General questions about asteroids

[G-rom]

I`ve had multiple encounters with Asteroids but never got to get close enough to see them...

But a few Hours ago, one of them landed on the surface at the mountains of the northern icecaps!

I have hope that i`ll find it ... but still dont really know how to transport it, because even my VTOL cant land close enough...

I have Mechjeb Installed because im not good at turning

Can someone help me in one of these ways?:

1. Give me ideas for a design that can get the asteroid at the north

2. Get a step by step tutorial how to get close to an Asteroid using MechJeb

Here`s a Question:

Do asteroids break sometimes?,because they count as Partsor do they have unlimited health/breaking point?

Thanks for any advice or answers

Edited August 12, 2014 by G-rom

[Vlk]

Hi!

There is a tutorial in game for catching asteroids in space. That should help. The trick is that by the time you get to them, your speed should be very similar (meaning that your path should be very similar)

For the other part... i think it would be very hard to get an asteroid with a VTOL. You would have to pick it up exacty at its center of mass.

But navigating to there (even without mechjeb) should be easy. Just build a good jet, and practice

[Sirine]

Play the tutorial...please.

[Sirrobert]

Asteroids are REALLY HEAVY

I doubt you'll even have a craft big enough to transport it.

If you want to get to it, try wheels

[DrMonte]

What do you mean by "Landed"? I don't think an asteroid can land on their own.

[cantab]

If it's landed - which must be down to a game bug - you should be able to fly to it with the help of the map view and selecting the asteroid as the target.

Moving it will be harder, at least if it's a big one.

[G-rom]

I saw it hitting the Icecap, and its still listed on the Map...

[G-rom]

I think I found it!

[Sirrobert]

What do you mean by "Landed"? I don't think an asteroid can land on their own.

Well if it crashes and doesn't sink, it's still intact on the surface

I guess that counts as landed

[Science-Recon]

If it hits the atmosphere, and you're more than 25km away from it, it should despawn. In my save, an asteroid landed (well, it was an impact, but they have a high crash tolerance.) on the Mün.

[G-rom]

I think it was destroyed

I was looking for it at the exact Location...

Its not easy to spot something that small in the mountains but I dont think it survived

R.I.P Asteroid...

I guess

[Targa]

MechJeb to rendezvous with an asteroid:

First go to the Tracking Station and look at asteroids. Select one, click "track" in the bottom-left. Now look at it's encounter with Kerbin. Specifically, zoom out and find the "Kerbin Periapsis". This number will tell you how close the asteroid will come to Kerbin. Check each asteroid and find the one that has the lowest number as its Kerbin Periapsis (ie: If one goes by Kerbin at 35 million meters, and another one comes within 2 million meters, it's pretty obvious which is the better choice for a rendezvous). Stop tracking all asteroids except the one you chose.

Build your rocket, or have one ready.

Go to the Tracking Station and fast forward until the asteroid enters Kerbin's gravity influence. Look at its orbit direction. Is it going to pass Kerbin in a clockwise, counter-clockwise, or over the poles direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise looking down at the north pole)? If it's going to pass counter-clockwise, launch your ship into a Kerbin orbit normally. If it's clockwise (for the most part), using MechJeb's Ascent Guidance, type in the "Orbit Inclination" box: 180. If it's polar, type in 90 or 270, depending if it's the north or south pole. This will get you at least mostly in the correct direction and save you fuel. Or you could try to estimate the exact inclination (or a closer one than 90 degree steps) and use that. But if you do, be warned that it's the inclination from KSC at time of launch. You'd need to launch your ship when KSC is directly in line with the asteroids flight path.

Once your ship is in orbit open the Map view, and select the asteroid as your target. Open MechJeb's Rendezvous Planner and Maneuver Planner. On the Rendezvous Planner window, click "Align Planes", then on the Maneuver Planner window click "Execute next node". This will put your ship into the same inclination as the asteroid.

Now comes the semi-tricky part. If you use MechJeb while the asteroid is still approaching Kerbin from far away, MechJeb will try to intercept it very far away and use tons of fuel. You want to intercept it right when it reaches its Kerbin Periapsis. Remember that your ship will take some time to catch up to the asteroid. As a rule of thumb on this, if you picture the arc of the asteroids flight path as a clock with the Periapsis at noon, you want to start your intercept maneuver when the asteroid is roughly at the 9 - 9:30 o'clock position.

Unfortunately MechJeb isn't very smart about intercepting asteroids. So at this point you have two choices: Use MJ's Rendezvous Autopilot, which will eventually do the job but will cost extra fuel to get it done, or plan the next maneuver yourself. I do it myself because it's pretty simple. Just create a maneuver node on your flight path directly opposite the asteroid's Kerbin Periapsis (on the far side of Kerbin, away from the asteroid). Now just pull the green circle until the dotted line just intersects the asteroids flight path. As soon as your flight path intersects the asteroids, you'll see two red (or orange) tags appear. These show your position and the target's position. Drag your maneuver node around until you get the two tabs to line up.

Here's a short video showing how to do this yourself:

Using Maneuver Planner, select Execute next node. Once that's done, fast forward until you're about 30 seconds away from the intercept point (you're probably still pretty far away, but that's ok. Relatively speaking, you're very close). Now open MJ's Rendezvous Autopilot, type a number in for how close you want to get to the asteroid (50-100 meters is fine). Click "Engage Autopilot" and let it do it's thing. It should say "Close to target - plotting intercept". It will execute one or two maneuvers then say "On intercept course, planning to match velocities at closest approach" or some such. Done.

[DrMonte]

I brought one home by the plane. That was A-type misslanded by myself. Though on the plane ground.

I found VTOL too difficult to maneuver for grabbing Asteroid and too slow for far flight. Note that I play in stock mode.

In the mountain site I'll try dropping a car to drag an Asteroid to some plain ground. If it's further than 100km the plane would do from there.

[G-rom]

Thx for the help I just got a C class Asteroid ^^