Flight Question Transfer from Jupiter to Europa - Prograde Burn for Orbit Insertion?

[Koloss]

Dear Orbinauts,

Yesterday I made a trip to Jupiter. I reached a stable orbit around Jupiter and travelled to Europa via Transfer MFD.
EDIT: The whole trip was done with Dans Arrow Freighter.

As I reached the Periapsis I wanted to do my orbit insertion burn in retrograde position but this didn't work. The orbit got "bigger" - and ended up being a hyperbola.
After trying and testing I found out that I had to do a prograde burn in order to establish the orbit.

First I thought that this is a glitch of OrbitMFD but referencing Europa several times and also clicking "HUD" in the MFD didn't change anything.

Am I missing something? Why is that? :idk: I really don't get it...

Thanks for help guys!

Cheers,

Chris

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I'd have to see pictures, I'm having trouble visualizing your discriptions.

Jupiter is a massive beast, you may not have been close enough to Europa's SOI for the MFD to graphically register what you were expecting to see?

Or did you want to be in a retrograde orbit with respect to Jupiter?

Were you inside or outside of Jupiter's orbit with respect to the sun?

You can be prograde of a planet and retrograde of the moons. See what I mean, there's a lot of questions and your situation need clarification for me to wrap my head around what's going on. (head explodes).

 

[Koloss]

Ahhhh! Wait a second PhantomCruiser... The SOI of Europa might be the answer. Let me check that! Be right back...

 

[sorindafabico]

A PeA of 20 km above Europa should be fine for an orbital insertion, if your eccentricity isn't too big.

 

[C3PO]

Ahhhh! Wait a second PhantomCruiser... The SOI of Europa might be the answer. Let me check that! Be right back...

It's a good idea to check the reference of your HUD and MFD. Automatic switching might not give you the expected result.

 

[Koloss]

Ok guys. It seems that aprox. 500 kilometers are way to much for Orbit MFD to change its reference.

Jupiter is really a HUGE beast with HUGE gravitational force. At about 30 kilometers above Europas surface I was able to turn retrograde an fire my engines.

Lesson learned. Thanks guys!

Cheers,

Chris

 

[IronRain]

At about 30 kilometers above Europas surface I was able to turn retrograde an fire my engines.

So the problem was pointing in the right direction for the burn? This has nothing to do with IMFD but with the reference planet that you've selected in Orbiter. You can change this with the ALT-H key if I'm not mistaken.

 

[asbjos]

So the problem was pointing in the right direction for the burn? This has nothing to do with IMFD but with the reference planet that you've selected in Orbiter. You can change this with the ALT-H key if I'm not mistaken.

I don't have Orbiter available, but if I recall correctly, Alt+H changes HUD colour.
There is no way to set another reference than the GravityRef for the autopilots, but in Orbit MFD you can set reference to Europa and the click HUD. This will give you the Orbit HUD for Europa and show you the Pro- and Retrograde positions, but you will have to position yourself manually, as the autopilots still use Jupiter.

 

[jedidia]

This has nothing to do with IMFD

He used transfer MFD, so he had to burn manually

 

[IronRain]

He used transfer MFD, so he had to burn manually

:facepalm: Excuse me!