Ens Gijs

Correct Using various "final" orbital altitudes may yield better slingshots as well. For example I found a nice free return from Eeloo (round trip from kerbin) with an optimal flyby Pe of about 440k (savings were trivial, but Eeloo is a low gravity body anyway - 80dV at 100K flyby vs 30dV at 440K flyby). I was actually able to achieve the free return for 8dV in game by burning just after I exited Kerbin SOI instead of within / near Eeloo SOI as planned by the tool. Sorry for the pains of early access

You may now get EXCITED! I know I am I've added support for using the WSAD keys to move your orbit selection around (holding a key down works too - lots of fun to see the planets spin and your orbits change). Most importantly I've added a listing of what bodies your flyby will open up to you. In the screenshot below you will see Kerbin (+2) 3.02 This means that the selected flyby will give you an encounter with Kerbin in 2 orbits of your craft for 3 m/s of deltaV (I bet you could do it for free ). Tip: you can hover over the encounter (e.g. Kerbin (+2) 3.02) to see the "Time of flight" - this gets rather comical when using Jool to reach Eeloo.

Just a quick update. I'm back to work on this project and I've planned and executed my first complex trip using it! Don't get too excited though. The UI hasn't caught up to the theory just yet, but I'm confidant now that the tool really can be valuable. This is the trip I planned, and flew in KSP. The trip was a flyby of Duna with a "free return" to Kerbin - all told it cost me just over 1200 dV to eject from LKO and return to Kerbins surface. Kerbin Departure Initial Orbit: 100km Flyby Altitude: 100km Departure: Year 1, day 222 at 3:07 Time of Flight: 366 days 2:33 Ejection dV: 1114 Prograde dV: 1112.4 Normal dV: -51.2 Spent 50dV at midpoint to Duna to correct injection error Return Conditions Correction burn dV: 27 estimated, 32 actual - performed at time of Duna flyby (at Duna Pe) Encounter occurs at +2 orbits Spent additional couple of dV to tune Kerbin encounter in interplanetary space. I'm happy to report that from the Duna burn alone I achieved a Kerbin encounter, this adjustment burn was to actually hit the planet, not just the SOI

The proof of concept is now live at http://ens-gijs.github.io/ksp/ Mouse wheel will zoom you in and out. Click and drag to pan. If you are calculating transfers between moons the main solar view will track your primary (the planet the moons are orbiting) which may be a little annoying but it's better than the planet always shifting fully out of view. The "Final orbit" field is used to specify the flyby Pe at the destination body. For now there is no control over side of passing - you cannot yet specify if you want to pass in front of or behind the target body for a higher or lower flyby orbit than the original - this is on my list of things to do. Just like Alex's original tool the results you are shown will not be exactly how things will happen in game. Especially around bodies with large SOI's relative to the length of your flight path (e.g. transferring between moons and flying by Jool). The patch conics approximation completely ignores SOI's - it considers the flight path turn and velocity changes to be instantaneous. I might improve on this in the future but there is a long list of things i need to get to before this. One last note: the view on the right showing the flyby trajectory is always normalized - that is, it is rotated so the destination body is traveling left to right and its primary (e.g. the sun) is, nearly, directly up and the view is rotated such that the views XY plane is aligned with the plane of the flyby orbit... translation until i get 3d rotation support in that view know that it is aligned with your flyby's orbit and is not a strait "down" view onto the body. To see this in action set a transfer from Kerbin to Eeloo and note the dots and "rod" on the body - these represent the north and south poles and the line between them to help you get a sense of orientation. If you didn't follow this last bit dont worry about it If you want to look at the code... don't this is a very rough thrown together proof of concept - it'll get a complete overhaul in a while but I wanted to get it out there for the community to start messing with.

