I just got to Jool Now What?

[neutron95]

I apologize for the lack of screenshots, I am on a Mac and have yet to figure out all of the key bindings.

In my first manned interplanetary mission, I just placed Bill by himself in orbit around Jool after probably the least efficient transfer ever (Warping through Jool and missing my aerobraking, so burning off about a kilometer per second to get a second shot at aerobraking was one of the highlights ). Unfortunately, my orbit is inclined by about 85^o, with a periapse of 450 km and an apoapse of 19,531 km. I am almost out of fuel on the main LV-N drive stage, so I will have to do most of my burns with a 48-7s with 360 fuel, and 6 ion engines with about 10,000 units of xenon. The basic craft is a 1 man lander can with a bunch of engines, Gigantor panels and science equipment strapped on. What would be the most fuel efficient burn to get into an orbit from which to tour the Joolian moons.

[ravener]

Use the little fuel you have to re enter and land that sucker, Rename the ship and make it the first manned comunications satellite around jool Or send a rescue craft and save him, the choice is yours.

[neutron95]

I am pretty sure that with the Ion engines at least, I could return. Right now I am thinking of first burning to place my apoapse and periapse in the plane, and then performing a series of burns until I can aerocapture at Laythe and get a halfway decent orbit. Would it be a good idea to transfer fuel for the 48-7s into the transfer stage for the LV-N's, or to finish off the stage and ditch the extra weight?

[DrMonte]

You should post a picture.

[Kasuha]

I apologize for the lack of screenshots, I am on a Mac and have yet to figure out all of the key bindings.

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Controls

[miro]

You could try to get an intercept with a moon. You could get it to change the inclination for you. (Tylo would be my candidate)

[Traches]

Yeah, I think a gravity assist with tylo is the best way to fix your inclination problem if you can manage one.

Your burns with those ion drives are going to take a looooong time. Just a heads up! I'm not sure if it's the same for mac, but on windows Alt+. will give you physics time warp up to 4x.

[Alistone]

The most fuel efficient way would be to modify your plane at the ascending/descending node closest to apoapsis; but Jool is a bit of a pain because even way way out there you will still be orbiting at over 1000 m/s. That's a lot of velocity to try to "steer" onto a new plane.

I ended up just playing with maneuver nodes at apoapsis and burning directly for a moon intercept. The intersepts will mess with your course; so you may have to correct it in order to stay out of jool's atmosphere. If you play with it a bit you could direct your intercepts to helf fix your inclination. Once you're in the plane it is surprisingly easy to use maneuver nodes to get encounters with the moons in your plane.

If you can hit laythe you could use it for aerobrake to orbit and/or land as a future target for a "rescue" mission.

Hope it helps.

EDIT: Also, while doing "fly-by"s of the moons try to get a low periapsis. Low orbit counts as a seperate biome for maximum science. Low periapsis also increases the pull the moon exerts on your trajectory.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Alistone