Body¶

This is any sort of planet or moon. To get a variable referring to a Body, you can do this:

// "name" is the name of the body,
// like "Mun" for example.
SET MY_VAR TO BODY("name").

Also, all bodies have hard-coded variable names as well. You can use the variable Mun to mean the same thing as BODY("Mun").

Note

Changed in version 0.13: A Celestial Body is now also an Orbitable, and can use all the terms described for these objects too.

Predefined Celestial Bodies¶

All of the main celestial bodies in the game are reserved variable names. The following two lines do the exactly the same thing:

SET the_mun TO Mun.
SET the_mun TO Body("Mun").

Sun
Moho
Eve
- Gilly
Kerbin
- Mun
- Minmus
Duna
- Ike
Jool
- Laythe
- Vall
- Tylo
- Bop
- Pol
Eeloo

structure Body¶

Suffix	Type (units)
Every Suffix of `Orbitable`
`NAME`	string
`DESCRIPTION`	string
`MASS`	scalar (kg)
`ALTITUDE`	scalar (m)
`ROTATIONPERIOD`	scalar (s)
`RADIUS`	scalar (m)
`MU`	scalar (\(m^3 s^{−2}\))
`ATM`	`Atmosphere`
`ANGULARVEL`	`Vector` in SHIP-RAW
`GEOPOSITIONOF`	`GeoCoordinates` in SHIP-RAW
`ALTITUDEOF`	scalar (m)
`SOIRADIUS`	scalar (m)
`ROTATIONANGLE`	scalar (deg)

Note

This type is serializable.

Body:NAME¶: The name of the body. Example: “Mun”.

Body:DESCRIPTION¶: Longer description of the body, often just a duplicate of the name.

Body:MASS¶: The mass of the body in kilograms.

Body:ALTITUDE¶: The altitude of this body above the sea level surface of its parent body. I.e. the altitude of Mun above Kerbin.

Body:ROTATIONPERIOD¶: The length of the body’s day in seconds. I.e. how long it takes for it to make one rotation.

Body:RADIUS¶: The radius from the body’s center to its sea level.

Body:MU¶: The Gravitational Parameter of the body.

Body:ATM¶: A variable that describes the atmosphere of this body.

Body:ANGULARVEL¶

Angular velocity of the body’s rotation about its axis (its day) expressed as a vector.

The direction the angular velocity points is in Ship-Raw orientation, and represents the axis of rotation. Remember that everything in Kerbal Space Program uses a left-handed coordinate system, which affects which way the angular velocity vector will point. If you curl the fingers of your left hand in the direction of the rotation, and stick out your thumb, the thumb’s direction is the way the angular velocity vector will point.

The magnitude of the vector is the speed of the rotation.

Note, unlike many of the other parts of kOS, the rotation speed is expressed in radians rather than degrees. This is to make it congruent with how VESSEL:ANGULARMOMENTUM is expressed, and for backward compatibility with older kOS scripts.

Body:GEOPOSITIONOF¶: The geoposition underneath the given vector position. SHIP:BODY:GEOPOSITIONOF(SHIP:POSITION) should, in principle, give the same thing as SHIP:GEOPOSITION, while SHIP:BODY:GEOPOSITIONOF(SHIP:POSITION + 1000*SHIP:NORTH) would give you the lat/lng of the position 1 kilometer north of you. Be careful not to confuse this with :GEOPOSITION (no “OF” in the name), which is also a suffix of Body by virtue of the fact that Body is an Orbitable, but it doesn’t mean the same thing.

Body:ALTITUDEOF¶: The altitude of the given vector position, above this body’s ‘sea level’. SHIP:BODY:ALTITUDEOF(SHIP:POSITION) should, in principle, give the same thing as SHIP:ALTITUDE. Example: Eve:ALTITUDEOF(GILLY:POSITION) gives the altitude of gilly’s current position above Eve, even if you’re not actually anywhere near the SOI of Eve at the time. Be careful not to confuse this with :ALTITUDE (no “OF” in the name), which is also a suffix of Body by virtue of the fact that Body is an Orbitable, but it doesn’t mean the same thing.

Body:SOIRADIUS¶: The radius of the body’s sphere of influence. Measured from the body’s center.

Body:ROTATIONANGLE¶

The rotation angle is the number of degrees between the Solar Prime Vector and the current positon of the body’s prime meridian (body longitude of zero).

The value is in constant motion, and once per body’s day, its :rotationangle will wrap around through a full 360 degrees.