20:51 <queqiao-> ⟨pedro4316⟩ Distant Retrograde Orbit should do for a relay sat

20:51 <queqiao-> ⟨pedro4316⟩ never done it myself

20:52 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ yes, you want a DRO if you want a relay sat

20:53 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ you can't really put stuff at earth-moon lagrange points, you can make a distant retrograde orbit which goes around both lagrange points though and it's extremely stable

20:54 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ the simplest way i've done it is to make a 10 day transfer to the moon iirc, go around the moon, at the L2 lagrange point burn prograde and normal iirc until you enter a sort of unconventionally eliptic orbit when looking at the MCMF frame and a square in the MCI frame

20:55 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ should look like this

20:55 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ i also posted how the maneuver looked

20:56 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ it'd definitely not the most efficient way to get one though, for that you need to approach the moon but that's a lot more fiddly

20:57 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ I'm thinking of just doing a highly elliptical south pole orbit, since the only unique biome to explore is the south pole atkin basin and south pole. Means the north pole will be challenging but I think I can get that directly from earth if I land near the edge

20:57 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ * biomes to explore are

20:58 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ that works also

20:58 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ If I get really fancy I could try something like a NRHO but I don't think I'll do that today haha

20:59 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ NRHO is literally just a eliptical southern orbit

21:00 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ It suffers from the same orbit keeping issues though because it is a halo orbit. The benefit of NRHO over standard elliptical orbit is that it rotates with the earth-moon reference frame for constant comms coverage, which I don't need

21:01 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ halo orbits on the moon are more stable than non-halo orbits

21:01 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ low ones that is

21:02 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ DRO is the best orbit for relays, obscuration by the moon almost never happens and it stays on the far side for like over a week

21:02 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ True. I have my low orbiters at 87 since it's frozen haha. The mascons don't effect elliptical ones nearly as much, right?

21:03 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ it depends how eliptical, some eliptical orbits are gonna crash because of perturbations

21:03 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ the mascons not so much i think

21:07 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ I could oversize my lander's comms dish so that it can uplink everything when the comms sat swings by on its DRO (since I would get half the coverage) but that would constrain my launch days since I would need full sun during the satellite's pass. That's why I'm leaning toward a polar satellite for the comms- then the only phase I need to worry about is the sun, not sun+DRO

21:07 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ And I don't need a second satellite in DRO which would also solve the problem haha

21:08 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ i used one satellite, you don't need constant coverage

21:09 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ DRO is pretty slow, your windows are decently large

21:09 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ also depending on your lander design you might need the relay only to transmit science, not to land

21:11 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ Yeah, the coverage is just for uplinking the data, definetly dosn't need to be constant. I just need to make sure that the two weeks of DRO coverage don't coincide with the two weeks of lunar night for the landing

21:12 <queqiao-> ⟨johnkurveen⟩ * lander

21:12 <queqiao-> ⟨markush100⟩ ah yeah, that can be a pain