return trip home tho. I\'ve never done it and so far the first time I\'ve tried anything in this game it was a failure.

But failure is NOT an option!

Just remember. The easiest return home (at least for me) is to get into a 100KM lunar orbit heading East to West and burn at Kerbin rise.

It never misses for me.

[BillWiskins]

You guys are great. I seriously hope this gaming community stays this way. Mature and helpful seem to be rare traits these days.

It\'s a good place, for the most part. There are a lot of very very smart people doing very complicated things with KSP, and I for one get a lot of pleasure from pretending to be one too. Just...don\'t venture into the Development forum when it\'s close to release day of a new update. There be scary happenings in there.

Seriously though, I\'m glad you\'re getting somewhere. I can remember the first time I landed one of my Merediths on the Mun - I must have used an entire tank of RCS fuel on the last 50 metres or so, so nervous was I of touching down too hard or at a bad angle. And my first return home was poorly calculated and involved a very undesirable orbit, being recaptured by the Mun (!!) and finally transferring back to a Kerbin orbit with just enough atmosphere to slow me down (after a few laps).

[Nataris]

I\'m 'getting somewhere', yes, but I just failed yet another mission. This is 3 crashes in a row while attempting a Mun landing. I am always just BARELY coming in to fast or on a bad angle.

So I guess that means it was bad news for the rescue attempt. They shall not be forgotten...

Anyway, this last time out my orbit around the Mun was wobbled with one side being a few degrees higher then the other. How can i fix that? I can never figure out which way is 'up' relative to how it is on map.

I am also having major problem reading the NavBall and need to research that a bit I think. I understand the pro, retro symbols but I have no idea how to determine anything else such as direction. Not to mention what the heck that pink symbol means on the ball.

Well, mission 14 here I come..

Ps- sorry for grammar mistakes. Typed on my Iphone :/

[BillWiskins]

Pink symbol = direction of the space centre. Personally, I haven\'t ever used it.

The nav-ball isn\'t that tough after a while. Obviously the brown half is the ground, or down, and the blue half is the sky, or up. It changes to refer to whichever body you\'re orbiting. Along the horizon line between the two are heading numbers - 0 is north, 90 is east, 180 is south and 270 is west. I think. Okay, go with that for now, I\'m not able to play KSP right now and paranoia has made me doubt my memory...but it seems right.

You also have lines that run parallel to the horizon line right up (and down) to the poles of the ball. These show your pitch angle in degrees.

When I\'m messing about above the Mun, to get my orientation easily compared with the map view, I rotate the camera so that the Mun looks the same way up as it is in the map - using the fact that one side is in shadow from your POV a lot of the time, that\'s not too hard. That way you can use the map to figure out where you need to be aiming your engines, and convert that easily when you switch back to normal view.

Also, it means that if I suffer from a catastrophic brain failure while using the nav-ball for such things, it is immediately obvious from the main view that the ship is pointing the wrong way...

As for adjusting the plane of your orbit, that\'s a bit more difficult. Basically you need to thrust at 90 degrees to the direction of your orbit, halfway between Ap and Pe. There is a thread that explains it better, I\'ll find it in a minute.

[BillWiskins]

Okay, so it wasn\'t as far away as I thought: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=7332.0

Some useful information in there, as well as the info on making your orbital planes align better.

Out of interest, how is your lander constructed? Do you use RCS?

[Nataris]

SUCCESS!! Mission 14 was a success!

'Kerbalville... We have landed on the Mun! It has been one hell of a journey. One... Small step for a Kerbal... One giant leap for Kerbal kind.'

Mission 14.5 --- Get back to Kerbal! Should be ok with a full tank.

Ill be leaving the triple tanks on the Mun as a marker of my greatness. I couldn\'t have done it without you guys. Thanks for the help.

[Kryten]

I\'d recommend saving first-getting back can be surprisingly difficult; my first few sets of Münwalkers ended up orbiting the sun.

[Nataris]

How do I save? I dont see it listed in the controls menu.. Didnt know it was even possible

Also, thanks for the tips Bill!

[BillWiskins]

Awesome, well done sir

I think you can quicksave using F5.

[Kryten]

I think you can quicksave using F5.

Yep, you need to hold F5 to save, then hold F9 to load.

[Nataris]

Awesome, well done sir

I think you can quicksave using F5.

Great, F5 and F9. Got it.

I hope the image above shows you my lander. I use a total of 7 RCS. This is a new design i just tried. I thought the 3 radial engines would help a bit. I tried to use the RCS but I just cant get the hang of them. I never no the proper direction so when I am brain farting during a crucial moment i press the wrong one. I need some RCS training

[BillWiskins]

Yeah, bloody RCS. Throws me off all the time too, and it\'s a pain for \'docking\'. I just do a \'test\' when I\'m a safe distance above ground to see which way \'L\' sends me, for example, then rotate the camera to match the controls. Never quite stays where you need it, but it\'s usually good enough. All but one of my landers so far have been RCS-only, so it was sort of necessary...

Does that extra RCS thruster cause any stability issues? Just curious.

[Nataris]

They LIVE!

After 14 missions, I have successfully landed on the Mun and safely returned!

Bill, the single RCS doesnt seem to cause any issues at all. I do that so I know where my windows are for the shuttle as well as a sign of general alignment of my ship. No real reason I guess. If you think they might be hampering my ship I might just take them off. From what I can tell it doesn\'t seem to affect stability in a negative way. But I am too new to probably tell at this point.

::Edit::

Sloppy grammatical errors.

[BillWiskins]

Ah, no, it sounds like it\'s working splendidly so I\'d leave it well enough alone

[SmiteZero]

Well done. Now put a satellite or two in orbit around the Mun for comms and start building a base.