Pre-Munar Landing Anonymous - A support group

[maltesh]

Your lander looks very likely to tip over if you bring it down on even a slight incline. At the very least, you\'re going to have to be near-point-perfect on lateral surface velocity on touchdown and will probably need to work the stick and RCS to keep from tilting.

If you\'ve got to have the two-stage lander, I really would recommend a wider base for the legs. Though the ways you can do that on stock parts tend to be heavy.

Edit: Here\'s one way to a wider base on stock parts.

The lander has four half-size tanks, which gives it as much fuel as the last two stages of your two-stage lander. I\'d guessthat it currently has more than four times the fuel I\'d need to get it back to Kerbin (the last pre-lander stage did the slowing to a low-altitude vertical descent, and was then chucked at the Mun to gauge local altitude)

[RyanGt04]

btw it looks like your lander legs might be too high up, so the craft would probably end up landing on its engine.

That\'s actually kind of a funny story, I didn\'t know how to lower the lander legs at the time. So instead of taking a couple seconds to look at the key bindings I just went ahead with my mission to the Mun and hoped that when I reached the stage with the legs in it they would lower....obviously this was a small mistake on my part. Now I\'m going to try it the right way

*Update- I made some adjustments to the location of the lander legs to ensure they would extend below the engine and made a very successful entrance into Mun\'s orbit. The lander had a good separation from its main fuel tank and was approaching the surface for a smooth landing with gear extended this time. However, during my modification of the landing legs I did not notice that symmetry was not enabled! Its not very easy to land on one landing leg. The result was eerily similar to my previous post.

[boolybooly]

lol, sorry to hear that, better luck next time!

[Johno]

I made modifications to the design as per Maltesh\'s recommendations. So Swordfish 2 flew (actually Swordfish 2A flew first, with added fuel in the TMI stage, but it proved too much for the booster to get into orbit; so the design reverted to 2).

I give credit, it certainly had more than enough fuel to do the job.

However, I made an error on landing (cut engines when I meant to increase the throttle), and tore the legs off. Fortunately, the bounce was high enough to get me flying again, and I had just barely enough time to light the fires before hitting the ground.

It was a complicated procedure maneuvering with such a lot of dead mass and only a tiny engine; but it ended up being just fine.

Therefore we didn\'t land, but after a touch-and-go, we got the crew home.

One thing - this proves the concept. It CAN land.

[wired2thenet]

Okay. We\'ve had one dress rehearsal - all but the actual descent - and I believe that this rocket can do it.

Swordfish 1A is a development on the Swordfish 1. The Swordfish 1 was the same design, but lacking the four solid rocket boosters just below the midline (initial flight trials pointed to a need for more sustained boost at the 2000m - 5000m phase of the flight).

Swordfish 1A is designed to be boosted out of the atmosphere by its quadruple 5-tank Liquid engines. The three-tank vectoring engine should then perform a TMI burn.

Once the craft is approaching the Mun, the next step is an orbital injection performed by the single tank 3rd stage. There is a dedicated lander stage, with a return stage.

Opinions, ladies and gentlemen?

/sniff

This design is so very Kerbal. Will have to try it soon

[blueman]

I just bought the full game yesterday and was able to complete a mun mission after reading all the helpful tips in this thread/watching a tutorial vid. Thanks y\'all! This game is a blast.

Heres my ship and mission pics:

My noble vessel, the Munblaster 2:

A perfect landing on the mun:

home sweet home:

next mission: Fire some Kerbals into the sun. For science.

[boolybooly]

Well played, took me about two weeks to get into orbit !

I like your ship, have you heard of Heath Robinson ?

[Commander Zoom]

next mission: Fire some Kerbals into the sun. For science.

You monster.

(Seriously, congratulations and welcome to the Program!)

[blueman]

Well played, took me about two weeks to get into orbit !

I like your ship, have you heard of Heath Robinson ?

Haha, I didn\'t think it was THAT complicated. The whole thing keeps stable through launch with just three wings and three maneuverable jet thrusters (with advanced SAS.) All of the stages come apart very elegantly too, no chance of anything colliding.

My absolute favorite part is the lander. The fat bottom makes it nearly impossible to tip over, and even if I land a bit too hard and break the underside, I can still launch off the lander with my final stage, just like the old American system.

Definitely overbuilt, but I\'m a big fan of redundant safety systems. Gotta keep my little green buddies safe!

edit: I just removed the winglets and it still launches perfectly straight. neat!

