"Escape trajectory from the Sun"?!!

[S1gmoid]

Heya,

I have found something weird... I have launched an unmanned, rudimentary probe to fulfil some contracts on an escape trajectory, and got it successfully on an orbit around the Sun.

Now after checking back on it in the tracking station, it says it's on an escape trajectory from the Sun... Which would be super awesome, but I don't think I had the dV for that, plus it's shown as an elliptical orbit with a definite apoapsis...

Have I found a bug, or am I missing something?

Edited November 15, 2015 by S1gmoid

[cantab]

Old bug, no idea what exactly causes it.

[RA3236]

It's because KSP hates too high an ap above the furthest bodies orbit, which makes the game say escape.

[radonek]

All other bodies have Sphere of Influence, Kerbol probably have one too.

[juanml82]

There is an escape trajectory out of the Sun, but I don't think the game will let you warp to the SOI or that something happens there. In any case, if there is an Ap, he's not in an escape trajectory

[Evrion]

I've put probes on escape trajectories from the sun several times in the past. Just dump in a lot of fuel and burn! (Mostly I do this in sandbox mode).

In any case, I have warped at max speed for long periods of time and not found an edge to the sun's SOI. So it appears that the solar SOI is infinite.

Also: SOI tends to be at the distance where the theoretical gravitational of a body looses out to another. Ie: if you use newtonian gravitation to calculate the gravity force to all the bodies around you, then the one with the largest force will the the one whose SOI the game puts you in.

or: SOI in KSP = strongest real gravitational force.

Given that the game doesn't model any other stars, it makes sense that, once you go far away from everything, the largest gravitational force is always just the biggest object.

[cantab]

The Sun has an infinite SOI, though in practice the game can only handle things so far. However there's still a clear definition of an escape trajectory - one with an eccentricity greater than 1.

[S1gmoid]

It's because KSP hates too high an ap above the furthest bodies orbit, which makes the game say escape.

Actually, Ap is just on the orbit of Duna, so it's not such a hugely wide orbit either.

[Supernovy]

Is it going to intercept Duna or another planet?

[A35K]

Its actually a glitch where after you've escaped a planet into solar orbit, if you were not 'flying' this vessel when it escaped, the tracking station will say 'on escape trajectory from Sun' even though its clearly not. I think what happens is just before it was saying 'escape trajectory from (whatever planet you were orbiting), but then switches the name to Sun but 'forgets' to switch the description to 'orbiting'. I've had it happen several times, but it does not affect the actual orbit in any way.

It's not anything new, I've had it happening since I began playing, in version 0.23.

[Jimbimbibble]

On a side note, if you go really far from the sun it will crash anything in a low orbit because of floating point rounding errors.

[S1gmoid]

[quote name='A35K']Its actually a glitch where after you've escaped a planet into solar orbit, if you were not 'flying' this vessel when it escaped, the tracking station will say 'on escape trajectory from Sun' even though its clearly not. I think what happens is just before it was saying 'escape trajectory from (whatever planet you were orbiting), but then switches the name to Sun but 'forgets' to switch the description to 'orbiting'. I've had it happen several times, but it does not affect the actual orbit in any way.
It's not anything new, I've had it happening since I began playing, in version 0.23.[/QUOTE]

I'll probably post my savefile in a support thread to report the bug... If they haven't fixed it since 0.23, they probably don't know (or are too busy).