Near Perfect Orbit?

[spikeyhat09]

I recently launched a spaceplane/reverse shuttle and manually achieved a near perfect orbit (or my personal best anyway). the apokee/perikee only differed by about 40 meters, and the speed differed by only .1 m/s.

What's the best you've achieved (without mods of course )?

[Giggleplex777]

The closest I got was a 500m difference. I know I suck at this. What's even crazier is the fact that I was trying to do an orbit rendevous for a Duna lander simulation (you can probably guess how that went).

[Gamergull]

I currently have a ship in orbit with a periapsis of 72,100 m and a difference of just under 100 m . The map view shows it as really shaky, though, so no exact numbers. No screenshots as I am on my other PC.

[spikeyhat09]

I currently have a ship in orbit with a periapsis of 72,100 m and a difference of just under 100 m . The map view shows it as really shaky, though, so no exact numbers. No screenshots as I am on my other PC.

yup, thats why you time accelerate. they stop getting all shaky. thats how i got mine to not do that. does it have enough fuel to de-orbit?

[bsalis]

With RCS and some patience anyone can get a (near) perfect circular orbit. The main obstacle is the jitter.

[spikeyhat09]

I wonder if you got a perfect, 0% elliptical orbit, if the periapsis/apoapsis markers wold disappear.. or just spin all the way around spaztically until the game crashed

[nhnifong]

If you could cause a perfect orbit, I'll bet you would cause a zero-division error. I'm not sure why, just a hunch.

[bsalis]

A perfect circular orbit is not possible. A perfect circle is an abstract concept.

[spikeyhat09]

A perfect circular orbit is not possible. A perfect circle is an abstract concept.

Its not a circle that's being perfect, its the path that the ship takes. why is that impossible?

[AeroPelican]

Apokee! APOKEE!? Nova will not be pleased. Pretty good orbit BTW

[Subcidal]

yup, thats why you time accelerate. they stop getting all shaky. thats how i got mine to not do that. does it have enough fuel to de-orbit?

I've noticed this only seems to lock in the numbers at the moment you hit time warp, Because it's different every time you do it.

[Gamergull]

yup, thats why you time accelerate. they stop getting all shaky. thats how i got mine to not do that. does it have enough fuel to de-orbit?

Ah, ok. And yes, I got a good amount of fuel left. I'd like to do my first rendezvous .

[Shpaget]

Its not a circle that's being perfect, its the path that the ship takes. why is that impossible?

The branch of mathematics called probability theory states that the probability of something hitting any exact value on a continuous scale is 0.

For the orbit to be perfectly circular, you can take any periapsis or apoapsis you get, but then you have to match the other one exactly. You've got 0 chance to do that, and I'm not talking about a very low chance, I really mean zero, as in you can never get it exactly right.

You might be satisfied with around 100 meters difference and call it a day, or you may want to push it a bit and try to get ~1 m difference. In theory you could get even lower eccentricity, but even if the display shows exactly the same number, it's just rounding up the displayed figure. There is always one more decimal position for you to be off at.

[Frederf]

Digital computers work in finite precision values. There is a window where two values can be exactly the same in KSP.

[A Fat Pokemon]

I dont use any mods, but the best I've gotten was a 6m difference between the 2 orbital points. Though it appeared later that the kraken had a bit of a run through with my ship, altering its orbit

[Guest]

Apokee! APOKEE!? Nova will not be pleased. Pretty good orbit BTW

Thats the technical term for Kerbin apoapsis.

[vexx32]

Haha, don't start that again. Nobody can agree on the technical term for it, so I think it's better to use just Apoapsis and stay with general terms. Last time this happened, we had a huge argument over it.

[_Aramchek_]

Thats the technical term for Kerbin apoapsis.

No, it clearly says Apoapsis in game.

[sal_vager]

Apoapsis and Periapsis are the official terms, though my spellchecker hates them both

[spikeyhat09]

just beat my record with 89,877/89,8977

[spikeyhat09]

The branch of mathematics called probability theory states that the probability of something hitting any exact value on a continuous scale is 0.

For the orbit to be perfectly circular, you can take any periapsis or apoapsis you get, but then you have to match the other one exactly. You've got 0 chance to do that, and I'm not talking about a very low chance, I really mean zero, as in you can never get it exactly right.

You might be satisfied with around 100 meters difference and call it a day, or you may want to push it a bit and try to get ~1 m difference. In theory you could get even lower eccentricity, but even if the display shows exactly the same number, it's just rounding up the displayed figure. There is always one more decimal position for you to be off at.

I agree that in reality, no-one will ever achieve a perfect orbit. just moving about inside the capsule would adjust it by an immeasurable amount (or maybe measurable? :/). I'm just wondering if its theoretically possible for an object to move at the EXACT, Precise velocity (for that height), with 0% inaccuracy, and have an orbit that's perfectly circular

[TheDarkStar]

I agree that in reality, no-one will ever achieve a perfect orbit. just moving about inside the capsule would adjust it by an immeasurable amount (or maybe measurable? :/). I'm just wondering if its theoretically possible for an object to move at the EXACT, Precise velocity (for that height), with 0% inaccuracy, and have an orbit that's perfectly circular

A circular orbit in KSP should be possible, since it rounds your orbit and isn't continuous.