[willitstimothy]

I just bought the full game yesterday and was able to complete a mun mission after reading all the helpful tips in this thread/watching a tutorial vid. Thanks y'all! This game is a blast.

I did it the first day...with no help at all.

I guess I should be able to though, given that I am a pilot, a college sophomore, and a student of engineering.

Edited August 17, 2012 by willitstimothy

[VincentMcConnell]

I did it the first day...with no help at all.

I guess I should be able to though, given that I am a pilot, a college sophomore, and a student of engineering.

Look out guys... We got a badass over here...

[Zephram Kerman]

No, I\'m not a professional rocket scientist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Hey, welcome aboard Blueman. Nicely done, too.

[Johno]

Well, I\'ve now got a spacecraft that reliably makes it into Munar orbit, and I have a lander that should do the job.

What I need now is a pilot who\'s up to snuff.

In an attempt last night, I was at 180,000m and getting bored (as I\'d killed sideways movement). So I put on the time warp. . .

No, that wasn\'t smart.

It got stuck. When I got it out of time warp, I was at 700m/s and at 40,000m . . . .

The crater was enormous.

[blueman]

You monster.

(Seriously, congratulations and welcome to the Program!)

Well, I completed the sun-probe mission, to mixed success. It seems like there is no actual sun there, just a very shiny singularity, as I got my orbit to 1000 m from center at the periapsis and still didn\'t hit anything. However, I was able to take my kerbals to about 100,000,000 m/s, which is a third of the speed of light. So I guess I invented kerbal interstellar travel.

Well, I\'ve now got a spacecraft that reliably makes it into Munar orbit, and I have a lander that should do the job.

What I need now is a pilot who\'s up to snuff.

In an attempt last night, I was at 180,000m and getting bored (as I\'d killed sideways movement). So I put on the time warp. . .

No, that wasn\'t smart.

It got stuck. When I got it out of time warp, I was at 700m/s and at 40,000m . . . .

The crater was enormous.

Haha, the first time I got close to the Mun I did something similar. I ran out of gas trying to kill my sideways motion (I came in at a ridiculous orbit,) and ended up crashing at over 1000 m/s at a steep angle. wreckage stretched for kilometers =D.

[khyron42]

Well, I completed the sun-probe mission, to mixed success. It seems like there is no actual sun there, just a very shiny singularity, as I got my orbit to 1000 m from center at the periapsis and still didn\'t hit anything. However, I was able to take my kerbals to about 100,000,000 m/s, which is a third of the speed of light. So I guess I invented kerbal interstellar travel.

Congratulations! You\'ve got the basics down. I\'d say practice more munar landings though! To me, there\'s always a new landing craft to try out or a new targetted landing to try.

I had forgotten that Kerbol/the Sun is not there on the demo. In the paid version, anything that gets within about 10000 km of the Sun\'s 'surface' explodes to be at least slightly more realistic. You don\'t get the random excess acceleration at that point, so it\'s just a normal orbit or kaboom. Less exciting, but then, the paid version lets you do much more fun landing craft.

Kopernicus Base. Parts from 5 different mod packs including three with paid-version-only plugins (unfolding solar panels, floodlights from a rover plugin, and an autopilot.)

[Johno]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAA!

Finally, I have landed on the Mun and returned successfully!

Swordfish 2 is the design that has done it. I think I probably burned too much fuel in the process (I ended up returning safely only on the RCS), and I\'m sure I could have put an ascent stage in; but now I am a Mun lander, and all the rest is mere details!

Pics or it didn\'t happen? No problem!

[Zhent]

What is the best method of designing a lander? I started with the return module, added the lander module, and am now working on the lifter - is that pretty standard?

How do you go about determining how much power is needed to catapult any given Mun Lander out of orbit?

[maltesh]

Finally, I have landed on the Mun and returned successfully!

Well done.

What is the best method of designing a lander? I started with the return module, added the lander module, and am now working on the lifter - is that pretty standard?

How do you go about determining how much power is needed to catapult any given Mun Lander out of orbit?

You can easily return a capsule on a half-size fuel tank, though it\'s very dependent on how you decide to do it.

If you launch, get into an eastward orbit at ~10km, then run up to ~900 m/s when you cross the middle of the near face, you will probably exit the rear of the Munar SOI directly into an orbit that drops you on Kerbin. If it doesn\'t, all you\'ll need to do is decelerate a bit more and it will.

