Having trouble getting to Eve...

[dbair91]

Okay, I am having a little problem getting into orbit and landing on Eve. My orbit around Kerbin goes great then I adjust it and burn to extend the apoapsis to Eve but I just escape kerbin orbit and end up getting stuck in Kerbol orbit. Am I just missing something and being stupid? Haha. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[vexx32]

From Kerbol orbit, you'll need to guage the distance and time as to where Eve will be when you cross its path, then perform a transfer burn retrograde to get to Eve's orbital altitude. Keep an eye on it in the Map view. The timing can be a pain to work out, but there are tools around here somewhere to help with that.

[dbair91]

Okay, thanks. That's what I was afraid of, haha. I want to do it vanilla so I guess It will just take some more trial and error to get it right.

[Aphox]

It's a bit easier if you get into a retrograde orbit around Kerbin at launch instead of during the transfer. It uses a little more fuel than a normal orbit since you're acting against normal orbit, but not too much.

[EndlessWaves]

I only got round to launching my first interplanetary rocket today and I seem to have done the same thing as you but it works out fine because once in a solar orbit you can burn retrograde at apoapsis until your periapsis hits eve orbit.

Doing it with the normal 90 heading orbit you'd end up burning retrograde on the side nearest the sun which seems wasteful as you'd extend your apoapsis outwards initially, it is more efficient to set up a 270 heading orbit so you can burn solar retrograde on the dark side of kerbin or is the prediction an illusion?

[RoboRay]

I only got round to launching my first interplanetary rocket today and I seem to have done the same thing as you but it works out fine because once in a solar orbit you can burn retrograde at apoapsis until your periapsis hits eve orbit.

Doing it with the normal 90 heading orbit you'd end up burning retrograde on the side nearest the sun which seems wasteful as you'd extend your apoapsis outwards initially, it is more efficient to set up a 270 heading orbit so you can burn solar retrograde on the dark side of kerbin or is the prediction an illusion?

Nope, launching 270 to orbit Kerbin retrograde is nothing but a total waste of fuel.

Guess which way real-world probes to Venus or anything else that requires moving "inward" from Earth are launched...

They launch east, to take advantage of the Earth's spin rather than fighting it.

[EndlessWaves]

What about extending apoapsis along the (retrograde) line of kerbin's orbit then? Is that more efficient then extending it towards eve?

[Raticon]

Believe me i have struggled too. I could travel out to Duna, eve Jool with small, unmanned probes to act as satellites or landers to check things out. I made those trips like a piece of cake (mainly because they were unmanned, hence no large lander) but getting to Eve took me about 600 days of constant 100k acceleration while carefully changing my inclination so match Eve then play catch-up for 2 hours to get there!

If i had only waited for an appropriate launch-window, i would have been allright...

[The Procrastinaut]

Is there a rule of thumb for gauging when to retrograde burn when in a solar orbit at the same distance as kerbin, in order to get to eve? how many degrees behind my ship should it be before I start retroburning?

[Khrissetti]

I got to Eve on my first proper attempt by burning out from Kerbin when the two planets were at a phase angle of -60 degrees (Kerbin was ahead of Eve by 50 degrees as measured from the sun) getting to a kerbol orbit and burning retrograde until my flight path touched Eve's

[The Procrastinaut]

I got to Eve on my first proper attempt by burning out from Kerbin when the two planets were at a phase angle of -60 degrees (Kerbin was ahead of Eve by 50 degrees as measured from the sun) getting to a kerbol orbit and burning retrograde until my flight path touched Eve's

Thanks! finally got to Eve now :')