My first geosynchronous orbit - YAY

[blackrabbit]

So one of the mods I use is Remote Tech so I like building a nice net above Kerbin so that other craft will have a way to talk to the KSC no mater what side of the planet it happens to be on relative to the craft.  Sometimes though just because of orbital circumstances the network just doesn't hit the KSC for a few minutes.  I had always avoided a geosynchronous satellite above the KSC because it just looked too hard for me to do.  So I watched some more videos and decided to give it a try.  Now granted I do use MechJeb and the flight computer for getting into orbit and creating nodes, doing burns and such.  I started playing KSP back in version .18 I think and I did do a lot of manual flights, orbits, burns, nodes etc.  At this point though I'm more of a role player so I usually play Sandbox and I let MechJeb and the flight computer worry about that stuff now.

I have an ion engine on my satellite for making small adjustments to my orbit.  I launch, get to 100k and then start to plan the burns to get to geosynchronous orbit.  I use MechJeb to create the nodes I need for my burns, etc.  MechJeb got me pretty close to the actual orbital period in a circular orbit for a geosynchronous orbit.  Now it's time for me to finish the job myself, I decouple and de-orbit the upper stage art of my craft and then begin.  Using the flight computer I go back and forth between pro and retro and setting my engine to even less thrust than the ion engine provides at 100% and slowly get my orbital period to 6h or 1d.  The orbital period does fluctuate a tad occasionally in the orbit properties by about .05s above and below the needed time when I look at the orbit properties.  But I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to get it that precise even if I did use MechJeb for the rest.  My position above the KSC is only off by what looks like 15 degrees too.

In real life I work for a satellite phone company (I probably shouldn't name them directly as I don't know how they'd feel about that) but let's just say their product was featured in the movie version of World War Z.  They're planning to launch a new network of satellites starting this year.  I got to see one of their test labs where they have working models of some of the "birds" (as they call them) that are used for testing.  The whole time I'm thinking "I bet I could build that in KSP" lol.   

[regex]

Nice work!

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Geosynchronous orbit isn't too bad. You just need some more DeltaV, patience, and careful burning. Nice job though

[SgtSomeone]

8 hours ago, blackrabbit said:

 I had always avoided a geosynchronous satellite above the KSC because it just looked too hard for me to do.

To be pedantic... isn't it a kerbosynchronous orbit? I'm pretty sure that's what the contracts call it. 

Nice work though. I'm not so worried about figuring out how to get an orbit with a period equal to one kerbin-day (6 hours?), but I haven't been able to figure out the burns to get it straight above KSC, other than going straight up and then circularizing, or holding a 5.5 or 6.5 hr period orbit until I get there. 

Edited March 11, 2016 by SgtSomeone

[FancyMouse]

1 hour ago, SgtSomeone said:

To be pedantic... isn't it a kerbosynchronous orbit? I'm pretty sure that's what the contracts call it. 

keo- is the prefix instead of geo-

[Vanamonde]

This report of a mission has been moved to Mission Reports. 

No screenshots?

[Fred Cop]

Just needs a few docking ports and, when the 1.2 update rolls out, send up a radar dish or two, attach it to the orbiting vessel, and you have a geostationary satellite.