Reattachable Rovers

[davidpsummers]

I've been developing reusability in my game. Shuttles to go back and forth between stations, reusable boosters to push out of orbit to other planets, etc.

I've been looking at landers/rovers. The landers themselves are pretty easy to reused (leave them in orbit over the planet after you come back up and bring fuel for them next mission). But what about the rovers? At the moment I drop them from below the lander (picture below) and the are stuck at that site. I could replace the decoupler, but I would have to not have them "drop"? That means the lander would have to land with the wheel just touching the ground, but then you have to worry about the rover getting impact forces if your landing isn't perfect?

Suggestions?

Edited November 22, 2014 by davidpsummers

[Pecan]

Rovers are generally not very useful but if you want to drive around a bit the simplest way is to put wheels on your landers.

In your picture, for instance, that thing would land on the legs. Instead of dropping/disconnecting the rover just retract the legs and it will settle onto the wheels. Now you can drive around.

(That particular one would be top-heavy but then it's a very big lander. You get the idea, anyway).

[phunk]

I've been developing reusability in my game. Shuttles to go back and forth between stations, reusable boosters to push out of orbit to other planets, etc.

I've been looking at landers/rovers. The landers themselves are pretty easy to reused (leave them in orbit over the planet after you come back up and bring fuel for them next mission). But what about the rovers? At the moment I drop them from below the lander (picture below) and the are stuck at that site. I could replace the decoupler, but I would have to not have them "drop"? That means the lander would have to land with the wheel just touching the ground, but then you have to worry about the rover getting impact forces if your landing isn't perfect?

Suggestions?

http://i.imgur.com/0fJPcbM.png

Maybe use the landing gear to lower the lander down to the rover? Like, have two sets of gear at different heights. Land, drive the rover into position underneath, then retract the first set of landing gear to lower it onto the other set.

I've put maybe 30 seconds of thought into this so no guarantees that it will work well, but I'm going to try it when I get home from work.

[Zylark]

I hoist mine back up to dock with the lander using KAS winches.

Great for doing FinePrint mod rover contracts - and there is quite a few of them popping up.

[cantab]

Docking port on the top of the rover, docking port on the bottom of the lander.

To redock you have several options. You could arrange things so you can drive under and the magnetism pulls you in, pull in the lander legs thus dropping it onto the rover, give the rover legs to lift itself up, or give the rover rockets to lift itself up.

Generally speaking "vertical" docking works well. "Horizontal" docking - with a port on the nose of the rover and one on the side of the lander - typically has issues with vertical alignment. They may line up fine on Kerbin but the different gravity elsewhere will throw them out.

Edited November 20, 2014 by cantab

[DrD]

I had some success with locking the suspension on the landing legs when landing, then after I drove my rover back under I unlocked suspension and used RCS transplant retrograde and the lander moved down enough for the ports to grab. I had to lock them initially because the rover was so close to the landing pads that with suspension unlocked I'd have broken the wheels. As it was with suspenson locked the rover wheels were very close to the surface.

[Belphegor]

one of the rovers i'm putting together for a minmus (low gravity) mission has a small fuel supply and a thruster directly behind the CoM. i plan to drive it up a hill and blow it into orbit where a tug can dock to it. the rover i already sent up there is actually a simple rocket with wheels that can be used as a tug. it de orbited itself, landed and preformed 3 sub orbital hops, afterwards it just lands vertically on it's landing legs again and a small rcs thruster flips it back onto it's wheels. there is a pic i posted earlier in the 'what did you do today' thread.

but this severely limits the design of your rover and works only in low gravity off course

[kerbiloid]

Roverdude's PackRat  pack/unpack.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86695-0-25-USI-Exploration-Pack-Small-parts-big-adventure!-v-0-2-5-2014-11-01

Alexustas' PRC  pack/unpack.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86343-Portable-Rover-Components-New-project-from-ASET-%28up-29-07-14%29

Allista's Hangar  not a rover itself, but a container for ships/rovers as a KAS container.

Put a rover inside, move to destination, get it back from hangar.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88933-0-25-0-Hangar-v1-3-0

[LordFerret]

I've posted these before in another thread. The design was inspired by several other's examples. Works great on Mun and Minmus. Rover has an OKTO for control, or a Kerbalite driver. Rover science complex is also autonomous, with an OKTO control. After landing the rover/science complex, 3 Kerbalites were landed nearby. I un-docked and drove the rover out to pick them up... then returned, putting 2 in the science module and leaving the 3rd to drive around and do science. Driving up beneath the science module, the magnetics of the docking port simply pulls the rover back up and it docks... science gets transferred and processed... then undock and head out again. Lander legs were locked fully extended before landing. It's one way of doing it anyway, worked for me. The only thing I'd change about it now was the use of the Place-Anywhere RCS ports, I was playing around with them... should have stuck with the RV-105's. This was done all stock/no mods in v0.23.5.

[lukeoftheaura]

stick a port on ya rover and ya lander

[LethalDose]

To get the rover a few inches up to docking port above it, you can throw some radially mounted thrusters on the rover to lift it a few feet to dock.

[Steambirds]

Rather than drop the rover, I have it equipped with a small quantity of monopropellant and a few RCS thrusters so that way I can land normally and use the RCS to hop off of the lander. If I ever need to recover the rover, I just use a docking port instead of a decoupler. Works like a charm.