[0.20] RemoteTech: Relay Network – V 0.5.0.1

[DoubleOSeven1]

For continuous interplanetary coverage, you need two relays in opposite points of an orbit around Kerbin. Whenever one is blocked by Kerbin, the other has a line of sight. You also need two relays in the same set-up at the destination to receive the signal, and they can then propagate it to whatever network of satellites you've set up around the destination planet. Each relay needs at least two dishes, to communicate with the two relays it is sending/receiving from. (Due to RemoteTech's limitations, you can get away with less, but if you ask me, the more the merrier!) For bodies that are tidally locked to their parent, like the Mun, you can have only one "receiving" relay. For example, you don't need two relays around the Mun, because if you place one on the surface facing Kerbin it will always be able to see at least one of the two relays around Kerbin.

If you really want a highly unnecessary degree of coverage, place a relay in orbit around Kerbol in the same orbit as Kerbin, but 1/4th of an orbit ahead or behind. It will always have a line of sight to both Kerbin, and any object that is blocked by Kerbol from Kerbin's perspective.

And sure, you can use my design, though keep in mind it's thoroughly useless unless you have a whole swarm of those. Also, I don't think I deserve much credit, I basically slapped on whatever parts were lightest and would do the job.

Thanks, my most complicated networks so far have been the real world GPS network and 6 GKO sats, I will try and give the interplanetary one a try once RT2 comes out, I never really figured out how to have a completely reliable one for Interplanetary.

[vladoportos]

Hello all, does anyone else have also issue with the remotetech probe parts ?

I have downloaded, put it to the GameData folder and nothing.. the probe bodies does not work.

My current dir looks like:

E:\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\GameData:

.

.

.

RemoteTech ( the main plugin )

RemoteTech_MM_ProbeCompatibility

.

.

.

I have also tried move files out of RemoteTech_MM_ProbeCompatibility and different combinations, but to no avail :-/

Any ideas ?

[Kimberly]

After further testing, I've decided against designing a dedicated spare launcher. I tested various designs, but found there was simply no solid rocket booster to accommodate the payload--the Sepratrons carried too little fuel, while the RT-10 has too high a thrust-to-weight ratio. Even with the use of a BACC, too much fuel is lost to air resistance. The one functioning solid-fueled design I came up with has a payload fraction of just 1.6%, though it looks elegant:

The use of a more complex (and more expensive) liquid-fueled design can't be justified for the launch of just was one satellite. Instead, replacements will be launched as add-ons to other missions, e.g. if a crew shuttle has room for payload. In addition, I will reserve 500 m/s from the delta-v budget for orbital maneuvering. Satellites in an orbital plane can rearrange themselves in an orbit to maintain service at a degraded level if some satellites fail; that means global service can be maintained until an opportunity for launching replacements arises. Up to three satellites per plane can fail until inter-satellite links are no longer possible and certain areas of Kerbin will experience black-outs. This leaves another 500 m/s per satellite for stationkeeping, which guarantees a service lifetime of at least five years (if 70 km over Kerbin is equivalent to 400 km over Earth). It will be desirable to replace satellites every five years or so anyway, to update them with the latest technology.

[DoubleOSeven1]

So when remotetech2 comes out, I get to do;

1.) Six GKOs

2.) a GPS Network (24 sats, six orbital planes with four satellites each; 9 visible anywhere at anytime)

3.) Interplantery (32 sats LAN Seperation of 11.25)

4.) If I can figure out the orbital parameters, the iridium network. (The constellation of 66 active satellites has 6 orbital planes spaced 30 degrees apart, with 11 satellites in each plane; Satellites are in low Earth orbit at a height of approximately 485 mi (781 km) and inclination of 86.4)

Edit: Is this formula true? "Orbital periods and speeds are calculated using the relations 4À²R³ = T²GM and V²R = GM, where R = radius of orbit in metres, T = orbital period in seconds, V = orbital speed in m/s, G = gravitational constant ≈ 6.673×10−11 Nm²/kg², M = mass of Earth ≈ 5.98×1024 kg."

if it is could someone figure out the orbital period for KSP?

Edited August 18, 2013 by DoubleOSeven1

[Kimberly]

3.) Interplantery (32 sats LAN Seperation of 11.25)

Why 32? There are only six other planets, after all, plus the Mun and Minmus. That makes 16 relays the most you would need, 18 if you want to communicate with ships in interplanetary space. (Or you can make two relays with 36 dishes each, but that would be silly.) Also, it doesn't really matter what orbit they're in, you might as well just make them all equatorial. That reduces communication delay as well. They can be in a low orbit, so long as their view is not significantly blocked by the curvature of Kerbin.

Edit: Is this formula true? "Orbital periods and speeds are calculated using the relations 4À²R³ = T²GM and V²R = GM, where R = radius of orbit in metres, T = orbital period in seconds, V = orbital speed in m/s, G = gravitational constant ≈ 6.673×10−11 Nm²/kg², M = mass of Earth ≈ 5.98×1024 kg."

if it is could someone figure out the orbital period for KSP?

