Ike is a vacuum cleaner...

[Biggen]

One should pay attention to your orbit around Duna if its highly elliptic!

I was dropping off a rover at Duna. The launch vehicle had a rover for both Duna and Ike so I left its orbit highly elliptic with the Ap out about 80% to Ike's orbit. That way I could drop off at Duna, adjust orbit a bit, and drop off at Ike.

Well Ike decided he wanted his rover sooner. Man, that SOI is sick! Im glad I noticed this before it was too late. I nearly took the Duna rover for a test drive through the dust storms which would have proved fatal for my launch vehicle with the second rover...

Edited February 16, 2017 by Biggen

[Tex_NL]

Indeed it is. Compared to Duna's low gravity Ike is pretty strong. If you're (un)lucky enough Ike is capable of completely reversing your orbit.

[Numerlor]

Similiar thing happened to me 

 

[ZentroCatson]

Been there, done that  My latest Duna mothership (and my first manned mission to Duna) was accompanied by two satellites, one for scanning the surface of Duna and the other as comms relay. As you might have guessed the scanner was put in a polar orbit, but I decided to leave the commsat in an equatorial orbit. Just now I noticed the Duna mothership had rather weak relay signal... and then I noticed the commsat was gone. Either the SOI kraken ate it or it crashed into Ike...

Anyways, looks like the two Kerbals on the ship will have to play board games for the next year!

[septemberWaves]

24 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Indeed it is. Compared to Duna's low gravity Ike is pretty strong. If you're (un)lucky enough Ike is capable of completely reversing your orbit.

Wow, I knew Ike could have some serious effects on orbits but I didn't know it could do that.

On topic, could Ike theoretically be used for a gravity capture into the Duna system?

[Delay]

53 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Indeed it is. Compared to Duna's low gravity Ike is pretty strong. If you're (un)lucky enough Ike is capable of completely reversing your orbit.

Can we name this "Minmus-Effect"? The definition would be "An unstable orbit due to gravity assists". And Minmus since it's the first body to show this.

Edited February 16, 2017 by Delay

[Tex_NL]

1 minute ago, eloquentJane said:

Wow, I knew Ike could have some serious effects on orbits but I didn't know it could do that.

On topic, could Ike theoretically be used for a gravity capture into the Duna system?

It's not just theoretical. I've had it happen to me.
I came in to Duna's SOI on the wrong side. Burning radial in to move my Pe to the correct side in intersected Ike. By skimming Ike's surface I managed to flip my orbit around. With a well executed gravity assist you can slow your trajectory enough to get captured.
Just keep in mind such an orbit is NOT stable. Sooner or later it WILL encounter Ike again with all manner of possible disasters.

[Fearless Son]

7 minutes ago, Delay said:

Can we name this "Minmus-Effect"? The definition would be "An orbit that is easy to reverse completely". And Minmus since it's the first body to show this.

Happened in my career game with an early probe established for a contract.  It needed to be in high Kerbin orbit, and I put it there.  

Minmus then put it into Kerbol orbit.  

[septemberWaves]

19 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

It's not just theoretical. I've had it happen to me.

I wasn't talking about reversing the orbit in the second part of my post, I was talking about possibly using an Ike gravity assist to capture in orbit of Duna from a transfer, similar to how Tylo or Laythe can be used to capture in Jool orbit.

[Zeiss Ikon]

Having managed to completely avoid interaction with Ike in my recent (first ever, for me) Duna flyby, I will admit I was astounded at how BIG Ike is.  I had been sort of expecting something similar to Phobos and Deimos, but then Gilly wouldn't have the lowest gravity of any moon in the system.  If Kerbol's planets followed real physics, Ike and Duna would be mutually tide locked. 

[eddiew]

20 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

If Kerbol's planets followed real physics, Ike and Duna would be mutually tide locked. 

Pretty sure they are...

[Fluburtur]

I had a relay sat around Duna, now it's on the opposite side of the sun.

Thanks Ike

[Zeiss Ikon]

Just now, eddiew said:

Pretty sure they are...

