Overview
How to get into orbit for beginners. No risks! Now sign this waiver.
Step 1: Building Your Rocket
This is the most important step. If you don’t have a space-worthy rocket, you can’t go anywhere.
Your rocket should have two stages: a booster stage and then an upper stage. If you are a beginner, you should use the 1.25m parts.
Here is the procedure:
Pre-condition: Make sure you have angle-snap on. Next to the symmetry icon in the bottom left, there will be either a hexagon looking icon or a circle. If there is a circle, press “c” to turn on angle-snap.
1: Go to the “Pods” tab and select the Mk1 Command Pod.
2: Go to the “Thermal” tab and select the 1.25m heatshield and put it under your pod. Pro tip: you don’t need all of the ablator. If you right click on the heatshield after it’s placed, drag the ablator slider down to about 60. This will save a lot of mass.
3: Go to the “Coupling” tab and put a TR-18A Stack Decoupler (make sure it’s the stack decoupler not the stack separator) under the heatshield.
4: Go to the “Utilities” tab and get the Mk16 parachute. Place it ON TOP of your command pod.
5: Go to the “Fuel Tanks” tab and get a FL-T400 fuel tank and place it under your decoupler.
6: Go to the “Engines” tab and get the LV-909 “Terrier” Liquid Fuel Engine and place it under your fuel tank.
7: Get another TR-18A Stack Decoupler and put it under the Terrier engine.
8: Get one FL-T400 fuel tank and one FL-T800 fuel tank and put them under the decoupler.
9: Get the LV-T45 “Swivel” Liquid Fuel Engine and put it under the fuel tanks.
10: Go to the “Aerodynamics” tab and get the Basic Fin. Turn on 4-way symmetry by pressing “x” three times. Put the fins on the BOTTOM of the rocket (see screenshot). Pro tip: press “r” to go back a symmetry level.
11: (Not necessary, but cool) Go to the “Structural” tab and get a TT18-A Launch Stability Enhancer (make sure you have 4-way symmetry still on) and put the stability enhancers BETWEEN the fins (again, see screenshot).
12: Check your staging! See screenshot, but it should go first stage engine and launch clamps, then the decoupler under the upper stage engine, then the upper stage engine, then the decoupler under the command pod, then the parachute.
13: Give your rocket a name. I gave mine the name “Orbiter”, but you can name it whatever you like.
14: Press the bluish-gray save button (that has a floppy disk icon).
15: Press the green launch button in the top right-hand corner.
Step 2: Launching!
This is the fun part.
So basically, here is the procedure:
1: Press the “z” key to throttle all the way up and press the “t” key to activate SAS.
2: Press the spacebar to activate the fist stage.
3: Your rocket should now be lifting off! Gradually press the “d” key. Look at your navball and altimeter. When you are at 10,000m, you should be at a 45 degree angle. Keep gradually pitching over (well, in this case it’s technically yawing because we are ascending sideways, but it doesn’t matter).
4: Press the “m” key. Hover your mouse over the icon that says “Ap”. If it is over 70,000m, consider cutting off your engine. A good apoapsis (highest point in your orbit) is at about 80,000m. Note: when ascending, make sure that your rocket doesn’t go into the orange part of the navball!
5: Press the “m” key again and press the spacebar to separate your rocket from the initial stage.
6: Go into the map view and press on your apoapsis, and then press “add manuever node”.
7: Drag the green icon (that does NOT have an x in the middle) to the right until you see a “Pe” icon on the other side of Kerbin. Make sure that the periapsis height is ABOVE 70,000m.
8: Look to the direct left of your navball. You should see a set of icons. Click the one on the top right of the set that says “maneuver”. Also, you should see a time to node and burn time to the right of the navball. Timewarp by pressing the “.” key until the time to node is exactly half of the burn time. Once it is there, cut your time acceleration by pressing “,” a bunch of times. Now press “z” and burn! Stop burning when your periapsis is above 70,000m.
9: Congrats! You are now in orbit. Consider taking Jeb (or whoever you took on your rocket) out on a spacewalk by going to the bottom left of the screen while looking at your ship and pressing the “EVA” button. Get them off the ladder and press “r” to turn on their jetpack.
Step 3: Deorbiting
This is fun, too.
Procedure:
1: Time warp until your ship is at the point where it is night turning to day (this doesn’t matter, but it is nice re-entering on the day side of Kerbin so you can see your ship).
2: Remember when I was talking about the icons directly to the left of the navball? Good. Press the one that is on the right hand side of the second row. It should say retrograde.
3: Press “z” until your periapsis is under 25,000m (you can also burn until there is no periapsis, doesn’t matter).
4: Decouple (you must not be in map view to be able to do this (press “m”)).
5: Press “t” and time accelerate. Also, once in the atmosphere, time accelerate.
6: Wait until your parachute icon in the staging list on the left hand side of the screen is back to a grayish color and then press the spacebar. Also, stop time accelerating and right click your heatshield and press “jettison heatshield” ONCE YOUR PARACHUTE HAS OPENED.
7: You have successfully orbited and re-entered! Remember, if there are any complications, just press “esc” and then go to “revert flight” and then “revert to launch ” or “revert to vehicle assembly building”. If not, bring your mouse to the top center of your screen and press “recover vessel”.
