LethalDose

Okay, I gotta ask: Why do you want to use a hitchhiker for the body of a simple satellite?

I think it's also worth noting that your current orbit's LAN is provided on the KER display in the OP. It's the second to last line of output in the "orbital" section above.

The longitude of the AN is given in degrees, in reference to some arbitrary, but consistent, celestial location. Your best best is to try to get your initial transfer AP near either the AN or DN on the target orbit.

I had exact same problem when I was (re)learning to fly after switching over to FAR. To slow down, what I find works well is flying into the lower atmosphere (< 5km) with a downward velocity vector, then pulling up. The increased atmospheric density starts you slowing down, and then the directional change bleeds off more speed. If you can get an initial dive that steep enough, you can pull up without even breaking into level flight, maintaining descent into thicker air. Basically, the idea is to keep your nose above the direction of travel, but keeping the direction of travel downward. Just an extension of flaring to slow down during landing.

Wanting to be in the proper inclination from the start is exactly what makes this an nightmare step, but at least now you've actually clarified you wanted it from the exit burn. This was not clearly defined when you asked "has someone calculated that transfer". If this is what you want, then starting from an equatorial orbit is moronic. It would make way more sense to launch directly into an inclined orbit from KSC, but determining that target inclination is, once again, a freaking nightmare. You need to calculate what the target velocity in the normal direction, but that's going to change with different exit burns. The calculation gets really ugly really fast. In fact, I think you may even want the inclination around Kerbin to be in the opposite direction as Moho's inclination, since you're ejecting out the back of Kerbin. Either way, it's a mess. At least 5thHorseman already handled this answer for me. And he even addresses not making the inclination change at all as I did in the addendum.

There are two problems with what you're asking: The first, and largest, is this vaguely defined nightmare step: Unless you can define where, when, and how this burn is made, we can't help you calculate it. Second, and less of an issue, is the burn at periapsis to get the Moho encounter (I refer to this as the "synchronization burn" here, but call it whatever, that's not official). this is a problem because the magnitude of the synch burn is going to vary on Moho's location, and the expenditure of energy at this burn in the Sun's SOI will be somewhat less efficient than the expenditure of energy close to Moho because Oberth. The two burns (sync and orbital capture) both basically add up to a single total, but the way you spend it is going to vary which screws up the calculations. Also, IIRC, Moho's semi-major axis isn't perpendicular to the Moho-Kerbin AN-DN axis, so the altitude of the synch burn varies as well, which further mucks up a nice clean calculation. So without more data, you can't calculate it. Would some worst-case scenario calculations work for you? Addendum: You may actually be able to avoid the first problem if you don't make a inclination correction, understanding the three following caveats: You'll have a pretty narrow window when you want to exit Kerbin's SOI/make your initial burn. Even if you do that right, it'll still be tricky to get the encounter right on the synch burn. you'll come in with a lot of offset vertical velocity. I think a clever astro-navigator can mitigate some of those issues, but it's still a bit trick to fly.

The savings you'd see are likely more due to the Pythagoras than Oberth, but it depends on what altitude you'd be killing youre horizontal velocity. Either way though, it's more efficient to make one burn at low altitude to land.

I've actually found pitch authority can also be an issue when designing flying wing aircraft due the small amount leverage allowed by the relatively short body. Though the few flying wings I experimented with were more similar to the YB-49 and B-2 than what's presented above.

Just a note: The only time you won't fly over a location is if your orbital inclination is less than the targets latitude or your orbital period is in some harmonic with the bodies rotational period (ratio of two small integers), but, as you pointed out it may take awhile.

"Tidally locked" doesn't mean "0 rotational speed" Burn another correction so you're twice as far ahead of the marker as you did last time. OR wait until the moon makes another rotation. As for precision landing, it's practice. Get a trajectory that will land past your target (even accounting for rotation), and then bend your trajectory (burn retrograde and a liiiiiitle bit radial) to land at your target.

