Moon Activities

After orbital missions, the next activities to do for any player should be orbiting andor landing on the Moon.

## Requirements

The Moon is close to Earth. It is the closest celestial body from the Earth in-game. Transfer windows occur very often. The Moon has a moderately large sphere of influence and very close to Earth at 19220 kilometers away, making it more easy for any rocket to reach it. Its low gravity makes liftoff possible with the smallest rockets and rockets that have [very] little fuel left. It is easy to escape Moon's sphere of influence and fly towards Earth orbit.

On the other hand, the Moon has no atmosphere. So, parachutes are useless. Any rocket descending on the Moon will have to use retrorockets to slow down. However, given the low gravity, the amount of fuel spent is not significant.

## Objectives

There are many things that can be done on and around the Moon. Any player can recreate historical missions, like the Apollo 11 mission. Here are some activities:

### Hard landing

The first probes sent to the Moon were designed to impact its surface. Hard landing requires less control and less preparations, but it is questionable what will remain of the spacecraft. Certainly, it will not be able to return home and much of the science equipment will be affected.

Experiments in the simulator revealed that sometimes, something survives from a rocket after a hard landing. This is because it accelerated slowly.

### Flyby

The first probes sent to the Moon failed or were not designed to gain orbit: they just passed by. A lunar flyby can be easily achieved.

A very interesting fact is that the Moon can be used for a gravity assist. A rocket passing once or twice (with the perfect position) can be thrown into heliocentric orbit or sent to impact Earth (free return trajectory). Some players use this effect at their advantage to save fuel for interplanetary missions.

### Orbit

Getting into lunar orbit is not difficult.

In lunar orbit, a player can do a lot of things:

* **flying at high moon orbit** — this allows construction for an orbital moon base;
* **flying at low moon orbit** — without an atmosphere, it is possible to fly just above the mountain tops and craters, to explore the surface;
* **flying at an eccentric orbit** — this can be used for satellites and space stations;
* **moon rescue missions** — this were used for contests.

Sometimes, when you forgot to add landing legs to a rocket, you can redesign the mission for a Moon orbit and send the astronauts home.

### Landing

It is easy to land on the Moon. There are three things that can be done:

* **One-way missions** can send in the first step equipment to lunar the surface; an example is a research probe on the lunar surface.
* **Moon base** missions will carry parts for building a base or a colony on the Moon. The colony can have rovers, a platform for rockets, a rocket ready for return and facilities for astronauts.
* **Landing and return** missions can recreate the famous Apollo program. These missions require less fuel and less time than reaching other planets.

## See also

* Getting to the Moon
* Moon
* What to do in Spaceflight Simulator?

Building Moon Rocket