Um, I'm going to upset some mathematicians here, but you can forget all that and just use this handy dandy calculator for Kepler's third law. (Kerbin has a radius of 600 km and a mass of 5.2915793e+22 kg. Add your orbital altitude to the radius of Kerbin to get your orbital radius.)

Edited August 18, 2013 by Kimberly

[DoubleOSeven1]

Why 32? There are only six other planets, after all, plus the Mun and Minmus. That makes 18 relays the most you would need, 20 if you want to communicate with ships in interplanetary space. Also, it doesn't really matter what orbit they're in, you might as well just make them all equatorial. That reduces communication delay as well. They can be in a low orbit, so long as their view is not significantly blocked by the curvature of Kerbin.

The moons of other planets, makes it 16x2.

[vladoportos]

Hello all, does anyone else have also issue with the remotetech probe parts ?

I have downloaded, put it to the GameData folder and nothing.. the probe bodies does not work.

My current dir looks like:

E:\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\GameData:

.

.

.

RemoteTech ( the main plugin )

RemoteTech_MM_ProbeCompatibility

.

.

.

I have also tried move files out of RemoteTech_MM_ProbeCompatibility and different combinations, but to no avail :-/

Any ideas ?

Ah after little checking what is in config, I was building satellites with Probodobodyne HECS ( standard command body part ) which is not configured in RemoteTech.cfg, so if anybody wants to add it, edit the file and add:

@PART[probeCoreHex]
{
    !MODULE[ModuleCommand] {}

    MODULE
    {
	name = ModuleRemoteTechSPU
	minimumCrew = 0
	EnergyDrain = 0.01666667
	isRemoteCommand = false
    }
}

[DoubleOSeven1]

Um, I'm going to upset some mathematicians here, but you can forget all that and just use this handy dandy calculator for Kepler's third law. (Kerbin has a radius of 600 km and a mass of 5.2915793e+22 kg. Add your orbital altitude to the radius of Kerbin to get your orbital radius.)

Thanks, just saved me three hours work at least, but I was hoping to find the orbital period converting it from the real world to KSP...

[Kimberly]

The moons of other planets, makes it 16x2.

Oh, I suppose that's true. The design I was going for has relays around each planet that then send the signal on to the moons--less direct, but it allows for e.g. making use of Laythe being tidally locked to Jool, because each system can have a custom network.

Thanks, just saved me three hours work at least, but I was hoping to find the orbital period converting it from the real world to KSP...

You mean, for a given orbital period over Earth, you want to know the orbital altitude for getting the same orbital period over Kerbin? Click "solve for orbital radius", enter the orbital period in the "Time" field and enter Kerbin's mass. Be sure to subtract Kerbin's radius from the result you get. Physics in KSP follow Kepler's third law, you're just dealing with a smaller planet, is all.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Kimberly

[DoubleOSeven1]

You mean, for a given orbital period over Earth, you want to know the orbital altitude for getting the same orbital period over Kerbin? Click "solve for orbital radius", enter the orbital period in the "Time" field and enter Kerbin's mass. Be sure to subtract Kerbin's radius from the result you get. Physics in KSP follow Kepler's third law, you're just dealing with a smaller planet, is all.

So if the real world orbit was 100 minutes, I would have an orbital altitude (from the center of kerbin) of 1.4767e+3 kilometers?

5.2915793e22kg used for mass of kerbin

Upon further conversions I get a final orbit of 1476.7km...

Edited August 18, 2013 by DoubleOSeven1
Final Orbit determined

[johnsonwax]

Oh, I suppose that's true. The design I was going for has relays around each planet that then send the signal on to the moons--less direct, but it allows for e.g. making use of Laythe being tidally locked to Jool, because each system can have a custom network.

That's what I do as well. With two high eccentricity polar orbit comm satellites each out of phase, they'll spend weeks up near the Kerbin SOI and one or the other will be be far enough outside the ecliptic that at least one will be visible from anywhere in the solar system. Kerbin then has 3 geosync satellites to ensure that those two can reach mission control.

Each planet then has 3 geosync (or half geosync) satellites guaranteeing connection from each planet to Kerbin and each moon similar. Jool has two polar sats like Kerbin instead of the geosync since there's no ground coverage needed. Works really well unless you want to live at the poles. But it's a lot of satellites. I also do little ones like you have above along with one polar one per planet & moon for mapping and mount them on a unified launcher which has a nuke engine and enough dv to get to any outer planet or moon. The polar has extra xenon for the large plane change, but the others just need to be timed into geosync which is pretty cheap. The mothership isn't very big itself and just drops the sats off like johnny appleseed.

[Kimberly]

So if the real world orbit was 100 minutes, I would have an orbital altitude (from the center of kerbin) of 1.4767e+3 kilometers?

5.2915793e22kg used for mass of kerbin

Upon further conversions I get a final orbit of 1476.7km...

Sounds about right to me. If you want to test it, enter 6 hours as your orbital period. Do you get an orbital altitude of 2868.75 kilometers? If so, you're doing your calculations correctly. (Note that you'll probably want to use Kerbal Engineer so you can see your orbital period in-game, it's more accurate to try and get your orbital period right than to get a particular orbital altitude exactly right.)

