My Best Circular Orbit

[tsoramaki]

Not perfectly circular but meh, close enough for me. I\'m starting to get better at getting into orbits.

Periapsis: 141,380

Apoapsis: 148,405

And heres my ship, I dont have a good name for it yet, any suggestions? hehe

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Panichio]

Nice, my best orbit had an eccentricity of about 800m. Here\'s a link to the ship I used if you want: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=3037.0

It uses the exelsior engines so is basically cheating but it was just for fun not for simulation.

Anyway nice job getting that thing into orbit, looks pretty cool.

[ironscythe]

My orbit with the Excalibur Mk.1b2. I don\'t remember what the per/apokee were, but they were damn-near identical.

[Epsilon]

I made a 166x168km orbit today with an eccentricity of 0.154.

This was all with default parts

[ironscythe]

I made a 166x168km orbit today with an eccentricity of 0.154.

This was all with default parts

Pics or it didn\'t happen. :stirpot:

[Tim_Barrett]

Pics or it didn\'t happen. :stirpot:

It\'s not like its difficult kid. Especially with stock parts. You just have to use transfer orbits.

[thorfinn]

Glad to see new folks get a hand at this game. Believe me, you can do it with a smaller rocket

[CarolRawley]

You can get a near-perfect circular orbit with stock 3 fuel tanks and an engine

[comando222]

I just made my first orbit...The farthest part from Kearth was 300 km and the closest 120 km...It looked like an egg It seems hard to make a close to perfect orbit...

[CarolRawley]

I just made my first orbit...The farthest part from Kearth was 300 km and the closest 120 km...It looked like an egg It seems hard to make a close to perfect orbit...

I\'ll give you a hint... Use the Orbital Calculator in Projects And Releases, rather than using the Orbital display.

[tvizz]

My best is about +-100m. @90km Achieved by RCS burns. At that point the you really need more precision in the orbital map.

Parachute-Pod-L SP light decouple- RCS tank W Ring- SP decouple - SAS- Challenger Soyuz X4 W 4 SP small liquid.

Great little rocket, achieve orbit with one stage. Use RCS for adjustments and de-orbiting.

[SteevyT]

My best.

Apoapsis: 301,855

Periapsis: 301,784

The rocket that did it is attached. I also ran out of RCS fuel part way through circularizing.

[Justin8Ball]

This is my first and best try along with the rocket I used plus its three stages.

[what-the]

My best is 53 meters.

AP; 384,500

PE; 384,447

0.0001378

[SteevyT]

My best is 53 meters.

AP; 384,500

PE; 384,447

0.0001378

Very impressive.

I\'d still like to see someone beat mine without RCS though. (Yes my ship had RCS on it, I ran out trying to keep it upright on the ascent)

[Luigibro606]

This is my technique for making egg-shaped orbits more circle-ish.

[nivvydaskrl]

I tweaked your image to show a more efficient way. It takes better timing but uses less fuel.

[Luigibro606]

That also works.

[Epsilon]

The most effective way is this:

Fire retrograde at either to apogee or the perigee to lower the opposite to your desired altitude. Then it is a matter of firing at your apogee with RCS or something really carefully to get the two almost exactly the same. That\'s how it\'s done in real life, and in Orbiter.

[carrotSnack]

Periapsis: 174,628m

Apoapsis: 174, 695m

Using just just stock boosters and liquid rockets, no RCS. How does RCS help? I thought it just helps you rotate like the SAS?

Pretty much when approaching apoapsis fire directly down until until vertical velocity is 0, then when approaching periapsis fire directly up until velocity is 0.

Best done when half way between.

[comando222]

I tweaked your image to show a more efficient way. It takes better timing but uses less fuel.

This will actually help me a lot!Thanks.

[Epsilon]

Periapsis: 174,628m

Apoapsis: 174, 695m

Using just just stock boosters and liquid rockets, no RCS. How does RCS help? I thought it just helps you rotate like the SAS?

Pretty much when approaching apoapsis fire directly down until until vertical velocity is 0, then when approaching periapsis fire directly up until velocity is 0.

Best done when half way between.

RCS has lateral controls silly. Check the key bindings in your menu

IJKL for left,right,up and down. H for forward and N for backwards. This is dependent upon your placement of RCS thrusters though. If they are not close to the CG, then the ship will spin around when you fire them. Make sure RCS is on too ®.

Firing your engines up or down in your orbit usually just distorts it in a way that makes it more elliptical. I guess it might work in KSP, but it doesn\'t in Orbiter.

[carrotSnack]

RCS has lateral controls silly. Check the key bindings in your menu

So it does, I only ever took a brief look at bindings and that was before RCS was implemented.

Firing your engines up or down in your orbit usually just distorts it in a way that makes it more elliptical. I guess it might work in KSP, but it doesn\'t in Orbiter.

Couldn\'t firing up or down also counter elliptical the orbit (if that makes sense) if you distorted it at the right points? If you fire down half way between perigee to apogee, you lower apogee to about where you are. Then if you fire up when half way between apogee to perigee you raise perigee to about where you are. Keep doing this and they get closer and closer to each other.

No doubt this is an awful method in real life compared to how it\'s actually done.

[Epsilon]

Couldn\'t firing up or down also counter elliptical the orbit (if that makes sense) if you distorted it at the right points? If you fire down half way between perigee to apogee, you lower apogee to about where you are. Then if you fire up when half way between apogee to perigee you raise perigee to about where you are. Keep doing this and they get closer and closer to each other.

No doubt this is an awful method in real life compared to how it\'s actually done.

I suppose so. You may be right, I\'ve never tried it before.

[nivvydaskrl]

This will actually help me a lot!Thanks.

Welcome!