Scansat stuck at 7%

[Ferio]

Hi All,

Decided to give scansat a spin and  have set a scanner in orbit around 75km.  Both Altimetry en Biome are stuck at 7% (already went a few times around Kerbin)

What's the reason that the numbers don't increase anymore? (power is at 100%).

[Robin Patenall]

Just to check, you put your vessel in a 75km polar orbit right?

The Scansat instruments can only see directly below your vessel and to map a whole planet your going to need a high inclination, if you are equitorial then you're only going to get data from a small strip of the planet

What do your maps look like?

[jimmymcgoochie]

A couple of things to consider:

• Scanners can only see what’s underneath them, to get full coverage you need a polar orbit.
• Scanners have different operating altitudes- some can’t function at all when they’re too low and all have a maximum and won’t work above this. These vary depending on the type and model of scanner
• Some types of scanners require daylight to see the ground (visual, biome and resource scanners) and so will only cover the day side of the body being scanned, whereas radar based scanners will work day or night.
• Scanners use lots of power and will continue to draw power even if they’re switched on but not actively scanning, this can drain your batteries in the dark so make sure you have the power reserves to last the night.