Hmm.  Now I'm going to have to go back and check... 

[Biggen]

Yeah Ike is tidal locked. I put 3 relays into orbit on Duna but none in Ike. I just make sure to land on the side of Ike always facing Duna to keep radio contact...

Im glad Im not the only one that had an "oops" moment with Ike!!

 

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

If Kerbol's planets followed real physics, Ike and Duna would be mutually tide locked.

[pincushionman]

Ike is a jealous lover, is what he is.

[W. Kerman]

1 hour ago, Biggen said:

Yeah Ike is tidal locked. I put 3 relays into orbit on Duna but none in Ike. I just make sure to land on the side of Ike always facing Duna to keep radio contact...

Im glad Im not the only one that had an "oops" moment with Ike!!

 

Duna probe got eclipsed during landing and ran out of power-The lesson? Its SoI is not the only deadly thing about Ike.......

[Firemetal]

Yes Ike is very annoying. I'm always super paranoid about it when I go to Duna.  

Fire

[klesh]

A great man once said you can't swing a dead cat around Duna without hitting the sphere of influence of Ike.

[Cunjo Carl]

6 hours ago, eloquentJane said:

... On topic, could Ike theoretically be used for a gravity capture into the Duna system?

You know, surprisingly not. I've found in practice that even if you're not planning on aerobraking at Duna, it's better to just use Duna's gravity well than Ike's. I had a craft heading out that way so I snapped a picture of a trajectory just off the surface of Ike (literally scraping), and you can see by the lack of deflection that unfortunately not much happens gravity-assist-wise. Also, Ike's SOI stretches out far enough that you can't put yourself into a low Duna orbit directly from a low Ike orbit... If you're familiar with the effect from the inner Joolean moons, it's the same sort of thing.

Pics within. They gotta be big to be visible, and I'd rather not hog the space!

Spoiler

Not much deflection = not much good being done

 

Can't get straight into Low Duna Orbit because Ike's SOI is too big! Burning retrograde anymore puts you into an elliptical orbit of Ike.

 

[Delay]

6 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

If Kerbol's planets followed real physics, Ike and Duna would be mutually tide locked.

Well, they'd also orbit each other instead one orbiting the other, right? Seems like Ike is pretty strong*.

*I've no been to Duna yet, I'm doing by first fly-by now. But unless Ike is completely hollow, I think that it would happen.

[Freshmeat]

4 hours ago, pincushionman said:

Ike is a jealous lover, is what he is.

<snip>

I am curious as to what program you have gotten that picture from?

[Zeiss Ikon]

Well, I guess the Dunan civilization (millions of Kerbal years ago, when Duna had air, water and life) must not have had to invent synchronous communication satellites, until they wanted to cover the parts of Duna that can't (ever) see Ike...  Not to mention there was probably once a population who believed Ike was a myth.

[Dafni]

8 hours ago, pincushionman said:

Ike is a jealous lover, is what he is.

Is that doted line the SOI of Ike?

How big is the SOI of Duna and Ike anyway?

Cant you have a probe in a highly elliptical polar orbit around Duna that has the Ap beyond Ikes SOI?

thank you

[pincushionman]

6 hours ago, Freshmeat said:

I am curious as to what program you have gotten that picture from?

Short answer: Excel.

Long answer: It's not ready yet. Consider this your official teaser screenshot for something called KOMET, and visualising this kind of thing is exactly why I'm writing it.

3 hours ago, Dafni said:

Is that doted line the SOI of Ike?

How big is the SOI of Duna and Ike anyway?

Cant you have a probe in a highly elliptical polar orbit around Duna that has the Ap beyond Ikes SOI?

thank you

Yes, it is. If that picture were zoomed out to show Duna's SOI, Ike's orbit would be smaller than the circle there that shows Duna's surface. Yet the SOI is still so significant it would not be auto-hidden at that zoom level. So yes, Duna's SOI is mostly clear of Ike…except the part that's useful to us.