Control lock with RA-2 relay antenna?

[ray.mcdonough]

I got my tanker out to Duna to refuel my ships there to go home, and I get a 'control locked-cannot delete node' I thought I would be ok with the RA-2 relay antenna.

I was able to burn the maneuver and shut it down, but I can't use RCS or make a new node.

What gives?

[ray.mcdonough]

Publicado originalmente por RoofCat:

this makes no sense. With max tracking station HG-55 should have the range of 61Gm.
Duna is 21Gm above Sun, Kerbin 13Gm. So your distance to KSC just can't be larger than 35Gm. Which is basically just half of max distance for this antenna. Ignore all relays, it should work with direct vision easily.

Maybe you have Ike shadow, maybe something is broken, maybe some dumb mod...

I don't know. It was working fine until I got into Duna orbit.

But, my plan worked! I was able to get all the fuel over to my mother ship with one tanker using a pilot. I'm starting to get pretty good at rendezvous and docking.

I might even have enough fuel to fill the lander enough for another Duna landing. I have a transmit sci from the surface contract, so I'm going to try if I can.

[Toastie Buns]

Publicado originalmente por RoofCat:

Maybe you have Ike shadow, maybe something is broken, maybe some dumb mod...

Probably this, Sun blocked your relays, your ship had no way to bounce around a moon, planet, whatever.

Whack together two cheap probes with 4 folding relays and stick them in crude molniya orbits. Enjoy your northern hemisphere exploration and not being comblocked by any celestial in the 90 degree plane.

[ray.mcdonough]

All is well! I landed on Duna a second time, blasted off and rendezvoused with the mother ship, and docked.

I have a full load of fuel for the voyage back. I'm just waiting for the window.

Jeb is going to be even better when he gets back!

[ray.mcdonough]

Publicado originalmente por Toastie Buns:

Publicado originalmente por RoofCat:

Maybe you have Ike shadow, maybe something is broken, maybe some dumb mod...

Probably this, Sun blocked your relays, your ship had no way to bounce around a moon, planet, whatever.

Whack together two cheap probes with 4 folding relays and stick them in crude molniya orbits. Enjoy your northern hemisphere exploration and not being comblocked by any celestial in the 90 degree plane.

I thought I saw Kerbin with a direct connect, since I had green lines from all my ships.

I'll try the Kolniya orbits. I already have sats in those, but they have weak antennas.

[ray.mcdonough]

I'm doing good. I have two ships in Duna orbit, one fully fueled and ready for the transfer orbit back to Kerbin.

[ray.mcdonough]

Publicado originalmente por Toastie Buns:

Publicado originalmente por RoofCat:

Maybe you have Ike shadow, maybe something is broken, maybe some dumb mod...

Probably this, Sun blocked your relays, your ship had no way to bounce around a moon, planet, whatever.

Whack together two cheap probes with 4 folding relays and stick them in crude molniya orbits. Enjoy your northern hemisphere exploration and not being comblocked by any celestial in the 90 degree plane.

Update;

I followed your advice, toastie, with a slight modification. I have lots of funds, so I can afford to experiment.

I got a sat with two of the baddest (most expensive) relays availavble- the RA 15- into an orbit that brought it above the planes of the planets orbiting Kobal (is that the right spelling?) and I got full control of my tanker in Duna orbit.

However, after I set up a manuever and was about to execute it to a 0.0 intercept, I lost full control! I figured Duna blocked the signal, so I switched to my Duna mother ship,and completed the rendezvous, and refueled my ship. It only took several hours.

Am I having fun yet?

[Toastie Buns]

There's going to be points in any orbit where you lose connection unless you have multiple sats orbiting at any given time.

What I did was to disable groundstations (using just KSC now) stuck a relay in geosyc orbit (so it ground tracks KSC and extends its range. KSC has a nasty habit of getting blocked by the mountain to the West, so that single probe effectively 'moves' KSCs groundstation into space) then had two relays in molniya-esque orbits (the inclination is the same, but I extended the apoapsis a little bit higher).

In doing this, KSC has access to those two probes pretty much all the time, but those probes don't have access to everything else all the time. There's times when they have to cross the 90 degree plane, so they have to bounce around other celestials. Placing even one relay in a polar orbit around any celestial will help those two KSC probes bounce around practically anything.

You can set up fancier networks at wherever you're going for better coverage, but generally two will serve you fine for exploring a celestial and one for just using said celstial as a signal bounce location.

Edit: You should set your relays up to have an effective 99% coverage. In the event that 1% happens? Do something else or timewarp until you have a signal. Coverage down to 50%? You're probably wanting to do a burn on the dark side of a celestial with no probe to talk to. If it's there, just wait a few orbits until you can use that polar sat as a bounce.

Double Edit:

Publicado originalmente por ray.mcdonough:

I got a sat with two of the baddest (most expensive) relays availavble- the RA 15-

Fun fact: Use 4 RA-15's and all your relays are now more powerful than KSC's level 2 groundstation.

[ray.mcdonough]

Update;

I put a sat in the highest kolniya orbit I could pull off by hand, with my NEW antenna the 25.

It worked! I was able to burn the maneuver to get into a tight Duna orbit with my tanker. It looks good for bringing home my long-suffering kerbals from the first expeditions ship.

They are already fueled enough to come home, but I want to refuel the lander to pull off a couple of contracts first.

I have had success with Kerbil Astrogator for the original maneuvers. And It made tweaking them later easier.