Minmus Mass and Radius

[PakledHostage]

I\'ve been away for the weekend so I don\'t know if anyone else has done this calculation yet. But I just did a search to see if anyone has posted a mass and radius for Minmus and I didn\'t find anything.

I\'ll go ahead and post my numbers:

Mass: 4.233 x 10^19 kg

Nominal (“Sea Levelâ€) Radius: 60.00 km

Also, during my search, I noticed that there is still no Wiki page for Minmus and the Kerbin page still needs to be updated to reflect the fact that Kerbin now has two moons. I\'d have done it myself but the page is locked for anyone other than administrators.

Anyways, I got these two values by flying a probe to Minmus and recording data for three different orbits. I then used the data to solve two equations (the 2-body equation for orbital velocity as a function of orbital radius, periapsis and apoapsis distance, plus the 2-body equation for orbital period as a function of periapsis and apoapsis distance) in the two unknowns (mass and radius). The results for the three tests agreed to within four significant digits. I have further verified the numbers by using them to successfully plan orbital manoeuvres and these values also predict a Minmus SOI radius of 2712 km (i.e. 2652 km altitude on the altitude display).

I\'m pretty sure the numbers are accurate but I\'d be happy to see a comparison of my numbers with anyone else\'s.

[Kosmo-not]

This thread has all the info you want:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=12364.0

[PakledHostage]

This thread has all the info you want:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=12364.0

Thanks and sorry about the duplicate thread. I\'m glad to see that my numbers agree with yours and UmbralRaptor\'s.

[UmbralRaptor]

It\'s still nice to see confirmation on the numbers.

Also, while the main wiki is locked, there\'s a vaguely up to date one available hosted by N3X1S.