Munar orbital limbo

[Zool]

How low can you go? Post your lowest apoapsis in a Munar orbit. Pics or it didn\'t happen ;D

Protip: 349m is too low.

Maybe I should try slowly lowering it, instead of going straight from a million meter orbit to a 150m one.

[Eat Uranium]

I\'m afraid I don\'t have a pic of the orbital map, but allow me to show you my periapsis:

The apoapsis of this orbit was approx 3000m.

[Zool]

I 650m seemed pretty safe, I went down to 570m and ran into Olympus Muns. Six brave kerbonauts have lost their lives today.

[NovaSilisko]

When I was doing my live missions, I passed what must have been 20 meters above a huge mountain in my ultra low 'smash booster into side of mountain without dying yourself' attempt.

I lived, but was trapped.

[Phoxtane]

When I was doing my live missions, I passed what must have been 20 meters above a huge mountain in my ultra low 'smash booster into side of mountain without dying yourself' attempt.

I lived, but was trapped.

I saw the one where you hit the side of the mountain. Made for great TV.

I did more or less the same thing, with perikee of about 440 meters. I came about 70(?) meters close to a mountain top. It\'s hard to tell, as I was on the dark side.

[Zool]

I made a complete orbit at 701* meters.

http://i.imgur.com/N3mCR.png

http://i.imgur.com/VbvlQ.jpg

Commander Jeb was pretty stoked about the mission, Bill and Bob though it was a little dangerous.

*The map path projection is off for extremely low orbits, the map showed a periapsis of 701m, but I got down to 675m.

[Tim_Barrett]

[Zool]

You survived a lithobraking maneuver! You get five cool Jebs for that! 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[Damonjay]

Periapsis: 849

Apoapsis:1780

Speed: around 570 M/s

Pics will be uploaded soon. then i will attempt to go lower

[Zeroignite]

Orbital limbo is a fun game.

I got a circular orbit pretty consistently with both apses pretty consistently between 660 and 580 meters. Seeing the ground rush under me that fast is scary.

I made it about 3/4 of an orbit before I found a 600m high mountain 8)

[tofof]

... I went down to 570m and ran into Olympus Muns ...

...I found a 600m high mountain...

I\'d love to know where those mountains are. I came here about to create a \'find the highest peak on the moon\' challenge but figured the Munar Limbo \'find the lowest valley\' was close enough for now.

Tip: 439m is too low.

The orbit...

If only we had a TAWS look-ahead....

_{The kerbonauts\' faces have never been more perfect.}

The predictable result ...

And finally, the location...

_{This is an animated PNG. If it doesn\'t look that way to you, your browser sucks.}

That said, I realized what was coming, and had time to press F1 to get the two \'action shots\'. I suppose I might have barely cleared it if I\'d RCS\'d, but I was trying hard not to perturb my orbit, and had already successfully made several other \'scrape-the-fuselage\' clearances of ridges. Crash site was in the area near the capsule/periapsis in the \'orbit\' pic. (Look at the timestamps). Between that and the zoooooomy image, should be easy to find.

[Zeroignite]

I\'d love to know where those mountains are. I came here about to create a \'find the highest peak on the moon\' challenge but figured the Munar Limbo \'find the lowest valley\' was close enough for now.

I didn\'t pinpoint the exact location, but it was a highland a bit southeast of one of the big mare. The mare in question is the one just north of the equator on the leading side of the Mun, slightly kerbin-facing. I passed other about-as-high peaks as well at different points on the orbit.

[Asmosdeus]

I made a video of my entry to the challenge.

WARNING: I SWEAR PROFUSELY AND INVOLUNTARILY.

It\'s a side effect of being scottish.

[Dynd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErErHlP3Ig

Like one in a thousand chance of this happening (at this speed), I was like 'wait what?' and luckily I was recording.

Messed up the video format a bit.

[Jarnis]

582m is already confirmed 'too low' by another challenge; Finding the highest peak and setting down on it.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=3922.msg43765

[Jarnis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WErErHlP3Ig

Like one in a thousand chance of this happening (at this speed), I was like 'wait what?' and luckily I was recording.

Messed up the video format a bit.

When you started to brake hard at that altitude I was like 'uuuuh, this is not going to end well...'

[Dynd]

When you started to brake hard at that altitude I was like 'uuuuh, this is not going to end well...'

Haha yea, I wasn\'t really paying attention.

[tofof]

582m is already confirmed 'too low' by another challenge

Not really; I was taking the earlier \'too low\' posts (349 and 439) to be altitudes at which there was a significant chance of running into an obstacle. Something like less than an eighth of an orbit or so before you hit one - that suggests a very high likelihood of seeing a peak at least that high for any given orbit.

Finding a 582m peak, on the other hand, doesn\'t really mean a 580m orbit 5m to the side of the peak wouldn\'t have worked perfectly. In fact, if that\'s the highest peak you can find, it .. means it /would/ work perfectly, and so can\'t possibly mean that 582 is \'too low\'.

[SteevyT]

Not really; I was taking the earlier \'too low\' posts (349 and 439) to be altitudes at which there was a significant chance of running into an obstacle. Something like less than an eighth of an orbit or so before you hit one - that suggests a very high likelihood of seeing a peak at least that high for any given orbit.

Finding a 582m peak, on the other hand, doesn\'t really mean a 580m orbit 5m to the side of the peak wouldn\'t have worked perfectly. In fact, if that\'s the highest peak you can find, it .. means it /would/ work perfectly, and so can\'t possibly mean that 582 is \'too low\'.

Oh god, I can see the challenge now.

'Hey, see that peak over there? Orbit as far below the top and as close to the side as you dare.'

[Zool]

Not really; I was taking the earlier \'too low\' posts (349 and 439) to be altitudes at which there was a significant chance of running into an obstacle. Something like less than an eighth of an orbit or so before you hit one - that suggests a very high likelihood of seeing a peak at least that high for any given orbit.

Finding a 582m peak, on the other hand, doesn\'t really mean a 580m orbit 5m to the side of the peak wouldn\'t have worked perfectly. In fact, if that\'s the highest peak you can find, it .. means it /would/ work perfectly, and so can\'t possibly mean that 582 is \'too low\'.

Exactly, when I said, 'I went down to 570m and ran into Olympus Muns' I didn\'t mean that 570 was necessarily too low, but that after holding that altitude for a while I came across an unusually tall mountain. 570m is probably possible in some orbital planes.

[Aliv3]

I just got down to 340 and survived, didnt even hit anything

[Zeroignite]

Now try a circular orbit at that altitude ;P

[Damonjay]

just did an periapsis at 540. and came close to a messy ending

[Damonjay]

okk so perapsis was 175 but i got a screen shot at 182 i didn\'t include an orbital photo :/ But still:3

Photo after perapsis

a clear problem with flying below 500m is approaching

Crisis Averted

i think its safe to say that around 610m is dangerous

[Jarnis]

Well, considering how much ground you cover in a single orbit and how uniformly the ground is mountainous, I would say that whatever is the highest confirmed peak is also pretty close to the lowest circular orbit you can manage without lithobraking events.

If you want to prove me wrong on that, go ahead.. do a 580m circular orbit around the Mun. No dodging or dipping up/down along the way. set it, let it run full orbit or two. I\'ll accept +-10m for accuracy