Hey everyone, I started supporting KSP back in .16 I think (whenever it was first launched on steam, but .16 is the earliest version number I remember) but just came back to it as I saw it entered beta....congrats squad!! .90 is awesome with career mode, the contracts are the best tutorial as they have you start focusing small and working your way towards stuff. I walked through some forum posts and i have installed remotetech, kas, boxsat, and others based on requirements. Now to my questions, I have attempted launch my first two satellites. Unfortunately both have failed but surprisingly, my second attempt did not crash down back to Kerbin. I have read about the calculations used to get into orbit and saw for Kerbin, a minimum altitude (is that what you call it in space?) is 70km. However, my sat went all the way down to 44km at its periapsis and then ascended all the way to its apoapis of approx 565km (why my this attempt failed, was waiting to watch the Drainex1 trigger the stage for the first time and not paying attention to the orbital view ). Will the sat eventually fall as it continues to dip below 70km hitting friction slowing down the orbital speed? Or is the minimum altitude for orbit dependent on mass and speed (all thought I am sure there has to be some absolute floor)? Kind of going along the lines with the question above, I have learned how to calculate my deltaV. I read that 4500/ms is required to orbit Kerbin. I know people have spelled it out already but can someone provide the equation to determine minimum deltaV needed to execute maneuvers? ie, how was 4500/ms determined as minimum deltaV to orbit Kerbin? Part of the deltaV equation is the gravity factor, not sure what the actual name is. The tutorials all said to use the constant 9.8. However, in other reading I saw that is what earth's factor is. Is it a constant or dependent on the gravity of a planet? If not a constant, how do I find the gravity factor for different planets? Finally, on a complete side note, are forum accounts wiped after a certain amount of activity? I did an initial introduction and asked some similar questions to above along time ago. My account was no longer active and I cant find my forum post from last year.
