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When you're flying a tall, wobbly rocket, the trajectory lines jitter about and it's very hard to plan precise course corrections for distant intercepts and flybys. I initially thought the jittering was just due to rounding errors causing uncertainty, but today I found out it's caused by wobbling of the spacecraft, which really ought to have no effect on its trajectory since the wobble does not affect the center of gravity. Apparently, the projected trajectory lines (orbits) are based on the current speed of the cockpit (or root part) while they ought to be based on the speed of the CG. Apart from the obious annoyance from this jittering, this error can also be exploited to gain free energy because when you activate time warp, the currently displayed trajectory line is fixated and the craft ends up actually flying that trajectory. I used that trick today to get an escape trajectory out of Minmus using only the reaction wheels. I had a contract to activate an engine on an escape trajectory out of Minmus, but the previous stage ran out of fuel when I was still in orbit with a 1400 km apoapsis. So I started to wobble the rocket using "A"/"D", the apoapsis went up and down between 1450 and 1350, I did my best to press the period key at the right time and got a 1420 km apoapsis. Back out of time warp, wobble again, time warp: 1435 km. I got it all the way up to escape trajectory step by step (above 2000 km!), so I could activate the next stage in the required conditions and finished the contract. The time warp trick does not work if the wobble is too intense (cannot activate time warp during acceleration), but once the intensity of the wobble has decreased somewhat, it does work. I filed bug report 9131.

every rocket I strap this thing to keeps toppling over. What's a good way to build ascent stages for huge craft?

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I made a craft that can send a satellite to orbit with only sepratrons! https://kerbalx.com/He_162/STO I also made a version that can take a kerbal up! Sadly, not down, that would require 200 more sepratrons at least. DOWNLOAD SOON

I have been trying to land a kerbal on Mun so i can get a crew report and a surface sample. I always seem to run out of fuel just as i get there, so the ship either gets flung out into space, crashes into the Mun or doesn't have the fuel to get back to Kerbin. Then i had a thought...what if i could simply time my launch so that the launch pad is at the correct angle to Mun so that when i launch my rocket i could just keep going until i got to 'Mun Encounter' Has anyone done that before? P.S. I am still running the vanilla game so no mods, if there is one that lets you do what i describe let me know.

There have been a handful of threads recently about possible ways that colonizing Mars could prove economically viable. We haven't really gotten much solid consensus. In the near-term, it just doesn't seem like there is any slam-dunk reason to live on Mars. Why not look a little closer to home? Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that some entity was willing to build a space station in orbit for long-term habitation. What, other than space tourism, would cause people to move there? On a basic economics level, people will endure a higher cost of living if the income they can receive is correspondingly greater. Living on a space station in orbit would be the extreme example. The cost of living is very, very high...to grossly understate...but if there was a way to generate correspondingly greater income, people would live there. The trouble is finding a lucrative income source in space that is not available on Earth, while also requiring you to actually be physically in space. The current jobs in in space come from NASA and other government-sponsored space agencies. That is mostly scientific research. While important, it doesn't serve as an immediate stream of revenue and so it probably doesn't fit. I could imagine other types of research that would be more lucrative. I'm sure there experiments which could only be conducted in microgravity, yet would result a lot of profit for companies here on Earth. Another opportunity would be zero g manufacturing and assembly. I don't know whether that market is big enough, or if there are aspects that would require human presence. Then there are more interesting possibilities. It might seem like a lot of trouble to set up a tax haven in space, but there may be certain business models (investment banking, stock option manipulation, encryption services, gambling servers, streaming servers, etc.) which would benefit tremendously if they could be conducted away from government oversight or control. The same goes for manufacturing of restricted substances. Finally, there's space jockey stuff -- going to repair satellites in orbit, assembling satellites, and so forth. Any other ideas?

Suppose you travel back in time and decide you want to build a rocket to reach orbit. The rocket merely has to reach a moderately stable orbit on its own; there are no payload requirements in particular. Suppose further that you have access to all the world's knowledge at the present day. Finally, suppose that you are able to convince the dominant world power of that era to assist you in collecting and refining raw materials. What is the earliest point in history at which you could reasonably be able to construct an orbital rocket?

Objective: get to Kerbin orbit (Pe > 70 km) starting with the least fuel (liquid+oxidizer+solid). Stock parts only (sandbox mode), no mods, manual piloting (SAS/RCS/reaction wheels allowed), no cheating, no refuelling. Multi stages allowed but be nice and don't use decouplers for propulsion. All stock engines allowed excepted electric. Payload/reentry not required, just get a pod to Pe > 70 km. Scoring: least fuel at takeoff (liquid+oxidizer+solid) wins. Unused fuel doesn't matter. Tip: you don't need to take off with completely filled tanks. My record (pictures to come): 30.6 liquid fuel + 22 oxidizer = 52.6 units.

Help! I have an astronaut (Valentina) stuck in orbit without any propanol fuel left. I sent up a ship to save her, but it missed and too is stuck in orbit without fuel, so close and yet it can't seem to reach her. Without fuel, I can't slow down. However, in this run, I have challenged myself not to leave any astronaut behind, so I need to save both of them. How?

