MOD RECCOMENDATION REQUEST: Starlink Launch and maintenance

[TurboTas]

Hi folks.  New to the Forum, hello all!

I've been trying for no good reason other than shiggles to get a Starlink type constellation in orbit. 

Mechjeb2 helps me with the launch timing, orbital plane etc, but I'm having a lot of trouble with distributing each satellite throughout that orbital plane. 

I start with a launch that's circularized 20km low and then dispense the satellites one by one and orbit raise to 350 as it gets close to the correct location for each bird.

Anyway, the point is that keeping a large constellation aligned requires a lot of management - tweaks to apo and peri to keep separation and to plane to etc - can anyone suggest mods that might help?  I've been looking for a 'ground control mod' that could extend the tracking screen but no joy so far so it's manually switch to each satellite at the moment :-)

Image attached with the 'net for one plane of approx 32 birds.  I'm trying for 15 minute separation of planes - it's a lot of birds in the air!

Edited December 29, 2020 by TurboTas
typo

[mike19542]

 

On 12/28/2020 at 11:32 AM, TurboTas said:

Hi folks.  New to the Forum, hello all!

I've been trying for no good reason other than shiggles to get a Starlink type constellation in orbit. 

Mechjeb2 helps me with the launch timing, orbital plane etc, but I'm having a lot of trouble with distributing each satellite throughout that orbital plane. 

I start with a launch that's circularized 20km low and then dispense the satellites one by one and orbit raise to 350 as it gets close to the correct location for each bird.

Anyway, the point is that keeping a large constellation aligned requires a lot of management - tweaks to apo and peri to keep separation and to plane to etc - can anyone suggest mods that might help?  I've been looking for a 'ground control mod' that could extend the tracking screen but no joy so far so it's manually switch to each satellite at the moment :-)

Image attached with the 'net for one plane of approx 32 birds.  I'm trying for 15 minute separation of planes - it's a lot of birds in the air!

You dont do a orbit that low in the atmoshphere do it above 75 km or at 75 km and also decouple them with the staging

[jimmymcgoochie]

If you want a fleet of regularly spaced satellites in one orbit, there are some tools that could help:

Resonant Orbit Calculator: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/177833-112x-ksp-resonant-orbit-calculator/&do=findComment&comment=3439940 Allows you to calculate a resonant orbit to deploy any number of satellites in an orbit of any altitude with even spacing between them.

MechJeb:  https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/154834-112x-anatid-robotics-mumech-mechjeb-autopilot-2123-23th-august-2021/&do=findComment&comment=2917905 Using the maneuver planner mode, can create and execute nodes including a resonant orbit function, plug the numbers from ROC into it and it’ll do the hard work with fairly high precision.

Kerbal Engineer Redux: https://github.com/jrbudda/KerbalEngineer/releases Gives a more precise orbital period indicator than stock, you can synchronise your orbits down to 0.01 seconds.

Station Keeping: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/173518-19x-stationkeeping-restationed-precise-synchronous-orbits/&do=findComment&comment=3345759 Not one I’ve used before, but as far as I can tell it’ll automatically keep your satellites in a specified orbit in the background, so once you have them in position they shouldn’t drift.

The way I’d do it is- launch to low orbit, boost apoapsis to final orbital altitude, create circularisation and resonant orbit burns with MJ maneuver planner to occur at the same time (use “after a fixed time of 0s” on the resonant orbit) and merge the nodes with node editor, complete burn, deploy satellites once per orbit and circularise, keeping an eye on their orbital periods and syncing them up as closely as possible, use Station Keeping to keep them in place.

Remember to make your individual satellites decouple with zero force or it’ll throw everything out of sync.