Ascent Path Experiment

[Cryphonus]

Hello fellow Kerbals

I conducted an Experiment (a real basic one) to see the optimal ascent path to a 70km LKO. The craft i used was a craft of my own doing called the Gemini IV (see the attachment + you need mechjeb + NovaPunch + CameraPlugIn). So the basic idea behind the experiment was to track the ascent stats especially the 3 important parameters drag loss, gravity loss and steering loss to find out about to optimal ascent path. Below are the results and some further details

1st Ascent Path: start from 0 km, start turning to 90 heading at 10km till Gemini IV hits 70 km:

-> 1270 m/s Drag loss.

-> 1132 m/s Gravity loss.

-> 80 m/s Steering loss.

As a sum 2482 m/s total loss till Gemini hits the Orbit of 70km.

2nd Ascent Path: start from 0 km, start turning at 0 km till Gemini IV hits 70km:

-> 3449 m/s Drag loss (!)

-> 817 m/s Gravity loss

-> 77 m/s Steering loss

As a sum 4343 m/s total loss till Gemini hits the Orbit of 70km.

3rd Ascent Path : start from 0km, start turning at 30km till Gemini IV hits 70km:

-> 1235 m/s Drag loss

-> 1671 m/s Gravity loss

-> 60 m/s Steering loss

As a sum2960 m/s total loss till Gemini hits the Orbit of 70km.

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So as you can see from the numbers the most important parameters are basically Drag loss and Grav loss. The choice of your ascent path is a trade-off between those 2. Obviously the sooner you leave the dense part of the atmosphere you will experience a much less Drag loss but your gravity loss will increase. However the weight of those parameters doesn\'t look like equal. The drag loss is pretty much the most important parameter since gravity loss cannot get astronomical values even though we started the gravity turn late. So you should try to minimize the drag loss as much as you can also trying to keep the gravity loss at minimum.

Now since i don\'t have a lot of time right now i can\'t tell you the exact ascent path which is the most optimum one. But I am pretty sure its somewhere near the 10km gravity turn.