how do i capture an asteroid?

[minerbat]

i was in the tracking station looking at asteroid orbits and i found one (type C) that is going to hit kerbin... i know it doesnt do much but i still think it would be a fun challenge to save kerbin. but i never did anything with asteroids so does anyone know how to do it?

[Vanamonde]

Hi @minerbat. Welcome to the forum. I have moved your question about how to play the game to the Gameplay Questions subforum. 

To redirect an asteroid, what you need to do is fly a rendezvous to bring a pusher ship to the roid, then attach to the roid using the Claw part. Then turn the combined roid/ship and use the ship's engines to redirect the roid. Have fun with it. 

[minerbat]

3 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Hi @minerbat. Welcome to the forum. I have moved your question about how to play the game to the Gameplay Questions subforum. 

To redirect an asteroid, what you need to do is fly a rendezvous to bring a pusher ship to the roid, then attach to the roid using the Claw part. Then turn the combined roid/ship and use the ship's engines to redirect the roid. Have fun with it. 

i know that part but i dont know how to rendezvouz something that is not in an stabel orbit

[bewing]

You need quite a bit of deltaV to do it. You put your rendezvous craft in orbit around kerbin. You target the asteroid. Hopefully you get an An or Dn that's in a reasonable place. Raise you Ap a ways so that it's pointing right at the An/Dn node (and in a 2 or 3 day orbit), and match the plane at the Ap. And now you just have to make the craft intercept the asteroid. So you want to push your Ap out toward where the asteroid is going to be inbound. As you burn prograde, just check every once in a while as to how long it will take for your craft to reach the Ap, and how long it will take the asteroid to get there. When they match, you have an intercept. Then you wait. Once you are at the intercept, you do a standard intercept maneuver to match the velocity of the asteroid. Then you dock and give it a little push.

[catonthekbd]

It can be worth selecting the asteroid in the tracking station and then moving your viewpoint so both lines of the Asteroids orbit are in-line with each other (and also centred on the 'dot' in middle of Kerbin), and you are above the equator.

Now carefully timewarp until KSC is also in line with the orbit, and launch at the inclination of the asteroid orbit lines. With a bit of luck you should be nearly in the same plane as the asteroid, saving tons of Delta-v.

Now go catch it

[minerbat]

i cant do it. the biggest problem i have is that the Pe of the asteroid is inside the planet and i cant go after it when it is moving away from kerbin because it will crash before that.

[AHHans]

51 minutes ago, minerbat said:

i cant do it. the biggest problem i have is that the Pe of the asteroid is inside the planet and i cant go after it when it is moving away from kerbin because it will crash before that.

Well, the short answer is: "rendezvous with it before it crashes". To give you an actually helpful answer we (well, I at least) need to know where exactly your problem is.

I assume you have seen that the asteroids predicted path is displayed in the map view of your craft when you have the asteroid selected as the target. Do you manage to get your asteroid tug into an orbit in the same plane as the asteroid? (== Can you see either AN or DN (or both) and does it say "0.0"?) Do you manage to do so before the asteroid entered the SOI of Kerbin? You should see two markers on your orbit where you intersect the target's (the asteroid's) orbit, one before it hits Kerbin and one after it hits Kerbin. You may or may not see the markers where the target will be when you are at these intersects. Set up a maneuver node at a place where your orbit is outside the target's orbit (e.g. close to where the target's PE would be it it weren't inside Kerbin) and hit "next orbit" until you see the markers where the target will be at the intersects. That will give you an idea how long you'll have to wait until the asteroid is in Kerbin's SOI. Select a prograde burn at this maneuver node until you get a rendezvous with the asteroid at the intercept before the asteroid hits Kerbin. You may want to do "previous orbit" on the maneuver node to shift that rendezvous further out from Kerbin, you can also move the maneuver node around on your (current) orbit to get a rendezvous further out.

Please let us know how far you get in this procedure and at which step you have problems.

[minerbat]

i can get a pretty close intersect in the same plane but when i burn retrograde relative to the asteroid to get relative speed down and then burn towards target the intersect somehow ends up inside kerbin and it goes very fast down, too fast to have time for good maneuvers.

[AHHans]

55 minutes ago, minerbat said:

i can get a pretty close intersect in the same plane but when i burn retrograde relative to the asteroid to get relative speed down and then burn towards target the intersect somehow ends up inside kerbin and it goes very fast down, too fast to have time for good maneuvers.

???

So you do manage to get a rendezvous with the asteroid, but then when you try to match orbits you run out of time and crash into Kerbin?