That's probably the best advice you're gonna get. Beyond that, doing it without a rendezvous is going to require effective rocket staging and efficient engines, same as any mission.

Oops, voted wrong. Thought it was "should they maintain backwards compatibility". Anyway, backwards compatibility receiving any kind of consideration is freaking moronic, especially seeing as how backward compatibility wasn't a concern when they updated the spaceplanes in 0.24 and removed wing parts... The whole post by Harvester is the same vague information that doesn't really say anything that we've been getting for, now literally, years. They're going to try to make everyone happy, which means they're probably going to fail to make anyone happy.

Sounds like you have a handle on that part of it, then. Is it possible you're stalling out or otherwise losing lift?

Just a note/reminder: action groups are now locked behind SPH/VAB upgrades.

I suspect you're getting asymmetric flame out. What happens is that when jet engines start getting starved for air (e.g. at high altitudes), they can "flame out". If you have more than 1 jet engine, the jets may not both shut down at the same time. This is due to the crappy programming the 'idiosyncrasies' of the fuel flow logic in the game. When one engine shuts down, it gives all the air to the other engine. Obviously, the asymmetric thrust that results from this situation causes serious flight control issues. Some solutions the problem are: Don't fly in situations that lead to "flame outs" design vessels with single jet engines to avoid asymmetric thrust use action groups to shut down engines simultaneously The last one is may not be feasible for you right now since you have to unlock action groups by upgrading your facilities.

Okay, so it sounds like there haven't been any improvements to the fuel flow 'logic'. The solutions presented are still work-arounds to the idiocy, though shutting down the fuel flow is a good idea I hadn't seen before. I'll have to remember that one.

Got a 0.90 question for people. I've seen a lot of SSTOs in this thread with two air-breathing engines. Is anyone have trouble with asymmetric flameouts? Unless I'm mistaken (and I may be. I've played less than 30 mins of 0.90.... stupid dissertation...), custom actions groups are locked behind the last level of the SPH. Have they finally fixed the asymmetric delivery of air to multiple airbreathing engines or is there another way people are getting around the crappy fuel logic? Or are we still using action groups to shut off the engines?

All this. I had a professor who taught research methodology once state: "Don't try to discover something novel. instead try to take a well-known problem and think of it in a new way." Your OP is taking an known phenomenon (explosive decouplers) and using it in a novel way (shootin' stuff into space!). Even if someone tried it before, that doesn't mean you can't do it better or use it for a new application (e.g. shootin' stuff off Minmus).

The canards are winglets that can induce roll, unless they've been tweaked to not act on roll inputs. Which brings me to my question: Have they been tweaked to not act on roll input? Also, as Van points out, there appears to be a general lack of control surfaces on the aircraft in the pic.

For better visualization, maybe try connecting the docking ports together outside the vessel in the SPH (e.g. slap a port on the skin of the aircraft, then attach the other docking port to the node, and move the whole thing into the bay) for future builds?

Yep, the "balance" of the admin building is pretty borked in terms of science exchange rates. Lots of threads already started on this topic.

Can you be more specific about what you mean by "Maximized opposed spoilers"? Is this placing spoilers above flaps to increase drag? And in retrospect, it was flaps that were getting ripped off during flight. It's been > 1 year since I tried using spoilers or flaps, so I really can't give examples of where they were problematic.

Another excellent point.

Yep, I've seen this especially happen with stations to which a claw had been docked to sometime in the past. The game's in beta /shrug. bugs are to be expected, which is why deactivating quicksaves is, IMO, moronic.

The linked charts ('optimal' engine for max dv and TWR) don't indicate how much better those engines are than other engines, and ignore a lot of other factors (form factor, part count, cost, etc.). It's really an over-simplification of a more nuanced decision... To address the OP's question, I'd say that Isp is the primary measure of efficiency, but other factors in regards to the rocket, it's payload, and it's mission come into play when deciding the correct engine for the job.