So, you want to go to the Mun eh? Here I will show you how to get to the Mun in a very basic way. I know there are definitely better methods out there, but this is the one I use and the one I found to be the simplest.

In this section I will show how to build a rocket capable of reaching the Mun step by step. Please note, this rocket may need tweaking or may not work at all in future verisons. This rocket currently works on version 0.20.2. Now that that's out of the way, let's get started!


Start with a Mk1-2 Command Pod. I would suggest not using a probe because command pods with Kerbals inside generate much more torque (Turning power). Also it's fun to have your little Kerbal's go for a space walk on the Mun!


This stage is the Lander; the only thing that will reach the Mun. It is very important to get this stage right! We'll start off with a Large Advanced S.A.S Module and a FL-R1 RCS Fuel Tank. Next, add some RCS Thrusters. I added 4 additional Stratus-V Roundified Monopropellant Tanks for more RCS fuel (You can never have too much RCS fuel!). Then you add a Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank underneath the FL-R1 RCS Fuel Tank. Now, on the top half of the tank place 4 Rockomax Mark 55 Radial Mount Liquid Engines. I like to use these instead of Nuclear Engines (LV-N Atomic Rocket Engines) because Nuclear Engines don't generate enough thrust for me. I am able to reduce my speed very quickly with the Rockomax Mark 55 Radial Mount Liquid Engines. Next, place 4 Illuminator Mk1's on the bottom of the craft (We'll discuss the use of those later) and 4 Z-400 Rechargable Battery Banks right above them. Pay very close attention to thos next part! Place 4 LT-2 Landing Struts in between the Illuminator Mk1's (Refer to the pretty pictures for help). Now, it is VERY important that you DO NOT place the Landing Struts beneath the Rockomax Mark 55 Radial Mount Liquid Engines. If you do, the Landing Struts will become damaged when you fire up the engines, rendering them useless.


This is the second stage of your rocket. This will be used for securing your orbit around Kerbin and get you to the Mun. Start with a Rockomax Brand Decoupler underneath the Lander. Then, add a Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank under the decoupler. Last, add a Rockomax "Mainsail" Liquid Engine under the Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank. There you have your second stage!


Now comes the bulk of your rocket. This stage is used for breaking the atmosphere and getting into orbit around Kerbin. We'll start with a Rockomax Brand Decoupler underneath the Rockomax "Mainsail" Liquid Engine. You should see a white casing appear around the engine. Then, place 3 Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tanks under the decoupler. "Wait, why not use a Rockomax Jumbo-64 Fuel Tank?" You might ask. Well, if you pair a Rockomax Jumbo-64 Fuel Tank with a Rockomax "Mainsail" Liquid Engine it overheats very quickly, to the point where you can't accelerate at full throttle. If you use 3 Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tanks, you won't have this problem. Next, place a Rockomax "Mainsail" Liquid Engine on the bottom.


Now comes your secondary thrusters. Place 4 TT-70 Radial Decouplers in the middle of the second fuel tank down (Again, see the pretty pictures for help). Then place 1 Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank on each decoupler. Next, place 2 Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tanks on top and one on the bottom, giving you 4 in total.


You should notice that your secondary thrusters are taller than your primary thruster, and that is perfectly fine. Now place one Rockomax "Mainsail" Liquid Engine under each stack. The picture above shows what your rocket should be looking like right now.


This section can be a bit confusing, just read it carefully and do what the picture shows. Here we are going to do something called "Asparagus Staging". If you already know how Asparagus Staging works, then skip this section. If not, continue reading. Asparagus Staging works by using hoses to pump the fuel front your secondary thrusters into your primary thruster. Make sure you have symmetry turned off for this, as it's unique for every side. Click on the FTX-2 External Fuel Duct and click on on of your secondary thruster fuel tanks (It doesn't matter where on the tank, I just did mine on the bottom). The first place you clicked is where fuel will be coming from. If you move your cursor around you should notice a line stretches to where your cursor is located. Next, click on the fuel tank to your right. You should see a yellow hose stretching from the first tank to the second with little arrows pointing to your left. Now, select the hose again and click on the second fuel (The one the fuel is being pumped into). You should notice the stretching line again. Now, click on your primary thruster tank. You should see a yellow hose appear again. Now, just mirror this on the other side with your last two thrusters.


Your rocket should be taking shape. Here I've added a few extra things I prefer to use. You can see on the picture above I place a few Standard Canards on the secondary thrusters and the primary thruster. I also added a bunch of struts to reduce wobble in flight. Last I added a few nose cones because they look amazing.


We're getting pretty close to launch, but there's still a few more things we have to do. Asparagus Staging is useless unless we can decouple the proper thrusters. You want the thruster on the right (See the hose picture above this) to decouple first. This goes for both sides, so the two mirror each other. Those will run out fuel the quickest. Scroll over the decoupler for each thruster; you should see one of the 4 decouple icons on the right turn white. That is the one you are currently hovering over. Create a new box for staging underneath the 4 decouple icons and move the icon that corresponds to the right thruster. Then do the same on the mirroring thruster. This might sound confusing, but once you start to do you'll get the hang of it.