You'll need to set up your rendezvous far enough out from Kerbin, so that you'll have time to perform the maneuvers to match orbits, grab the asteroid, and then change its orbit. That implicitly means that the orbit that your crafts gets into to get to the rendezvous will be a fairly wide one that will take days.

[minerbat]

GOT IT! KERBIN IS SAFED! (after 30 times reloading and running out of monoproppelant and realizing i forgot reaction wheels so the only reaction wheels where in the command pod). now... what do i do with it?

[AHHans]

21 minutes ago, minerbat said:

GOT IT! KERBIN IS SAFED!

Congrats!

21 minutes ago, minerbat said:

now... what do i do with it?

Well, you could:

• stick a couple of parachutes on it and land it on Kerbin
• mine its ore for fuel
• collect a bunch of them and give Kerbin a fashionable asteroid-belt
• convert it into an airplane: Flying-Rock-Kit
• (try to) land it on the VAB
• (try to) smash the VAB with it (which kind of perverts the "Kerbin is safed" part, but who am I to judge)

Or come up with your own crazy (or not so crazy) idea.

 

[minerbat]

i have not yet researched mining technology. is there a way to get science from it?

[AHHans]

1 hour ago, minerbat said:

i have not yet researched mining technology. is there a way to get science from it?

Not from mining as such. That allows you to generate unlimited "free" fuel from mining on planets an moons, which already is overpowered enough. (Asteroids have limited ore, so their use is limited.)

But the "Advanced Science Tech" include the Gravioli detector, which is the most powerful science experiment in the (stock) game. (And the BG DLC adds the large scanner arm and the ionographer to that tech node.)

[minerbat]

i mean science from the asteroid not from mining but the asteroid could be handy when i get to mining

[AHHans]

You can take an "asteroid sample" from the asteroid, which is worth a few science points. (By the time I got to capturing asteroids in my games, I usually had already unlocked nearly all the science, so that wasn't all that important.)

[michaelbezos1]

Hi guys i stucked same at the rendezvous -approach at the part of the click the velocity meter, please help 

 

Much love:> 

[AHHans]

3 hours ago, michaelbezos1 said:

Hi guys i stucked same at the rendezvous -approach at the part of the click the velocity meter, please help 

It is the same as docking to a ship (or station or whatever), except that you don't need to aim for a docking port, but a flat(-ish) surface. A good tutorial for docking is: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/189763-illustrated-guide-to-docking/

 

[michaelbezos1]

As your locaton is German, Bonn I have blind trust for you as I respect Germany und sprechen zie deutsche, meine name is Michelle ich kamme zu arbeit.

I went for advanced construction training and stucked at another obstacle which is visible on picture. refill the tank so annoying and time consuming.

 

as a workaholic, meticulous person with the strong belief that I am better than others at everything (and self called nickname: the prince modelling Mark Zuckubergs success) it is even more than welcome to research now how to overcome this challenge at the bottom but it annoys.

https://

Edited January 4, 2020 by michaelbezos1
edit link

[Laie]

On 12/29/2019 at 8:21 PM, minerbat said:

i know that part but i dont know how to rendezvouz something that is not in an stabel orbit

First off: it is stable. That orbit won't change until the asteroid enters Kerbin's SOI. However, you can forget about anything resembling an ordinary Hohmann transfer to another planet. All the usual transfer window planners will not be able to help you.

That said, here's my preferred approach:

I like to go out and meet the asteroid just as it comes into Kerbin's SOI. That is easy to plan, the most difficult part is the timing. From that point, you still have several days until it hits Kerbin, and if your mission is to protect the planet, you can still do that with a push of 50-100m/s (look up how heavy a C class can be expected to be, and be sure to bring enough propellant).

Properly catching the asteroid and moving it to a parking orbit is another matter. That's probably not practical to even try until you have mining equipment and can convert the asteroid itself into rocket fuel.

[michaelbezos1]

it is super cool but it pushes to make more researches as for normal human beings terms like soi -sphere of influence or a push of 50-100 m/s pushes to search google for wider description.

[michaelbezos1]

Hi guys I made again progress  https://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo/full?photo_id=502599727850 [/img]I know I may write in not the best topic particullary dedicated for advanced construction but it is progressive anyway.

 

Please help as I did not refill the tank as decided to follow further tutorial at youtube advanced construction (without refillitng the tank )

https://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo/full?photo_id=502599783475

This is more advanced work .

Edited January 6, 2020 by michaelbezos1
adding link