Leaving the Kerbol system

[Guest Iforgotwhatthisis]

I have a series of satellites which I called 'Voyager' (Obviously after the real satellites). Voyager 1 and 2 are orbiting the sun at pretty messy orbits, but Voyager 3 is... leaving. I wanted to see what would happen, so I built a rocket, turned on infinite fuel in the debug menu (yes, cheating, I know, but I needed it to get very far), and then launched. It went pretty well.

As it stands Voyager 3 is at an altitude of 321,423,432,243m from the sun, and that number is continuously growing. The satellite went straight past its predicted trajectory and now has none. It is just floating away. Admittedly it is still in the sun's SoI, so it hasn't actually escaped yet, but it is still moving at about 7129m/s. I don't know what to think now. I thought it would reach the limit that it can go and then start falling back towards the sun, but it hasn't.

To get that far it has taken 1 year 101 days 4 hours 51 minutes and 50 seconds.

Anyone else tried to escape the system? How did it turn out?

[42undead2]

You can't escape the SOI of the Sun in this game. At some point, you'll likely come back. Or crash the game. Whichever comes first.

[metaphor]

The SoI of the Sun is infinite, but the Sun has a finite escape velocity. If you're moving at more than escape velocity, it means you will go on forever with the Sun never pulling you back in, because its gravity gets weaker as you go further away.

[Tw1]

.... never intentionally.

(Welcome to the KSP forums!)

[Sapphire]

I currently have a booster with a probe core attached to it that, through an awesome coincidence, was lost doing a Jool aerobrake, slingshotted around Laythe, and is on solar escape now. So I'm riding it to see what happens. Long time to be in timewarp, though...

[KerbMav]

Awaiting your mission report!

[Richy teh space man]

If you get far enough out from Kerbol, you'll find that the gravity is close enough to zero.

I've managed to get a ship out there that has a velocity of zero and isn't going anywhere no matter how much I time warp it.

[annallia]

I had a satellite go missing that was on its way out of the solar system, I figured I accidentally deleted it when I was cleaning up the space junk around... well everywhere.

Though not accepting that excuse I currently have a ship built from orbit that is out there looking for it. Last time I checked in on it (letting it coast) was to prepare my landing pod for separation on Eeloo when it will pass by on its way out of the system. I have close to 3 months of in game time to wait for that, instead of time warping I am carrying on with my normal operations and checking it in the KSC every now and then.

[Blipser]

I got away using a Eve and the Jool gravity slingshot, and the probe just kept on going. Nothing happens.

[Pachi3080]

in 0.20 i launched a probe called "Infinity" when i started a new game. It's the only thing that i'm sad to loose... it was, WAY TOO FAR! the altitude meter was displaying a "?" instead of an M or a G... and when i switch to the probe, the sun looked just like al the other stars in the skybox! (Just a little bit more brillant, of course...) So, now i'm going to launch the Infinity II probe, for the new 0.21 space program!

[Aqua667]

I remember Scott Manley did a video on this, something like "what does it take to reach light speed". Apparently at 2000 GM, (or was it 20000 GM) the sun stops growing any smaller, and theoretically, the numbers will eventually overflow to -1, so you "circumnavigate" the KSP Universe, the game crashes, or you crash into the sun.

[Amoun]

Reading all this is making me want to do my own experiment.

I wonder if I should half-butt it and just floor it or build an actual ship for distant travels....then again....I should learn to build one first...PROGRADE BURN TO INFINITY!!! XD

[Spartwo]

68 years

[chaos_forge]

That screenshot makes me think of this

And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

[draeath]

... which I then feel the desire to follow-up with this one:

Before me things create were none, save things

Eternal, and eternal I endure.

All hope abandon ye who enter here.

[Guest Iforgotwhatthisis]

I lost my satellites when I updated to 0.21 but I have a new Voyager which is travelling at about 203000m/s and is some 16000 G out. Is G a gigameter or something?

[Kryssandra]

I unintentionally left the Kerbol system on a badly botched mission to Moho that turned into a slingshot maneuver around the sun. That was many updates ago, and I'm not sure that it was a true escape trajectory as opposed to a highly elliptical solar orbit... but either way, Bill Kerman became the first Kerbal in my universe to leave the known Kerbol System at the time.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I've sent a voyager probe out.

At 1000Tm things get weird, my 'voygergerger' probe started spinning and the skybox started shuddering when I tried to turn the camera.

At about 1000Pm is when the game breaks down.

It's possible to get out to about 2-3Zm, but then you get the NaN glitch.

(To clarify, G is giga meters, T is terameters, P is petameters, and Z is zetameters, and between Zm and Pm you have E, exometers.)

[kiwi1960]

Thing is, real world space physics uses curves, or circles to get from planet to planet... the same is true in KSP, except, eventually, the circle would return to kerbal... in real world space, it would never come back... but I suspect in kerbal, the curve/circle rules, they probably never expected anyone to try this, so the circle would rule... pretty pointless coding a game for the possibility of never coming back.... so....

eventually you would return.... but possibly, the distance gauge would be useless... it would still show an increasing distance...

That is my guess anyhow....

Edited October 8, 2013 by kiwi1960

[Bacterius]

Thing is, real world space physics uses curves, or circles to get from planet to planet... the same is true in KSP, except, eventually, the circle would return to kerbal... in real world space, it would never come back... but I suspect in kerbal, the curve/circle rules, they probably never expected anyone to try this, so the circle would rule... pretty pointless coding a game for the possibility of never coming back.... so....

eventually you would return.... but possibly, the distance gauge would be useless... it would still show an increasing distance...

That is my guess anyhow....

That is a common misunderstanding, actually. Even though the SOI of Kerbol is infinite, by virtue of being the main celestial body, it nevertheless has an escape velocity, above which you will assume a hyperbolic trajectory to infinity.

[kiwi1960]

Yeah, but an escape velocity to what? Nothing, this means that maybe it doesn't have one, be pointless to code it in just like with an orbit that never returns, who or why would anyone do it... YES... we know they did do it... but I doubt they thought of that when coding it.

It would make it too real... then the code would only be able to be run on a super computer... and would be called a KSP "simulator"...

[Comrade Jenkens]

Once you reach a certain distance you reach nullspace and the game messes up.

[Monkeh]

...you will assume a hyperbolic trajectory to infinity.

I always wanted to see infinity, just never had the spacetime for it.

[SRV Ron]

Once you reach a certain distance you reach nullspace and the game messes up.

It is a bug in the game when the screen goes black and the distance counter scrolls then locks up. In fact, all display stays black until you exit and reload. The Whale Watch probe, which orbits about twice the distance from Jool to the sun, crashed to black screen last night. I have Voyager probes that load from a distance much further then that.

[Umlüx]

the last time i tried to launch a probe on an escape trajectory out of the sun it was simply deleted at some point. it simply vanished when i checked on it.

since then i send my voyagers only on a very high elliptic orbit. about 60yrs to AP

Edited October 8, 2013 by Umlüx