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Orbital Mechanics 101 - A Kerbal Space Program Tutorial


pebble_garden

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If you are in a circular orbit, then every point is both Ap and Pe. Changing their place will come naturally as you start burning, at which point you will find yourself either at Pe or Ap, depending on whether you're burning Prograde or Retrograde.

If you were talking about a plane change, you have to burn toward the normal (or anti-normal) of your current orbit, until you have the desired orbit. Your Pe and Ap may have changed by then, and you can adjust them easily.

Thanks! It seems so obvious after reading your description. I was burning so much excess fuel just fiddling around with my orbits. I should experiment and perfect my orbits a little more before setting out for the Mun again. Looks like this brilliant game has a great community. Really excited for future updates.

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Looks like this brilliant game has a great community.

Frankly, I'm amazed this game has such a large fan base already. It's such a niche interest. But the devs have very craftily made the game accessible, and personalized with those adorable, plucky Kerbals.

I love trying out new solutions to engineering problems, in KSP, and then flying the missions. It's like real rocket science, and just as explodey!

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pebble_garden,

First off, thank you for the vids!

On my first day, I killed so many Kerbals I lost count.

On my second day, I found your tutorial thread.

It is now my fifth day with (modded*) KSP and I have one failed lunar lander acting as a satellite and a purpose-built satellite around Minmus as of 5 minutes ago. Granted, the Minmus mission took almost an in-game year due to some sloppy burns and a poor insertion orbit, and wound up in a nearly polar orbit- BUT IT MADE IT TO ITS DESTINATION!!!

I can't wait till you can do a tutorial on adjusting orbital planes, so I get things in proper orbits.

Thank you for your excellent tools- you are a true boon to the community!

*no navigation tools- only some satellite parts mods.

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It is now my fifth day with (modded*) KSP and I have one failed lunar lander acting as a satellite and a purpose-built satellite around Minmus as of 5 minutes ago. Granted, the Minmus mission took almost an in-game year due to some sloppy burns and a poor insertion orbit, and wound up in a nearly polar orbit- BUT IT MADE IT TO ITS DESTINATION!!!

Congratulations!

I can't wait till you can do a tutorial on adjusting orbital planes, so I get things in proper orbits.

I will think about that. I found plane-change burns incredibly confusing when I was learning to fly in Orbiter, and the "aha!" moment was a long time coming. I am sure I can find a way to make it more intelligible to newcomers.

Thank you for your excellent tools- you are a true boon to the community!

You are very welcome, Carth. I love KSP and want others to enjoy it as much as I do. Cheers!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Today i've tried my first randezvous and failed. Both orbits were perfect, my rocket's orbit was just a few km further but its speed was nearly the same as the other rocket's, so even though i time warped, both of them kept always the same distance. Could anyone give me an advice to make a randezvous much faster ?

Edited by JackAz
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Today i've tried my first randezvous and failed. Both orbits were perfect, my rocket's orbit was just a few km further but its speed was nearly the same as the other rocket's, so even though i time warped, both of them kept always the same distance. Could anyone give me an advice to make a randezvous much faster ?

(laughs) He said "make a rendezvous much faster."

It just takes a while to do this manually. You want a nice, slow final approach, but to do that you need very fine control over the exact orbital altitude. Being 500m lower, for half an orbit, yields a nice controllable final approach, but it's slowwwww. Sorry.

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I must join the others in lauding your tutorials. Truly exceptional. I was doing nothing but making "Krispy Kerbals" until I found your vids, and then actually made it to the Mun! Tried to change my orbit angle last night to go to Minmus and Huzzah! Minmus orbit! One thing I would like to know though, is what is the name of the artist/s doing the music in your vids? Absolutely love it and would like to get it. Thanks again for all your time and hard work putting these tutorials. *thumbs up*

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One thing I would like to know though, is what is the name of the artist/s doing the music in your vids? Absolutely love it and would like to get it. Thanks again for all your time and hard work putting these tutorials. *thumbs up*

I list all the songs and artists at the end of my videos, and it's all available for free. Some tracks are from various artists on ccMixter.org (which is searchable), the rest is from Kevin MacLeod's Incompetech.com

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just wanted to take the time to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to pebble_garden for getting a noob like me on the right track. I had no idea how the ball thing worked when I started playing (the in game tutorial was very brief) and as such my Mun attempts were "point rocket at moon, full speed ahead. Looks kinda close. Point away. Full speed away. Out of fuel... shi-- *EXPLODE*". I watched all of your videos and followed along step by step and even took notes (they're still sitting on my desk for reference) and now after actually making a couple successful Mun landings and getting some junk into orbit I feel much more accomplished and am now enjoying the game immensely with ambitious plans to establish a Mun base, map the moons and planets, land on Duna and more! And it's all thanks to your amazing tutorials that put these technical concepts into idiot speak that the average non rocket scientist casual player can easily absorb and utilize. You deserve a medal! Take pride in the fact that if plaques were added to the game I would put a big shiny one with your name on it on my Mun!

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Pebble_garden I followed your first orbit and EVA video guide and although I failed the circular orbit about 5 times on my 6th try ( with the rocket you built on the video) I knew exactly what to do and now getting to orbit and making it circular as I create the orbit is second nature to me the video helped alot so now I'm practicing re-entry to try and get it in the ocean just off the coast of KSC and practicing re-entering from different points of the of the planet to yield different landing spots. So my next stop is Mun.

So I'd like to say thank you your videos really helped they were very informative without throwing in too much technical information. :)

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