To check if you've done it correctly, move the camera similar to a position above. You can just barely see the mirroring decouplers. Scroll over each one, and if both light up in the same box you're good. By putting those in the right stage, you've automatically put the remaining two (The ones feeding into the primary thruster) in the correct position.

Assuming you've staged everything correctly, this should be what your staging looks like, once you add TT18-A Launch Stability Enhancers. (Continue on to the next section for the remaining information about your rocket)

Assuming you've done everything said in the above section, we're almost done. Now all we have to do is set our action groups. This rocket is a little wobbly, and we are going to fix that right now.


You can find action groups at the top of the screen, as shown above. Action groups allow to toggle things on certain parts of your ship with a hotkey.


You'll see several options under Action Groups. Click on "Custom1". This will allow us to set a custom action group.


Now click on the Mainsail engines on your secondary thrusters. This will give them a blue outline. You should also see a list of options in Custom1. Click on "Toggle Gimbal". You should see the Toggle Gimbal icon move to the middle column. Gimbal is a feature enabled by Advanced SAS that will slightly move your engines to keep you on course. I find this to create a ridiculous wobble effect, so I just turn it off.

Now we're ready to launch!

You now have a rocket worthy of space travel! Let's get this show on the road!


Here our test subjects- I mean brave astronauts prepare for launch. They look super excited don't they? Throttle all the way up and turn on SAS (T).


And lunch! I mean launch...... Man I'm hungry.... Anyway you might notice the Overheat meter is rapidly filling. Not to worry, just stay at full throttle (However if your rocket is on the verge of exploding, by all means turn down the thrust).


Now that your tanks are empty stage. As you can see by staging we have refueled all other tanks. This is what Asparagus Staging does. Continue up until you hit 10 kilometers (10,000 meters), then we will begin our turn.


Now that you've hit 10 kilometers, it's time to turn. You want to turn so that you're in between the 90 on your navball and the center of the navball (Straight up). Be sure not to turn so drastically, you might end up upside down if you do!


Now, go into map view by press M. You should see a blue line that represents your current trajectory. At the crest of the arch you should see a little "Ap" icon. This is your Apoapsis, the highest elevation you will reach on your current path. If you scroll over your Apoapsis you should see two things, a number and a countdown in minutes/seconds. If both of these are rising you’re doing good so far. If not, then you may have to restart the mission. It's OK if you mess up a few times (I messed three times while taking these screenshots). Just give it another go.

Now that you've gotten into space, (SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE) it's time to go to the Mun! As soon as we achieve orbit.


Once your Apoapsis reaches 100,000 meters, cut your engines (X). Now we're going to go into orbit.


Click on your Apoapsis and click "Add Maneuver". A bunch of strange symbols come up, but don't worry about those. We are only focused on the yellow ones. Drag the one with an open circle to the right. You should see an orange dotted line appear. This represents your trajectory if you accelerate/decelerate. You should also notice a green bar appears next to your navball. This represents the speed in which you have gain in the given direction to achieve that trajectory. Now, drag the open circle until an orange Periapsis appears. This is the opposite of your Apoapsis, the lowest point in your orbit.


Drag the open circle until your Periapsis is at about 100,000 meters. Anything below 70,000 meters will bring you back into Kerbin's atmosphere (Which is bad!).


Exit out of map view back onto your rocket. A blue reticle has appeared. You may not see it at first, but use RCS to find it. You want to move towards it and stay as close to the center as possible. This is the direction you must burn to achieve the desired trajectory. Right below the green meter you should notice two things: An "Estimated Burn Time" and a countdown clock, how long before you reach the node. You want to burn half before and half after the node. So let's say the estimated burn time is 60 seconds. You want to burn 30 seconds before and after the node. Wait patiently for the node, and begin to burn until the meter is depleted. Cut your engines once the meter reads 0 (Or as close as you can get to 0) you may need to stage during this process. Be sure not to burn too long, otherwise you'll be wasting fuel.


Now you've achieved a stable orbit around Kerbin! Now we just have to get to the Mun. Go back into map view and delete the node. You always want to delete your nodes after you use them, multiple nodes can be very confusing.


Now we have to get to the Mun. While in map mode, zoom out until you see the Mun. Once you do, rotate the camera so the Mun is as far right as can be (3 o'clock).


Now, find the position in your current orbit closest to the bottom of the screen (6 o'clock). Add a maneuver just as we did for orbit. Drag the open yellow circle until it reaches the Mun's orbit. If you've angled everything correctly you should an orange and purple icon near the Mun. If you scroll over the orange one it should say "Mun Encounter". If not icons appear, just keep on slightly adjusting with the two yellow icons.


Here you can see I have a Mun Encounter. You might notice a purple Periapsis appears. This is the closest you will be to the Mun in your current trajectory. I try to aim for at least 50,000. Just don't go any higher than 500,000.


Now we repeat the steps like we did in our orbit. Exit out of Map view and turn your rocket towards the blue reticle. In my case the node was about three hours away, so I had to time accelerate. Be VERY careful when time accelerating, you could very easily miss your mark if you warp too fast. Especially when you aren't in an orbit, and the chance to burn only appears once.


