von Ziegendorf

And now it's looking feasible - you only have to slow down below escape velocity which is about 4800m/s if I remeber correctly. So it's ~2000m/s to go

How did you get such result? I calculated it would be only 6950m/s

For relatively short burns (when compared with orbital period) it should be enough to start half time before, in your example 2 minutes before. For longer burns try this: Long Burn Calculator (self advertising )

One of the cargo ships for my next mission has just blasted off the launchpad and started its over 7 years long, gravity assisted voyage to Saturn (RSS)

Try this: the tool I made (self-advertisement, lol)

Since it's a very WIP test it was HyperEdited but for real flight will be built in orbit, there would be also two 3.75m side tanks but they need no testing

Just tested this in orbit (it was mostly empty):

I'm not sure if I see a problem in multiple burns and timing transfers - 1 or 2 days of difference (needed for additional orbits) doesn't change a lot when travelling to other planets. I wrote this program for my RSS gameplay and I'm performing burns in parts with no problem.

I would like to be Mission Planner. All I do in KSP is planning flights and building ships for them, but I often never actually fly them. About my achievements, I don't want to overly praise myself but I mastered stock KSP to the point when I had to switch to RSS to have decent difficulty level. Examples from my KSP 'CV' are RSS Simple Duna mission 8 flyby And many (undocumented) others because I visited every celestial body in stock system. And this designing of the whole program seems to be nice work for me

I'm back from holidays to show you my base on Mare Imbrium And Saturn system mission has been redesigned. Flightplan lengthened from 50 to 70 points