Similarly, a for simple landers, a single liquid fuel tank and a small engine can land, take off again, and return to Kerbin, though it helps a lot if the Munar insertion stage was still around to do a lot of the landing deceleration.

The primary concerns are going to be not using too much of the fuel on descent, and stability on the surface. You have to get fairly massive (or choose an unforgiving descent profile) before standard-size LFEs are necessary on the lander.

[Zhent]

Well done.

You can easily return a capsule on a half-size fuel tank, though it\'s very dependent on how you decide to do it.

Similarly, a for simple landers, a single liquid fuel tank and a small engine can land, take off again, and return to Kerbin, though it helps a lot if the Munar insertion stage was still around to do a lot of the landing deceleration.

So, I have attached my current iteration of a moon lander. The lander itself is based around one that I saw in a youtube - it looks very stable, and appeared to have enough fuel to more than get the job done. The video, unfortunately, cut in about halfway through so I\'m not positive how the base was created.

I\'m having trouble - this setup doesn\'t seem to have the oomph needed to get into orbit, and then from there to get an escape velocity. If anyone could take a quick look at it, and explain what I\'m doing wrong [probably needs more engines, but that means more fuel, which is more weight... somewhere I get confused.]

Thanks!

[Zephram Kerman]

So, I have attached my current iteration of a moon lander...

I tried it out; the thrust-to-weight ratio is just fine at liftoff. In fact, it can throttle back to 90% between 2-10 km. It was hard to control the first time out. But then I noticed three of the lander engines were missing, which put it off balance. (Or, was the one radial engine not supposed to be there?) Fixing that made it quite stable.

I think you could get away with removing one fuel tank from the center stack if you want to. Using standard ascent, gravity turn, and circularization on the second test flight, we had started TMI before it finally ran out of fuel. Usually I jettison the launcher while still circularizing (PE < 24 km), so that it doesn\'t clutter up my sky.

The five lander engines are plenty powerful. I tested this by putting it on collision course and doing a nearly vertical descent with the fuel tanks nearly full. Maybe remove two or more of those engines, and use that weight budget for lander legs. (On touchdown, the craft did not tip over. But one of the engines fell off, of course.) Not sure if you want to use those radial engines as an ascent stage, or just for descent to discard on the surface. There is so much fuel, you could do either, or do several landings.

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAA!

Finally, I have landed on the Mun and returned successfully!

Swordfish 2 is the design that has done it. I think I probably burned too much fuel in the process (I ended up returning safely only on the RCS), and I\'m sure I could have put an ascent stage in; but now I am a Mun lander, and all the rest is mere details!

Pics or it didn\'t happen? No problem!

Well done.

[Zhent]

I tried it out; the thrust-to-weight ratio is just fine at liftoff. In fact, it can throttle back to 90% between 2-10 km. It was hard to control the first time out. But then I noticed three of the lander engines were missing, which put it off balance. (Or, was the one radial engine not supposed to be there?) Fixing that made it quite stable.

I think you could get away with removing one fuel tank from the center stack if you want to. Using standard ascent, gravity turn, and circularization on the second test flight, we had started TMI before it finally ran out of fuel. Usually I jettison the launcher while still circularizing (PE < 24 km), so that it doesn\'t clutter up my sky.

The five lander engines are plenty powerful. I tested this by putting it on collision course and doing a nearly vertical descent with the fuel tanks nearly full. Maybe remove two or more of those engines, and use that weight budget for lander legs. (On touchdown, the craft did not tip over. But one of the engines fell off, of course.) Not sure if you want to use those radial engines as an ascent stage, or just for descent to discard on the surface. There is so much fuel, you could do either, or do several landings.

Thanks. This has confirmed that the issue does, in fact, reside in the pilots seat. I will continue practicing and hopefully achieve success

[dannyboy1238]

I still have not landed on the mun! It\'s really sad.

Every time i come close i get flung into a solar orbit!!! IM SO FREAKING MAD but seriously im going to stab someone :l

[VincentMcConnell]

I still have not landed on the mun! It\'s really sad.

Every time i come close i get flung into a solar orbit!!! IM SO FREAKING MAD but seriously im going to stab someone :l

You\'re obviously doing something wrong. There are plenty of good videos on how to do it.

[Kosmo-not]

I still have not landed on the mun! It\'s really sad.

Every time i come close i get flung into a solar orbit!!! IM SO FREAKING MAD but seriously im going to stab someone :l

Sounds like you\'re not slowing down when you get to the Mun.