The proof of concept is now live at http://ens-gijs.github.io/ksp/ I've been working on adding flyby calculation to alexmoon's launch window planner for a couple of weeks in the evenings. It's coming along nicely but there is so much more I want to do with it The idea is that you will be able to click on the porkchop plot and see the flight path of not only the selected orbit but also of where that flight path can take you next. I'm working on showing secondary interactions without making an absolute mess of things. She's a little rough but working well. Try this flight path out to get a flyby of the Mun from Minmus which results in a return to Kerbin. The left image shows a transfer from Minmus to the Mun that results in a Kerbin deorbit flight path. Uninteresting parts of the flight path were Photoshoped lighter - I haven't coded that up yet. The Mun is shown twice, once with a label and once without - the one with the label is where the Mun is when you leave Minmus, the one without a label is where the Mun will be when you encounter it. The right image is the flyby condition at the Mun. Kerbin is directly "up" in that image and the Mun is traveling from left to right. The Pe at Mun is 7548m, which is minimum safe distance +500m. Anyway, this post is just a hello world post for the project. I'll be working on it through the holiday and hopefully have it up and running somewhere you can play with it in a couple of days.

Maybe some will have to learn it (version 1.1). Apparently on "easy" you wont have to care and even on "hard" it's not going to be nearly as demanding as remote tech... but if you're gonna do it you might as well make it look awesome

Thanks for the link to the other planning tool - I did look for tools before I made mine, but this one didn't come up. It's definitely superior to my spreadsheet in many ways - but I have to admit if I hadn't created my sheet I'm not sure I would have recognized the "Multiple Launch View" as being its equivalent (did you notice this?), heck I still had to run numbers through both tools to confirm that the output was the same. I see one thing missing from the web tool that I had planned for my sheet - the missing information that I would like to see is how many degrees of "latitude" of ground coverage are provided by the arrangement. One last redemption note for my spreadsheet is the ability to compute the orbital parameters based on your objective - one of * Minimal Altitude * Targeted Altitude (only one provided by web tool) * Targeted Orbital Period Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Ever want to deploy perfectly spaced satellites? Use this spreadsheet and do just that. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10ba8mrHmFVnjWnCaoyTgPB3pY1S4ab8ydDKO8q36sD4 Instructions are in the sheet - but in a nutshell, here's how Enjoy! And please let me know if you find this tool helpful! -Ens

Great videos - really enjoyed them all A brief history of KSP... I remember the introduction of asteroids, science, and career mode I remember the launch tower limiting the size of my ships I remember when there were no space planes - but strangely I believe there was always a runway I remember the time before landing gear - spaceships don't need wheels I remember the time before docking ports I remember the game when there were no planets other than Kerbin I remember when there was no Minmus I remember when there was no actual Kerbol (sun) - it was a very bright lie! I remember when Kerbin did not orbit around Kerbol I remember the game when it was free I remember when there was no Mun I remember when there was only SAS and no RCS toggle I remember when the atmosphere suddenly stopped at 34,500m I remember when the altimeter topped out at 999,999K I remember the time before time warp and spending all my real minutes to perform a full orbit I remember when Kerbin did not rotate at all I remember falling in love with the game called Kerbal Space Program

OMG the aerobreaking calculator just got confused! So... what's my Jool and Eve aerobreaking gonna look like now? It's gonna suck when my spacecraft goes boom so far from home o.0 I can't be the only one thinking this...

i think we could pull this one off... the pivots might be troublesome

Ok, so it's not the most stable plane I've ever made - had to shift fuel around and get it out of a couple of flat spins on the way back to HQ but she made it. 185 parts 7 bombs 2 crew 3 changes of underware for Mitbur

another spinner - now with bearings! i'm not sure how the ground distance covered is 2km while i'm clearly 1.2km from the launcher - must count the distance i went in a circle!

Centrifugal attempt

Air Gun - or Kerbal Rail Gun by the way guys, "control from here" on your payload before you launch it to get a true measure of distance, etc.

... I can achieve what i want by hand editing the .craft file - but i would really love a simple in game right click thanks Taki i'll give it a try

I find building vehicles starting from a docking port to be a real hassle - especially when i want that port to attach to the side of a fuel tank for example. So instead i would like to build a craft as usual in the SPH - set a new root part (say my centered docking port for example) and then i can make it into a sub-assemble for VAB use. does this mod exist?

Very cool! I found that the NSC Adapter makes a perfect leg setting jig And with creative use of an antenna we have a solid pointer as to where to put side mount docking ports (I suggest chopping this up and creating subassemblies as needed). Jig craft file