Help with Mun

[Bread Teleporter]

I've clocked 60-odd hours on KSP and yet still haven't got to the Mun. Can someone help me?
Give me some tips, and answer questions like,
How much Delta-V is required to get into an orbit around Kerbin via a gravity turn at 10km and then expand this orbit to rendezvous with the Mun then get into an orbit, but not land?
How can I maximize the Delta-V in a rocket without expanding?

[Bread Teleporter]

People like Scott Manley for example, make it look easy but it's really difficult for me
FYI, I have KW rocketry, Kethane and a couple more mods installed.

[Ploert]

I'm not really into that "calculating what you need" part of KSP, but I still get to the places I want to... trial and error mostly.

Anyway, as a basis I design my ships to work in certain parts. 1 for reaching the required altitude, the 2nd for achieving orbit, 3rd for reaching the target and a possible 4th mission/return.

That does not mean I have just 4 stages, I have parts of the rocket which serve a certain use.

In the worst possible case, get a space station up and just fuel up there. Also, getting a high acceleration is easier with a light ship so a bigger ship does not equal a bigger dV

[baldrick]

The easy way...

Install Flight Engineer mod. Select RDV (rendezvous) and pick Mun as the target. Wait for Intercept Angle to count down to 0 degrees. Fire engines prograde. From low orbit it should take about 580 m/s delta-v.

The slightly harder way...

Wait for the Mun to rise and then fire engines prograde (i.e. just eyeball it).

In both cases you should have achieved an equitorial prograde orbit first (i.e. 90 degrees heading on lift-off). Delta-v to achieve orbit is about 4800 m/s.

[EDIT] According to the delta-v map posted later my figures are a bit off. 8000 delta-v total for landing and return seems about right. I actually got to Duna with less. I think even in our own solar system it takes less delta-v to land on Mars than on the Moon (it just takes longer to get there).

Maximising delta-v...

Use solid fuel boosters for lift-off. They are more efficient than liquid fuel ones and will be jettisoned soon after lift-off, reducing weight.

If an engine nossle is exposed to the air it should be burning, not idle, so don't carry it half way to orbit with the engine inactive. The only engines that should be idle are ones inside the stack that require a decouple of a lower stage to expose the nossle.

Don't exceed 200 m/s below 10,000m altitude (very inefficient for rocket engines).

Don't carry around half empty tanks for longer than you have to. Use good staging to ensure that once there is more air in them than fuel they will soon be jettisoned.

[Bread Teleporter]

OK, I'll try it I'll post again if I have any more questions

[Celeron]

getting to the mun is easy for me but try look at some videos.

[bugman]

trial and error and luck works for me i have 196hours in and still cant build proper ship all time lol. unless its ones i copied peice by peice from videos lol

[Cybrviper]

I am generally online and willing to help you. i will send you a friend request.

[Cybrviper]

also this may help you figure out deltav needs: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/File:KerbinDeltaVMap.png

[Rage Clown ®™]

edit*i use default game, no mods, c mode.*

Originally posted by RorusBass:

In the worst possible case, get a space station up and just fuel up there. Also, getting a high acceleration is easier with a light ship so a bigger ship does not equal a bigger dV

Kinda.... theres a slope that can be exploited if you can commit to very long hauls....



but as for making it to the moon.... Ive penciled it out a couple times when if fallen short of my goals but for the most part i dident even care about d-v on my mun missions.

a common method people use to avoid calculations is what i call cowboy R&D.

Im going to offer a: launch - to orbit - to reentry - model.

Build a basic working model and expand to the limit.

Start with your launching rocket. my first model could handle a payload of arround 10t. Right now i use a jumper that can handle arround 90t. It took me probubly 50 designs to get to 90t. The wall i face now is linkage between rockomax parts... usally sas or guidence models. its an asparagus style jumper in 3 stages. First stage gets me to 10k second is ment for 75-100k and the third stage is the orbit model and also gives any excess fuel to the payload if i had to reduce payload fuel to blance the jumper or stabilize the linkage. if the payload is full you can ditch the 3rd stage or for added challenge use it for the jump from kerbin to the mun.

