Kerbal Stock Career. How do navigate (intercept bodies) in space without a maneuver nodes?

[jpinard]

Apparently I would have to unlock the next level of tracking station AND Mission Control before I get the ability to put down maneuver nodes. That will cost me a fortune. Meanwhile my missions are all super hard and I need maneuver nodes before I can do them to be able to unlock... maneuver nodes.

 

So what kind of tricks do people have to manage this? or does everyone just download mods to skip this challenging part of the career?

[4x4cheesecake]

There is a common trick to get to the Mun:

1. Get into a circular, equatorial ~80km orbit around Kerbin
2. Wait for the Mun to rise at kerbins horizon
3. Burn prograde unitl your Ap reaches the orbit of the Mun
4. Wait until your reach the Mun (you will not see the encounter without the building upgrades)

The same trick can be used to reach Minmus but if your encounter is not close to the An/Dn of Minmus, you have to add a normal/antinormal component to your burn (or perform a correction burn on your way) and since Minmus is such a small target, it's easy to mess up.

If you actually want to reach a different planet and not just one of the moons, things will become very very difficult. In this case, you have to use the correct ejection angle at the correct transfer window/phase angle.
Ejection/phase angles are explained and calculated here: http://ksp.olex.biz/
Transfer windows instead of phase angles are a bit more convenient to use: https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

I would highly recommend to upgrade the buildings before attempting to reach a different planet. You will probably get more trouble to get an interplanetary encounter than gathering the money to upgrade the buildings.

[mystifeid]

Personally, I find the easiest way of getting to the Mun at the beginning of a career is fast forward time in the tracking station until a projected vertical ascent from KSC is leading the Mun by about 45° then launch and just go straight up until the Ap is at about 12500km. You will invariably get an intercept and usually spend a fraction of the time irl doing it. Exactly the same can be done with Minmus - lead by 45°, burn straight up until Ap reaches about 45000km then make a small normal/antinormal burn halfway out to intercept the orbit.

[bewing]

I agree with mystifeid -- the easy way is to launch straight up. I agree with his "lead" angle for the Mun -- 45 degrees. I slightly disagree with his lead angle for Minmus -- I say to use 30 degrees for that. You don't need fancy maneuver nodes to get to either one. It'll just cost you a tiny bit of extra fuel to launch vertically.

 

[jpinard]

7 hours ago, mystifeid said:

Personally, I find the easiest way of getting to the Mun at the beginning of a career is fast forward time in the tracking station until a projected vertical ascent from KSC is leading the Mun by about 45° then launch and just go straight up until the Ap is at about 12500km. You will invariably get an intercept and usually spend a fraction of the time irl doing it. Exactly the same can be done with Minmus - lead by 45°, burn straight up until Ap reaches about 45000km then make a small normal/antinormal burn halfway out to intercept the orbit.

Cool I will give this a try.

Edited July 1, 2019 by jpinard

[coredumpster]

Having just restarted a new career save with 1.7.2 and BG, I've recently re-learned how to do this with Level 1 facilities and just Level 1 pilot, so only pro/retro hold, no mission planning, and no conics.

You can do a Mun intercept/fly-by straight from the launchpad at KSC without circularizing, which saves a bit more fuel ( helpful when you have low part count and mass limits ).

Sit on the pad, with camera facing east ( out over the water ), and fast forward until the Mun appears over the horizon.  About 1/3rd of the way between the horizon and straight overhead.

Launch like normal with a gravity turn ( or your closest approximation of one ), don't stop to circularize, just keep burning pro-grade ( almost pointing directly at the Mun ) until your orbit gets to the Mun's.  You should have an intercept and be able to log your first fly-by mission and pull home a bunch of science.

[UmbralRaptor]

13 hours ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

There is a common trick to get to the Mun:

1. Get into a circular, equatorial ~80km orbit around Kerbin
2. Wait for the Mun to rise at kerbins horizon
3. Burn prograde unitl your Ap reaches the orbit of the Mun
4. Wait until your reach the Mun (you will not see the encounter without the building upgrades)

This works, well, and was what we did before maneuver nodes existed. I just want to add 2 things:

1) Ideally you want to burn just before Munrise, though this isn't a big deal if you have a bit of ΔV reserve. Careful checking of the map view helps.

2) If you get your apoapsis to 14 Mm, you get a free-return trajectory. Albeit with a somewhat distant flyby IIRC.

[Aeroboi]

Minmus can be done easily also. Minmus has a inclination which crosses Kerbins inclination. Zoom out of map view while focused at kerbin to see Minmus orbit line. Set minmus as target and watch the AN/DN lines. You see the An and Dn marked on opposite sides of the Minmus orbit.
What you want to do is meet minmus at the AN or DN itself. This can be done easily since it takes about one quarter orbit for minmus to revolve around Kerbin, in the same time it takes a spaceship to meet Minmus orbit from LKO.

So determine the AN/DN of minmus relative to kerbin orbit and launch your vessel when Minmus is one quarter orbit from AN/DN. Do this the same way as if you were going to the Mun by waiting for Minmus to rise above the horizon and then burn.
Makes sure your final orbit reaches a little bit further past Minmus.

Quicksave or custom save halfway and see if your aproach was correct. If Minmus takes to long to catch up while you get there reload and increase your burn on the prograde by a few m/s and see if you'll meet up the 2nd time. Also verify if your AN/DN is spot on at arrival once getting there. Minmus is very small but it's very far away from Kerbin so it has a relatively large SOI considering it's size, as long as you'll enter the SOI you have the navigational aids to do a landing, by most cases shouldn't cost much more in fuel then using a maneuver node.

Edited July 4, 2019 by Aeroboi