Yeomans

In kerbal space program, most people only think of prograde, retrograde, normal+, and normal- burns, but sometimes fiddling with your burn parameters can help you achieve a better result, if at the cost of a little more fuel. During a burn, and during the planning of a burn, there are 3 factors you must consider: The delta-v you are trying to achieve, the angle of the burn, and the time of the burn. More delta-v is a higher orbit. The further you are from the center of mass in an orbit, the slower you move. Ergo, burning a bit longer will put you in a higher orbit, and you will then slow down, which is good when you want the target to "catch up" to you. The angle of the burn is important. Because angling a burn is actually a point on a 3-dimensional plane, I will try my best to make it less complicated. You have a prograde, which is the most efficient method of achieving a higher orbit. You can however then move towards the radius+ and radius- positions (facing or facing away from the object). These burn directions have the advantage of shifting your periapsis and apoapsis towards or away from the object without changing your delta-v, you then have the retrograde burns, which decrease your delta-v and lower your orbit. As far as inclination changes go, normal+ and normal- burns change the inclination. You will notice many bodies in the system are inclined. You have to account for the inclination at burn, and adjusting it can bring you closer or farther away from the target. As far as the time of burn, the time where the easiest path can be taken is always preferred. Doing a Hohmann transfer orbit is recommended, but burning before or after the specified time can change your destination relative to the target, which is useful as well. Ultimately, there are many things you must consider, and frankly, I would experiment with transferring from the moon to minmus and back to get a handle on things before interplanetary flight. Good luck!

I have never personally had this problem, but I do understand (for the most part) why it occurs. KSP does not currently support n-body math. This means it has issues understanding how 2 or more bodies with significant influence affect another body, or each other. Because of this, when you are using conics in situations such as above, you get funky patterns like this. That same reason explains why there are currently no Lagrangian points in KSP.

Oh wow I'm an idiot. Didn't even see that. Thanks alot!

This is something that has been bugging me recently, so I have a vessel orbiting kerbin along the equator (incl. 90 degrees) at an orbital radius of ~100km (very close to circular orbit). I have a rocket at Kerbal Space Center ready to launch, But I'm trying to figure out how to launch my rocket so that, upon stabilizing my orbit, I'm as close to the other ship as possible. So basically a launch-to-rendezvous. Is there some sort of way to figure this out? I mean, I know the speed required to obtain a circular orbit at 100km, and I have mechjeb on both ships, so I was thinking that maybe there's a way mechjeb could assist in this process. Does anybody have any tips or have an equation to model this? The reason I'm wondering is I'm going to be sending an orbital construction yard up, but instead of having my astronauts go up with the construction yard, I have a very simple rocket take them up to rendezvous with the yard, they then get in the constructed vehicle and fly off to other planets. All help is greatly appreciated! -Dan

Yes, but in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and in 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Jupiter is still a gas giant, and the monolith is in the Lagrange point between Jupiter and Europa. After Jupiter becomes a star, the Monolith appears on Europa. Since Vall is an analogue for Europa, I think it would be best to begin your search there. After all, it's after the research crew finds the monolith that Jupiter begins to compress to form a star.

If you're asking if it's possible to be orbiting the sun while constantly "above" kerbin, it's impossible. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation states this explicitly. F = G((m1m2)/(r2)) F is the force of gravity, G is the Gravitational Constant, m1 is the mass of the first object, m2 is the mass of the second object, and r is the distance between the two objects. The force of gravity increases when the distance between two objects becomes closer, and decreases when the objects are further apart. When the force is higher, more speed is required for a stable orbit, and less speed is required when the force is lower. Therefore, to orbit the sun at the same speed as Kerbin, you have to be the exact same distance from the sun as Kerbin. You cannot obviously be above kerbin and orbiting the sun, because then your distance from the sun is not the same. Now, if you're asking if you can orbit the sun in the opposite direction of kerbin, and stay "above" kerbin, also impossible. You're travelling in different directions around the sun. If you were travelling around the sun in the opposite direction of kerbin, you would only meet at the point of the escape burn. Furthermore, if you did your escape burn close enough to kerbin, upon your first encounter with kerbin, you would be pulled back into kerbin's sphere of influence, which would either alter your solar orbit greatly, or even possibly put you back in orbit around kerbin. I hope this all makes sense.

Well, Jool is still a gas giant, so it could be orbiting vall (since it can't be in the lagrange point between jool and vall).

Jool is pretty much the analogue of Jupiter in KSP so far. If you look closely, you can even see a storm that's similar to the great red spot on our jupiter.

Well, what's the most appropriate place to put a monolith? Orbiting a gas giant. Or maybe on an icy moon of a gas giant... Jool. Vall. Someone, build me the Discovery One!

Unfortunately transferring between two bodies orbiting one body is much more difficult than transferring to a body orbiting around the origin body. However, this calculator from Olex tells you where the planet must be in relation to your target, and where your position must be in the orbit around the planet for a successful burn. It's not the most accurate, but it's your best bet, and once you get within the planet's sphere of influence you can just retrograde burn at periapsis to put yourself in orbit. I would try Duna first, as there's no inclination change and such, and then maybe Jool because the planet is very large and has a large sphere of influence. Good luck!

