Kimberly

Sorry if I'm about to say something stupid, but...Jool itself moves around the sun, it doesn't stop doing so while I'm orbiting Jool (right?). If my angle to Jool changes at the same rate that Jool's angle to the sun changes, won't that mean it will continually block the sun? I will still move from apoapsis to periapsis, of course, but the apoapsis and periapsis change position (relative to the sun) due to Jool's own orbit. ...right? I had a suspicion something was wrong with this idea when I came up with it, but if I think about it, I can't find any particular flaw (other than the sphere of influence problem, which seems to work for Jool).

Place the special Mapsat satellite dish on your craft. Launch into orbit. In the lower-left corner, next to the vanilla GUI, you should see a button with the symbol of a pair of compasses. Click on it. A new window should pop up, with a black field on the left and a set of buttons on the right. Click the button labeled "SCN". If your batteries aren't drained, then you should now start scanning the planet. Wait a few seconds, and you should see colored lines appear on the black field. You will progressively build up a map of the planet. Depending on your distance from the planet and the time warp you're using, you may have gaps between the lines or holes in the coverage, which means you'll need to scan the same area multiple times for a full map. An equatorial orbit will only allow you to scan the equator. To scan the whole planet, you need a high orbit, preferably one that is close to polar. (An inclination of more than 80 degrees.) Because the planet rotates while you orbit, you'll pass over a different area with each orbit, allowing you to slowly scan (almost) the whole planet. If your orbit isn't perfectly polar, with an inclination of 90 degrees, you may not be able to scan the north and south poles. A perfectly polar orbit will typically make for slower scans than a near-polar one, though, so you may wish to launch one satellite into near-polar orbit and another one to do the poles. Scanning stops if you switch to another ship! For this reason, you may want to leave scans running overnight if your orbit makes for slow scanning. Go and try that out, and play with the other buttons a bit, if you like. Still with me? Then check out the this thread for someone's fancy calculations of good and bad orbits for map scanning. The concept is explained on the first page, and the orbits you should use in the latest version of Mapsat are on the second page. Hope I helped. On a side note, many of the same principles apply to scanning for kethane in the Kethane Pack mod.

...that's actually a much simpler idea. Not quite as scientific as placing the telescope in a really fancy orbit, but it might do the trick! Thanks for the suggestion. Though I just did the calculation for Jool, which has a much greater sphere of influence, and if my math is right then it should be possible to do there. Anyone willing to check? I used the Kepler's Third Law calculator to solve for the orbital radius, using a mass of 4.2332635×10^24 kg and a year-length (synodic orbital period is what I need, right?) of 10091019 seconds; both values are from the wiki. That results in an orbital radius of 893890000 meters, which, minus Jool's radius, is still inside its sphere of influence 2.4559852×10^9 meters.

For satellites to have a connection using dishes, the they need to be pointing at each other. If your probe's dish points to satellite A, and satellite B's dish points to your probe, then there will be no connection. But if your probe points to satellite A, and satellite A also points to your probe, then satellite A can relay a signal. You usually want to have two dishes on your probes, which point to satellites at opposite points of the same orbit. That way, whenever one satellite is behind Kerbin, the other will always be clear. Then you'd only lose a signal if the planet you're orbiting obscures the Kerbin-orbiting satellites altogether, e.g. if you're on the dark side of the Mun.

As I use RemoteTech, my first few flights are manned out of necessity. But after I get my network in place, I don't send kerbonauts on dangerous missions where a probe would do just as well. And I always give them parachutes, an abort mechanism, etc.

Hm, but what about other planets, e.g. Jool? Is there a physical or game reason it can't be done, or are there simply no suitable planets?

For my own special reasons, I want to place a satellite (a telescope, to be precise) in such an orbit that its position relative to the sun is stationary. Specifically, I want Kerbin to permanently eclipse the sun, from the telescope's point of view. I'm not great with this sort of thing, but intuition tells me that if I have an orbital period equal to one Kerbin year, then if I start facing away from the sun my orbit should never take me closer to the sun, due to Kerbin's own orbit. I've calculated that this would take an orbit at 195,820 kilometers (correct me if I'm wrong), which the wiki tells me is unfortunately outside of Kerbin's sphere of influence. So, I guess that leaves me with two questions: is this kind of orbit possible, and if so, around which planets could I do it?

Good god, what wretched idea have you brought into the mortal plane? Edit it out before anyone sees!

Don't you only need three satellites to cover Kerbin and its vicinity completely? Maybe four to give you a margin of error. What are the six for?

The icon should be in the top left. It may be obscured by other UI features; if so, it should be visible in the Space Center view. Clicking on it allows you to move it around with sliders so you can see it elsewhere.

