A good 2-way mun lander with lifter for beginners?

[lukeoftheaura]

Hi,

I'm trying to teach my friend to go to the mun , he has played ksp before and knows how to orbit.

Could anyone suggest a good 2-way (kerbin-mun-kerbin) lander that has a rocket (ie. the .craft file is all you need)

Please just stock, and nothing over 350 or so parts.

thanks.

[RainDreamer]

Sandbox build or career mode build? So that we know if there are limitation on tech level, and how much tech we can use. The extremely efficient LV-N engine, for example, is almost a must-have for any craft intended for space travel, but it is quite far away in the tech tree, so not exactly for beginner in that sense. But if we are playing sand box and has everything right off the bat, then that is different.

Check out the stock crafts that comes with a new game too, I remember there is a lander there, good enough for landing on the mun and go back.

[lukeoftheaura]

Sandbox build or career mode build? So that we know if there are limitation on tech level, and how much tech we can use. The extremely efficient LV-N engine, for example, is almost a must-have for any craft intended for space travel, but it is quite far away in the tech tree, so not exactly for beginner in that sense. But if we are playing sand box and has everything right off the bat, then that is different.

Check out the stock crafts that comes with a new game too, I remember there is a lander there, good enough for landing on the mun and go back.

sandbox mode.

[UmbralRaptor]

The big problem with this one is that there's not much ÃŽâ€V margin for Mun landings. Expanding the lifter stage from 3 to 5-7 engines, or strapping on some boosters might help. I would like to point out that the first stage is an SSTO, and the second goes from LKO to the Mun (or Mimus) surface and back.

From older versions of KSP. The MJ numbers are wrong in that they're now higher performance: (Lander TWR for both, ÃŽâ€V for the Skipper-based one)

[Rhomphaia]

the stock Kerbal X should work fairly well.

[lukeoftheaura]

the stock Kerbal X should work fairly well.

I want it to get back tho

[Rhomphaia]

I want it to get back tho

It does now. Recent updates buffed the poodle and the mainsail. So now the lifter gets it easily into orbit without touching the upper stages fuel and the upper stage can get to Mun and back.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Rhomphaia

[Starman4308]

I want it to get back tho

As mentioned, courtesy of buffs to the Rockomax engines, the Kerbal X is now capable of Munar round trips. It's still not a good design for a few reasons, which I'll elaborate on later.

In general, it's not very hard. 7.5-8 km/s should be sufficient, and other than that, all you need to do is have a decent launch profile and enough TWR for a Mun landing. This can be achieved rather simply with just two stages, though three can help a bit. I made a 2.5-stage modification to the Kerbal X which squeezes out 700 m/s more delta-V (mostly by replacing the Poodle with an LV-909), costing 11,000 less funds, and massing just 8 tonnes more (including a better solar panel arrangement).

As to the Kerbal X, If you're going to use asparagus staging, you don't add six wimpy little tanks and call it a day: you need your asparagus stages to be comparable in size to the central stage, because otherwise you won't benefit from asparagus for very long. For example, the Kerbal X's radial fuel tanks last about 50 seconds, by which time you're just barely about to start your gravity turn. The solar panel placement is sub-par: a whole circle of angles exists for which neither solar panel gets any light. A tetrahedral arrangement is the minimum necessary to get light from any angle onto OX-STAT panels, though it can be difficult to make that look good on most craft (though the Stayputnik core makes it look easy). The outer stages could also use struts to keep them from bending towards the rocket.

It's got some excess mass on the first stage. Hydraulic detachment manifolds are meant for particularly large 3.75m stacks, and could easily be replaced with TR-18As. Aerodynamic nose cones, while aesthetic, actually make drag worse in stock, because stock applies drag to every part in proportion to its mass, including nose cones. The FAR and NEAR mods help correct this deficiency, but they do significantly alter gameplay. Six fins could be replaced by three, particularly if you rearrange things a bit and place them a bit further down on the rocket, because fins help you more if they are farther from the center of mass. The Rockomax Poodle is mostly just dead mass: an LV-909 has the same Isp, will give you a Mun TWR of 2.10, and the mass reduction will give you 550 m/s more delta-V.

