Satellite constellation

[7499275]

Using remotech if I want to launch a constellation of 3 Geo sats to provide coverage of the planet Kerbin and I have one sat directly above Kerbin how can I know when to burn to get the next satellite directly opposite of the first satellite?

[BudgetHedgehog]

The bigger problem is if you put 1 satellite directly opposite the first, you'll need at least 4, not 3.

But I don't know - it's why I'd send them all up in one go (get into KSO, release sat 1, reduce orbit period to 4 hours, after 1 orbit re-circularise and release sat 2, then repeat. You'll end up with 3 satellites equally spaced 2 hours behind each other making the perfect triangle)

[7499275]

I plan on 3 GEO sats to cover Kerbin. One a top KSC one opposite that. One 90 degreese East or West of number two. If that makes sense. So I will try this method when I get home here later in a few hours. Thank you.

Anymore suggestions are welcome incase I screw this one up. lol

[Geschosskopf]

I find the quick and dirty method the easiest. Just launch any time you want and get up to almost, but not quite, the desired altitude, so the orbital period is a few minutes more or less than that desired. Then just time warp. Over time, the satellite will drift relative to Kerbin (or the other satellites if you're not using kerbostationary orbit) until it gets to where you want it. At this point, burn to set your orbital period to the desired value. Your orbit won't quite be perfectly circular but no biggie as long as the orbital period is correct.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I plan on 3 GEO sats to cover Kerbin. One a top KSC one opposite that. One 90 degreese East or West of number two. If that makes sense.

So simlpy put, one at 12 o'clock, one at 3 o'clock and one at 6? What about 9 o'clock? None of your satellites have a wide enough beam to reach it.

[Taki117]

I plan on 3 GEO sats to cover Kerbin. One a top KSC one opposite that. One 90 degreese East or West of number two. If that makes sense. So I will try this method when I get home here later in a few hours. Thank you.

Anymore suggestions are welcome incase I screw this one up. lol

If you do this there will be a large blank spot opposite your 3rd sat. You need to put them in an equilateral triangle if you only want to use 3 sats. I can guarantee you that if you launch a probe mission to anywhere and it falls in that dead zone it will lose connection. A 3 sat setup is only slightly more difficult than a 4 sat one but what I do is put my first sat into Kerbo-stationary orbit (This is best done with a manned mission to avoid a loss of signal) and then put my next sat into a low parking orbit (Usually about 100km) and set my first as the target. Then using maneuver nodes and the close apprach markers I set up a burn to put it where I want in the formation.

[MrAnonymous]

Put the sat in LKO first. Select your Geosat thats already up as a target. Make a node that reaches geosat's orbit. The separation between them should be about 6,000,000 meters. Then just circularize. If you have KER setting your orbital period to 6hrs is even more accurate. For the third sat, repeat the process. I found this out on the tutorial on the Remotetech resumed thread. Helped a lot.

[Alshain]

Best RT2 tutorial is right here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=227399379

[SpeedDaemon]

If you're sending all the satellites up on one ship, it's pretty easy to get them spaced out.

1. Get a mod that shows your orbital period.

2. Launch into synchronous orbit, which for Kerbin would have a 6 hour period.

3. Release a satellite

4. Burn retrograde until your orbital period is (sync orbital period) - (sync orbital period / number of satellites). For Kerbin and 3 satellites, that would be 4 hours.

5. Make one full orbit. Once you get back to AP, you'll be exactly 1/n-th of an orbit behind the last satellite you released (where n is the number of satellites you're putting up).

6. Circularize back to a synchronous orbital period

7. Repeat 3 - 6 until you're out of satellites.

[Alshain]

You really don't have to be in synchronous orbit. If you have 4 sattelites in a 250m equatorial orbit evenly spaced then one of them will always be able to see KSC. You still need them in the same orbital period as one another, but the difference being your early career omni doesn't go from KSC to synchronous orbit.

[7499275]

So the link to the steam tutorial was AMAZING, best I've ever seen thank you! Also thank you for all the comments. So just for the sake of ease I used hyper edit to get the first GEO sat into orbit above KSC, rest I did by hand.

Each one has 5 dishes and 1 omni directional.

The top has a range of 90 million meters which I have pointed to the active vessel.

The sides have a range of 50 million meters pointed to...

- Other com sat (1, 2, and 3,)

- Mun

-Spare for later use.

I only mentioned three because for them to be in contact with one another it takes two, one pointed left one pointed right obviously.

Since the one on top has such a range and is always pointed to the active vessel no matte what I'm launching I will have contact over it and if I need something not active with a signal I always have one spare dish.

Now one last question... If I have a dish pointed at the Mun and its cone covers 50km on each side of the Mun off the surface. and I have a Sat on the Mun pointed at Kerbin and its cone is hitting any of the sats will they be in contact even though I don't have it saying directly go to Comm sat (#)? I hope someone understands what I'm trying to say....

[Itoum]

Here u go buddy