Leave the fire burning?

[Tokay Gris]

I do have two probes around the mun right now equipped with iondrives. One still attached to the mothership, the other in an almost similar orbit.

Through a miscalculation I ended up circling the mun the wrong way around, but that is not the issue.

Of course, I am in an equatorial orbit and so the ISA-sensors pick up just the equator.

Delta-V in the probes is exceeding any requirements... but the burn time to change inclination is breathtaking.

A change of even 30 degrees (of course not "30 degrees inclination absolute", just the change) takes over one hour.

Is it possible to switch on the engine and leave it running while doing something else? Or do I end up somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?

[Pursuedtank]

You won't be able to switch craft while the engine is throttled up, so you will have to sit through the inclination change. You can however use physics warp by holding alt and pressing the time warp key. It will cut the time down to a quarter of what it was.

[Tex_NL]

Sure, you can go watch TV, do the dishes or perhaps some laundry. What you can't to is switch to another ship, in order to leave the engines 'running' you'll have to keep focused on that ship.

To speed up the process you can forcefully engage physics warp [Alt] + [.] instead of time warp [.]

Edit: Ninja'd

[Panichio]

You wouldn't be able to do the whole inclination change in one burn if it will take that long. It needs to be done close to the nodes where you are rotating your inclination around. Do it in increments, but that would be extremely tedious, so maybe redoing the mission would be a faster and easier alternative.

[Tokay Gris]

ok.... So I will put the remaining probe in an orbit attached to the cruiser... and send a small tug to catch the other one to do the same. Or leave it in an equatorial orbit.

Or... hm. I have tugs with enough Delta-V to get to the mun and back with fuel to spare, so they can do it.

That leaves the question: What good is that ion-drive anyway?

[Panichio]

That leaves the question: What good is that ion-drive anyway?

Well, people do find use in them. Because of their high isp, they are good for propelling a small probe a long way, and some people have even used them to take an SSTO space plane to another planet.

[Tokay Gris]

Revised plan of the "Castor" mission:

Catch the probe with a "bug" (small tug), reattach it to the cruiser, decouple the lander, change inclination of the cruiser, while doing so, place the two probes in convenient orbits to map the mun, land the lander on an interesting place (found out by the two probes). Liftoff from the mun to match orbits again with the cruiser, now in "correct" inclination. Look afterwards, if the cruiser has enough fuel left to make it back to Kerbin.

If not, the cruiser that brought the "bug" has fuel to spare. Or send the deep space tanker currently being equiped in orbit around Kerbin.

Sounds like a plan. So lets do it!

[Tokay Gris]

It's a training and testing mission for the upcoming "Podkayne" mission to Duna, so the more I test the better.

;-)

[Panichio]

Sounds good! So has your question been answered then?

[Tokay Gris]

Yes it has! Thanks to the great community!

Mission "Castor" is progressing well, the two probes are safely in orbit around the mun (one at 135, the other in a polar orbit), the lander (The actual "Castor") has landed at a mun arch (pretty close to it, actually, let's see how it lifts of from there), cruiser "Pollux" has successfully turned the inclination around, the "bug" returned to Kerbin orbit (VERY wobbly!) and Jebs grin get's bigger by the hour...