Have you ever tried to perform a burn that lasted more than orbital period with your carefully designed super-sized mothership? Or have you just ever wonder in when to fire the engines when doing long burn to achieve correct orbit? If the answer is yes, that is something for you. If 'no' - do more KSP until your answer become 'yes'. It's a long post that may be boring for some 'KSP Jedi', but I was always told to explain everything like I would be talking to a child At first - the link to dropbox: Download version 1.1 You have there a zipped folder with 3 elements: 'configs' folder - it contains text files with numerical data of the planets Jar file 'calc' - usually when you double click, it should start bat file 'start' - if double clicking on Jar is not working, you can launch this file Obviously to work it needs Java to be installed on computer. It should also work on all OS. What about creating own configs for other planetary systems (by default there is only stock and RSS)? When looking on existing files you can see that in every line there is a planet name, gravitational parameter GM and radius in kilometers, separated with space. In addition in first line you can specify which planet loads as default. The window itself looks like this: Short indtroduction what is where (detailed examples later): The most upper panel there is possibility for choosing planetary system, and next to it, a planet or the moon above which is the manouver. There is also 'Calculate' button which is to be clicked in the end to get results. In lower panel, in first row we have orbital shape parameters - Apoapsis, Periapsis - both in kilometers. In second row we have node parameters - delta-V in m/s and time in seconds between node and the Periapsis of the orbit. Lower, on right side we have list of stages of our ship. 'Add stage" button adds a stage after the last existing one, and 'Remove last stage' removes last one. Then we have a table to fill: 'Start M' it's the start mass of given stage in tons, 'End M' it's end mass of the stage. 'Thrust' it's combined thrust of all the engines firing in the stage (in kN), and 'Isp' it's their specific impulse in seconds. By writting mass of a stage I mean mass of the whole rocket at the beginning of a stage and at burnout. And on the left side there is free space which will fill with text after clicking "Calculate". There are, from top: duration of the whole burn, moment of firing the engines, moment of cutting off the engines, orbital parameters of the orbit we will achieve, its eccentricity, distance from a planet at cut off, actually used delta-V, losses expressed in m/s then in tons of fuel, and final mass of the ship. And now the most important - how to use it? The program works only for manouvers that have only prograde or retrograde components, so no normal or radial ones. But this shouldn't be a problem since any normal velocity can be brought to 0 by changing initial orbit inclination, and proper departure burn shouldn't have any radial velocity because it's the same as moving node in time. There is only one assumption - you have to direct your ship to prograde marker, not on the node (or retrograde if you're braking). That's all. Now it's time for ilustrated examples. Example 1 - departure from low Kerbin orbit We choose adequate planetary system - 'stock kerbol' in this case and the planet Kerbin (but it will choose itself by default). At first we fill in Apoapsis and Periapsis values. There's no need for extreme accuracy - if the Ap and Pe differ by no more that 10% you can consider orbit as circular and put their average value. Next we need to look at the mass of the ship. After we plan our manouver we put its value to the program. We check also the parameters of the engine(s) - thrust and specific impulse to put them too. After filling those fields we look to the program to see if there are no datas missing. As we see 'Time from Pe' is set by default to 0, because on circular orbits (I assumed it's the most common initial orbit) it makes no difference where is the node relative to Periapsis. There's no need to touch this for now. Also I wrote nothing about the end mass. If we are sure that we have enough fuel we can leave this field empty - program will put 1t for calculations. Now, when we have everything, we click "Calculate" and observe the result. We orient the rocket to prograde just like on screen and we wait. Program calculated that 'burn start' should occur in -1:57 which means we have to fire the engines 1 minute 57 seconds before the node. In reality, pressing 'shift' and increasing throttle from 0 to 100% takes about 2s so we should start at -1:58. After passing the node we do not delete it! We fly beyond remebering to orient ship to prograde all the time. Program calculated that 'burn end' should occur at +2:05 so you have to cut off the engines 2 minutes and 5 seconds after the node. That's why you shouldn't delete the node - to see that time. We compare orbits, target and real one. This time piloting was almost perfect. Example 2 - departure from elliptical Kerbin orbit I won't write so detailed this time. We put Ap, Pe and mass. We set burn of 1500m/s which occurs 2 minutes after the Periapsis just as the arrows shows. It means that in 'Time from Pe' field we put 120 (seconds). If the node would be before the Pe it will be -120. We check the engine - 60kN of thrust and 800s of Isp (do you recognize that engine by its parameters? ). After entering data we get the results. We fire the engine 3 minutes 5 seconds before the node. And cut it off 4 minutes 10 seconds after. This time I used 4x timewarp during burn. KSP apparently has some timeflow problem when doing this and you can't base engine cutoff decision on time. Mostly it should be enough to observe mass of the ship and end burn when it achieves a value predicted by program. But sometimes even that doesn't help. I have no idea about the cause but I'm starting to suspect that program solves rocket motion equations more accurately that the KSP itself. I hope it was a understandable explanation Because entering all those values may seem to be pain in the you know what, I give you some advice to use my program efficiently: First - the program is to calculate long manouvers, long that means comparable in duration with orbital period and in addition placed low in the gravity field. There is no use to calculate nodes in Kerbol orbit or 70000km above Kerbin. They can be executed symmetrically pointing rocket at the node or prograde. And that is exactly what the program would suggest to you. Second - as mentioned before, burns not always are prefect. Possibly the KSP is inaccurate but that is not sure (I'm not blaming SQUAD ). And it's a lot easier to let MechJeb take care of the ships attitude. Third - with multistage rocket, program assumes that they are jettisoned immidiately. However I think most of the burns are done with one transfer stage. It might be a problem sometimes to get the dry mass of the stage, but if I remember correctly Kerbal Engineer shows such information. Also, the ship will not enter exactly the same orbit as predicted by the node. It will get an orbit with the same escape velocity and parallel asymptote direction (for hyperbolic target orbit) or Apoapsis placed at the same point (for elliptical). Program is working for negative delta-V (braking manouver) but unlike accelerating nodes not every braking one is possible with only retrograde burning. Program may show impossible results or worse, plausible looking one which is in fact an impact trajectory. I think it was mostly fixed but be warned. For practital reasons (potentially infinite computing time) program works only for burns shorter that 24h Also I'm not sure if the calculator is completely user-proof And the most interesting thing - losses. It appears that TWR in space is also important. In long burning you lose fuel. But it's nonlinear function of burn time, so dividing it in two part would cause the combined loss to be smaller than when burning once. I'm expecting many comments, that it's great, terrible, calculates incorrecly or greatly. Any feedback is welcomed License Long Burn Calculator is licensed by Creative Commons

It won't be only Titan landing, I want to visit all RSS moons in Saturn system. But currently the mission is't going anywhere. Spacecrafts are too big to be monostable and flip around during aerobraking. I'll have to use propulsive capture and that means redesigning whole flightplan. Be patient

Welcome back. I decided to make some other 'scientific' missions to the Moon. First of them - 3 man Apollo landing: Also I keep testing vehicles for my Saturn mission. A small spoiler: To be continued

I think this is it: post in RSS thread, also grab the clouds plugin but I don't remember where to look for RSS config

Hmmm... To be clear, I'm using RSS + Planet Factory config, but I don't use universe replacer. I think I only downloaded RSS with textures and put them into KSP folder. If I did anything more I don't remember it.

