Where can I get tutorials on specialized orbits?

[novafire08]

I'm trying to set up a few specialized satellites, as well as expand my orbit skillset. Some of the orbits I want to learn how to do are:

* Sun-synchronous. I'm not sure if there's a polar and non-polar sun-synch orbit, but basically it's an orbit where it passes over the same spot on the ground once a day at noon.

* Orbit 'rotation'. I don't know what this one is called exactly. Suppose you have a 100km circular orbit at 30° inclination that crosses the equator at 0°E and 180°E and you want to change it to a 100km circular orbit at 30° inclination that crosses the equator at 50°W and 130°E. Basically, you're 'rotating' the orbit around the planet by 50°. How do you set up that orbital maneuver?

* Molniya orbit. I might be able to guess how to do one from the wiki article, but I want to know if there's any special steps needed to convert it to KerbalPhysicsâ„¢. It's basically a little brother to the geo-synch orbit where it spends most, but not all of it's orbit above one part of the planet. It's highly elliptical with a low periapsis to accomplish this.

* Munar slingshotting/slingshotting in general. I want to be able to do this consistently to get a boost out of the system instead of relying on blind luck. I've also seen orbits where when you're coming in from Kerbol orbit to Duna, and Ike slingshots you into a very nice orbit around the planet without much ÃŽâ€V spent.

* Free-return trajectory. It's what the Apollo missions used. I can get to the Mun without even thinking about it now, but I can't figure out where/how much to burn to get that nice slingshot back into a Kerbin orbit with a periapsis below 70km.

If you know how to do these, or could point me towards a tutorial that explains, I'd appreciate it.

[Kimberly]

1) Sun-synchronous orbits aren't possible because the planets have no axial tilt and are perfect spheres. You can make an orbit with the same length as the solar day (6 hours and 50 seconds), but the solar time you pass over a spot will change because of Kerbin's orbit around the sun. In the real world, the bulge around the equator and axial tilt are used to "correct" orbits so they stay sun-synchronous.

2) I think you need to burn radially or anti-radially...not sure though.

3) Molniya orbits are not useful in KSP because there is no Soviet Russia to pass over. If you want continuous coverage of the polar regions, you might as well put three satellites into a perfectly polar orbit, instead of using two satellites per pole in a highly eccentric orbit. If you want coverage of the sub-polar regions, than an equatorial orbit will do just fine.

4) It takes experience to do this well by eye, but really, it's a matter of dragging the maneuver nodes around until you get something you like. With practice you'll need to spend less time fidgeting with them. Keep in mind that even if a slingshot isn't perfect, you can do a burn near a planet to correct the way it is slingshotting you, which might still mean you profit in delta-V. Use a second maneuver node to predict what this burn should be like.

5) Use maneuver nodes to plan a burn when you are about 1/4th of an orbit (90 degrees) away from the Moon. Fidget with the node so you don't crash into the moon, but instead do a pass closeby with a nice little loop before being flung back to Kerbin.