Establishing Geosynchronous Orbit...

[BananaDealer]

How can I do it? Is it possible in KSP at all at the moment?

I want to have my Orbital Construction Dock (OCD!) "Olympus" appear at the same place in space, over KSC, at any one time...

Maybe I can have a small timekeeper probe on the ground near KSC and target it to match velocities... Would that work?

[MockKnizzle]

Using some simple math and knowledge of Kerbin's rotational speed, radius and mass, you can calculate the necessary altitude for a Kerbostationary orbit (yes, it's possible). All you need to do is get into a parking orbit and then Hohmann transfer up to a higher synchronous one.

Alternately, you can just go on the wiki page and look it up.

As far as getting the station situated directly over KSC, that's just a matter of transferring at the right time to put your apoapsis at the right longitude, which is easy since you just start your transfer from the directly opposite side of the planet.

[joppiesaus]

yes, it is possible. Many information is on the wiki of ksp. I have done it once.

[BananaDealer]

We shall see what we shall see then...

[Nibb31]

Not a great place for a dock or a space station though, because it requires quite a bit of delta-v to get there.

[BananaDealer]

Not a great place for a dock or a space station though, because it requires quite a bit of delta-v to get there.

There's gonna be two way-stations and fuel depots between it and Hades Station.

Hmmm... Here's an idea... Is setting up a Torus around Kerbin possible?

[bulletrhli]

You need an orbit of 2868.76km

As for the extra dV required to get there, its the same or even less as you are ending up going a slower speed, 1008.1m/s which requires less dV to get too.

Check the wiki, and search the forums first person posting. This has been discussed in detail many times.

Have a wonderful day.

BulletRHLI

[Lexif]

You might want to concentrate on getting the orbital period right (6 hours) as that's easier to keep precisely right. Having your AP, PE or inclination slightly off will introduce a small wobble relative to KSC, but it should repeat every orbit.

You can't build a torus around Kerbin as the physics limit is set to 2.5 km, so a vessel propably can't be larger than a few km or so, even if the Kraken doesn't get you before that.

[BananaDealer]

Hmmm... Would getting to 3Mm orbit, targeting a Timekeeper probe on Kerbin and matching velocities work the same way?

[Lexif]

Maybe? But it would be longwinded. If you are in a slightly elliptical orbit, when you adjust the relative velocity to zero at one point in time, it might still drift off over time. You would have to correct and keep it that way for at least (propably much more) than one full orbit, which sounds annoying. After that, you would propably end up in a geostationary orbit after some time, yes. (Btw, you might not need a time keeper probe if you leave launch clamp debris behind at every launch, so you could target them...there's always some launch clamp debris at my pad until the next launch.)

I just use mechjeb (now I would use Kerbal Engineer as I have not much use for the autopilot features) to display my orbital period and just make this close to 6 hours with a tolerance of 0.1 s for my RemoteTech comsats. The point is that if the orbital period is right, drift over time is minimised. Being really exacly over KSC (geostationary) is not as important to me as that the sats don't drift relative to each other for a long time (geosynchronous).

Anyway, why don't you try your method and tell us how it works? I've never seen that idea, so why not use a probe to test it?

[MockKnizzle]

...why not just do the easy thing and simply transfer up to 2868.76 from a parking orbit, then circularize?

[BananaDealer]

I don't really see the difference...

The Timekeeper probe would just act as my anchor to KSC...

[bulletrhli]

Listen, the ONLY way to get something to stay in orbit essentially over the SAME spot in relation to a planet is to go to a geosynchronous orbit. Simple, for Kerbin, its 2868.76km and a orbital velocity of 1008.1m/s.

There is nothing else to get, if you don't want to accept the help, don't ask for it.

[BananaDealer]

Listen, the ONLY way to get something to stay in orbit essentially over the SAME spot in relation to a planet is to go to a geosynchronous orbit. Simple, for Kerbin, its 2868.76km and a orbital velocity of 1008.1m/s.

There is nothing else to get, if you don't want to accept the help, don't ask for it.

Calm down... Who said I wan't accepting the help? As I want the OCD to be in a geosych orbit with KSC, I'm simply asking whether having it target something near KSC and manoeuvre relative to it would help...

Asking more questions doesn't mean I don't accept the answer. It means I wanna know more...

[bulletrhli]

You want your final position to be over KSC, so, put your AP over the KSC, target debris if you have to and visually look for it to be overhead, then burn to raise your Pe so its geosynchronous.

[MockKnizzle]

It's easy enough to just go into map view and line your craft up directly opposite some of the debris that is no doubt strewn about KSC.

Rotate the camera so you're looking through the planet, and just wait until the debris and your ship are lined up in the middle of the planetary disc. You'll be close enough without needing to bother with any mods.

[purpletarget]

Look near the end of this vid where I show exactly how it can be calculated and timed. You can use debris to mark the ground location of the KSC, and you need it about 83 or 87 (I forget) degrees from your planned Ap for the transfer due to the time it takes to get up from parking.

[bulletrhli]

There you go, thanks Purple. All of his videos are very helpful I suggest you take a look at them all.

[BananaDealer]

I shall! Thank you!

(See, was that so hard?)