Easy way to find time of planet location?

[FancyMouse]

Is there any easier way other than manual calculation to deduce ETA of the below two events?

1. KSC at a given position with respect to Kerbin spin (usually below a certain contract orbit)

2. Kerbin at a given position on its orbit around Sun (for a similar purpose - a contract orbit around Sun)

Set a geostationary probe above KSC might be a solution for 1, but not so good for 2 - so I'm just seeking for advice for better solution for both of them. Any ideas?

Edited June 13, 2015 by FancyMouse

[Geschosskopf]

Is there any easier way other than manual calculation to deduce ETA of the below two events?

1. KSC at a given position with respect to Kerbin spin (usually below a certain contract orbit)

2. Kerbin at a given position on its orbit around Sun (for a similar purpose - a contract orbit around Sun)

Set a geostationary probe above KSC might be a solution for 1, but not so good for 2 - so I'm just seeking for advice for better solution for both of them. Any ideas?

#1 is easy. Just go to the tracking center, arrange the map so your focused on Kerbin at the level of the equator, and warp ahead until KSC is under the orbit. This will at most be a matter of a few hours of gametime.

#2 is just the same thing on a bigger scale, with some fraction of a Kerbin year passing instead of a Kerbin day. However, if you can't afford to waste all that time watching the planets go around in the tracking center, there's an alternative. Launch the probe and escape from Kerbin's SOI just barely, so your ship is flying in loose formation with Kerbin. Then set a maneuver node when it comes into line with the target orbit, and create a node alarm for that with Kerbal Alarm Clock. Then you can go about your other business and do the inclination burn when it eventually comes up.

[FancyMouse]

I did use warp. For #1, I tried a couple of times and 90% of the time I just warp too fast and usually I didn't get there until after 3 days or so. Really annoying. That's why I'm thinking of just putting a geostationary probe - at least this is doing something for real rather than fighting against warps.

For #2, actually you're right. I thought about it before, and worried that the probe has to be at least SoI-radius far away from Kerbin, and it may introduce nontrivial errors. But I just calculated and it's actually much less than I thought.

In that case, I'll probably just shoot two probes for the two purposes. Thanks for your idea!