Clockwise orbit

[Spyritdragon]

Imagine if a planet would be orbiting Kerbol in a clockwise direction rather than anticlockwise like i believe they all do now. Would it be possible to land on it, and how hard would it be? If, for example, Eve were to to orbit clockwise, how much delta-V would you need to get there?

[itsme86]

Eve would still be pretty easy with aero-braking. A reverse-orbiting Moho gives me the shivers though.

[Ralathon]

All of those things depend on how far out the planet is orbiting and whether or not it has an atmosphere. If we go with the worst case scenario, no atmosphere, the most efficient path would probably involve boosting yourself into a highly eccentric kerbol orbit and reversing direction at Apoapsis. From there you can adjust it back to a normal orbit and do all the usual things. I can see this easily taking 10k dV however. But landing on it is definitely possible.

[DChurchill]

And inclined 90 degrees.

[Ralathon]

And inclined 90 degrees.

That would actually make it easier, the angle you have to make would only be 90 degrees instead of 180. Saves you 1-0.5sqrt(2) fuel on your reversal burn.

[Kerbart]

Gravity slingshots? At pass 1, convert your orbit to a polar orbit (in respect to Kerbol) and in the second slingshot convert it back to a planar orbit, but now going in the "wrong" direction. Heading back to Kerbin can be dealt with the same way. Setting up sling shot 1 and then having a polar orbit that allows you to intercept the second planet would be mind blowing difficult, but in the end it's a mathematical problem that can be solved (whereas more physical solutions might require ungodly amounts of fuel)

[DChurchill]

Yeah, I guess it would.

I didn't really think it through.

[m4v]

Now I want Squad to add a retrograde orbit planet just to see if we can land on it.

[Mr Shifty]

Neptune's largest moon, Triton, has a retrograde orbit around Neptune, so a transit from one of the other moons (e.g. Proteus, the 2nd largest moon) would be like this.

Venus and Uranus have axial rotations that are retrograde, i.e. they spin clockwise.

[SolarLiner]

The thing is that you have to cancel out ALL the orbital velocity of Kerbin, requiring as much dV. A regular Hohmann Transfer Orbit is not the best way to do the thing. A good one is to let Kerbol attract you, dealing with the departure time to cross the target's orbit at the right time.

[Kerbart]

Neptune's largest moon, Triton, has a retrograde orbit around Neptune, so a transit from one of the other moons (e.g. Proteus, the 2nd largest moon) would be like this.

Venus and Uranus have axial rotations that are retrograde, i.e. they spin clockwise.

Meh. Orbiting in sync with a retrograde axial rotation is easy (just arrive at the "wrong side" of the planet). I do it all the time. Sadly those planets or moons don't have a retrograde axial rotation, but that's a different story!