Flight Question Lunar Landing Help

[jambooger]

Im sure this is very simple for most of you but I am having a hard time making a lunar landing with the DG. Ive searched for tutorials but cannot find any. Ive used Aerobrake MFD, it crashes because no atmosphere. Ive tried Arrive MFD, I just crash well before reaching Brighton Beach. Ive tried manually with Map MFD, I just screw that all up.

Is there a good Auto Pilot than can land me at Brighton Beach.

Thanks.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Well, the written tutorial in "Go Play In Space" helped me, but that entire process is manual control. But I'm mighty good at it now.
If you are using Orbiter '06, there is LOLA, and it's really hard to beat. All in all a pretty awesome AP. LANDMFD is pretty good, but LOLA is an extension of LAND, and LOLA cause me many CTD's for some reason.

I haven't tried the Universal AutoPilot (by Artlav) for landing, but it is so awesome in all it's other functions I don't see why it wouldn't work, plus it should be compatable with Orbiter '10.

 

[Iberville]

I have also used the Go play in space tutorial for landing, and I am also very new to Orbiter. Landing on the Moon is a question of applying forces in the right direction (no atmosphere) so the manual landing is not that hard. You might end up braking and having to reorient toward the base, but you'll get it fast with this PDF book.

 

[eyu100]

You can also use my totally unrealistic method of landing, which is to start at a very low orbit (apocynthion & pericynthion below 100 meters) and then lower the pericynthion to below 0 meters. Once you touch the ground (with gear lowered, of course), you fire your retro thrusters to lower your apocynthion to ground level as well. There is no way this would work in real life, of course, as your ship would certainly be destroyed by the unevenness of the lunar surface.

 

[Alexw95]

You can also use my totally unrealistic method of landing, which is to start at a very low orbit (apocynthion & pericynthion below 100 meters) and then lower the pericynthion to below 0 meters. Once you touch the ground (with gear lowered, of course), you fire your retro thrusters to lower your apocynthion to ground level as well. There is no way this would work in real life, of course, as your ship would certainly be destroyed by the unevenness of the lunar surface.

that is a very bad way for landing......

what i did to learn i studied the way the apollo lem pdi worked and i just kept doing it in the dg eventually i got it to stop so it was just hovering so then i used linear thrusters to move over to brighton beach. hope this helps

 

[N_Molson]

Maybe this can help you, though the DG & the LEM are different ships :

PHASE DE FREINAGE = "Braking leg"
PHASE DE REPERAGE = "Ground Recon leg"
PHASE D'ALUNISSAGE = "Landing leg"

Périlune = Periapsis (Moon)
Porte Haute = High Door
Porte Basse = Low Door
Vitesse Verticale = Vertical Speed
Vitesse Horizontale = Horizontal Speed
Poussée = Thrust (in tons)

 

[jambooger]

Well darn. I was really hoping there was an auto pilot that would do the work for me. Oh well, guess I will start practicing tonite. Thanks for all the advice guys.

 

[insanity]

Align planes with Brighton Beach, wait till you are about 120 or so km away, burn retro until you have a low h-speed (say 250 m/s). Turn back prograde, and add hovers (compensating for the rise in h-speed due to the fall of v-speed with retros). The velocity vector is your friend for moon landings. I try to have it pointing at the base when I'm hovering with about -10 AoA. Use retros, hovers, and then stop.

Also, watch the moon flight that comes with Orbiter, it explains the moon landing phase really nicely.

 

[george7378]

Hi,

I made my first lunar landing using MapMFD to stay in orbit until I was about 150K from the base, then I fired retro-grade to slow myself to approx. 100M/S, which made me fall towards the Moon's surface. I then used the hover engines to slow my descent, and moved the crosshairs of the aiming point indicator onto Brighton Beach using the translation RCS. This pretty much gets you falling towards the base, so all you have to do is use hover thrust to control your descent and the RCS to control direction. Retro engines are also useful.

Alternatively, you can use this:

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3503"]BaseLandAutopilot (first BETA)[/ame]

 

[jambooger]

I watched the tutorial that was in Orbiter and read some in Go Play in Space.

I landed without incident. May not have been a perfect landing but I made it on the pad.

I notice its very similar to docking.

Thanks again everyone :tiphat:

 

[fireballs619]

EDIT: Didn't read the post above me

 

[HAL9001]

go into glass cockpit, use hover ("num" - "0", "num" - ",") to get the altitude you want (best it would be to reach nearlyzero altitude speed, ut that necassary) and press "a" or the "HoldAlt" button. Fly to Brighton beach, break with the retro-Engines (you can fly like a Helicopter to, using the firing hove-Engines and a littel angel of flight to fly forward backward and so on. you can use the LevHor (L) Autopilot and the KillRot (num - 5) to stabilize your angel and set it to zero. You are abel to use your Hover-Engines like a Helicopter to when you use that both autopilots, because you can stear against them.