How to get in orbit

[jbaltus123]

For beginners:

1create a space ship

2launch

3open your map

4warp to AP

5see ROL system to find AP

6BURN!

7wait for a PE over 100 km

END!

circularziseing

1rol to PE

2BURN!

[NeoMorph]

You missed off the gravity turn. Without that you would go...

1 Create space ship

2 Launch

3 Go straight up

4 Crash straight down

Just look at those weather baloon launches if you don't believe me. They can put silly things into the stratosphere and don't have to go that far to retrieve them when they land.

Only 11 miles in this instance.... ELEVEN MILES.... wow...

[Specialist290]

@jbaltus123: This one's a bit too sparse on info for the Drawing Board, I'm afraid

@NeoMorph: Cool video.

[T3E]

3 Go straight up

4 Crash straight down

lol'd.

I guess everyone remembers with this the first hours of KSP

@jbaltus123 I think also to warp to AP when its below 70km is kinda risky ;>

[Flixxbeatz]

How to space:

1. Launch

2.

3. PROFIT!

[jbaltus123]

gravity turn is needed for a faster orbiter

[steffen_anywhere]

gravity turn is needed for a faster orbiter

What do you mean by that? You always need a gravity turn, in fact, heading horizontally is far more important than going up. In order to get into orbit, you will have to accelerate far more 'horizontally' than 'vertically'...

[jbaltus123]

you dont need itjust its better

[jbaltus123]

why you send this

[jbaltus123]

cool video! why you did send this video?

[Canopus]

cool video! why you did send this video?

Because going straight up like a balloon won't help you to get into Orbit.

[JaySmoka]

eee... can you explain how to get in orbit without gravity turn?? I though orbiting was meaning having an horizontal velocity....

[Canopus]

To be honest this is by far the worst "tutorial" (if you can even call it a tutorial) on the Forum.

[capi3101]

eee... can you explain how to get in orbit without gravity turn?? I though orbiting was meaning having an horizontal velocity....

You can get into orbit by burning straight up and then burning in the direction you want to orbit once you're up as far as your ascent burn will take you. This method is extraordinarily inefficient and wastes fuel.

It's generally better to start inclining the ascent once your ship is out of the troposphere, around 10 kilometers up. If you angle to about 45 degrees along heading 090, you pick up an additional boost from the planet's rotation. This has two main effects. First, thrust won't need to be used to change the ship's direction so more of it can be used to accelerate the ship. Secondly (and more importantly) during the initial ascent phase the vehicle can maintain a low or even zero angle of attack; this minimizes transverse aerodynamic stress.

[jbaltus123]

did is an video about gravity turns and I DONT KNOW HOW MANY METER TO START GRAVITY TURN

[Cranium]

Well, I'm going to just hijack this thread for my own purposes, hopefully trying to bring it back on topic.

I do have a problem anytime I am trying to get into orbit. I do just fine making a stable orbit that is outside the influence of the atmosphere, but I always end up with a very elliptical orbit rather than a circular one. How would I go about making a much more eye pleasing orbit?

For reference, I am starting my first maneuver at or near my Apoapsis due to the structure of my rocket. It really likes to be ass heavy when I lose all of my stages.

[Vanamonde]

Cranium, I suspect you're simply making the common newbie mistake of over-shooting. It takes a BIG dV change to get from the Launchpad to orbit, but once you're near orbital speed, tiny changes in velocity result in big differences in your apoapsis. Watch on map view as you get close to orbital speed, and notice how rapidly the curve is changing in those final seconds. Shutting down the engine a fraction of a second too late can raise the apoapsis by hundreds of kilometers. But that's easy enough to avoid. Just throttle back as you get close to making a closed curve out of your projected path, and shut the engine down once it's a circle.

[jbaltus123]

this is a video about ORBIT FAILS!

[Payload]

you dont need itjust its better

Uhmm well I disagree. If you don't do a gravity turn all the fuel you just spent going up is wasted. You only want to go up just enough so that you are just exiting the atmosphere when you are nearly orbital. Then you inject to your desired AP and burn to circularize when you get there.

This game is incredibly forgiving when it comes to fuel quantities. IRL, you are never making orbit without a gravity turn. There was only one reported case of it not happening that way. The US government preformed an underground nuclear test called Pascal-B and the capping plate on the main shaft was launched at nearly three times earth escape velocity. The engineers did the math and thought it might be interesting so they setup a camera on the capping plate prior to the test. The capping plate was seen in only one frame of video. I would also like to note that the plate still did not likely achieve orbit. It was probably incinerated by friction heating.

True story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob

What you have posted is exactly how not to do it. Let's not disseminate bad information if we can help it please.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Payload