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As a bonus to this, if you can plan your landings on very level ground, you can save upto a few hundred dV as well by using the brakes to get rid of the remaining horizontal velocity on the ground while your rocket and wheels deal with the vertical velocity. Rover wheels have much, much, more impact tolerance (20 to 150m/s) than landing legs (10-12m/s). Taking off from Minimus flats horizontally is also an option.

If the antenna is located behind a big part that shields it from aero forces, it'll last longer. The most extreme version of how that can probably work is this. If you use this mod for fairings, you can make fairings that can detach one piece at a time, leaving an open hole to transmit out of while protecting the antenna. Alternatively, lots of dV (8000-10,000dV) and chutes for a 'controlled' descent through Jool's atmo.

Yup, agree with @qzgy, pack lots of extra dV and biome hop. Alternatively, have a refeuling tanker parked in low orbit.

Alternatively, just let KSP do the calculations for you - map out your entire trajectory to Duna/target body using one of your relay sats around Kerbin. Or better yet, have a tiny sat orbiting around Kerbin at your preferred typical orbit. Then just add launch and LKO insertion cost (2950-3400dV) and that's what you design the ship with + whatever % dV buffer you are comfortable with. This only works because time pauses in the VAB & SPH. Also, planning the transfer orbit a day or two early doesn't change your dV requirements by much. The chart works for most of the part but with highly eccentric target orbits, it can fail badly on both transfer and capture dV. Edit: An added advantage is that you can just copy the entire setup on your own ship after it launches by making your planning sat the target so it's nodes are visible for replication. So you can plan your trajectory to Duna launching directly from LKO. The numbers in the map for the transfer only work if you launch from LKO direct to Duna. It's not cheating, it's the Oberth Effect - the map is calculating how much extra dV you have to put in launching from LKO to achieve the correct hyperbolic excess velocity for the transfer, taking into account the added relative orbital velocity your ship gains when exiting Kerbin's SoI. It's an extra 250dV to convert a flyby into the minimum capture orbit with Pe just above atmosphere and Ap just below SoI. You do this by ensuring your flyby passes as close as possible to Duna and then burn retrograde when at this closest point. Again, Oberth effect.

Stock KSP requires you to always be in command of your rover while it moves on the surface of a planet/moon. You can always install the mod below for an "autopilot drive to target" behavior that works while the rover is not the active vessel.

Realistically though, low sun orbit is about 0.1KU, so SMA = 0.6KU meaning period = (0.6)3/2= ~0.46476 kerbin year, or 2.15 orbits every 1 kerbin orbit. The actual take away message is that you CAN complete your mission in one Kerbin year. As @FancyMouse said, all you have to do is burn at Ap after the first orbit so that your second orbit is ~(1-0.46476)=0.53524 Kerbin years long. This does increase your AP velocity meaning you'll have to pack extra dV both for the maneuver and for the orbital capture, if aerobreaking isn't enough to do the job. Edit: @Kryxal is correct. Truncated my explanation in the above: we might think that dV spent adjusting the orbit to a longer period would also have been spent getting captured into Kerbin orbit as it whizzes past you, because it's now moving relatively slower. So "just pack the amount of dV same as for capture in a full resonance orbit". However, by raising the Pe in deep space, there is much less Oberth effect. Also, probably not a big enough change to safely rely on full aero capture. So pack extra dV for the manuever and orbital capture.

Like Cpt. Kerbalcrunch, learned to dock outside the tutorials. Having said that, it seems that the latest version seems much better than when I first started out. I still find that the instructions can throw you off. Step by step pics below - skip over the parts you already know but I put it all in because I can't figure out how you ran out of fuel/monoprop. I had alot of both left over. You can probably work out what went wrong by comparing the steps. Hope it helps

It'll almost certainly work if you can land it on a 7km mountain. It could probably work from quite a bit lower but that would eat into the final stage's dV. Of course, if there is no ore on that mountain...but that's not something we can help you with

Urm, the link above goes to an Interstellar Fuel Switch "Not Found" page. But the link in the first page works just fine . Thanks for the backport! Still waiting for for mods and planet packs to update to 1.3 before committing to the switch.

