Narwhalasaur Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Hi all.I\'m wondering what the best way to rotate an elliptical orbit in its own plane is. (Hopefully when the craft is at Periapsis) I would use this maneuver to fine tune Munar transfers. I currently try burns straight up or straight down (+90, -90 inclination) to acheive this. Am I doing it correctly?Here\'s a picture with pretty arrows: Thanks! EDIT: Thanks again everyone who posted. It seems like I was doing things correctly, in general. Semininja, I\'m still interested in seeing the pictures for clarification EDIT 2: Thanks, Semininja! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmon26 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I know you can rotate an elliptical orbit\'s major axis prograde by either burning upwards at apoapsis or downwards at periapsis. Basically this mimics the effects of temporarily reducing or amplifying (respectively) the force of gravity, circularizing your flight path for a given orbital speed. When you stop burning, your original elliptical orbit will resume, but in a new orientation.I don\'t know how to swing the major axis retrograde, but I\'m sure it\'s possible, if not very efficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Intuitively, I\'d say that you would probably want to burn twice, once prograde half-way between Ap and Pe going outwards and then retrograde between Pe and Ap on the way back down. Stuff like this is rarely intuitive though, and that probably won\'t help you much if you plan on stopping off at the Pe for a moon orbit/landing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semininja Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 One way to adjust your orbit before it\'s reached all the way out to the target orbit is to burn prograde about 90 degrees after your perikee (relative to Kerbin, not the orbit). This will raise your apokee while also rotating your orbit prograde.Pic to follow soon.Arrows near Kerbin show direction, location of burn; arrows near Mun show direction of Ap movement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmo-not Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Relative to an orbit in the 090 direction:Burn 90° relative to your velocity vector outwards (from Kerbin) to rotate your apoapsis CW (from map looking from top). Burn inwards to rotate it CCW. After you get it rotated to your liking, burn to adjust apoapsis height. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semininja Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Pics added as explanation in previous post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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