[DoubleOSeven1]

Sounds about right to me. If you want to test it, enter 6 hours as your orbital period. Do you get an orbital altitude of 2868.75 kilometers? If so, you're doing your calculations correctly. (Note that you'll probably want to use Kerbal Engineer so you can see your orbital period in-game, it's more accurate to try and get your orbital period right than to get a particular orbital altitude exactly right.)

One of the times its ok to use Hyperedit, when I punch in 1476.7k I get an orbit period of 2:46:45.9s

Edit: After Playing if the Hyperedit SMA for a whiel, I got an SMA with the orbit exactly 1:40:00.0s (100 minutes)

Edited August 18, 2013 by DoubleOSeven1

[Kimberly]

One of the times its ok to use Hyperedit, when I punch in 1476.7k I get an orbit period of 2:46:45.9s

Let me use the calculator myself. An orbital period of 100 minutes, you say? I get an orbital radius of 1.4767e+3km. Minus Kerbin's radius (I specifically cautioned you about this ), that's an orbital altitude (or actually, a semi-major axis, but that doesn't matter if your orbit is circular) of 876.7 kilometers.

[DoubleOSeven1]

Let me use the calculator myself. An orbital period of 100 minutes, you say? I get an orbital radius of 1.4767e+3km. Minus Kerbin's radius (I specifically cautioned you about this ), that's an orbital altitude (or actually, a semi-major axis, but that doesn't matter if your orbit is circular) of 876.7 kilometers.

And this concludes I can't do math...

Now for the hard part (?) figuring out the Mean Epoch for 30 sats evenly spaced in a single orbit plane... Any idea on how to do this?

[DoubleOSeven1]

I just love the Line of sight indicators on all the CommSats

Makes it so easy to lose a Planet!

Why are my pictures not showing?

Edited August 19, 2013 by DoubleOSeven1

[Kimberly]

And this concludes I can't do math...

Now for the hard part (?) figuring out the Mean Epoch for 30 sats evenly spaced in a single orbit plane... Any idea on how to do this?

Mean epoch? What do you need that for?

On a different note, this is the payload rack for the main launchers:

It weighs only 5.1 tons, but has 185 parts! I'll add struts so the satellites aren't decoupled with any force, then I just need to design a capable launcher. It really only needs to be capable of getting into a polar orbit and deorbiting itself. (If it can get into a polar orbit, it can get into all the other orbits as well.)

Edited August 19, 2013 by Kimberly

[DoubleOSeven1]

Mean epoch? What do you need that for?

To space all the sats evenly in the orbit

[Kimberly]

To space all the sats evenly in the orbit

Use a phase orbit, silly! Get into an orbit that is 29/30ths of your desired orbital period, but with the apoapsis at your desired orbital altitude. (So your orbit will be slightly eccentric.) At apoapsis, release a satellite and let it burn prograde until its orbit is circular. The next time your transport vehicle is at apoapsis, it will be 1/30th of your desired orbit ahead of the previous satellite, so you can release another satellite and have it circularize, and so on.

[DoubleOSeven1]

Use a phase orbit, silly! Get into an orbit that is 29/30ths of your desired orbital period, but with the apoapsis at your desired orbital altitude. (So your orbit will be slightly eccentric.) At apoapsis, release a satellite and let it burn prograde until its orbit is circular. The next time your transport vehicle is at apoapsis, it will be 1/30th of your desired orbit ahead of the previous satellite, so you can release another satellite and have it circularize, and so on.

and I do this for all 30 sats in that orbit?

[Kimberly]

and I do this for all 30 sats in that orbit?

Yup. So long as you have something like Kerbinal Engineer, so you can fine-tune your orbital period, and you are able to stick all the satellites onto a single transport vehicle, it's a pretty much guaranteed way to set up a constellation that will remain in position for a long time. (If satellites have the same orbital period, even if their orbit isn't perfectly circular they will end up in the same relative position at the end of each full orbit.)

[DoubleOSeven1]

Yup. So long as you have something like Kerbinal Engineer, so you can fine-tune your orbital period, and you are able to stick all the satellites onto a single transport vehicle, it's a pretty much guaranteed way to set up a constellation that will remain in position for a long time.

What I was doing before was hyperediting everything into orbit, thats why I wanted to know the MNA.

Thanks, i'll try and give this a go, don't know how well it will go though.

[DoubleOSeven1]

I found that for what I am doing, I can do radians (oh no not geometry), and those are the MNA, I honestly thought there would be a more complex formula behind it...

[Kimberly]

Just curious, but what's the fun about making of a constellation if, y'know, you don't actually make the constellation?

When a constellation requires complex timing (such as with tetrahedral communication constellations), it's fair to place debris in orbit as targets, so you can just intercept with each one to form your network, but I still bring the actual satellites up there myself.

[DoubleOSeven1]

Just curious, but what's the fun about making of a constellation if, y'know, you don't actually make the constellation?

When a constellation requires complex timing (such as with tetrahedral communication constellations), it's fair to place debris in orbit as targets, so you can just intercept with each one to form your network, but I still bring the actual satellites up there myself.

I'm testing to see if it is going to murder my 2007 computer or not... It already is.