Like we said above, you want to burn half before and after the node appears. Divide your estimated burn time by 2 and that's when you should burn. Above you can I've already burned, and I'm now on course to the Mun.

You should now be on course to rendezvous with the Mun. Here is what to do once you enter the Mun's Sphere of Influence (See below) and how to land (Without explosion!).


Here I am time accelerating towards the Mun. 1000x time acceleration might seem like alot at first, but was we draw closer to the Mun our speed is gradually reduced. I would advise not to warp over 1000x.


As we enter the Mun's Sphere of Influence our trajectory rapidly changes. The Mun's Sphere of Influence is a distance at which the Mun's gravity is strong enough to pull you into a (Most of the time partial) orbit. Do not get SoI (Sphere of Influence) mixed up with gravity (Gravity always has an effect on you - most of the time it's not even noticeable). If we were to stay on our current trajectory we would eventually leave the Mun's SoI and drift off into space. We don't want that do we?


At this rate we're going to bypass the Mun. We don't want that, so we must change our trajectory. This is the part that might seem very strange to some people. Instead of achieving an orbit around the Mun, we're going to go for a direct descent. Create a node over where you would like to land (Preferably over the light side of the Mun). Then, drag the yellow icon with the rotated X in the middle. You'll see our trajectory shrinking towards the Mun. Pretty soon you'll see a very straight trajectory, almost completely vertical towards the Mun. This is what we want. We're going to kill nearly all of our velocity so it's just the Mun's gravity pulling us towards it. I would advise Autosaving (F5) in case you miss the node or you don't like where you land.


Now, once again we're going to turn towards the blue reticle. Then, time accelerate until we pretty close to our mark. Since we're only going to pass by this point once, it's VERY important not to accidentally miss. If you do however, you can hold F9 to go back to where you (Hopefully!) quicksaved.


Once, you reach half of the estimated burn time, go ahead and burn. In the picture above you can see I had to stage in order to complete the burn, this is perfectly fine. There is plenty of fuel in the tank so don't worry.


You should now be falling nearly straight down towards the Mun. You will be moving extremely slowly (We did kill all of our velocity...), so I would time warp until you hit about 25,000 meters.

If you thought this mission was hard, you better toughen up cupcake! Here comes the most challenging part of the flight: Sticking the landing.


It's a good idea to stop time accelerating early, you'll be going too fast you'll make up the last few kilometers in a few seconds. Don't time accelerate too much. Bad things will happen. One time I had the pleaser of accidentally speeding up when I wanted to exit warp. It didn't end very well.... :(


Now would be a good time to deploy your Landing Gear (I'm so confident in myself aren't I?) and turn on your lights. If you haven't already, line up with your Retrograde (The direction opposite to which you are moving), it's the yellow X icon on your navball. It's VERY critical to stay lined up with this at nearly all times.


At 20,000 meters start to burn at full throttle. Continue to burn until your speed is at 100 m/s. If your Retrograde starts to move slightly, move with it. If it starts gradually moving away from the center of the navball, cut your engines.


It appears we're being joined by a Solar Eclipse. Isn't that nice? :)


Keep your velocity under 100 m/s, slowly working your way down. Still wondering why we added those lights earlier? We're landing on the light side of the Mun, so why bother? I always had trouble telling how far away from the Mun I was (Sorry Squad, but the graphics aren't exactly the best)(Also, the meter at the top represents elevation from sea level, on average the Mun's surface is at 1600 meters). If you look closely at the picture above you can faintly see the lights reflecting off the Mun. Now we know we're getting close.


Now try to keep your velocity at around 5 m/s. This is the one time where you want to ignore your Retrograde and stay completely straight up. If you think you're coming in too hot (Too fast) then full throttle for a few seconds. This will allow you to rise and come back down for another approach. Otherwise, keep your velocity as close to 5 m/s as possible. Anything above 10 m/s will likely crash.


Now comes the hardest part - Landing. I unfortunately was moving to the side while landing, so I started to tilt (This is the very reason you burn Retrograde! To kill all of your horizontal velocity!). If this happens to you, don't panic! Remember you have RCS onboard.


With my less-than-mediocre piloting skills and RCS (Mainly RCS), I managed to land upright. If you weren't so lucky, hold F9 and give it another go.

Now comes the honorary spacewalk. Mr. Robsted, go EVA!


Now just gently fall out of your spacecraft....

You've done it! You've successfully landed on the Mun! Yaaay! Chances are I've used up a lot of your time reading this, now go play some Kerbal Space Program! :)

Additional Information

I really wanted to make this guide because the tutorials I saw weren't very thorough and I didn't find them to work. I hope this helps new users who know almost nothing about the game. I wanted to make a completely idiot-proof guide. I spent a good few hours writing this, (3367 words, 57 pages in Microsoft Word, took three minutes to paste it all. Man I need a life....) so please give it a like or favorite. If you have any feedback, please feel free to leave a comment below! Other than that, thanks for reading and good luck in the world of Kerbal Space Program! You'll need it ;)