Saturday, April 6, 2013

Next on the BL, Eeloo sat

My next shot was to put a satellite in orbit around Eeloo. I've never been there before, so it was actually something new to see. Using my standard HLV rocket I tossed this tiny satellite out to Eeloo. I don't use any mods for targeting nor do I do any thrust to weight or delta V checks either. I either make it or I don't. I also don't F5/F9.





Hitting Eeloo is a bit of a patients test, unless you arelike me and don't have time for that, then you just take the Jeremy Clarkson approach and yell, "POWER!" while holding down the Shift key like a mad-man.


This was my end intercept angle, really steep.The burn to slow down used up a ton of fuel.

I did find an interesting glitch with this rocket. As I burned fuel the center of mass moved aft and the ship started to develop a mild rotation which started to become unmanagable after a while. I believe this is because the 'umbrella' antenna on the nose was off center and with the lowering fuel supply and CoG shift I started to have some serious attitude issues (control-wise of course, emotionally I always have attitude issues). I was able to dampen this issue by shifting the fuel in the tanks as far forwards as possible. (using ALT+Right Click on the tanks)

Anyhow, I eventually burned down an orbit to Eeloo which I then tweaked in to a polar orbit. Another one off the Bucket List. 



Yes, I know the sat should be pointing more towards the sun, that is where Kerbin is, but due to an over-site  the solar panels would be blocked. My excuse here is that the satellite will rotate periodically towards Kerbin to transmit reports. (never mind that the solar panels shouldn't be able to be of much use this far out, that is going to change in the future versions)





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