Survey contracts: In Flight Above xxx Meters. From orbit?

[Tontow]

I'm in the early stages of the game and I'm doing survey contracts of Kerbin.

Note: I use MechJeb and way-point manager.

The surveys of the ground and inflight below xxx are no problem because I can do several of them with one plane.

The problem that I run into is with the surveys above xxx meters.

All the planes that I have been able to design so far that can reach the required height (often 16k to 18k) are one shot and can only get to that height once. This becomes very time consuming so I decided to put a crew into orbit to take caire of them all.

The problem I'm running into is that you have to be almost dead on with your heading to get over a survey point and I have no way of telling what my heading will end up being after I do a burn until after the burn is done and I point the ship pro-grade.

What is the best way to setup an orbital intercept with a point (Survey point) on the ground? (Not landing, but staying in orbit so that I can complete multiple survey above xxx objectives.)

[adinfinitum]

Best way I can think of, starting from an equatorial orbit, is to look at Kerbin from the top view. Find where your ship will be 90 degrees ahead of the survey point, and place a maneuver node there. Mess with normal and anti normal to get the orbit passing directly over the point, and then once you hit 180 degrees from the point, lower your periapsis to just below 70km.

[Tontow]

lower your periapsis to just below 70km.

I Don't want to land, I need the craft to stay in orbit to do several surveys.

[maltesh]

If you're not averse to using mechjeb's autopilots, my general "quicjkand-dirty" approach was to use the Landing Guidance to attempt to land on the spot, and cancel its action after it made the plane change.

[Superfluous J]

lower your periapsis to just below 70km.

I Don't want to land, I need the craft to stay in orbit to do several surveys.

You can orbit dozens of times with your periapsis in the high 60s. You lose almost no velocity.

[adinfinitum]

I Don't want to land, I need the craft to stay in orbit to do several surveys.

As far as I know, you've actually got to be in the atmosphere for "in flight" contracts. I may be wrong though, and in that case just ignore the lowering your periapsis part.

[Wanderfound]

Having trouble reaching sufficient altitude for those early-game survey contracts? We've gotcha covered...

Kerbodyne Hiflyer. Never let technology slow you down.

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Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vptzzhq8knsoaj/Kerbodyne%20Hiflyer.craft?dl=0

[Joshwoo70]

SNIP!

Soryy no so called "advertising" here! I take it as an ad so please do not do that again... and this is a help forum. NOT post-your-craft-files forum.

[Wanderfound]

Soryy no so called "advertising" here! I take it as an ad so please do not do that again... and this is a help forum. NOT post-your-craft-files forum.

It's a demonstration of how to solve a common problem that has given rise to several threads asking for advice, which I built specifically for that purpose. I could have added a "here is one potential way to solve your issue" paragraph to the post, but I thought that my intentions were obvious enough to make that unnecessary.

Perhaps leave the moderating to the moderators?

[Tontow]

The idea is to put a craft in orbit so that it can do several in one go (in the early stages of the game). Single use isn't a problem.

Navigating to the survey point once your in orbit is. And that is compounded by the fact that the planet is rotating underneath of you, so you have to lead the target point by an unknown amount. There has to be a better way other than guess and check using quick-saves.

[adinfinitum]

It isn't necessarily an unknown amount, Kerbin rotates once ever 6 hours, so if you know how long it will take to go from burn to target, you can lead it by the angle Kerbin turns in that time. You'll have to eyeball the angle, but its better than a random guess.

[Sirrobert]

Soryy no so called "advertising" here! I take it as an ad so please do not do that again... and this is a help forum. NOT post-your-craft-files forum.

It's a craft file that solves the question asked

[eddiew]

Launch a rocket to a 90 degree inclined (polar) orbit. All points on Kerbin will eventually pass underneath your ship as the planet rotates

[Superfluous J]

If you want to go the modding route, the Trajectories mod has a "fixed body" mode. when you're 90 degrees from your target, turn that mode on and verify that your white line will go over the target. Bammo, all set.

[goduranus]

Polar orbit approach is not good because the target area is often too small for the polar sweep. I think wunderfound's craft is the way to go until you get turbojet engines.

[Tontow]

Polar orbit approach is not good because the target area is often too small for the polar sweep.

Agreed, but I wonder if there is some kind of a golden orbit that can do the job.

[FinalFan]

I can 100% confirm that as of the current time you don't need to be below 70km to fulfill "in flight" contracts.  I just put a guy into orbit for the same reason you did and then wasn't able to fulfill a contract when I tried to pass over a spot.  That's what led me to this thread.  I wasn't sure if I had missed it or if you weren't allowed to do it from orbit.  I just did another one from 73,xxx meters, but my periapsis was 68,xxx, so maybe you can't do it from "full" orbit, but you can definitely do it from some kind of orbit.  I'm pretty sure 69km periapses are not considered orbits for some other contracts. 

I cannot 100% confirm full orbits won't work; I can 100% confirm that "suborbital" orbits will work no matter the actual altitude.