Project Solar Flare

[Morokth]

Project: Solar Flare has been launched and has just escaped Kerbin orbit, en route, eventually for the sun. Right now I have a maneuver node set at its current apogee (or apoapsis, if you prefer) that requires a delta-v of just under 7k m/s. that will put the periapsis beneath the sun at something like 12million meters. Not sure if I have the fuel for that (in fact I'm highly doubtful) so I'm curious how low the perigee should be in order to ensure the sun will catch the probe and "sink" into the sun. Anyone know how low the periapsis should be in order to cause this effect? Thanks

[Greywind]

Would anything short of the radius of the sun do? I don't think it would. You would need to actually hit the sun, otherwise the probe will just zip past it. I may be completely wrong though.

[Morokth]

Headed out for a BBQ. Guess ill be figuring out some stuff later or tomorrow. It's not like I don't have time - next burn is 92 days and time to periapsis is abou 112 I think.

[Pursuedtank]

I don't think it will sink in to the sun (unofficially called Kerbol) but parts will overheat and explode at a certain height above the surface. (The height is quite low but I can't remember what it is.)

Apogee is specifically for an Earth orbit whereas the term apoapsis as the general term is correct in this instance.

[Westo454]

Something like 1000 stuff will start blowing up.

[CalculusWarrior]

I heard somewhere that the surface of Kerbol is irregular, so it depends on where you crash into. Sundiving takes a lot of delta-v, I assume you have an ion engine?

[Morokth]

No. No ion engine, though I shouldn't have known better since you just need xenon and power, so far as I know since I've never used them before. Perhaps SF II will have that set up if my present set up isn't enough.

[Westo454]

Nuclear is pretty good for sun diving.

[Morokth]

I've been playing more with the V30's than anything else for engines. At least I think that's wha I've been using ( at a BBQ right now and away from the lappie where KSP is installed to look and see). Maybe my next set of tests in preparation for lunar (munar?) landers and what not will include them.

[ThatBum]

When you get to your periapsis, you'll be going very fast. Sometimes the physics engine doesn't know what to do with things going a few dozen kilometers per second and shakes the ship apart (the Kraken).

Please tell us how it went.

[Morokth]

Yeah I saw something about that when I was on the wiki. Well see soon enough what happens. Ill be sure to give an update when I finish the mission.