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Changing craft's orientation affects orbit


Konaire

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How to reproduce:

1. Get your craft to Gilly's orbit (probably any small body would work).

2. Turn off the engines, RCS and SAS.

3. Initiate craft rotation and stop giving user input. Without SAS the craft will continue to spin.

4. Now look at your orbit and watch in disbilief how it changes with your craft's orientation.

The effect is so pronounced that I can escape Gilly's SOI by simply rotating the craft. Yeah, nice orbital physics simulation, guys...

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Don't post it like this, that's good Kraken drive, you can use it.
 

But now seriously, I noticed it too. When I am rotating my craft with reaction wheels (no RCS) values of Ap and Pe are changing. Once I deorbited in Minmus by spinning the capsule.

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18 minutes ago, Tapeta said:

Don't post it like this, that's good Kraken drive, you can use it.
 

But now seriously, I noticed it too. When I am rotating my craft with reaction wheels (no RCS) values of Ap and Pe are changing. Once I deorbited in Minmus by spinning the capsule.

Lol, true! I remember KSP-1 had a bug where fuel transfer between tanks didn't update the craft's CoM and it was possible to move in space by a combination of repeated fuel transfers and craft rotations.

But this is at an entirely different level. It looks like an incorrect reference point is used for craft orientation to begin with. SAS module instead of CoM? Who knows, but the whole deal is very disappointing...

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51 minutes ago, Tapeta said:

Don't post it like this, that's good Kraken drive, you can use it.
 

But now seriously, I noticed it too. When I am rotating my craft with reaction wheels (no RCS) values of Ap and Pe are changing. Once I deorbited in Minmus by spinning the capsule.

I noticed this too but for Kerbin and the Mun.

Obviously the change wasn't as much compared to Minmus or Gilly, but it did change by a significant amount that you wouldn't expect

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Is this linked to rotation?

I've had several mostly stationary ship in low orbit that was insanely unstable.

A stable circular 5000m orbit would decay in less than a full orbit to hit the ground.

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