Interplanetary transfer help

[Spyritdragon]

I've hit a nice Jool transfer window, made my burn and am now heading towards Jool, only, i can't really spare the fuel to arrange for capture myself - my ship is built under the assumption i can aerobrake. Only, i don't have a clue how to bring my periapsis down within the atmosphere now. I can make an inclination change so i arrive a bit equatorially, but the periapsis just won't go down. When and where do i burn to arrange an aerobraking maneuver?

[Starwhip]

Make a node about 10 minutes in front of your ship. This must be carried out fast, before you get too far from periapsis. Use the blue nodes to move apoapsis left/right, and the purple ones to shift it up/down (not higher/lower!) in relation to Jool orbit. If you get within about 500,000 meters, that's good enough. wait until you get to around halfway there and set up another node. Try to set up to around 150,000 meters. QUICKSAVE (F5), because the game sometimes glitches and the periapsis in incorrect. Once you enter Joolian SOI, make a final node if neccesary, Quicksave again, and set up a periapsis of around 150-120 thousand meters. (150,000 - 120,000) If the aerobrake didn't work, reload quicksave and try another aerobrake altitude.

[Spyritdragon]

^Okay, thanks alot. I think i still have a quicksave from before i preformed the burn, so i might use that if it doesn't work anymore in the situation im in right now.

[voneiden]

If you got the time, take a peek at the tutorial in my signature

Try to set up to around 150,000 meters. QUICKSAVE (F5), because the game sometimes glitches and the periapsis in incorrect. Once you enter Joolian SOI, make a final node if neccesary

Remember not to use time warp when crossing a SoI boundary:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53667-SOI-transitions-introduce-trajectory-errors-depending-on-warp-factor

http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/1043

[vetrox]

This is the sort of situation where one of the node editors helps. They allow you to precisely alter your nodes. I really must get round to reinstalling one!

[Specialist290]

This is the sort of situation where one of the node editors helps. They allow you to precisely alter your nodes. I really must get round to reinstalling one!

Seconding this. I'm rather a big fan of regex's PreciseNode plugin, which is especially useful for planning interplanetary trips because it displays the ejection angle of the maneuver node on the orbit.

[Spyritdragon]

I'd like to avoid using more mods for now. But with the first maneuver node i place, i can't seem to get anywhere near 500.000 metres of Jool. My Jool periaps just won't go under 1.000.000 . Either i have to spend another 1000 delta-V, which is another half what i used to actually make the burn to Jool, and which i don't really want to use - i'd have to use the fuel which is in my lander to get back, or it just pops me out of my encoutner again.

[Sirrobert]

For lowering the periaps on such a distance, don't burn retrograde. Burn radial instead. You only need a couple of meters per second deltaV to make the needed changes, you're more likely to overshoot it than to run out of fuel.

Infact it's so likely you'll overshoot, that you might want to wait until you traveled atleast half the distance before you make the corrections. The closer you are, the more deltaV you need for the correction, so also the more accurate you can be.

So get it as close you can now, and than make further adjustments in 100 days or so

[Spyritdragon]

Okay, ill give that a try then