How to land on the Mun and come back to brag about it (Kerbal Space Program tutorial)

First of all, thank you, Drill :P You made me make a blog... (I couldn't figure out simple way to throw bunch of pictures and text together)

Anyway. To the Mun and back!

OKi, I was about to start tutorial on how to control your craft, but I just found out if I leave my ride on the landing pad without SAS for longer than a minute its starts spinning :|

Lets put some support to that

OK, that is better

Now, where were we? Lets do quick inspection of this potential bomb. It is a 6 stage monster (this is a fairly simple one for my design, I like lots of stages...). First 3 stages are used for orbit and hopefully lunar injection, if there is any fuel left. 6th stage is composed of solid boosters, that we will jet as soon as they are spent, and main engine.

The ball in the bottom of the screen is most important thing. You cannot fly on visual, not a chance! This is instrumental flying only, most relevant data in all screenshots is on the ball.

For a start we'll set throttle to 20% to get some initial speed, let the solid boosters do the main work.

Liftoff!

After 25 seconds solid boosters are spent. Drop them as soon as possible, we don't need to spend fuel on that weight. Increase throttle to compensate for loss of thrust.



All looking good. Feel free to experiment with throttle levels, I get really different fuel consumption on each launch.

Time to check the map



We have some speed to the side but the apopapsis needs to be out of atmosphere, so keep burning until it is higher than 63 Km, like this:

Now turn your heading to 90 degrees (right on the line between blue and brown part of the ball) and start adding speed for orbit until we get full circular trajectory, like this:

Time to check fuel. About 10% of one tank left, we'll use that for lunar insertion (sounds so pro). For the reference, on this same build I got to this part with full 2nd tank. So experiment with throttle on liftoff!

Time to shoot for the moon (Mun). Apparently, you should start the burn when you see the moon rising. It works, so it is good enough for me. Moon is still behind Kerbin.

Align your vessel to orbit and wait for the burn.



This is what we got from fuel that was left in the tank. Note that orbit increases faster at later stages so keep cutting down throttle or you might miss the sweet spot and have to make corrections.



Jetting the orbit stage, no need for it any more.



This is looking good. Brown trajectory is our moon orbit/trajectory.



Mun, here we come!

Highlighted blue circle is where we enter moon orbit. Brown circle above is where we would leave it without correctional burn. So we have trajectory, not an orbit, I guess =)

OK, we are in moon's zone of influence:




Highlighted Mun escape point if we do not slow down



We are going to wait till periapsis to start de-orbit burn



We are facing opposite of our direction and starting de-orbit burn



We have landing spot on the Mun



Check the fuel levels. I have spent 10% of a single small tank for both finishing lunar insertion and de-orbit burn. Once outside atmosphere bit of fuel can take you long way!



Now I want to land straight down, so I'm setting my heading 90 degrees and burning until circle with x gets on the north of the ball.

This is good enough for now, I'm slowing down the descent (under 100 m/s as soon as possible, under 10 m/s for last stage). I'm also correcting trajectory to get that circle with cross on top. Be very very careful with throttle, it is easy to put too much. That thing on top of the screen on the right of the altitude is very useful for this part, it is showing how fast you are descending/ascending. If it is on 0 you are not moving up or down. You want to have it between 0 and -5 for final stage.



Just nice and slow...



Photo opportunity with Kerbin in background



Turning on RCS, it can come handy for very delicate final corrections when you want to lose some speed to the side and can't risk turning rocket. Gear down. This is important =)



Oh, that reminds me. See that landing gear? It is pure trouble. It is not wide enough so lander is unstable. That is why I don't do single stack landers any more, this was my first successful lander design.

Almost there...

Landed! Errrr... I need to get that landing gear bit more to the bottom of the lander, I think I'm sitting on RCS fuel tank :|



Mandatory EVA



Weeeeeeee...



I believe I can fly...



OK, pack up, time to go home. Now, this is important. We want to go heading 270, opposite side of the moon orbit. You can go 90, but it is more complicated because you are going same way as the Mun, so its gravity can mess your trajectory. If you go the other way you lose the moon influence as soon as possible. Waiting for apoapsis to correct the orbit.



After that we wait until we are on the opposite side of the moon from the planet to extend our orbit towards Kerbin. Time to do the burn.



This should get us to Kerbin orbit at 63Km. Lets hope it actually does, not like the last time...



Riding the Kerbal orbit

I have placed new vehicle on the ramp at space centre so I get the icon on the planet. I'll try to land close. It is possible to read the position of the space centre from the ball (one of the other 2 icons) but I never really figured out how.

I still have one and a half tank fuel left =)



Orbit looks good, I'll start de-orbit burn at periapsis. It is right on the 65Km, so I should be in atmosphere fast. Once there drag will do the rest.



OK, that is it. Notice I'm overshooting, but trajectory projection does not account for drag. So I'm guessing the proper trajectory. I should do more tests for this stuff.



Fuck, again... Overshot.

Well, I'm getting better at this. Last one was just under 100 km.

Not too bad



That concludes our going to space and actually coming back tutorial =)

Just for bonus points, here is the vehicle from tutorial, the magnificent Mun Lander 1! Just unpack and put in your KSP_win\Ships\VAB\ folder