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Satellite observation

Goran

By Goran
in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas

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Goran

Goran

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This was already done on Kerbal but since the new atmosphere model this isn\'t possible anymore. But now we have the Mun!

1. Put a satellite in low orbit around Mun

2. Decorate the satellite with signal flares for bonus points :)

3. Land on the moon

4. Take a picture of your satellite passing overhead

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Goran

Goran

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Mission successful.

Managed to launch quite a large ship and put lander + satellite in low orbit (4.000m - Ap/Pg 100m apart). Separated from satellite and made a sucessful landing. Waited 35mins for satellite to come back into view.

The idea behind this is to see how hard would it be to pull off a randevous with the satellite in moon orbit. Without help from the game it\'s virtually impossible. By the time the satellite comes back into view it\'s too late to re-launch. Chances of getting anywhere near it flying blindly are quite slim.

I think docking will require some careful thinking on devs part to make it challenging yet fun (as they\'ve managed to do with lunar landings). I\'m looking forward to what they do :)

Oh, and if anyone manages to randevous with satellite in moon orbit after landing - you win an internet.

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Millitron

Millitron

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Mission successful.

Managed to launch quite a large ship and put lander + satellite in low orbit (4.000m - Ap/Pg 100m apart). Separated from satellite and made a sucessful landing. Waited 35mins for satellite to come back into view.

The idea behind this is to see how hard would it be to pull off a randevous with the satellite in moon orbit. Without help from the game it\'s virtually impossible. By the time the satellite comes back into view it\'s too late to re-launch. Chances of getting anywhere near it flying blindly are quite slim.

I think docking will require some careful thinking on devs part to make it challenging yet fun (as they\'ve managed to do with lunar landings). I\'m looking forward to what they do :)

Oh, and if anyone manages to randevous with satellite in moon orbit after landing - you win an internet.

I\'m thinking it could be done if you could figure out the orbital period of the satellite. Then you would know how long it would take the satellite to orbit, and could launch at an appropriate time to meet it.

Figuring out what that appropriate time is might be a trick though.

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Archer

Archer

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^^

I agree. That\'s been on my mind since forever.

Orbital rendezvous is really. frickin. hard.

Yes, yes it is. Why do you think NASA dedicated two Gemini missions* to try it.

I plan to try this challenge --seeing the probe, I\'m not crazy enough to try to rendezvous with it-- but I think I need to get better at not crashing into the Mun first.

*Gemini 6 & 7. They were successful the first try. I do not envy the flight planners who had to think up the calculations for this.

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Millitron

Millitron

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Yes, yes it is. Why do you think NASA dedicated two Gemini missions* to try it.

I plan to try this challenge --seeing the probe, I\'m not crazy enough to try to rendezvous with it-- but I think I need to get better at not crashing into the Mun first.

*Gemini 6 & 7. They were successful the first try. I do not envy the flight planners who had to think up the calculations for this.

Seeing the probe is easy as long as you have flare parts. Just land at the same inclination, and wait. Rendezvous is the hard part. I still don\'t know how to do it at all really.

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Ydoow

Ydoow

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Seeing the probe is easy as long as you have flare parts. Just land at the same inclination, and wait. Rendezvous is the hard part. I still don\'t know how to do it at all really.

I think it involves bringing your craft next to the other craft and tethering or connecting them by some means

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Millitron

Millitron

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He knows what it is, he just doesn\'t know how.

Exactly.

Also, I\'ve seen it done, sorta. Back before the Moon update, I posted a challenge for satellite rendezvous above Kerbin. The idea was deploy a satellite, and see it again at some presumably much later time. The guy who managed it didn\'t land and launch again, instead he just stayed in his original orbit, and payed close attention near where his orbit intersected his satellite\'s orbit.

What this shows, is that we have enough instrumentation to adequately keep track of at least one other orbit well enough for rendezvous. The problem comes when you do some other maneuvering between deployment and rendezvous. The timing needed would have to be so precise, I don\'t know how you could do it.

Except MAYBE, you could launch to the same heading as your satellite, but go for a slightly higher orbit. That way, your orbital period is a little longer than your satellite\'s, and eventually, it will catch up to you. Then launch timing wouldn\'t matter, since you could just wait as long as you needed.

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Goran

Goran

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Except MAYBE, you could launch to the same heading as your satellite, but go for a slightly higher orbit. That way, your orbital period is a little longer than your satellite\'s, and eventually, it will catch up to you. Then launch timing wouldn\'t matter, since you could just wait as long as you needed.

Tried that twice. I guess my orbit was a little off and the satellite never showed up for our date :). I think I might just wait for squad team to make it a tad easier for me.

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Millitron

Millitron

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Tried that twice. I guess my orbit was a little off and the satellite never showed up for our date :). I think I might just wait for squad team to make it a tad easier for me.

Or you may not have waited long enough? Though since you\'ll be using timewarp, its tough to know exactly when to go back to 1x. I mean, warp for a fraction of a second too long, and you miss the satellite by a few kilometers and have to wait another couple of hours. ???

Should be doable, but I agree, its not really worth bothering with until we get better instruments.

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Ronox

Ronox

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So, I ran an attempt, resulting in a near success, I did some math, dropped the satellite, landed, waited, launched, overshot the altitude and undershot my velocity, but had the satellite in sight the whole time, while correcting I failed to notice I was crossing over the pole and my compass was spinning, so trying to keep my heading I shot too far off course and had to abort. :\'(

The rendezvous is actually pretty simple, the only seat of your pants variable is the launch from the Mun, angle and speed, to achieve the correct orbit. You enter your mun orbit, record the time it takes to orbit, speed, alt, and heading, using the Pe or AP as a reference, launch the satellite, and land as close to your point as possible, wait the time it took to orbit, and launch when the sat is about 20 seconds from passing directly overhead. Got me damn close but I panicked and launched too soon and too high.

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