Suborbital Flight to Sun mission - not triggering completion

[doctor_bob]

Hi,

I'm a little confused... Had a mission which was to perform sub-orbital flight to Sun for one of the tourists and fly by the Sun for the other.

First attempt, the other night I had a very slow but very efficient rocket crawling its way to the level of required Delta-V. I was reducing speed at the Apoapsis, and after half an hour or so, attained the required mission parameters for mission success, I was about 10 minutes past the Apoapsis when this happened. Yay! Except, at this point I was curious about how close you can get to the Sun so time accelerated up... oops! forgot to save the game while I was still at the Apoapsis... Oops! not enough fuel to correct course now that I'm this far away from the Apoapsis! *eventual explodey*

Attempt 2, did almost the same thing, but tried to be a little more efficient and used some gravity from Kerbin and the Mun to get started and save a little bit of burn time... these slow nuclear rockets man... As a result I was still climbing towards the Apoapsis by the time I had reached a trajectory that touched the Sun surface, whereas the first attempt I was past the Apoapsis, really that's the only major difference, same rocket, same crew, same launch day - reverted to a save game before the launch.

That's the background.

So, what I wanted to find out was exactly how to trigger this... except I just loaded up KSP to get the exact wording of the mission and the "suborbital flight" portion no longer exists (was this patched out since last night?). Still leaves "fly past the Sun" before I can complete, so I guess the question is the same:

1. What is the maximum Periapsis distance to Sun to complete the mission?

2. If the game was patched overnight, are there changes to this mission that make it now require my Apoapsis to be closer to the sun?

2. Also, as per my first attempt, do I need to be descending from the Apoapsis to the Periapsis at the actual time I reach the required distance to sun surface, or should it be OK to adjust my course while I'm still climbing towards the Apoapsis?

3. Do I need to actually complete the "fly-by" and do a complete orbit now? First attempt triggered event success while I was still about as far out as Kerbin's orbit.

4. Is there a chance this mission could be glitched out due to the apparent patching of the game to remove the "suborbital flight to sun" missions? (I have not looked into this, has it actually been removed or is something else really strange going on here?)

Given the extremely long burn time I'd rather just ditch the mission than have another attempt if there's actual bugs preventing completion. I would like to complete it if it does work though, a little annoyed I actually completed it once already and lost progress due to my stupid experimentation

Thanks in advance, sorry for long rambling explanation (I like details!)

[Skeltek]

1. What is the maximum Periapsis distance to Sun to complete the mission?

should be sun atmospheric height: 600,000m

2. Also, as per my first attempt, do I need to be descending from the Apoapsis to the Periapsis at the actual time I reach the required distance to sun surface, or should it be OK to adjust my course while I'm still climbing towards the Apoapsis?

Having a suborbital trajectory should suffice: periapsis anywhere below atmospheric height (or below ground if no atmosphere is present) and apoapsis above atmosphere. It is important to have a full closed elipse. If the elipse enters any sphere of influence of anycelestial body along its path, the elipse will be broken by a fly-by and not be closed.

3. Do I need to actually complete the "fly-by" and do a complete orbit now? First attempt triggered event success while I was still about as far out as Kerbin's orbit.

You should get a fly-by whenever you enter a sphere of influence and leave it again. Switching from planetary SOI to sun SOI and back to planetary SOI should give you a fly-by (not sure if it has to be the same planet in case of the sun though).

4. Is there a chance this mission could be glitched out due to the apparent patching of the game to remove the "suborbital flight to sun" missions? (I have not looked into this, has it actually been removed or is something else really strange going on here?)

I cannot imagine suborbital sun missions being removed ever. Kerbin's transversal velocity from the sun is 9284.5 m/s, so in total you need a delta-v of less than 2*9284.5 m/s = 18569 m/s. That can very easily be achieved by a lunar swingby at Kerbin to leave in proper direction, planetary swingby at another planet to remove the required delta-v and another planetary swingby at EVE to pick up speed again.

It can be a very big help to combine a planetary gravity assist with a lunar gravity assist. that way you can use the planet for gravity assist and additionally use the moon to futher absorb impulse (that needs very good plan ing ahead and is difficult for most players to comprehend the required constelation and angles of participating bodys.

Given the extremely long burn time I'd rather just ditch the mission than have another attempt if there's actual bugs preventing completion. I would like to complete it if it does work though, a little annoyed I actually completed it once already and lost progress due to my stupid experimentation

Thanks in advance, sorry for long rambling explanation (I like details!)

The mission should be doable with normal conventional rocket engines. With proper planing ahead you usualy just need a few hundred m/s delta-v to reach any place in the solar system.

The only thing I really hate about theese missions is the time required waiting for proper constellations.

Just a small change in prograde speed can sometimes completely change the planet-moon angles on arrival. Problem is the game cannot calculate the stuff accurately too much time in advance due to machinenumber-inaccuracy. So a solid understanding of required angles, speeds, maximum impulse-change of gravity assist is mandatory if you want to plan futher ahead than the pre-calculated conics&elipses canaccurately prognose.

Sometimes a divergence of about the smalest possible float-number in m/s can already mean a completely different outcome if the trajectory has to be calculated too far in advance.