It's entirely possible that you have the 'correct' phase angle but have not taken into account Eve's phase angle requires it to be behind Kerbin Eve's inclination your ejection angle retrograde is important, a few degrees off here can have a noticable effect on intercept. "Sweep" Eve's orbit by / after you have adjusted inclination / to get the two orbits to intercept. You will need to make some adjustment's anyway because the phase angle calculations assume circular orbits. Or if you feeling really keen, calculate the phase angles yourself to confirm. Kepler's Third law to get you started : (Orbital Period, OP)2 α (Semi-major Axis, SMA)3. It's all a bunch of ratio's after that. Nothing has changed.

If just you want a few cinematic shots instead of doing the entire ascent sans HUD, use F2 when you want to hide the HUD. Alternatively, you can fly the entire way HUD-less by switching in and out of IVA mode. Or with lots of practice, just fly switching to map mode to eyeball your progress. Seems to be how some people do it.

Urm, isn't that essentially adding another stage to you satellite? A simpleTerrier-engine stage that would be equivalent to the PAM. Assumes everything else before that is used to get into standard orbit. Remember to bulk up the first few stages given the extra payload mass. Usually this means adding some SRB's but LF engines work too,

Higher TWR engines + more tanks unfortunately. To leave the dV in the final stage untouched, you obviously need more dV in the earlier stages. So about 6000-7500dV in the stages below the final stage. You obviously have the bare minimum in your entire ship. You'll have to redo your ship if having dV in the final stage is what you really want. Is that going to be worth the effort vs. pickup with a spacetug? Based on this tool, Optimal Engine Chart, 10 aerospikes can just about get you ~3400dV with a payload of 2.12 tonnes, TWR 1.3 min, 1.5 ATM. (7km high mountain) This becomes ~4800dV in space so you have about 4300-4500dV of expendable dV over the total of your ascent. You need MOAR! Using the same tool will show you that Vectors, Mammoths and Mainsails are the only things that will let you pack >6000dv underneath the final stage. P.S. Pictures the next time + KER/MechJeb readout in the pics - everything above could have been written faster without opening KSP, if only there were some pretty pics. P.S.S Hyperedit saves alot of effort in ship testing. Or debug menu - orbit, infinite fuel, unbreakable joints, no crash damage, ignore heat. As necessary. EDIT: This ascent stage will get you what you want. (Nope, I don't use Dropbox). Pod for easier kerbal piloted testing. Replace as required.

"]" ----> Cycle through active ships (forwards) "[" ----> Cycle through active ships (backwards) "Ships" include Kerbals that are close by to the active ship. The square bracket keys are to the right of the letter P on the keyboard (same on the Mac, yes?) Hope that helps.

There should be something suitable at these coordinates 5° 1' 54" S 98° 38' 7" E - use MechJeb/HyperEdit to scout it out to be sure. Things might have changed as I haven't landed on/SCANSat'ed altimetry of Eve in the current career. The mountain used to shrink with newer updates in the past. There used to be a forum thread that documented an Eve landing followed by the journey to haul the ship up the peak of one of the taller mountains in order to get home.

Completely unrelated, @Alshain. Why Beta Aquilae? Edit: Hah! Figured it out.

A mid-flight course correction doesn't cost too much dV, especially if you are heading far out to Ceti on the minimuum 6 degree difference in planes (15-9) Very specifically, the launch window you are looking for is 'when to launch from KSC so that you can launch to the target moon ASAP from parking orbit'. However, it does depend on how well you can control the LAN of your inclination post launch - so there will always be some adjustment. Given that there is already room for error, we can use some rough and ready approximations. Time it takes to complete Hohmann Transfer: Kepler's Third Law simplified states that (Orbital Period, OP)2 α (Semi-Major Axis, SMA)3 You have the orbital periods of the moons and SMA from the wiki but simplifying, because a parking orbit around Gael is tiny vs. the SMA of a moon, that the orbital period of the transfer to to any moon = (Moon's OP)*(1/8)0.5, taking the SMA of the transfer orbit as 1/2 SMA Moon, = 35.4% of Moon's OP. The transfer time would be half that orbital period, = ~17.7% Which means that you would launch from ORBIT when the moon is (360*17.7%)= ~63.6, or about 65 degrees from the ascending/descending node. But wait, this is starting to look awfully familiar - it's all just angles, just like the first time you traveled to the Mun. Zeroing in on the answer you want though, relies in the fact that the AN/DN is in relation to your orbit so to arrive at the AN/DN, you leave from your DN/AN 180 degrees opposite. To be fair, this isn't really the case as the SOI of the moon subtends a certain angle in the sky but were doing rough and ready here. So, that means you launch from KSC when the target moon is 180-65 = 115 degrees ahead of the KSC. Edit: for Iota at least, you can predictably offset the 115 degrees by how much you find your LAN displaced from KSC for a classic launch profile. For example, after launch, you find that your AN is displaced 10 degrees West relative to KSC, so you would launch from KSC when Iota is 105 degrees ahead of KSC. Assuming perfect launch with correct azumith heading from KSC into a 15 degree inclination orbit, your AN will be displaced 35 degrees West. So launch from KSC when it is 85 degrees behind Iota. For Ceti, it's more complicated, ran out of Math-Fu for today, so perhaps wait till it's close to it's 75-65 degrees from it's AN/DN relative to Gael to minimise errors. Underlying math located here (scroll a bit further down) Open to corrections if I've messed up somewhere. Pedantry and accuracy I'll leave to those with more time who aren't playing more KSP instead.

