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How to attain and maintain a Kerbosynchronous orbit over a prescribed location.


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So you\'ve managed to get into a Kerbosynchronous orbit. Excellent. You\'ve already won 90% of the war! If you want to orbit over a specific location; let\'s say the KSP Space Center, you need to do some fine tuning first. If the orbit has ANY inclination, there will be perturbations in your position. Once you\'ve done that, you\'re going to have to fine-tune your altitude and speed. The further off you are from the 2,868.4 km altitude, and 1008.4 m/s velocity, the more noticeable the change in your orbit will be. Once you\'ve mastered the Kerbosynchronous orbit, you can now orbit a specified location, and you should follow the steps I will give you.


  • [li]First, set your Apoapsis to the Kerbosynchronous altitude, ideally on the 'light' side of Kerbin. Periapsis can be whatever you want it to be[/li]
    [li]The idea is to to continue in an orbit until the specified location is directly underneath you while at Apoapsis.[/li]
    [li]Once the location you want to orbit is directly underneath you at Apoapsis, burn to set your periapsis to KSO altitude.[/li]
    [li]Crank up the compression to 10,000x. If you\'ve done everything right, you should orbit right above your location.[/li]

What\'s that? You havent gotten into a Kerbosynchronous orbit? No problem!

Altitude is 2,868.4 km, velocity is 1008.4 m/s. You also need ti be at the equator.

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If you bother to calculate the transfer orbit period, (not difficult with calculators), you can burn 180+(p_kto/60) degrees of longitude ahead of the target longitude to place apoapsis over a particular longitude. The second part takes into account the rotation of Kerbin under you.

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Be careful with the keosynchronous term. I believe you mean to say keostationary. Any orbit that has the same rotational period as Kerbin is technically keosynchronous; the location-specific nature of your advice indicates the latter.

Hope this helps!

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Be careful with the keosynchronous term. I believe you mean to say keostationary. Any orbit that has the same rotational period as Kerbin is technically keosynchronous; the location-specific nature of your advice indicates the latter.

I though that having said '...over a prescribed location' implied that the orbit was Kerbostationary.

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I though that having said '...over a prescribed location' implied that the orbit was Kerbostationary.

Perhaps I just misread your intent. I interpreted the thread to be describing a the method of obtaining a Keostationary orbit over a desired point. Yet, use use the term Keosynchoronous several times. The context with which you used the latter term lead me to believe you should have been using the former in your description.

It\'s clear from your post you have the theory behind both down; apologies if my post indicated otherwise. I have no desire to start a silly semantics debate. ;)

Thanks again for the tips!

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I\'m not here to argue semantics, but I just thought I\'d clarify; it\'s pretty difficult to get into a kerbostationary orbit. Anything that includes those slight orbital perturbations makes it kerbosynchronous.

No problem, mate. We\'re all friendly here.

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I thought \'keostationary\' meant \'not moving relative to Kerbin\', while \'keosynchronous\' meant that the period of the orbit is Kerbin\'s rotational period?

This is correct. I would add that the Keostationary orbit requires a circular orbit, zero orbit inclination, and the aforementioned orbital altitude and speed.

Keosynchronous is less restrictive in the sense that only the orbit period must match the rotation period. This means a Keosynchronous orbit could be an ellipse with any inclination (including zero).

The good news is that we\'re all on the same page! :)

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