Chapter 8. Getting to the Planets
In this chapter, youâll learn how to design and fly vessels that travel beyond the orbit of Kerbin. Youâll learn how to get your craft to every Kerbalâs favorite tourist destination, Mun, and how to build craft that can travel to and land on the distant planets beyond.
Transferring Between Celestial Objects
There are three very important maneuvers that you need to get around in space: launching, landing, and transferring between two different orbits. Weâve talked about launching and landing quite a lot in this book, and itâs time to start talking about orbital transfers in more detail, since itâs a vital piece of knowledge if you want to travel to other planets.
An orbital transfer is a maneuver in which you change which planetary body youâre orbiting around. If youâve traveled from Kerbin to Mun, then youâve already done a simple orbital transfer: youâve transferred from Kerbinâs orbit to Munâs orbit, by raising the apoapsis of your orbit to match Munâs orbit, and timing this burn so that the new apoapsis happens to be within Munâs sphere of influence. From there, you can then perform another maneuver to circularize your orbit around Mun.
Because Mun is orbiting Kerbin, this particular orbital transfer is relatively simple. Munâs orbit is almost circular, which means that the distance between Mun and Kerbin is roughly the same at all times. The orbit of Kerbinâs other moon, Minmus, is slightly more complex, because ...
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