KerbalX

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: lander
• Part Count: 32
• Mods: 2
• KSP: 1.12.5

Mods

• Bluedog DB
• TweakableEverything

The plan to reach the Moon, land men on it, and then have them safely return to Earth was shared by both the United States and the Soviet Union. However there were many steps over the course of nearly a decade that had to be reached before a landing was feasible and that became with acquiring basic knowledge about the Moon itself. While all unmanned probes to the Moon were under the single Luna program the Americans had multiple programs with different mission goals.

The Soviets had many early successes with lunar exploration such as Luna 2 being the first impact probe and Luna 3 returning the first photographs of the far side of the moon. The early Pioneer program made numerous attempts but there were few successes. However American efforts started to catch up in July 1964 with the success of Ranger 7 followed by two more successes with Ranger 8 and 9. This would continue with the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor programs which would map out landing sites and prove the feasibility of soft landings for future missions.

The SM-65 Atlas became America’s first ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) and became operational in October 1959 as the Atlas-D. The Atlas-D was developed into an entire family of heavy lifters including the man-rated Atlas-LV-3B and lastly the Atlas LV-3-C which was developed to handle greater payloads and the new powerful Centaur upper stage.

The Centaur upper stage became the first upper stage to use cryogenic propellent, namely liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. This gave it superior performance compared to the other upper stages in use such as the Able and Agena. However it required larger fuel tanks, the fuel had to be kept at an extremely low temperature at all times, and required extensive modifications to the Atlas to accommodate the larger Centaur.

The Bossart is Bluedog Design Bureau’s approximation of the Atlas and in this configuration approximates the Atlas LV-3-C that was modified to be able to carry the relatively large Centaur upper stage. It is still a stage-and-a-half rocket where the booster and sustainer engines are fired together with the booster skirt being decoupled, along with the attached booster engines, in the upper atmosphere. I recommend that the booster skirt is decoupled with about 30 seconds left in the stage burn – although you may encounter a low TWR (thrust-to-weight ratio) afterwards but just continue the ascent.

The Inon D is an approximation of the Centaur D which was the final production version of the original Centaur upper stage. It is optimized for operation in a vacuum and has more than 3,000 m/s of dV which can accommodate virtually any mission between Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus. If you have boil-off turned on in your installation you may encounter a slow and steady reduction in your fuel supply as a side effect of cryogenic fuels.

The Burke Lander is a fictional munar soft lander meant up of parts from the Burke probes. It’s built around making a Surveyor-style soft lander but with Burke parts. This could have theoretically been an option for the Ranger program instead of or in addition to the Surveyor program. It has roughly the same capabilities including several batteries, a solar panel, and a long-range antenna. It has plenty of extra fuel and fairly powerful engines so it can be landed by a novice even with a suicide burn. It might even have enough for you to bring the probe back to orbit although that wasn’t done on most Surveyor missions.

The recommend historical approach is use a direct ascent to the Mun which only requires proper launch timing and heading past a projected apogee of 11,400 km until your projected flight path intersects with the Mun. or a projected apogee of 46,400 km your the path intersects with Minmus. If you use this approach you’ll simply decouple the sustainer stage upon exhaustion and finish the ascent (and any adjustments) with the Inon.

If you want something a bit more manageable and a-historical you can just establish a parking orbit around Kerbin, preferably around 100 km, and simply pick your moment to burn towards the Mun or Minmus at your leisure.

While the spacecraft technically doesn’t have extensive batteries or ability to recharge any spent electricity you can technically expose and open up the probe’s solar panel which would normally only be used to recharge the lander’s batteries. This is an a-historical approach where a more traditional approach would be just to put systems into hibernation while under warp.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.12.5.