The Six Moon Designs Lunar Orbiter is a one-person single-wall freestanding tent with two tent vestibules. With a minimal weight of 40 oz, it comes with two aluminum tent poles, brief aluminum stakes, and a gear loft. It’s made with siliconize polyester (silpoly) and have to be seam-sealed earlier than use. With two vestibules and a gear loft, the freestanding Six Moon Designs Lunar Orbiter has a lot of room for gear storage and enhanced consolation in difficult climate circumstances.
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- Packed Weight 2 lbs 12 oz.
- Minimal (precise) weight: 40 oz (seam-sealed tent + gear loft + poles)*
- Packed Dimension: 12″ x 4.5″ | 30 cm x 11 cm
- Pole Size Dimension: 15.5″ | 40 cm
- Ground House: 21 sq ft |
- Vestibule Protection: 16 sq ft |
- Exterior Size x Width (with vestibules deployed) x Peak: 90″ x 146″ x 43″
- Inner Size x Width x Peak: 90″ x 35″ x 43″
- Supplies: 20D Silpoly Cover, 40D Silpoly Ground, 20D No-see-um Mesh
- Poles: 2 x DAC Featherlite NFL Inexperienced
- Minimal variety of stakes to pitch: 6
- MSRP: $425 USD
Orbiter Design and Development
The Lunar Orbiter is a single-wall tent with two crossing aluminum poles. The poles run by way of two sleeves on the tent’s roof, clip to the poles alongside the edges, and slot into PU sleeves within the corners. The tent has two vestibules that shield the mesh alongside the inside’s sides, with vents positioned on the ceiling. It comes absolutely geared up with all traces and line tensioners, together with 4 partway up the nook partitions. Sadly, there aren’t any man out loops on the high of the vestibules alongside the roof sleeves, which given the tent’s facet publicity, can be helpful in a gale.
The development is extra practical than elegant, with PU reinforcements and pole sleeves sewn to the tent cover and exterior corners. The overview pattern I acquired had been partially seam-sealed alongside the roof, pole connectors, and at the least parts of the vestibule seams. I don’t know if that’s included within the common client model.
Six Moon Designs says that the tent needs to be sealed earlier than use, however it could be useful if they might let you know precisely which seams should be sealed and gave you a tube or two of seam grip with which to do it. ( I’m certain they’ll get round to publishing that data quickly.) They provide a tent seam-sealing service on their trekking pole tent fashions, and I’d advise you to make the most of it. There are plenty of very lengthy seams on the Orbiter, and it’d be a messy course of to seam seal at residence.
Tent Setup
Setup is a bit fussy, so observe it at residence earlier than you strive it within the discipline for the primary time.
First, lay out the tent on the bottom so the 4 corners type a rectangle. Assemble the poles and slide the poles into the rooftop sleeves in order that they type an “X” over the tent. One of many sleeves has yellow-colored cloth sewn to the ends and is straightforward to search out. The opposite just isn’t marked and is identical shade as the remainder of the cover. Clip the edges of the cover to the poles utilizing the hooks offered. Anchor the ends of the poles within the PU sleeves on the tent corners. Stake out the corners. Lastly, stake out the vestibules.
If the wind is blowing exhausting once you strive to do that, strive staking out one or two corners on the identical facet first to forestall the tent from blowing away. It may also be difficult to stake out the Orbiter in a confined area, just like the tent website proven right here, as a result of the tent poles are very lengthy, and also you want further clearance to swing them round. I discovered it simpler to insert the poles in an open space after which carry the partially pitched tent to my campsite earlier than staking out the corners and vestibules.
Whereas the Orbiter is technically freestanding (you actually can decide it up and transfer it to a distinct location), you’ll nonetheless need to stake out the corners and vestibules, so don’t go away your stakes at residence. The stakes that include the tent are quite brief, though enough for grippy soil; I’d nonetheless advise an improve to longer ones: Massive Sky’s Tube Stakes, out there in several lengths, are choice.
When breaking down the tent, you’ll need to fastidiously unseat every part of the poles to forestall the segments from snapping collectively and breaking a connecting piece. When pulling the segments of the poles out of the PU nook sleeves, the tip caps repeatedly pull out of the poles. To forestall this, you would possibly need to superglue the ends to the poles.
Inside
The within of the tent is kind of spacious by way of size, width, and top, which can be a key promoting level. I can sit up, simply change my garments inside, and use an extra-wide 25″ sleeping pad. It’s additionally very good to have two vestibules to retailer all of your gear in a single and use the opposite for a door. Alternatively, you’ll be able to roll again one or each doorways to offset any inside condensation, though the tie-backs aren’t the stylish magnets utilized by Tarptent and Durston Gear, however old style toggles and elastics.
The Orbiter has an non-obligatory two-tiered gear loft that connects to 4 toggles within the ceiling. This loft is ideal for crushable gadgets like glasses, a Smartphone, or a headlamp and will increase the tent’s livability considerably. There are additionally two mesh pockets alongside the edges of the inside bathtub flooring.
The structure of the tent signifies that the tip partitions above your ft and head are basically vertical, which will increase livability. Being a single-wall tent, nonetheless, signifies that inside condensation is a digital assure except you sleep with the vestibule doorways open to mitigate it. I encountered this once I used the tent, however none of it rubbed off on me as a result of the inside area is giant sufficient to keep away from contact with it.
Comparable 1-Individual Freestanding Tents
The Lunar Orbiter is uncommon since it’s a freestanding single-wall tent with two vestibules. Most comparable tents solely have one door and vestibule. The exceptions to this are the Massive Sky Mirage 1.5 (hybrid single/double wall) and the Zpacks Free Zip 2 (single wall) which have two vestibules.
Advice
The Six Moon Designs Orbiter is a one-person freestanding single-wall tent that weighs 40 oz (2.5 lbs). Freestanding tents are very nice as a result of they’re normally dome-shaped with higher inside livability and energy than different tent architectures. They’re additionally very helpful to make use of in areas the place it may be tough to safe a tent to the bottom, together with rock ledges, picket tent platforms, sand, and snow.
Whereas I believe the listing value of the Orbiter is on the excessive facet ($425), particularly since you need to seam seal it your self, it could possibly be deal should you may get one used or on sale. The Orbiter has plenty of competitors, although, particularly with double wall tents in the identical weight class, together with these that may be set as much as fly first, so I’d encourage you to verify these out, too.
Disclosure: Six Moon Designs donated a tent for overview.
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