How close to the sun can you orbit

[The Scientific Moustache]

I want to try and put a small research station in orbit around Kerbol, I was just wandering how close you can get on stable orbit?

[Kerbal01]

There was a thread on this exact subject only yesterday, did you surf the forums before posting?

[Ralathon]

You explode when you get closer than 2000m of the surface or so. But it'll take a humongous rocket to provide the dV for circularizing.

[SoldierHair]

The closest i got so far is 250 000 000km.Still have plenty of fuel left , but i have a problem with big, high gravity pull and bright objects since the good old days of Bridge Commander...

[SRV Ron]

I have a probe currently circling to 100,000K in an elliptical orbit. I'll check the fuel left to see if I can circularize that orbit. And, it does take a lot of fuel, burning against Kerban's rotation, to slow down enough to fall into the sun. That probe exploded at about 1,300 meters.

[Tommygun]

I was able to do a safe fly by at 35 KM in my Icky Russ 2 and on another attempt my ship was destroyed at 1327 meters.

Something to note; you will need massive amounts of fuel to get into a really low circular orbit around the sun.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/31251-The-Icarus-Project?p=406487&viewfull=1#post406487

Edited June 27, 2013 by Tommygun

[Rocket Farmer]

You don't necessarily need a ton of fuel for a simple flyby. I recently had a probe around jool that got a Laythe intercept by itself which ejected it from jool and gave it a 500km flyby for 0 delta v. Yes getting a circular orbit would have been expensive but I would really consider a gravity assist to get down there.

[Dedjal]

I got a station hovering 2km over the sun in a stable orbit. It took a lot of fuel ofcourse, and mechjeb. Parts moved one by one to Moho for assembly. Finally in place, all fueltanks got dumped and remotely controlled to hit the sun.