I waited for such a challenge Mods that I'm using are: FAR, JR, DR, TAC LS (since Venus flyby), MechJeb2 and a few others. I have many films and almost no pictures from any of those missions, but here is my entry: Instead of using always the same hardware I was developing bigger rockets - just like von Braun would do During the whole program I was trying to master the Square Launcher Technology. It was all about how big can I make them. In real life they have budget restrictions. I had part count limit - because my laptop could barely handle >300 part crafts - and that made the game more challenging. I started career mode in 0.23 and some older version of RSS. After a lot of science points grinding I unlocked mainsails and LV-Ns... First 'heavy' launcher. It was capable of delivering ~32 tons to LEO. Using nuclear engines it was possible to send one kerbal to the Moon with some science equipment and bring him back. I was even able to do a targetted landing next to an old science probe. But to get further in the Solar System I needed heavier rockets. Here you see ~55 tons launcher. It was intended to lift mostly low part count payload, like fuel tanks, or transfer stages. Full (but not so comprehensive) album:RSS career (sort of) I got bored in career mode so started a sandbox game. I took the biggest rocket and added another stage. More mainsails! More orange tanks! The next rocket lifted 82 tons, which was just right to make Apollo-style Moon landing without nuclear engines. Then I switched to 0.23.5 and RSS 6.0 and I got even bigger parts! I rebuilt the lunar rocket and it had higher payload capability (~105t). To practice spaceflights before trip to Mars I made manned Venus flyby. At this point the Square Launcher Technology was mature. Here you see Mars launcher - the reliable rocket capable of lifting up to 200 tons to LEO (although designed originally for ~160t). Apollo-style manned Mars landing! The actual landing on the surface was extremely fuel-tight but finally I did it. But I aimed further To be honest all those flights before were made to gather experience and develop that super-lifter. To make this possible: It's a two part film because of the increased complexity. I hope you enjoyed my RSS space program summary. I'm looking towards the Saturn system at the moment, but this will take a while

Up, now with the release of part 2, the mission to Jupiter is finally complete!

Just landed them on Jupiter moon Callisto in Real Solar System mod:

Not really a stock rocket (Joint Reinforcement used) but here is my heaviest RSS launch vehicle: Capable of lifting about 200 tons to Earth orbit

Welcome back. I've been playing KSP with Real Solar System mod for a couple of months (not all the time ) to gather experience and to develop super-heavy launch vehicle capable of sending considerable payload to Jupiter. The plan is to land 3 Kerbonauts on Callisto, the furthest (in-game) moon. Mods I'm using: RSS with Planet Factory, Deadly Reentry, TAC LS, FAR, Joint Reinforcement, MechJeb, Kerbal Alarm Clock, Clouds Plugin (but some old version) Short version of the fligthplan: 1 Cargo ship launch - rocket carrying lander and fuel needed for return trip. 2 Elliptical orbit - to save more fuel, departure burn was divided into parts. At first it used 500m/s from the last stage of the launch rocket, and then 2300m/s from the transfer stage. 3 Earth departure - after about a day, transfer stage fired once more to add 1600m/s and leave Earth SOI. 4 Flight - it's simplified version of the Galileo trajectory utilizing 600m/s deep space manouver (DSM) at Ap. 5 Earth gravity assist - after more than two years cargo ship passed 2000km above Earth and set the course to Jupiter. 6 Course correction - instead of tweaking Earth flyby it was easier to perform another DSM to get an encounter with Callisto. 7 Crew launch - about 3 years after cargo ship left Earth, crew is launched into orbit. 8 Earth departure - same as cargo craft, crew performed departure burn in parts. 9 Jupiter capture - cargo ship burn its fuel above Callisto to close its orbit around Jupiter. Here ends the first film. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/XTy4EWM5Oeo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Also there is part 1 and a half in which you can see cargo ship performing gravity assists to establish orbit around Callisto. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9NdlpysFQ0Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Here is the most epic photo I've ever taken: Second part of the fligthplan: 10 Crew capture - crewed ship performed direct propulsive capture above Callisto. 11 Docking with cargo ship - after plane change manouver, those two ships docked together and pumped fuel to crew ship. 12 Landing - crew moved to lander and descended to the surface. 13 Exploration - lander spent 4 months on Callisto. 14 Takeoff and docking - shortly before return window, crew lifted off the surface and met with return ship in orbit. 15 Departure - ship set its course directly to Earth. 16 Earth arrival - about 3 years later, 30 minutes before the reentry, return ship burned all remaining fuel to lose as much speed as possible. 17 Reentry and landing - after braking manouver CM reentered atmosphere at speed ~12400m/s and landed safely near the Australia. Total flight time was about 2180 days, which is 6 years. Thanks for watching

Hi, this mod is amazing! Just upgraded old version to 6.1 and that's the result:

Welcome back! As a training before trip to Mars I decided to send a few Kerbals to Venus with stock parts

It flies perfectly! It seems there is always a lot of drag at the bottom. All my RSS career rockets are build in this style and none of them ever flippped

Hi, it's my first ever game video It's made like a speedrun (x4) of a Mun mission. Maybe not the best idea, but the only I had at the moment Inspired by maccollo and DonLorenzo I started playing Real Solar System with stock parts. I made it to the Mun in career mode and then got bored. So I decided to land a Kerbal on the Mun without NERVAs. And here it is - 4600t rocket, lifting 82 tons to LEO. Mods I used are: Alarm Clock, FAR, FJR, MechJeb, DR, and RSS

Yeah, fairly short, that's right, just read answer to my application. Maciek from here and I'm already curious about future missions