In this chapter, you’ll learn how to perform common maneuvers that will take you to space, establish an orbit, and proceed to other worlds from there.1
Launching into Orbit
To get a ship into space, you need to launch it. You do this by first designing your ship in the VAB, and then launching it from the launch pad.
The Launch Pad
When you finish designing your rocket in the VAB, your rocket is sent to the launch pad (shown in Figure 3-1). From there, your ship is launched, and your journey to the stars begins.
The launch pad is connected via a driveway to the VAB and is a little to the east of the main complex (shown in the middle right in Figure 3-2). When you’re done designing your ship, it’s wheeled out to the pad, and you take control from there.
Figure 3-1. The launch pad
Figure 3-2. The launch pad, to the east of the rest of the Kerbal Space Center
You can get to the launch pad in one of two ways. You can either click on the pad from the Space Center screen, or you can click on the Launch button in the VAB to take the rocket you’re working on straight to the pad. If you click on the pad from the Space Center, you’ll be asked to select a rocket design you want to send up.
Test Rocket: TKB-01 “Let’s Hope This Works”
Let’s get started by building ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