I strongly recomend jumps in stages (launch-orbit, jump from orbit body 1 to body2) if your not a pencil jocky.

Once you get a working model of a jumper find the mass it can move and start building your lander.

When i first started ksp and since im not intrested in 'tool's' like mechjeb docking was a huge problem for me. So i designed lander models that could make it to the mun and back in one ship. This spawned me to creat landers like the 'ottomann'

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=212331551

This is actually a 3 stage rocket as well. What is missing is a medium can with a 'poodle' motor that i used for the transit from kerbin to mun. After i collected my science samples i got back on that lander. the stage seperates from the 'lander fuel can with the legs' from the fuel tank holding the single 30 motor. I burned the fuel in the legs to get to orbit in the mun. ditched the legs and all that was left was a lil lander can module, science, and meh kerbal. About only 120 fuel was needed for a hard burn that threw me into kerbin. A gentle chute ride and i had me over 400 science in one jump without docking, kerbal loss or the need to refuel.

Anyways..... this example is a mark 8 or so.... my first setup wasent quite so complicated. But hopefully you get the jest. Mostly if you wanna work arround delta-v its easy at the price of time. If you just dont have an limitless gameing time allowence. There are tools and mods you can get from the 'offical' website that will do a lot of work for you. They work ok from what i hear but you will not learn as much along they way.

[Gertjan]

getting into orbit around kerbin needs a rough 4500 m/s deltaV, another 1000 to get into mun orbit (800 for the encounter, then 200 to get captured), landing can be done for ~800, getting back off is at least 500, and finally 200 to escape mun straight into airobraking at kerbin (all assuming good timing), for a total land-and-get-home deltaV of a rough 7000 m/s.
i design my rockets to have a rough 6000 to get onto the mun and 2500 for the return, oreferably a total of 10.000 m/s to acount for losses in manouvering and throwing away parts without lander legs.

i have had mechjeb fly me a mission that took 6500 m/s in total, ut manually i usually use 7500, ignoring "throwaway"

[Bubba Fett]

If you're playing in career mode and are hoping to do these trips with limited parts to collect science points, the Mun may be the wrong target.
I was having a lot of trouble with Mun landings. I could get there easily enough but by the time I got to the surface I no longer had the fuel to get into orbit let alone back to kerbin.

Finally I decided to try Minmus and found that it was MUCH easier. It's about 3 times as far and on an inclined orbit so you'd think it's a lot harder to get to, but it actually only takes a little more fuel to get there and much less to land and get home because of it's much lighter gravity than the Mun.
I failed on the Mun 4 times then succeded on Minmus the first time and got home with lots of fuel left.
To get there, put yourself in orbit around kerbin and make a maneuver node. Drag out the green prograde stick till the apoasis is just past the orbit marker for minmus. Drag the maneuver node by the circle till you see an intersect marker on your projected path and on minmus's orbital path. You need to lead Minmus's current position by quite a bit. Almost a quarter orbit.
Once you get an intersect marker you probably just need to adjust the purple Normal +- sticks till you get a periapsis marker. Then keep tweaking it till it's as close as possible.
After your transfer burn you'll probably need to do a correction burn. I find the transfer burn usually takes long enough that it's not accurate by the time you finish it.
Don't try to align your orbits first though. It takes a lot of dV and doesn't make things much easier.

I generally plan on 5000 dV to get to Kerbin orbit. (I like to play safe)
It usually takes be 925 to 950 dV for the transfer burn then about 100 to enter minmus orbit.
Getting to the surface then back to orbit will take about 250 each. In reality landing takes more because you're more careful on descent but 500 total will get you up and down easy enough.
Returning to Kerbin will take you another 100 to 120dV and if you make your kerbin periapsis about 30km areobraking will slow you for landing.

This is my first Minmus lander. It starts with just under 2400 m/s of dV. In theory it could go from kerbin orbit to minmus, land and get back, but for this mission the transfer stage released it in minmus orbit fully fueled so there was fuel for multiple landings.

