Narwhalasaur

It seems like you\'re getting a ton of help! My last two cents: Remember it takes two burns to go from one circular orbit to another. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit I attached a picture: To go from high to low, you need to retrograde burns. The first at A, will turn your circular orbit into the red ellipse. (Stop the burn when your Pe is where you want it.) The second burn at B (your new Pe), is ALSO retrograde! Do this burn until your Ap comes down to the same height as your Pe (the definition of a circular orbit.) If you flip Ap and Pe, and replace retrograde with prograde, you have the recipe for a low to high Hoffman transfer. P.S. You don\'t need to start with a circular orbit to do this, either. As Bill said: To reduce your Pe, burn retro at Ap. To increase your Ap, burn pro at Pe. Once I memorized this, everything else fell into place.

Thanks for this. I was wondering yesterday if part one was a viable way of doing things. The validation is nice! ;D

1. back persistent.sfs up before you try this. 2. I\'m too scared to try anything of this nature 3. I could also be very wrong In persistent.sfs (KSP>>show package contents>>saves>>persistent.sfs, for me [MAC] at least), is a line called UT=… I assume this is universal time. The rotational period of Kerbin is 6 hours, so day to night is three hours. If you bump up UT by 10000, that should work. However, THIS WILL PROBABLY KILL YOUR SAVE FILE But you wanted to know what parameter it\'d be in persistent.sfs, and that\'s my guess! EDIT: I did try, and KSP didn\'t crash, but I don\'t think it liked what I did. ;P

Glad to help. In general for speeds needed (relative to the surface): Hyperbola >> Circle > Ellipse with same Apoapsis as the circle >> Direct Impact So even a direct impact on the moon is avertable! A burn at a heading of 90 degrees, and level with the equator of mun (The line between brown and blue), will increase your surface speed and move you towards the left on my list of orbits.

If only the program I used (Autodesk Sketchbook Express for Mac) had a text tool!

Blender is a free 3D modeling program that works with mac. I have downloaded it once, so I know for sure (with Snow Leopard, not Lion). http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/ I also know for sure that it exports in the right formats from info I got on the KSP wiki: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/~kerbalsp/wiki/index.php?title=Part_Modelling_Guidelines There\'s also an SDK, but I have no clue what that does.

BillWiskins is right. I\'ve attached a picture with three items (in red). Number 1: This should be what you see when your Sphere of Influence changes (SOI), based on what you say about a slingshot. (An open hyperbolic orbit). Number 2: This is the symbol Bill wants you to line up with on the nav ball for your 'retrograde orbit' This symbol points in the opposite direction of your motion (the X in the center tells you it\'s 180 degrees from the normal symbol, which in this case, tells you the direction you are moving.) Number 3: Since this was the screen cap I had, I threw this in. An elliptical orbit like this (while not perfect) should bring you out of the Mun\'s SOI, and into a somewhat circular orbit around Kerbin. It\'s good for trying moon orbits many times in one flight. I know if you take off from the Mun with a heading of 270, you can get Kerbin orbits with Periapses (Pe\'s) in the atmosphere of Kerbin! (perfect for landing) That maneuver is still beyond me, though. ADDITION: the Apoapsis (Ap) of the elliptical orbit shown is about 2.5 million meters Hope this helps!

Hi all. I\'m wondering what the best way to rotate an elliptical orbit in its own plane is. (Hopefully when the craft is at Periapsis) I would use this maneuver to fine tune Munar transfers. I currently try burns straight up or straight down (+90, -90 inclination) to acheive this. Am I doing it correctly? Here\'s a picture with pretty arrows: Thanks! EDIT: Thanks again everyone who posted. It seems like I was doing things correctly, in general. Semininja, I\'m still interested in seeing the pictures for clarification EDIT 2: Thanks, Semininja!

Hi everyone. I hope the Narwhalasaurian Space Academy can promote SCIENCE in the Kerbin System. For anyone who reads this: Below I\'ve made a list of goals, and the order I\'m have/ am going to try them. I tried to order the list in terms of difficulty (read: room for error and/or explosions). If there is something you feel is out of place, or think I might like to add something to the list, let me know, will you? 1. Fail at building a rocket [Complete] 2. Build a rocket and return three, live Kerbonauts [Complete] 3. LKO [Complete] 4. Orbit at height of Mun [Complete] 5. Mun Orbit and landing [Complete] 6. Number 5, plus a safe return to Kerbin. [Complete] 7. Get within 100m of a previous launched craft in LKO [Complete] 8. 'Dock' with a satellite [Current Goal] 9. De-Orbit a satellite 10. De-Orbit generic space junk 11. Targeted landing on Mun 12. Mun 'base' 13. Targeted landings at KSC A picture of my closest satellite approach. Relative velocity ~0.8 m/s Distance: <100 meters