Get Manned & Un-Manned Rovers to other planets.

[Sully805]

I'm just curious to see and hear other people's ideas for getting rovers to planets. I was able to get a rover to the mun by piggybacking it on the side of my lander. But I think the whole no atmosphere thing kinda helped me out. What about getting a rover through an atmosphere like duna?

[Postron]

Just give it parachutes, you might need 50-100 m/s to get out of orbit though.

[Skorpychan]

Just give it parachutes, you might need 50-100 m/s to get out of orbit though.

That's easily solved with a skycrane. Just stick some cheap engines (the tiny Rockomax radials work great) on so they're not firing into the rover, and attach chutes to the assembly, with an upside-down decoupler on the bottom. Once the whole thing's down, just crank the throttle up and hit the decoupler, and the skycrane will fire off upwards while you drive away.

Or you just set up for an aerobrake on Duna approach prior to releasing it from the interplanetary stage. It takes a bit of know-how, but you can get an orbit just from aerobraking, and then subsequent orbits slowing you to a landing.

[Fearless Son]

If you build a landing module with a wide base and radial engines, you can mount the rover beneath the lander. Just be sure there is enough clearance with the landing legs to fit the rover under it without crushing it. You can come into the atmosphere nose-first to pretend you are keeping the rover in the lee of the lander's aerobreaking, then flip it around for final descent. Once it touches down, detach the rover and it falls the few feet to the surface, where you can then drive it around.

[tsotha]

My last rover was mounted above the capsule near the top of the stack. At the very top was a monoprop tank with a couple 0-10s connected to the rover with a docking port. After landing I used the O-10s to get it to the ground, unhooked the docking port, and kind of "shrugged" off the monoprop tank using the rover's reaction wheel. It worked really well. I've tried to go the belly slung route but haven't had too much success because that's really where I'd like to put an engine . It just results in too many compromises.

[Crusher48]

I had a mobile base that was basically mounted vertically on a rocket (using the RCS tanks to counterbalance the wheels), that detached and used its RCS engines to land (or that was the plan, but it failed until I used up a lot of the transfer stage to move it in closer to the mun safely).

[TrooperCooper]

And if you cant figure thrust offset / symmetry out correctly, just mount two. Might not be as economically efficient, but it certainly is easy to do.

[Skorpychan]

Or split the rover into two halves that you dock together on the ground. I did that once, and it worked well. For a rover.

[cantab]

On Duna - and many other places - landing the rover on its wheels is reasonable. I suggest chutes to slow the fall and stabilise it, and engines for the final touchdown. To get back into orbit you have a choice - a separate ascent vehicle, an ascent stage that decouples from the rover, or make the whole thing fly back up.

[eddiew]

I find the 2.5m rocket cargo bay from SXT does a fine job of helping deliver rovers to the ground gracefully

For a landing on Duna, I'd probably have a small tank/adapter/something on the bottom end which would jettison within a few hundred metres of the surface.

[Spheniscine]

If you're willing to use mods, USI Exploration Pack has a special "Pack Rat" rover that is attachable to a delivery cage that you can land on. It is a little wide though.

[WhiteKnuckle]

I can't stress enough how good an idea it is to take two rovers when going anywhere farther than Minimus. Nothing sucks more than doing a huge mission out to Duna, making a perfect landing, then rolling over or busting a wheel or breaking your solar panels after only 5 minutes on the surface... ask me how I know

One of my favorite designs for a Duna rover transport was basically just an engine and fuel tank with a pair of girders sticking out from the sides at the top of the tank, the girders had stack separators that hung the rovers on either side of the tank, and the the rovers each had parachutes on them. Use the main engine to do your deorbit and most of the braking, then when you're at a reasonable airspeed and altitude, stage the separators and chutes as one. The rovers drop away and deploy their chutes and then you can crash the transport into the surface.