My first flight to the moon

[Killer Toilet]

From mars, launch into an orbit using the correct heading (azimuth) to reach phobos as its plane passes over your position. If you've used the DGIV autopilot, make sure to do a small burn after the program is finished so IMFD will use the right full-throttle setting to calculate a burn.

Then it's the exact same as going to the moon. Remember that Phobos does not have a very large mass ergo its gravity is not much. I'll fly from Mars-Phobos and confirm the method.

On Edit: Okay, so I just landed on Phobos (more like sunk into the mesh, as Orbiter assumes it is a sphere regardless of the model)

Olympus only has one solution for Phobos, 90 degrees when relative inclination is at its lowest.


Make sure when you plan to get to Phobos you have a PeA above the Martin atmosphere, adjust arrival time. My flight took about 10 simulated hours. Because the gravity of Phobos is so weak POI isn't an option. Instead I just waited till I got close, circularized my mars orbit (orbital tools program) to nullify the inertia of the transfer orbit then just started burning towards Phobos until my velocity vector put me on surface of Phobos. Then I just coasted until I was right above the moon, killed off my Phobos relative velocity using retro thrusts, and canceled out the altitude drop with hover thrust. All that was left to do was pick a landing site. Because of the weak gravity you can cruise around with RCS thrusters until you find a nice place to sink into the mesh.

Getting to Phobos isn't hard, but actually getting on Phobos isn't super easy (I may have flown it wrong though).

Thank you. I'll try that once I master the Lunar orbit transfer, and if I find a scenario that starts on Olympus Base. But then again, I need to work on landing that means something other than crashing into the object (which shouldn't be too hard).

EDIT: So I did land "correctly" on Jupiter right after the tutorial on how to get from Europa to Callisto. Surprisingly, it was easy for something that should be impossible in real life. Do all surface landings for planets with atmospheres have to be at around 0 degrees while using the airbrakes? If so, then I might have to use Jupiter to practice landing without crashing.

 

[insanity]

One of the DGIV scenarios is Mars on Safe Mode. That's the one I flew.

 

[Killer Toilet]

Also, another question. Is going from the Moon to the Earth simply burning prograde at the opposite side of the Moon than the Earth? I have a feeling that if I don't align the planes, it won't work out smoothly...

 

[insanity]

Are you trying to rough it out or use IMFD? Either way a plane change will be probably be needed.

If you want to get to the moon in a consistent manner then it is more then just a simple matter of burning prograde when you're opposite the moon... it's orbital mechanics.

Watch the video included with orbiter and follow along with it. There is also a good video of a flight from Europa to Callisto somewhere that teaches the different programs of IMFD.

Also, don't skip up on the basics like rendezvous and docking.

Lastly, and I don't mean this in a rude manner, you should try some of the things people have suggested here (search the forums, Go Play in Space, etc..). I know that orbiter is hard- hell it took me a couple of days to actually get off the ground, but Go Play in Space eventually got me to the iss, the moon, and then mars. If you really want to get something out of it you have to invest time to learn it.

 

[Killer Toilet]

Are you trying to rough it out or use IMFD? Either way a plane change will be probably be needed.

If you want to get to the moon in a consistent manner then it is more then just a simple matter of burning prograde when you're opposite the moon... it's orbital mechanics.

Watch the video included with orbiter and follow along with it. There is also a good video of a flight from Europa to Callisto somewhere that teaches the different programs of IMFD.

Also, don't skip up on the basics like rendezvous and docking.

Lastly, and I don't mean this in a rude manner, you should try some of the things people have suggested here (search the forums, Go Play in Space, etc..). I know that orbiter is hard- hell it took me a couple of days to actually get off the ground, but Go Play in Space eventually got me to the iss, the moon, and then mars. If you really want to get something out of it you have to invest time to learn it.

I meant that I could use IMFD 5.3 and 4.2.1 to go to the Moon from the Earth, but I want to know how to get back to the Earth from the Moon.

Those two videos still confused me even after watching them several times. Partly because I don't know what he meant by dV when all I see is oV and iV and I don't know how to keep those minumum as well as the video going to quickly in the instructions for me to keep up at times.

I could have sworn that in the Europa to Callisto vid that the instruction was to replace the left MFD which contained IMFD with IMFD. I mean those video tutorials are good, but still confusing and fast.

I mean I don't expect to know anything about IMFD and how to use it until maybe in a few months or so. But for now, I am priding myself in knowledge on how to orbit the Earth, transfer to the Moon, and crash into the Sun and hopefully glitching my way onto Mercury.

 

[TMac3000]

I meant that I could use IMFD 5.3 and 4.2.1 to go to the Moon from the Earth, but I want to know how to get back to the Earth from the Moon.

Take off and go into a low orbit around the moon. Wait until the earth comes up over the horizon in front of you, and then burn into escape trajectory. It's rough, but a few final corrections will take you right into Earth orbit.