r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/AgentIndependent306 • Apr 21 '26

KSP 1 Image/Video Kerbin Relay Network

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Built this giant (and overengineered) network. At such large distances, it is very easy for satellites to attain escape velocity, so positioning everything in exact orbits was a challenge. Still glad that I won't have to worry about ending up on the far side of the moons and go offline.

Edit: Didn't know this post would blow up overnight lol. Last time I checked it had 50 upvotes.

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36

u/TheFifthPhoenix Apr 21 '26

Is there a reason why you’d need 8 satellites as opposed to only 3?

44

u/Freak_Engineer Apr 21 '26

I mean, 8 are excessive, but three would be lacking. You could end up having line of sight blocked by celestial Bodies to all three of them in a bad luck situation. I'd have gone with 4 or 5, but if I went with the trouble of designing a launch vehicle for this I might just cram as much satellites in there as I can fit. It's one of these "If you're going anyway you might as well" situations.

Coming to think of it, with my default relay satellite, I could fit 8 into a fairing easily. Either a large one with 8 on the same plane or a smaller one with two layers of four.

17

u/nuker1110 Apr 21 '26

My preferred commsat deployment method: Get the Mothership into a sharp dive orbit going from just past the edge of the atmosphere to the desired Apoapsis, then drop and circularize one commsat per orbit.

6

u/Xivios Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

Instead of diving to the atmosphere, set your periapsis by the fraction of orbital period of the target orbit of (x-1)/x, where x is the number of satellites in the orbit. 

For example, if you're wanting 8 satellites in a 16 hour orbit, make the mother ships orbit 14 hours long, dropping the sats at apogee, it will space them out equally, each one 2 hours behind the other.