How do YOU land large rovers?

[LABHOUSE]

Not asking how to do it I know how but there are infinite solutions to every most problems.

[cantab]

Unsuccessfully.

But it was meant to land on its wheels, under parachute with a little engine burn for touchdown.

It worked OK on Eve, despite being a little front-heavy under chute. Rover in question.

[GoSlash27]

My rover *is* my lander

haha

-Slashy

[Werwolf]

Well, normally, they land in multiple pieces and explosions.

My successful ones... well, that depends. If the planet has an atmosphere, I use a combo of drogue chutes and then main chutes. If the planet doesn't have an atmosphere, i have a lander with the rover on top, and a small skycrane on top of that. Land, decouple the rover, use skycrane to fly it off the lander and land it... throttle up the skycrane, then decouple it. Skycrane goes flying off.

[timsfitz]

My large rovers have chutes and jump jets. Usually they can fly a few kilometers if they need to cross a canyon or something.

[Stargate525]

the one large rover I landed on the Mun had the descent stage bolted to its butt. Landed, retracted two of the legs, and tipped it down onto its wheels. Decoupled, limped it out of the reinforcing harness I had it on, and then repaired the wheels. From there it was good to go.

Edit: See photographic example below this post.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Stargate525

[Reactordrone]

For large rovers I usually land tail first and then rotate the craft to land on its wheels. Smaller rovers I've used skycranes or just flown them off using RCS on low gravity planets.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Reactordrone

[GoSlash27]

Like this.

Of course.. landings usually have payload I'm bringing to a surface, so it usually looks more like this:

-Slashy

[Jean Deaux]

I typically use a drop ship style approach, and detach my rover after safely landing. This allows any bumps to be absorbed by the lander and not the rover.

Here's a picture of a medium sized rover and you can see the dropship in the front right.

And here's a larger rover, same style dropship (not shown) but was a little bigger in design.

*EDIT*

Found a picture in my archive with the rover still attached to the dropship...

Edited August 19, 2014 by Jean Deaux
Added photo

[georgTF]

For large rovers i like to build a (disposable) lander engine into it and attach ballast to fix the CoM position.

Smaller rovers get a skycrane.

[Jean Deaux]

My rover *is* my lander

haha

-Slashy

I've used that approach too. Landed like a rocket, retracted the front gear and dropped down to drive. Works great in low-grav, just pop a wheelie, hit the jets, and you're heading back to space.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Jean Deaux
corrected spelling

[Landge]

I used 12 main chutes with 4 drogues with assistance from the rover's built-in engines when performing test landings on Kerbin:

Sorry there are no pics of the descent. The screen shots taken before landing were too dark.

The same rover complete with it's booster stage to send it on it's way to Mun:

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Unfortunately I didn't think it had enough fuel to chance making the journey back to Kerbin so I left it on Mun.

Due to the relatively low gravity on Duna my latest mobile base is able to land successfully without using parachutes:

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[Brofessional]

Usually with a frame like this, with rockets some fuel tanks on top instead of parachutes if it's a vacuum landing.

Second pic is an earlier prototype but you get the idea.

[juanml82]

The middle one is a rover. It didn't turn out too well but hey, it landed after all. And with the wheels down!

The rover had the CoM wrong or something, so it couldn't land on its own without spinning, I was supposed to send a second one as a counterweight but forgot about it and I had to sandwich it between the cupola and the booster instead of on top of the cupola (yes, I know) because it exploded after docking (beats me. A bug, more likely).

Oh, and why I didn't send two from the beginning?

Part testing contracts. I got one about testing an S1 SRB landed on Minmus.

[TheKutKu]

On planets with atmosphere: Aerobraking then Lithobraking

On Planets without atmosphere: Lithobraking only

[DeepSpaceDutch]

Not exactly a rover, but I use the same system for them;

[TimePeriod]

I just use a single massive engine (mainsail/skipper) with a minor tank of fuel ½ or 1/4 orange tank and then come to a complete stop within 2-3 seconds of landing.

Yeah I love drop-pod style landings.

[Aragosnat]

Something like this:

As this design style will give me a base for my rovers to return to, maybe. But, at the very least it will give my rover a way to judge how far I have traveled from the landing spot as currently every time you leave the rover for a new craft or to build a new craft you lose the distance of how far you have traveled. Plus if I do it right, so far not yet, I have a potential fuel depo to use for my landers as well as a start of a base location for a colony if the area is level enough.

[Boris_T_Roach]

Do you mean this size large rover ?

This rover comes in 2 versions.... airless world and atmospheric .... This duna version landed by a descent stage to bring the PE down to about 8km then 2 drogue chutes deployed with the descent unit firing, finally all the main chutes opened and the descent stage dropped. still broke 6 wheels on landing.

Airless version has the drogue chutes removed and fly away retro thrusters attatched to the top, usually 3 or 4 designed to let go when the rover lands.

Boris

[Rocketscience101]

I generally don't build very big things. My missions do actually last that long in all truth.

[DocMoriarty]

My typical Minmus and Mun rover looks like this and has 2 48-7S Rockomax engines at it's bottom for final touchdown.

Actually didn't build any real rovers in 0.24.x yet.

[Wallace]

For really large ones (eg lab on wheels) I use the technique perfectly illustrated by ReactorDome, the ol' butt-first and flop.

For largeish ones (eg seats for 4 or 6 kerbals) I use a drop pod with usually top thrusters big landing legs and a large girder down the middle, with two rover held vertically which then detach and flop down.

I generally avoid landing unmanned rovers on their wheels due to burst tires, unless there is a kerbal about to fix it, I usually use a underneath engine, kind of like a lunokhod style thing but with no nice lil ramps to drive down, they have to wobble their way off the lander base.

[Taleric]

Mine are all Viking style till Duna ect biomes where the cost benefit would be huge, then return of the rovers!!!

I like the lander that deploys the rover from beneath hoping it is not squished on landing.

[FacialJack]

hi all, i do same way than Jean Deaux (es tu Fr?),

First time, its for landing my MünTruck :

its a few "brouillon"

the arm deploy and slowly let truck go.

Second more elaborate design, its for manipulator (needed when it appear that Müntruck robotic arm isnt precise enough for manipulate the materialbay and charge them on return rocket)

Very close to ure design jean

Manipulator

But, after that, i decide to stop rover as tehir less usefull than a hopper, like Mobility 2:

[Brotoro]

How "large" is a "large rover"?