Kerbal Stuck in Orbit

[BlorkyJR]

Recently I got a Kerbal in orbit but I did not have a lot of fuel to get back. And even worst I could only use half of the fuel left because have half way in I pressed the space bar by accident. So Bill Kerman is just floating around Kerbin in is capsule. Is there any way I can get him out of Perma-Orbit?

[Guest]

Send another vessel and rendezvous (ie like docking but not actually docking) with his capsule then spacewalk him across to the other one.

[Vanamonde]

Time to practice rendezvous. Send up another ship, being careful to remove one of default crew to leave and empty seat before take off, and bring Bill home. 

[Spaceman.Spiff]

You could also use the time-tested get out and push method. 
point the craft retrograde, get bill out, and use the EVA pack to literally push the craft onto a suborbital trajectory 

[Jack Mcslay]

I like another method: send an engineer and attach a new engine. A mite or dart engine should be enough to deorbit the craft unless it's a very large craft or in a high, low eccentricity orbit.

[BlorkyJR]

I would but currently I do not have enough science to get a "Mite" or "Dart" engine. Is there another way to get him down?

[BlorkyJR]

I take that back. I did a contract and now I have a mite engine. But should I control it from earth or should Jeb control it.

[OHara]

The other way is what @SpacemanSpiff  mentioned, "get out and push" --- if you have the 'Astronaut Complex' at level 2 so you can EVA, and if you are skilled enough at EVA to push the capsule so as to slow its orbital speed .  If you are new at the game, the pushing might be frustrating. 

It is fine to leave Bill Kerman in orbit while your space program advances enough to send a rescue mission.   (Kerbals do not need to eat or drink, and I think there reasons the game-designers made them this way.)

It would be difficult to perform a rescue while the Mite is your most advanced technology.

[herbal space program]

1 hour ago, BlorkyJR said:

I would but currently I do not have enough science to get a "Mite" or "Dart" engine. Is there another way to get him down?

No matter what you do, you're going to have to rendezvous another craft with his, so for now I would just send Jeb up with a 2-seat ship and have Bill fly over using his EVA pack.  You can put some extra ladder segments next to the hatch to give him more area to grab on to. And if you don't have a 2-seat capsule yet, you can just stack two Mk1 capsules on top of each other. Just be sure to have two parachutes instead of one  to land your heavier command pod safely. You can salvage the abandoned pod later if you are a penny-pincher. Either way, you'll soon be getting a contract to do the same thing over and over, which is the only economical way to staff up your program, so you might as well learn how now!

[BlorkyJR]

Ok I think that's probably the easiest way to get him down so far. So I think I'm going to use that method. Because I've only played this game for about 11 hours and this was my first orbiting mission. Thanks for your method!  

[Snark]

Moving to Gameplay Questions.

[herbal space program]

3 hours ago, BlorkyJR said:

Ok I think that's probably the easiest way to get him down so far. So I think I'm going to use that method. Because I've only played this game for about 11 hours and this was my first orbiting mission. Thanks for your method!  

If you've only been playing for 11 hours, it occurs to me that you might not be allowed to do EVAs yet, as you'll need to upgrade your astronaut complex to level 2 first.  That will make the "get out and push" solution possible, provided you have enough propellant in your EVA tank to de-orbit, but you'll definitely want to hit F5 before trying it, unless you have made the extremely ambitious decision to play "hard" for your first career game, in which case I would strongly advise against it.  If you want to do a rendezvous OTOH, you'll most likely want to upgrade Mission Control and the tracking station as well, so that you can see the orbit intersects and place maneuver nodes, or else setting up that rendezvous will be quite challenging. Technically, I guess you could still de-orbit your stuck vessel without any upgrades by using another vessel rather than a Kerbal to do the retrograde pushing, but without RCS, patched conics, or maneuver nodes that is going to be wickedly difficult. Give all that, I would have to agree with @OHara above that your best option is probably to work on other missions until you have all the upgrades required to make your rescue easier.

[Rylant]

Doing orbital rendezvous is one of those things which seems really daunting at first, but after you practice it a bit, it becomes remarkably simple. I remember at first it took me hours of setup and painstaking planning with lots of saves and reloads. First getting into orbit, then matching planes, then setting up the encounter ensuring it would be for less than 100 meters, then the spacewalk and transfer. 
 

Now when I do a rendezvous, I don’t even bother matching planes if it’s close and I try to get within a few kilometres.  To rescue somebody in orbit now in Kerbin space will literally take me a couple minutes to do. Practice it. It is fun and will get easier quickly. Remember my method is great once you get more comfortable but you probably want to be more careful if stranded in low orbit as my adjustments could take you into the atmosphere. 
 

Rylant

Edited May 31, 2021 by Rylant

[herbal space program]

46 minutes ago, Rylant said:

To rescue somebody in orbit now in Kerbin space will literally take me a couple minutes to do. Practice it. It is fun and will get easier quickly. Remember my method is great once you get more comfortable but you probably want to be more careful if stranded in low orbit as my adjustments could take you into the atmosphere.

One of those things that gets so routine you don't even think about it,  except that the last Kerbal I got a contract to rescue in the latest KSP version (orbiting Duna) didn't actually have an EVA pack on board. That made it just a wee bit harder, especially since as it turns out nobody on the rescuing vessel had one either!  The rescuing vessel was also at least 50m long, being composed of three separate modules connected by wobbly docking ports. Took me a good hour and countless reloads to get a hatch close enough to poor, helplessly floating Dandard that he could grab it.