Once your on the surface your EVA pack is quite effecitve there. You can operate in about a 10 km radius of your lander getting surface samples and doing EVA reports in nearby biomes. (you'll get a bit more science if you transmirt your surface sample for the low gain then go get another sample for return)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=224246269

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=224245717

The other nice thing about Minmus is the large flats that you can land on. The Mun seems like nothing but hills and a couple of my landings ended up with me rolling down them.

By the way, if you look carefully on my fuel window, the hover time is not a mistake. You really can hover for extended periods there.
I'm thinking of building a flying base for my new kethane miner.


As for build tips, try to keep the weight down as much as possible and use high isp engines. The LV 909 and poodle should be your first choice for most situations. Because of their mass and low thrust nuclear are not very good for most ships.
Also, jet engines make a great launch stage. A pair of them on a bicoupler produces the same thrust as a large SRB and will run till it gets to about 20 km while hardly using any fuel. At 20 km they flame out and you light the real rocket and you're out of the thickest part of the atmosphere.

On my lander I wanted to move the legs out from the fuel tank for more stability. I tried girders first then noticed that decouplers were a lot lighter and ended up gaining about 300ms dV by switching. It's also why I used 3 way symmetry on the legs and only 2 way for the goo containers. Both were the least needed for balance. A bit of imagination can save a lot of mass and gain a lot of dV.

If you're interested I can post some pictures of the launch stage and the later extended mission that I used to harvest the rest of the science points there. That one used a mobile station and a lander with about 4500 dV and multiple experiment bays.

[Xcorps]

I was having some trouble too. I finally figured out how to get a capsule on the ground, and ran out of fuel for the return. Then I started having battery issues. Then I quit sending capsules and started sending probes. All of a sudden I have so much Dv I don't know what to do with it all and I'm bringing in science like crazy. 4 trips with the experiments netted like 600 science or something. I have mechjeb, but I don't use it, I use Engineer for the stats.

One landing with a probe (which is really easy) can net you enough science to unlock better techs. I sent 4-5 probes today, one of which I sent to Minmus instead, and it was much more productive than trying a Kerbal walk. I just made my first successful docking, so I'll be playing with refueling stations for a bit, then I'll send a couple more probes to the Mun and Minmus to unlock more science.

The only science you don't earn is the EVA and soil samples, but that will be easy to get after you run a few probes. Make sure you take batteries out the ass unless you have unlocked panels.

[Bread Teleporter]

Ok, I'll probably go for minmus first.
I'll go in Sandbox Mode, then refine it so I can use it on Career Mode

[Bread Teleporter]

The thing is, I have just started to build a new rocket and only a fuel tank and an engine weighs 153 tonnes (153,000kg)

[Xcorps]

Use Kerbal Engineer Redux (mod) and clamp the recorder on your capsule. The important numbers are delta V and Thrust weight ratio. As long as your TWR is above 1 you will move upward. The higher the TWR, the faster you go. Delta V is how long your rocket will burn. If your TWR is too high, you will lose fuel efficiency because of drag and any design instability will make your rocket wobble roll. I like the bottom stage to be between 1.5 and 2.0, then I try to set it up for a TWR of above two above 10m. You can check your TWR on other bodies like the Mun or Minmus by clicking on the appropriate button, so for instance your lander might have a .23 TWR on Kerbin but a 3.5 on Minmus, which means you will take off easily from Minmus. You need the vast majority of your fuel to get to Kerbin orbit. Something like 4500 Delta V just for orbit. But to get to the surface of Minmus you only need like 1200. It takes less Dv to reach the Mun, but more to leave it. Those aren't accurate numbers, there are lots of Dv maps you can look at to determine how much fuel to bring. Also, on Minmus you can use RCS to control your descent and to actually escape Minmus, though it's slow..but it saves a lot of Dv for the return to Kerbin. I haven't really gotten around to trying to control descent with RCS only on the Mun.