The Great Purple Marble

[DarkHawkGames]

Thanks to the mod who moved this thread to the proper place, now I'll know the proper place to put it.

[lajoswinkler]

Congratulations on your first planetary visit.:)

[DaMachinator]

8 hours ago, DarkHawkGames said:

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately, Ares 1 will never willingly change it's orbit; unless there's a Shell station orbiting Eve that I haven't seen yet (likely) then its tank is bone dry. I'm currently looking into doing a Moho flyby/orbit (window is 14 days away) and with the KCT mod it'll be really tight getting the window properly. Do you think the ship I sent to Eve could get to Moho? I can post pictures of the full ship, lifter and all.

Getting to Moho is harder than getting to Eve. Sometimes people slingshot  themselves off Eve to get to Moho. Even then you still have to do the insertion burn. 

I just sent a small probe lander on a one way trip there in sandbox and proved that I still suck at landing. If you want I'll share the craft file. 

Edited July 2, 2016 by DaMachinator

[DarkHawkGames]

42 minutes ago, DaMachinator said:

Getting to Moho is harder than getting to Eve. Sometimes people slingshot  themselves off Eve to get to Moho. Even then you still have to do the insertion burn. 

I just sent a small probe lander on a one way trip there in sandbox and proved that I still suck at landing. If you want I'll share the craft file. 

Hm...I think for right now then I'm going to focus on advancing the Manned part of the program; 90% of my missions in this career have been unmanned, and I just got a (permanent) lander on the Mun, I'm going to start trying to get Jeb to Minmus and Valentina to the Mun and back. I have a Duna window coming up in about a year and I think I'll shoot for that as my next interplanetary mission. I'm also going to try to get an altimetry probe to Eve and map out the planet. Maybe this would be better if I started over and did a Kerbal fan works thing for my career mode. 

[jarmund]

13 hours ago, DarkHawkGames said:

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately, Ares 1 will never willingly change it's orbit; unless there's a Shell station orbiting Eve that I haven't seen yet (likely) then its tank is bone dry. I'm currently looking into doing a Moho flyby/orbit (window is 14 days away) and with the KCT mod it'll be really tight getting the window properly. Do you think the ship I sent to Eve could get to Moho? I can post pictures of the full ship, lifter and all.

It most likely can, but this depends on efficiency. I found that heading for an inclined target outside of Kerbin SOI, the usual way of launch->orbit->escape->solar orbit->plane alignment->hohman transfer becomes REALLY inefficient (and time consuming, which i try to avoid since i play with life support).

 

The most economical way is to launch straight into an interplanetary transfer burn: if your target is closer to Kerbol than kerbin, launch in the morning, and evening if not. If your target is in an inclined orbit, your launch should compensate for this by going south or north 45 degrees. The direction depends on kerbins position relative to the targets AN and DN. This is far from perfect, and requires some guesstimation and practice, but once you learn to eyeball it it will be really rewarding. Yesterday i managed to get a probe heading for an eeloo encounter this way, without a single maneuver node.

 

 

Additional footnote:

Launching straight to interplanetary transfer is actually pretty easy when not having to account for an inclined target. I suggest you try it when going for Duna: On the night of the transfer window, launch halfway between sunset and midnight, gravity turn as normal, and go full throttle prograde  all the way when you're above 40-50km. In all likelikelihood you'll only need a small correction burn later. I usually plan this burn on AN/DN.

Edited July 2, 2016 by jarmund

[DaMachinator]

I always use the Transfer Window Planner by AlexMoon, plus some form of a precise node editor.

 

Edited July 2, 2016 by DaMachinator