As you scale down rockets, the atmosphere becomes "thicker" from the rocket's point of view, to the point that it would eventually become impossible to achieve orbit. If some hobbyists got together and pooled their resources, what's the smallest possible rocket that could actually reach orbit? Staging allowed; no payload required other than aeroshell and engines.

I'm very new to this game, only been playing a few days. My proudest achievement so far is landing an unmanned probe on the Mun and returning it to Kerbin. On this mission, I am attempting to land a manned probe on Minmus, I escaped Kerbin with no problems and fixed my ascension/descension nodes on the way there. However, I overshot one of my maneuvers by a tiny bit and ended up coming up to Minmus on a very strange angle. Whenever I try and create a new Maneuver to get into orbit around Minmus, my new orbit always appears out of place or not around Minmus. And at one point if I try dragging the retrograde vector any further the maneuver node starts glitching and jumping rapidly. I'd like to ask how you would recommend I get into orbit around Minmus in this situation. For imgur images -- The first Image shows my approach towards Minmus and my fuel resources. I'm using a Terrier engine with 3 small fuel tanks. The second image shows what happens whenever I try to make a maneuver into orbit. This happens all along my flight path, even at the pariapsis and around Minmus. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

I am trying to display contextual information about an orbit just by hovering the mouse above it. Obviously, clicking on an orbit allows you to place a maneuver node at that position, so there must be a way to translate mouse position into orbit + obit UT. The question is how? The OrbitRenderer seems to have some info about that. It has a GetMouseOverNode function and a mouseOver member, but it is not clear what they mean. Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks, Zentarul

Would two spacecraft that are orbiting "fall" vertically at the same rate? When i say fall, I don't mean relative to the ground, but just in the sense that orbiting objects fall while orbiting, but go fast enough sideways to keep from hitting the ground. I tried an experiment in KSP, by getting 2 spacecraft in slightly different orbits close to each other, then slowing one down to have a steep re-entry. I watched as the one re-entering fell vertically slightly faster than the one in orbit. But I thought they would have the same force of gravity acting on them?

Hello! Following tutorials and YouTube videos, I have succeeded in managing a number of rendezvous in orbit. (Yay!) I have watched my targeted item come into view and go out of view, and have approached withing a few meters. However, in all of these tutorials and videos that I see, the targeted object (in Staging) shows a yellow readout of its name and its distance. For example, see here at the time-tick 04:54 in this Scott Manley tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srsiLZLPiv0#t=4m54s But the objects that I target, and with which I rendezvous, do not show this yellow display! To check my distance while approaching, I keep having to switch to Orbit Map and mouse over the targeted object. I have indeed set the object as a target ("Set Target"). Any ideas? I am using version 1.x on Mac (Yosemite). Let me know if I can add any information. Thanks very much! Brooke

(From 19th Janurary) Tonight I am meant to be drawing. I have drawing and illustraion projects to be getting on with. But I also have a stranded kerbal in a peculiar orbit between the Mun and Kerbin, it is playing on my mind, I will just get Kellong Kerman back. It won't take long.... So I got my "multi-kerbal-orbiter" 5-seater and filled 4 seats with young kerbals that could do with the experience. I thought I would deliver Kellong to the station taking them along for the ride. After docking to kellong's ship I thought i could tow it into an orbit near the station so I could deorbit it easier, or use it later. I did this and 6kms from "L30 Station 1" I undocked from it and went to the station taking all the kerbals, including Kellong. I needed two scientists in the station's lab so that would be Bob and Kellong. Damnit Bill, get out of Kellong's seat. Got them transferred and then decided to bring the Kerbals that were along for the ride, home...... while towing the dead ship. I can always disconnect it if it causes a problem on re-entry, the Kerbal's will be fine. They died on impact with Kerbin while trying to hold onto as much debris as possible in order to get the funds. This annoyed me. I don't like killing Kerbals. It upsets me, I don't want to be resposible for their deaths. I loaded up my last save...... Kellong is back stuck in orbit. So I got the multi kerbal orbiter out again. Added some extra tanks, for a safety margin, and set it off this time without kerbals. It can function autonimously anyway. It was in orbit and about to do the transfer burn to get close to Kellong when I couldn't...... SAS was off. What has gone wrong? No power? I had forgotten to deploy the solar panels and the ship was dead with a full load of fuel. Multi kerbal orbiter number 3. This one is to dock with the other one and then deploy its panels and the one with the most fuel goes after Kellong. On getting this one into orbit I started recording the video. Dock with the other MKO and deployed its panels......save! I get to Kellong, rescue him and then tow the ship to the station, get Kellong onto the damned station and then went back to the ship.... I am going to deorbit it and the MKO now there are no Kerbals to hut and see how much survives.... it is in the video. I forgot what I was sopposed to be doing tonight.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QGqD0fy1FQ

So I know that the reason an orbit works is that while gravity is pulling on the spacecraft downwards, the ship's momentum pushes it out from the planet, so there's a constant tug-of-war. I also know that the equation for momentum is mass * velocity. Now, if you increase a ship's velocity, the momentum increases, and you can increase in altitude. But here's the problem: the vis-viva equation (V=√GM(2/r-1/a)) for orbital velocity doesn't take into account the spacecraft's mass. Say there's two spacecraft in circular orbit around Kerbin at 100 Km above the surface. One is 90 tons, and the other is 200 tons. Wouldn't the 200 ton spacecraft orbit at a lower velocity than the 90 ton one, because then their momentums are equal? Thank you in advance.

