MKO is surpisingly hard

[Gargamel]

Put a Space telescope at a 5500 km equatorial orbit around Kerbin.  Then my dumb *** decided it would be a good idea to point it at the sun.  So I had to send up a repair mission.

I used a vessel that I routinely use for crew transfers to the various stations around the Mun and Minmus.  But I didn't account for the fact I usually refuel them when I get there.  I also have learned from using this craft, that it can't handle a direct return from a moon, at 3 km/s reentry speed, it tends to burn up (Jeb and 6 tourists found this out the hard way).  So I have to re-enter from a 80km orbit, helps with recovering funds too, as I'm pretty accurate with my landings (+/- 5km lol).   

Turns out I only had 100 dv left to re-enter.  I got it home, but it was an eye opener to the demands of MKO flight operations.    And oddly enough, I had designed an emergency fuel shuttle for just such an occasion just before launching this one, so I was ready if it was needed, but it wasn't. 

Edited April 22, 2018 by Gargamel

[The Aziz]

What's a MKO?

[KSK]

Medium Kerbin Orbit? No idea what range of altitudes that covers.

[Gargamel]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

Medium Kerbin Orbit? No idea what range of altitudes that covers.

Yup, I have no idea either.   But doing this mission made me appreciate the Hubble STS missions even more, as they encountered 'similar' issues, with it being at the far end of the range the shuttle could reach. 

[GoSlash27]

Gargamel,

 Yup, MKO missions are deceptive. They can easily require more DV than a trip to LMO and back.

 It pays to have a vis-viva calculator, since the subway maps don't show this.

Best,
-Slashy

Edited April 22, 2018 by GoSlash27

[Cavscout74]

Just had a rescue mission this morning with similar altitudes.  I hadn't done much that high in a long time, and I ended up cancelling the first attempt with my LKO recovery vehicle & launched a 2nd attempt with the Mun-range version to enough dV.  After all that trouble & expense, Gerfield Kerman better find a way to convert graviolli particles into snacks or something.

Edited April 22, 2018 by Cavscout74

[RealKerbal3x]

This seems like a good place to discuss this. What do you define the different regions of Kerbin orbit as?

For me it goes:

LKO: 70-250 km

MKO: 250-500 km

HKO: 500+ km

[theJesuit]

LKO is up to 250km as defined by Science.  HKO is up to geostationary?Cis-münar space beyond this?

[GoSlash27]

1 hour ago, theJesuit said:

LKO is up to 250km as defined by Science.  HKO is up to geostationary?Cis-münar space beyond this?

I'll buy that for a dollar.

-Slashy