Switching to opposite orbit??

[erikinthebakery]

I'm currently engaged in a Minmus orbit rescue contract and once I arrived and started setting up the intercept I saw the ascending/descending nodes were almost at 180 - the poor fool was orbiting in the opposite direction from me.

I'm guessing trying to just meet him in orbit going in opposite directions will just end in a high speed crash that won't help either of us feel better. Current plan is to land (I have "business" on the surface anyway) and take off in the direction he is spinning. Is there a better way? I'm on Xbox so any mod-based answers are out of the question.

[Starhawk]

5 minutes ago, erikinthebakery said:

I'm currently engaged in a Minmus orbit rescue contract and once I arrived and started setting up the intercept I saw the ascending/descending nodes were almost at 180 - the poor fool was orbiting in the opposite direction from me.

I'm guessing trying to just meet him in orbit going in opposite directions will just end in a high speed crash that won't help either of us feel better. Current plan is to land (I have "business" on the surface anyway) and take off in the direction he is spinning. Is there a better way? I'm on Xbox so any mod-based answers are out of the question.

If you're planning on landing anyway, then you are right.  Just land and then take off in the correct direction.

Happy landings!

[erikinthebakery]

So, for future reference, if I was not planning on landing what would I want do? Do the switch in two separate maneuvers? One to polar orbit and then one to the matching orbit? Just in case I get an Eve rescue some day

[ForScience6686]

Get an a highly elliptical orbit and change at the ap.  At minmus this is a very cheap maneuver.

[Starhawk]

1 minute ago, erikinthebakery said:

So, for future reference, if I was not planning on landing what would I want do? Do the switch in two separate maneuvers? One to polar orbit and then one to the matching orbit? Just in case I get an Eve rescue some day

In that case you would want to push your apoapsis out to very near the edge of the SOI.  When you reach that point you would then point your ship retrograde and burn until you've flipped your orbit's direction.  After that you can circularize or set up your encounter or whatever.

It may not be intuitive, but for large inclination changes (more than about 70 degrees, I think) it's far cheaper fuel-wise to push your orbit out as far as possible and do your plane change at that point and then circularize at periapsis than to just do the plane change maneuver while in a lower orbit.

Happy landings!

[DD_bwest]

just a tip i found useful early on, although i realize you didn't notice till near the end lol,   When you first enter a body and notice that if you were to circularize your orbit, your inclination would be way off from your target.   just burn enough to capture yourself around the body, so that you already have a high AP point you can go to and adjust before you circularize for good.

[foamyesque]

If they're in orbit around minmus, even a 180 degree plane change in low orbit is pretty cheap. Unless your margins are tight you should be able to just do a direct burn backwards. This is cheaper than a land & reorbit manouver will be (since that has to do exactly the same burns, but also deal with gravity). It's more expensive -- depending on the altitude, anyway -- than an apoapsis-raise/plane-change/apoapsis-lower manouver set, but the difference on Minmus is not particularly dramatic.

[Aegolius13]

One note, if you do the "burn retrograde until you point the other way" option: you'll want to avoid leaving the "hold retrograde" SAS option on.  Otherwise your ship will want to turn around after you kill velocity and start going the other way, because the prograde and retrograde directions flip.