Since KSC is in the southern hemisphere, our current position is 90° before our ascending node. We can, however see the Longitude of the Ascending Node (LAN) of our current orbit in the second orbital info pane:

In-game, it’s not easy to read out the current right ascension. Or slightly southwards when KSC passes 258°. So we can either launch slightly northbound when KSC passes 78° right ascension, The Longitude of the ascending node of Minmus’s orbit is 78°. Launching into a 6° inclined orbit can be done from launch sites with a latitude of less than 6°, i.e. Ideally, we want to launch in this orbital plane to avoid plane-change maneuvers. The orbit of Minmus has an inclination of 6°. This is the case for all trajectories to other planets. To 1294.8m/s when diving first and spending the remaining ∆v near Kerbin. The boundary seems to be 274.1m/s: for ∆v's above that, it's optimal toįirst burn 228.1m/s to put our Kerbin periapsis at 70km (just above the atmosphere),įor a 500m/s total ∆v, this boosts our hyperbolic excess velocity from 670.1m/s (when expended at Minmus orbit) When starting out at Minmus, this means that it could be beneficial to first spend some ∆v to dive into Kerbin,Īnd burn at periapsis for the escape trajectory.Įscaping from Kerbin from a Minmus orbit requires at least ~115m/s. This means that running an engine at a higher speed, yields more kinetic energy for the same amount of fuel. Its fuel consumption scales with the time the engine is on.īut the energy scales with the distance the force is applied. Most engines produce a constant thrust while on. The below table tries to keep burns <2 minutes until we cross the orbit of the Mun. RC-L01 (for storing science and remote control of probes)įor interplanetary travel, you need ~930m/s of Δv to leave Kerbin SoI starting from a 100kmAGL orbit,Īnd an additional 100~1000m/s to reach other planets.ĭesign for a high enough TWR to do this in a reasonable time.Īs long as the apoapsis is When starting from a 100km circular orbit around Kerbin, a deorbit burn down to Pe=40km will touch down 152º later. Launch when the target is 16º before the KSC. Launch when the target is 26º before the KSC position (viewable as Phase Angle).įor spaceplane launches (with RAPIERs and 10º pitch up all the way), When launching from KSC to rendez-vous with something in a circular orbit at 100km altitude:įor vertical launches with 'my usual ascend profile', Interplanetary departure from Minmus (very rudimentary).It’s the kind of game that triggers my “I’ll optimize this by writing a script”, so here are a few of the tools I wrote, or interesting tools I found online: Airbrakes, service bay with open doors, elevons with parameters tweaked to create no drag on the way up, and a lot when deployed, inflatable heat shield - these will help you landing larger craft.I am usually late to proverbial parties, but I think I’ve outdone myself by discovering the computer game Kerbal Space Program roughly 10 years after it first became playable. Later on you may try using other elements to improve airbraking performance. The capsule will orient itself 'blunt end forward' and its flat bottom will brake very efficiently as long as your trajectory is at least moderately curved (don't plunge straight down!) - then the parachute icon will turn yellow or green, stage the parachute and it will open according to the settings slowing you down. You need to place a decoupler between the capsule and the rest of the rocket, and stage it before entering the atmosphere (or early after). That makes it very aerodynamic and so you exceed any safe speeds and burn up. I guess you're trying to land in the same configuration as you launch - rocket + booster + possibly fins. What you need is to brake using air drag to a speed where the parachute is safe to open first (500m/s for drogue, 200m/s for normal parachutes). If you don't slow your rocket down to speed where the parachute is safe to open, it would get ripped and destroyed anyway, so it's of no help.

Kerbal space program parachute burns