Learnt a new thing today! Will try it out soon.

Curiosity piqued - what is this fast and efficient 8-legged method* you use @bewing? *all kidding aside on the spelling, still curious though , always game for picking up new tricks.

Subassemblies/merge option on the load craft menu? See this thread on how to set things up so that when you "project-ception' your craft, they can be attached to each other.

So you've got a nice reference sat up and running! There are many methods but my choice would be to try to first launch into the plane of final orbit. Which if you look in map view/tracking station, paying attention to the way the orbit line fades, is retrograde ---> you have to launch West instead of East. It's also not directly West so the rocket might be hard to steer vs what you are used to, pack at least 500dV extra worth of fuel. Then take it from there. The reference sat makes life easier especially if it's in LKO (~80x80km orbit) because you can use it to plot out all your maneuvers in advance. First step would be to plot the plane change maneuver for the reference sat so it lines up with the plane of orbit. This marks the ascending and descending node locations. When KSC is 5-10 minutes from being right under the node, launch your rocket into the right heading. From there, it should be all simple stuff because any minor errors you have can be easily corrected by targeting the reference sat - it'll show you in relation to it's orbit the AN/DN where you can burn to make the combined inclination + LAN adjustments (with reference to Kerbin).

Might be a silly question but does spacebar not work for you either? Followed by square brackets till you get back to your kerbal again, then spacebar? And the final resort, switch to a completely different ship outside physics range, then switch back? Sometimes KSP can act up on the first few EVAs after installing mods - never tracked down which but it goes back to normal in my experience. If none of the above works, then you might have to do the "uninstall half your mods" rinse, repeat , till you narrow down which one is giving problems. (if you uninstall half of them and the problem is fixed, then you know it's in the half you uninstalled - replace everything with that half, repeat) EDIT: there was also a time back with mk1pods when on occasion, EVAs would suddenly eject them into an uncontrollable state even with RCS but I thought they fixed that sort of thing in the newer versions. Maybe you were unlucky. Try again on a backup save and drift away from the ship a bit before engaging EVA?

Bringing fairing to a booster discussion? I'm not sure I understood your point. It's more about going fast enough and not burning up to minimise drag & gravity loss +++ the cheaper and faster you can head straight up, the thinner the air and the better your performance becomes, what was 2500dV worth of fuel at sea level becomes like ~4000dV for the same amount further up. So comparing a flat sardine can shaped ship that's draggy vs a pencil shaped ship of same fuel fractions and engine performance, the pencil shaped ship would win by a huge margin. Essentially @Physics Student approach to Eve.

If it wasn't hidden, then unfortunately, Kraken! It can happen even without alot of debris. I lost some of my mapping sats (SCANSAT mod) once for no discernible reason and they definitely had probe control to get into the required polar orbit in the first place, nothing to stage oncein orbit were nowhere near atmosphere, surface, other ships <50 pieces of debris, it was early game and I was mapping Kerbin and the Mun Use the debug menu to put the replacements into orbit if you feel it was completely unfair. Especially since it's a long way to get that Sentinal sat into correct position. Hyperedit has a graphical mode that might be better for what you might end up doing.

True kerbal style - essentially a version of MOAR BOOSTERS. Disregarding any form of efficiency, everything is about MOAR BOOSTERS. (mostly) launching from Kerbin, ascent profile - MOAR! get to Duna, launch window - MOAR!! plane change to polar orbit from equatorial around Jool, raise apoapsis - MOAR!!! Mostly, because getting off Eve at Sea Level - Rhino: explicitly 0 TWR at 5atm. MOAR of that ain't going to help.