raging cajun Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 I've been looking all over the internet and I've asked chatgpt and everything, I've done the calculations and I'm still pretty baffled on why Polar orbits require a higher speed by almost 3x the speed of a normal orbit going at the equator, the things that I keep seeing is that orbits that go around the polar orbit do more coverage and require a higher speed to deal with this. Now I do understand higher speed is require to cover greater distance, but keep a satellite in orbit shouldn't have anything to do with coverage, your distance away from the planet is what allows to cover more/less. Both polar orbits/equator orbits should be covering the same amount, and maybe a little more at the equator because of the earth rotation, now why I'm pretty confused about is that the earth's equator has a way higher distance around it then a polar orbit so technically it should have a way higher velocity to keep it in orbit. The only thing that I can seem to think that would be the answer to this is an angle on the satellites trajectory, but it would need to be corrected over and over and over to even maintain it in orbit, and it wouldn't even have anything to do with drag. if anyone can possibly answer this, it would greatly be appreciated. thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanamonde Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Where are you seeing different speeds? The altitude of an orbit should determine the speed but not the orientation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superfluous J Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 2 hours ago, raging cajun said: I'm still pretty baffled on why Polar orbits require a higher speed by almost 3x the speed of a normal orbit going at the equator I'm baffled as well. Could you post a picture of the entire screen for both such orbits? I'm particularly curious about all the numbers around the navball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Aziz Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Either set to surface/target mode or not related to the game at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darta01 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 Are you referring to the Delta-V required from launch to orbit? If so, you should describe your launch process so that we can understand your problem. A really basic mistake I did when I first tried to go on a polar orbit in KSP, a long time ago when I didn't know anything about orbital mechanics, was to first launch into an equatorial orbit and then perform a 90° plane change maneuver to bring it in polar. I soon learnt a better way is to launch due North (or South), and perform a similar launch profile as for an equatorial orbit but with a different direction. This brings the spacecraft on an orbit close enough to polar so that correction maneuvers are cheap. The optimal launch profile is to compensate for the planet's rotation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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