I have sent out a bunch of satellites to map all the planets in the systems ( planetary survey mod) with the radiation and sci it on board as well to get some more science.
Designed a generic satellite with a crap ton of radioisotope generators and many many solar panels , with a few minor variations for delta v for each target. Efficiency is something I am sure I will lean when money and budgets become a thing .
Quite a palava off planning all the launch windows and transfer windows and keeping track. I tried some of the alarm clock mods but I am too dense to work out how they work so a pen and paper and many notes reminding me a Kerbal year has 426 days as nodes and SOI changes are all relative to current date not absolute date. The Alexmoon.github window planner is still an awesome tool. The Flight Plan mod , again I can’t seem to figure it out. Latest rev of maneuver node controller is very nice.
Anyway got everything launched into Kerbin orbit all ready to go at their respective launch windows .
One thing, ok one of the many many things I don’t seem to have down is getting the escape from kerbin right. I get my maneuver node sorted, correct phase and ejection angle and I get intercept or at least the right place for the mid course correction on the maneuver node, but my burns are taking 2-3 minutes . That ends up with my end of burn trajectory being off of what I wanted and a big extra correction burn needed( let’s ignore that I ended up with intercepts not at the AP so relative velocities were quite large at intercept, more of that later) . So with the long burn I am using a lot of dev not going the right way.
Now I guess I need to get some more ommf on my transfer stage and ditch it after the burn ( my designs use the same stage for transfer , correction then injection deceleration, which may not be ideal) . Or I could obviously put myself into a large eccentric orbit with the PE at 100km and positioned at the ejection angle relative to prograde , which would cut down the burn time and get a bit of Oberth boost.
Now if get into that very eccentric orbit and time it so I am back at PE on the right transfer date at the right phase angle. If I set the PE at an ejection angle of say 90deg to prograde on the day I burn to create the elliptical orbit , and get back to the PE 40 days later, is the PE still at 90 degrees to prograde or 35degrees shifted or something?
So do I need to also plan for my ejection angle to rotate? ( obviously I need to account for phase angle change)
If that makes sense ?
Other learnings, other than just because you have an intercept it doesn’t make it a good one, have to pay attention to the relative velocities , also check what ones orbit looks like when coming into Jool. I put two of my sats into what would be retrograde orbits around jool , I then tried for a Laythe orbit direct from entering Jool SOI ( not aero braking designs either) going at it 180 degrees from an already spicy relative velocity. Discovered I needed 9000 dv to break and orbit….
So back to the save for that one. Apparently details matter in orbital mechanics and apparently I did a degree in computational physics with some Astro and stellar physics courses and should know all of this according to an old bit of paper on my wall.
Anyways got almost everything being mapped now, and had Jeb and Val go on an Mun expedition in the interim. I left Val on a rover for a long while and she has gone to the Kraken at some point , alas poor Val.