[Pecan]

sandbox mode.

Tutorial in my signature, Chapter 5 for lunar (Minmus & Mun) return missions. Note that Minmus is the easier mission, although it requires matching-planes which might be a bit arcane. "Kerpollo" in Chapter 6 is a good Apollo-like demonstration vehicle if you are showing him how it's done and want something more familiar.

Links to the downloadable .PDF version and .craft files are in the OP.

[Vanamonde]

Sandbox

Career

[cantab]

https://flic.kr/p/pLmJcL

This was one of my simpler designs. It can be further simplified by omitting the rover and using an LV-909 on the lander instead of dual 48-7S. There's ample delta-V for stock and it handles OK in FAR too. It is slow off the pad, personally I don't mind that, but if you object you could swap the Skipper for a Mainsail.

[SRV Ron]

Some example designs;

And, a demo design with plenty of fuel to land and return.

Finally, a probe rocket to fulfill contract missions.

Edited December 1, 2014 by SRV Ron

[WanderingKid]

It looks like SRV Ron above has some good screenshots for you to work from. In sandbox you can slap roughly anything together and get to Mun with the higher tech pieces. A MK 1 capsule, a T200 tank, a couple of landing legs, a few orange external thrusters (the fire extinguishers) wrapped around the tank. A parachute to land with later. Separate that off a lifter assembly after Mun insertion and you can land/leave without any significant issues for 20-30k in kerbalbucks.

Assuming you want lowtech and more interesting, however, here's my Kerbal Visitor project from my career mode. I like to get the most out of my launches (I play hard) so I tend to bring a lot of science stuff along, otherwise I'd have to come back to these places earlier than I desire to get the necessary tech for the next contract(s).

So below, a Tech 3/4 Munar/Minmus Visitor that should net (assuming polar orbits for biome evas) significant science for each trip.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

(Edit2: Got the Gallery working)

The key to this is to watch your contracts after completion of the landing/science portion (easily done with crew reports). You can usually pick up a 'science from orbit' and a 'plant flag' contract almost immediately (cancel a few crappy ones if you don't) and net a cool 300-500k in bucks for each trip. Well worth the 70k of the craft itself.

Craft file is here:https://www.dropbox.com/s/vej5tlsy5202i5s/Kerbal%20Visitor.craft?dl=0

Edited December 1, 2014 by WanderingKid

[SRV Ron]

Probe landed with plenty of fuel to return;

Demo ship landing.

And, a simple Sandbox design;

[Engineer of Stuff]

Here is mine. It has a large amount of fuel, so lots of room for error.

Launch.

Separating the launch stage.

The transfer stage.

Decent stage.

Landing stage.

Return stage.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zysomnfmxt3ozhv/2%20STOCK.craft?dl=0

I think it is less than 400 parts.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Engineer Of Stuff

[capi3101]

Hi,

I'm trying to teach my friend to go to the mun , he has played ksp before and knows how to orbit.

Could anyone suggest a good 2-way (kerbin-mun-kerbin) lander that has a rocket (ie. the .craft file is all you need)

Please just stock, and nothing over 350 or so parts.

thanks.

I designed this one just the other day for my sister-in-law; they were using KSP in a physics course she was taking and she asked for help on the exact same thing (namely getting a payload to Mun and back). It's an all-stock unmanned craft with a little over 8,000 m/s of delta-V (i.e. good for beginners who don't feel like killing Kerbals the first time they go to the Mun). It's a science lander that utilizes '>Temstar's asparagus principles for the booster and '>Geschosskopf's science gathering principles for the payload. To turn it into a manned craft, throw away the big chute and attach a Mk1 Lander Can, 2 radial chutes and a small chute in its place; you'll lose about 500 m/s of delta-V in the transaction, so you'll have to pilot it a little more carefully but it should still be capable of completing the mission. "1" activates the solar panels, "0" sets off the sci bomb. Name's a bit quirky but you can feel free to rename it if you wish...