Kerbal Space Program - Clean orbit and reentry.

[@dit55]

I don't know if i would call it clean, but it did work. What I would consider a "clean" orbit and de-orbit is as follows. 1. Best degree on the nav ball to orbit is 90. 135 like you did is a bit wonky unless you have a reason for a skewed orbit. Keeping the orbit close to 90° helps when going for interplanetary travel. This is because an escape trajectory that is on the same plane as kerbin's orbit around the sun makes escape burns more efficient. 2. You went too fast too quickly resulting in a really high initial apoapsis. In my experience it is better to initially tilt the rocket by 45° (halfway between blue center and orange border) when you get to 7000m. Then you use sas to keep it pointed at prograde until the prograde marker is at the border between orange and blue on the nav ball (90° tilt). It is important not to be going so fast that you have flames from air resistance because it significantly slows down your rocket and makes your ascent less efficient. Best orbit is ~100km because it keeps you low enough that you're not in the atmosphere but also makes escape burns the most efficient. 3. When re-entering it is best if you lower your periapsis to 30-40k and let the atmosphere slow you down gently instead of dropping straight down like a rock. In this case it doesn't matter because you're not going really fast. At these speeds if you gently re-enter, you don't even need a heat sheild. However, if you're coming back from interplanetary space you could be going as fast as 7000ms. Flying in at 35km at that speed with a heatshield is survivable. Any lower than that and you'd probably instantly explode.

[@bigred4655]

Appreciate all the feedback, that is all very helpful. I had skipped the tutorial on getting into orbit because I wanted to try and see if I could manage it myself without any help so I'm sure none of what I did was ideal. I was also doing it with a rocket overqualified for the job because I had forgotten to put up a video previously. Best tips for lowering periapsis on reentry and easing it in? I have definitely had times where I wasn't paying attention and the craft went poof :) Now I just need to clean things up and work on getting to the Mun.

[@dit55]

@bigred4655 best way of doing maneuvers is to burn only prograde or retrograde. That way you can very precisely adjust your orbit.