At the moment, nothing. You have to use your imagination to give the satellites value. The real fun is when you launch a probe into orbit around a new planet, or even better, you land on the planet with kerbals. Then you can explore. There are several methods that give satellites function, such as a mod that adds GPS satellites (Figaro), a mod that allows satellites to make altitude maps of the planets they orbit (IAS Mapsat), and a mod that requires communication satellites in orbit before you are allowed to control unmanned vehicles (RemoteTech).

What's that? I've been looking for a mod for a few days now that has fairings, but not new engines and that sort of thing.

How can you possibly get a craft without rocket engines into orbit, if the jet engines don't work in the upper atmosphere?

A small suggestion: could a compatibility patch for the Figaro GPS be created? One that wouldn't tell you your location on the map if you didn't have a functioning GPS network yet. At the moment I just voluntarily avoid using it, but it'd be neater if the two mods didn't interfere in function. Edit: On a different note, is there a strategy for mapping at 10x time warp without getting black dots all over the map? Even at an ideal orbit, mapping a planet like Kerbin can take many real-time hours.

After more testing, it seems the longitude will consistently be accurate for part of an orbit (using -x for degrees west, +x for degrees east), but will be bogus for the rest of it. It's quite strange.

I have a probe that's using RemoteTech, which was originally connected to a manned vessel. The probe has the chatterer part, the launch vessel did not. I didn't switch to probe mode before release, and after release it no longer seems possible to switch it to probe mode... So I'm not able to select any probe options. "RemoteTech integration" is checked, though I'm not sure what it does.

I just launched my first satellite into geosynchronous orbit...and one I'm rather proud of, too. It is within 0.05 degrees longitude over Kerbal Space Center, with inclination 0.04 degrees. According to Kerbal Engineer it has an orbital period of 5:59:59.9.

I'm having a hard time figuring out the longitude display. I'm looking at my longitude to figure out when I should make a transfer to geostationary orbit...and from what I can tell after a few orbits, the counter's range runs from -400 degrees to +60 degrees... I would have expected either 0 through 360 degrees or -180 through +180. How am I supposed to interpret the display? Other than that, I love the extra information especially regarding inclination.

All good points, but not ones that are simulated in any way in the current game. (Not that it wouldn't be cool to have a mod with a part like that, mind you.)

I want to provide the poles of Kerbin with continuous coverage of Figaro GPS satellites, in addition to the rest of the planet of course. What orbits/how many satellites will I need? My current plan is to use highly eccentric orbits at a 90-degree inclination, so satellites will spend most of their time above one pole, and to use two satellites per orbit (180 degrees apart). I'm bad at visualizing it, though...will that suffice?

ASAS was on the bottom of the command pod, and a docking clamp was on the nose of the pod. Plus the parachutes, that was all. I'm going to go ahead and blame time warp...I did use it during the descent. I'll go ahead and experiment without it and see if that makes a difference. Edit: I tried it again with two radial parachutes. Due to forgetting to adjust the abort mechanism, only one parachute deployed. Yet without time warp, that single parachute was able to safely land the capsule. I guess time warp killed my kerbonaut, then...thanks for the help, everybody.

They were attached directly to the sides of the (cone-shaped) command pod. Would struts make a difference if the chutes are already directly attached? I just tried it again (with a probe this time!) using four parachutes, and that didn't work, either. I think I basically need a drogue parachute. I guess I could add side structures like RocketPilot said, but it seems bizarre that that would be necessary...maybe there ought to be radial drogue chutes available.

I just lost my first kerbonaut. The craft got above the atmosphere, but circularization went too slowly. I realized I'd have to abort the mission, so I separated the command pod from the fuel tank (bottom) and satellite (top) at 65,000 meters, deploying the two MK2-R radial parachutes immediately afterwards. I oriented myself retrograde on the path through the atmosphere, and the two chutes seemed to be slowing me down nicely...but at 500 meters, the chutes opened fully and the force tore off the chutes and the ASAS module still attached to the pod. With no parachutes, the pod splashed hard on impact. The flight report listed a simultaneous "structural failure" of the parachutes, ASAS module and docking clamp. The craft experienced a maximum of 8.6G. So what did I do wrong? Was my landing strategy the problem, or should I have used more parachutes? I've had feather-soft landings with a single Mk25, but I had to use the radials in this case because of the attached satellite. Alternate design suggestions would also be welcome.

If I were to drive a RemoteCommand module with an antenna and a few kerbals from the KSC to precisely the other point of Kerbin, I would have permanent coverage in a full 5000km sphere around Kerbin, correct?

1300 meters? That's awfully low. I suppose proper temperature modeling isn't in yet.