How to perform an interplanetary hohmann transfer burn

[aceassasin]

Since .17 is coming out with new planets i was wondering if anybody could tell me how to make an interplanetary hohmann transfer burn

[OtherDalfite]

You would make it the same thing as the Mun or Minmus, you would just need to time it way better unless you want to make a couple laps around Kerbol.

[Tigga]

Yeah - timing is going to be a real pain to get right without slightly more sophisticated navigation tools. On the plus side, it's likely those planets will have a much larger SOI. I'm rather hoping that they make the spheres a bit larger for planets. This should make it a lot easier to correct for a slight mistiming, as it'll show you hitting the SOI from quite a way out. Doesn't take much of a mid-course correcting to turn a near-miss into a hit.

[lickstaph]

Gotta use some maths for that!

I'll have to brush up on my high-school physics before 0.17 comes out...

[Kosmo-not]

I should write a tutorial for this.

[duckunlimited2]

I already got a method that works. I'll post it sometime before .17 comes out in the how-to forums section.

[Bekiekutmoar]

The more distance between a planet and the sun, the larger the SOI of a planet will be. A planet with a radius only half of that of Kerbin might however have a larger SOI, due to less oppression of solar gravity ...

[Arrowstar]

The more distance between a planet and the sun, the larger the SOI of a planet will be. A planet with a radius only half of that of Kerbin might however have a larger SOI, due to less oppression of solar gravity ...

Distance from the Sun has nothing to do with it. The sizes of the various spheres of influence are dictated solely by the mass of the respective celestial body. For a more in-depth discussion, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence_%28astrodynamics%29

[Tigga]

I suppose sphere of influence isn't quite what I meant above. What would be really useful is a way to show your trajectory relative to a body. At the moment I think it does this once you intersect the SOI, but it'd be great if either there was an option to toggle it for a specific body, or the volume for which this display was toggled at was larger.

Also - Arrowstar - that wikipedia article contradicts your statement. The scaling factor ap has very much to do with the distance from the sun.

[bsalis]

I should write a tutorial for this.

That would be awesome.

[4 IN 1]

Well we already have some really nice tools in our hands to do the calculation without knowing the actual maths behind it, but without understand the maths it will still be painfully hard to do more complex things, so I'd say we better start rewrite all the tutorial in ksp wiki instead(and if possible, make some video about it as well.

[Endeavour]

I should write a tutorial for this.

Please do.

[rkman]

If it's anything like my plan to mimic Curiosity's trajectory:

1. Take a wild guess about when to launch.

2. While in low Kerbin orbit burn to get Ap such that by the time you get there it will be about half-way between Kerbin's orbit and the orbit of the target.

3. When at Ap, burn to put (new) Ap at intersection with the orbit of the target planet.

4. Hope for the best.

..i can already see how this is going to fail horribly. Apply more pixy dust.