Orbiting problems.

[Knas]

Hi,

as I recently posted a thread asking how to go interplanetary, I got a nice couple of answers and managed to get to Duna, after that I landed a lander on Ike as well. So now I wanted to go to Laythe, as I got into a nice orbit of jool, with a decent amount of fuel left. I just couldn't get into orbit of laythe, I got Laythe capture, but when I was passing it in like 150k periapis, I was going 6,000m/s and was unable to orbit. I tried this multiple times and it never worked. Does anyone know a way to get a capture then orbit without going 6,000m/s when you are passing it?

Second problem is that I was gonna test a rover on Duna, testing Mun slingshot for the first time, but I noticed I got alot of spare fuel, so I thought I maybe could get to Eve. So I tried to go there, got an capture! But when I burnt retrograde to get into a orbit, I noticed I was in a polar orbit. And how much time I spent, I couldn't go into a normal orbit ( Don't know what they are called ) As I tired of failing I activated cheats, got into a fairly good orbit. And then when I was about to land. *sigh* My unmanned rover had lost two of it's wheel. So how do I get into a good orbit from a polar orbit without using so much fuel?

Sorry if my english is not that great since it's not my first language.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Knas

[rryy]

For your first problem, you probably were in a retrograde orbit around Jool, so you're relative velocity would be massive. It would take a lot of delta-v to correct this once you are already in Jool orbit, so you need to correct well before you enter Jool's SOI so your orbit will be prograde. If you want to save on fuel once you encounter Layhte, you should aerobrake (using Laythe's atmosphere to slow you down), which would still work if you encounter it from a retrograde orbit.

For your second problem, you need to burn north/south well before you enter Eve's SOI so you will be in a roughly equatorial orbit. You can aerobrake on Eve, too, so you can save fuel there. The best way to change inclinations would be to do the burn at a high altitude, so when you cross the equator, burn prograde to boost out your apoapsis, and burn normal/antinormal to adjust the inclination, and use Eve's atmosphere to bring your apoapsis back down.

[Knas]

For your first problem, you probably were in a retrograde orbit around Jool, so you're relative velocity would be massive. It would take a lot of delta-v to correct this once you are already in Jool orbit, so you need to correct well before you enter Jool's SOI so your orbit will be prograde. If you want to save on fuel once you encounter Layhte, you should aerobrake (using Laythe's atmosphere to slow you down), which would still work if you encounter it from a retrograde orbit.

For your second problem, you need to burn north/south well before you enter Eve's SOI so you will be in a roughly equatorial orbit. You can aerobrake on Eve, too, so you can save fuel there. The best way to change inclinations would be to do the burn at a high altitude, so when you cross the equator, burn prograde to boost out your apoapsis, and burn normal/antinormal to adjust the inclination, and use Eve's atmosphere to bring your apoapsis back down.

But how do I know if I will enter retrograde or prograde?

[DChurchill]

But how do I know if I will enter retrograde or prograde?

When you enter Jools SOI, that's the point where you want to correct your insertion. It's easier there than anywhere. Just adjust your approach so you're orbiting the same way the moons do: counter-clockwise.

[Superfluous J]

IE: You want to go around the back of Jool, not in front of it (from the Sun's perspective)