January 04, 2014
To the Mun (Tutorial) Part Three: Back to Kerbin
In our last session, we covered an Ikerbus-Kerbysseus flight to the Mun, from launch through to landing on the Mun. Today I'll describe the flight back from the midlands craters of the Mun to a safe landing on the desert lakebed of Kerbin.
We start with our lander parked in one of the craters of the Munar midlands. I used a bit of the lander's fuel to turn my transfer orbit into a close Munar approach, and more of the fuel to get me safely landed. As I prepared for takeoff, there was slightly more than half of my original fuel supply remaining. According to the projected mission profile, that was more than I needed, but not by much.
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Getting home from the Mun on a limited fuel supply is possibly the most challenging part of the whole mission. Up until the last moment before landing, you can abort and return back to Kerbin easily, but once you're down, you either have the fuel to plot a course back home to Kerbin, or you don't. A mistake can leave you falling back to the surface of the Mun without the fuel for a soft landing, or adrift in space for eons.
For my return flight trajectory, I launched straight up for a kilometer or so, then turned west. As I build up the velocity to escape the Mun's gravity, I'm simultaneously losing velocity with respect to Kerbin, creating a trajectory that will naturally fall back towards Kerbin. The display of my navigation systems above shows my escape from the Mun in blue, with the eventual Kerbin orbit in gold.
The next image, above, shows my lander after it has exited the Munar sphere of influence and is on a Kerbin return trajectory. This orbit will see me dip deep into Kerbin's atmosphere where aerobraking and my parachutes will bring me safely home. I still have a small amount of fuel left, which I held in reserve in case my landing profile put me on a course for some mountains.
Just shy of two days after my launch from the Kerbal Space Center, the pleasant red glow of my capsule braking in Kerbin's atmosphere welcomes me home.
Posted by: TheSquirrelPatrol at
09:10 AM
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