He's using the XR2 Ravenstar, it's a beautiful plane, and frankly I'm trying to make a version of it for kerbal, but it's proving difficult. Tex makes some really awesome Orbiter videos, and he also provides some really useful tutorials on how to do the things he does in Orbiter. He spends hours upon hours of time though practising, which helps too.

I always forget the autosave even exists, just because I usually do my missions in one sitting, I feel like I'm cheating when I use Autosave

That's awesome! I really enjoy these spaceflight sims because of the certain kind of satisfaction you get from running a successful mission.

I decided that I probably should make one of these hello posts, but I don't really know what to say.. I'm Dan, and my last name is my username. I'm a huge spacecraft junkie and I'm a little way too addicted to Orbiter Spaceflight Simulator. When I heard of Kerbal Space Program, I was immediately in love. One issue I had always had with Orbiter (probably the only issue) was that I couldn't make my own spacecraft unless I wanted to get myself neck deep in .cfg files and complicated models (which is fine, but I'm a bit lazy and someone can do it better), so when I saw the ship creation system in Kerbal, I was extremely happy. In Orbiter, you will find me piloting delta gliders and old-fashioned stage rockets (usually historical) to exotic destinations in space. But in Kerbal, I can create my own space race, my own timeline, which I'm really enjoying. Aside from Spaceflight Simulators, I really enjoy Anime and Manga, and play several other video games. I also play music, particularly I'm a bassist in a band and I sing. As far as Kerbal goes, I design many different spacecraft. I'm always trying to design new spacecraft (alot of them crazy, I'm a mad scientist you see), and I like to fly interesting scenarios and plan elaborate space missions. I almost started to design a mission insignia when I realized "okay, I'm going a BIT too far". But yeah, that's me, so, yeah, hello.

There is one guy on Youtube, named Scott Manley (szyzyg is his username), and he has been creating Scenarios for himself. One of which is he's been developing a craft capable of interplanetary travel, complete with probes to test a planet's gravity and atmosphere, a landing vehicle, and an orbital vehicle. It's really quite awesome. I would recommend, that you prepare for the awesome new planets arriving in .17 by developing your own interplanetary vessels. You can even test them in .16 by putting them in an orbit around the Sun and bringing them back to Kerbin. It's actually quite a difficult task, because you need to make a vehicle capable to flying to another planet and back, and you probably want to land some brave Kermen on it's surface too. Or, you could do what I'm doing: I'm currently running a mission where I have one Kerman stuck in an orbit around the Mun (unfortunately, it's Jeb ) and you could try to fly a rocket to the moon (making room for one extra passenger) and rescue them. ...or you could blow a bunch of stuff up.

Astrum Spaceflight Technologies™ is proud to present groundbreaking research into new vertical and horizontal takeoff technology, which will advance the reach of Kermankind farther than ever before. Astrum scientists from around the globe, collaborating with freelance designers, researchers, and spacecraft enthusiasts, have come up with designs and prototypes for all levels of spaceflight, be it suborbital, orbital/planetary, interplanetary, or even interstellar flight. New designs and testable craft will be added frequently, and posted with each craft will be the difficulty level, suggested use, part suppliers, and a brief synopsis with an image. Many craft will be updated with time and will be in numbered sequence. We provide Testing Oppertunties so that the public may try our spacecraft out, at their own risk, for free. To save the design, right click the 'Download' link in the appropriate spacecraft's section and click 'Save link As...' It is recommended that Mechanical Jeb is installed, as the majority of Astrum's rockets use it, and it makes difficult spacecraft easier to use. • PEGASUS SERIES •The Pegasus series of rockets are tall rockets used for moon flight and interplanetary flight. These rockets are hard to control due to their size, but they can travel large distances. Patience and focus are needed for any success with these rockets. Part Suppliers: NovaPunch Remix, Stock Capacity: :) Difficulty: ■■■■□ Use: Moon Flight * The Pegasus I is the original design. Based off the Saturn V rocket, the Pegasus I was intended to be a larger, more powerful rocket. The increase in size created some notable issues: the Pegasus I is very unstable in the atmosphere, and MechJeb or at least an Advanced S.A.S. Module should be used. The lower stages do not rotate fast in space, and are not easy to stop when they are moving. Ultimately though, this design kicked off the Pegasus Series, an ongoing project. *Command module must be adapted for Landing. Download Capacity: :) Difficulty: ■■■□ □ Use: Moon Flight / Interplanetary * The Pegasus II is an improvement on the Pegasus I's design. The Pegasus II was built from Scratch, and the finished design is slightly smaller than it's predecessor. The new design alleviates some of the issues with the Pegasus I, however, not all issues are completely solved. MechJeb is recommended for Ascent, but a skilled pilot can launch the Pegasus II. *Command module must be adapted for Landing. Download