Hey, so I posted a similar thread in the mods category, but I'm not sure that was actually the best place for it. I have a simple question here. I it possible, stock or with a mod, to target contract orbits? My vision isn't that great, so I've always relied on Kerbal Engineer to tell me when I have a launch window. Now that I've been running a career game, I'm starting to get orbit contracts, but I can't for the life of me seem to launch close enough to a node so I don't have to do a huge correction in orbit. Any ideas or suggestions?

Hey all, just a quick question. Is there a mod that allows contract orbits to be targeted? I have such a hard time determining lauch windows and the like without a target. I couldn't find anything with a google search, but I thought I might be using the wrong keywords or something. Thanks!

I'm working on yet another landing guidance plugin. I'm almost ready to share an early version, but I'm having trouble with the coordinate system. In particular, I'm trying to find the latitude and longitude of the active vessel on its current orbit at some arbitrary time in the future, taking into account the rotation of the planet. The code looks something like this (with a nod to KER for inspiration): Vector3d position = vessel.GetOrbit().getPositionAtUT(currentTime + deltaT); double bodyRot = 360 * (deltaT) / body.rotationPeriod; double lat = body.GetLatitude(position); double lon = NormAngle(body.GetLongitude(position) - bodyRot); //NormAngle normalises the angle between -180, 180. When I continue on the current orbit and sample the actual lat and long at UT = currentTime + deltaT, I find: a ) Lat and long are both a bit off (0-2 degrees), thought long is usually more wrong than lat (possibly suggesting that my bodyRot is incorrect). b ) The error is greater the further in advance I try to calculate the lat and long (if I calculate no more than a few minutes into the future the error is negligible). I suspect that my understanding of the value returned by Orbit.getPositionAtUT() might be incorrect. It seems to return a value which is sort of "the position that the vessel would be in at time UT if the main body stopped moving", which I think would make my logic consistent. But either of those assumptions may be wrong. Can anyone offer any advice, or an alternative method?

http://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-earth/ No joke. 1/4 of Americans believe the Sun revolves around the Earth. Also, it states that Europeans actually scored WORSE on that question, so it's not really a problem isolated in 'merica. http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/1-in-4-americans-dont-know-earth-orbits-the-sun-yes-really-140214.htm Here it also states that about halfway Americans believe Astrology is bunk science. No really. Guys, take your tin foil hats off. Please.

When you all go to create manned exploration you take a command pod attach docking port,rcs,decoupler and so on...But when you make a service module you use a poodle engine.But in real Gemini missions They did not use rocket engines they instead used RCS thrusters for maneuvering in orbit to rendezvous also in A Cake odyssey video only RCS thusters where used.Like that in one spacecraft try using no engines. I recommend Making the RCS design like the cake odyssey video but under that putting the shortest 2.5 meter LFO tank and putting as much vernor engines. Pictures:https://imgur.com/a/efum0

*Vanilla KSP* In my Kerbal career I finally managed to get a kerbal rocket into orbit. However it is extremely low on fuel and I have a mission to get back to Kerbin. Is it possible for me to resupply this rocket with fuel?

Specifically a highly elliptical orbit with a period of one Kerbin day (6 hours). It seems like worst-case would be when the 'sides' (ascending and descending nodes) of the orbit are on the dark side. Would this be less dark time than a kerbosynchronous orbit with 0 inclination and eccentricity? Related question: Is there an orbit or dark time calculator that takes into account inclination, or can someone help me out with the math to sort it out? Thanks in advance!

New bug affecting existing ships When I load up onto my science lab bearing space planes I get explosions and the F3 reports that XXX struck the launch pad. These are ships that have been in orbit for days and one is even on a trajectory to leave the Kerbin sphere of influence. The parts being broken tend to be wings. As these are spaceplane labs intended to land their science this is a mission failure. It is on at least two of my save games and two of the in flight ships. When I loaded on other nights had no problem I say again ships flying in orbit and accessed over various times are now reporting in space they are hitting the launch pad Recent updates done to Kerbal Alarm Clock but I dont think that would do a thing to the launch pad edit: Backed game up to the main menu and loaded again. An earlier save still had all the parts and so far no explosions. So this is a problem that isn't always repeatable. At least I can keep flying for now.

I've started a new sandbox game and with inspiration from @ZooNamedGames, I've begun a space program for the United Kerbin Republic... As I was preparing to compose mission objectives for each of the missions in the initial program, I decided to take a page from NASA/NACA and actually set early goals for a specific number of orbits. During the first flight, I discovered something for the first time - KSP does not count the number of orbits around any body within the game! So, it's another suggestion by me so feel free to ignore it; I think that having a counter that can be toggled to count orbits when around a body within the Kerbol System would be a tremendous help...