Kerbal Space Program - Im So Close To A Full Orbit 

Okay, so typically you want to launch to the East, as the planet is already spinning, and your rocket along with it, it kind of gets a free bit of speed, if you fly West you have to spend fuel canceling that out. Give yourself a tiny nudge East as you take off, maybe only five degrees. A very crude way to get your angle right is to start leaning over to the East by 15 degrees at around 10,000 meters. I recommend clicking on the orbital mode next to the pitch/yaw/roll indicators on the bottom left, this will show you your periapsis and apoapsis. You can aim for around 80,000 meters to achieve orbit, but if you want more of a safety margin you can aim for 100,000 meters. So, try to get your apoapsis up first, then it's most efficient to increase your periapsis while your spacecraft is near the apoapsis. Once both your periapsis and apoapsis are above 80,000, congrats, you're in orbit.

Here's a couple of pointers to how to achieve orbit with your current design: 1: You're going the wrong way. While you are right to angle towards the horizontal during your launch (making a gravity turn) you are turning in the wrong direction. In stead of turning in a westward direction, you should be turning towards the east. The reason for this is that the planet you are on is rotating in an eastward direction. So you get "free speed" by launching with the direction of the rotation of the planet. The planet effectively giving you a slingshot towards the east. If you are launching westward, you not only are not making use of this free speed, but you are effectively trying to cancel out the eastward speed the rotation of the planet gives you. This is why in real life almost all satellites and spacecraft are launched towards the east, and the most desirable launch sites are near the equator, where this effect is strongest. 2. Don't fight the atmosphere. Your rocket's trust wo weight ratio is a bit to high. This results in your rocket traveling to fast in the lower parts of the atmosphere, where it only encounters a lot of friction and doesn't do you much good. Usually a starting trust to weight ratio of 1.4 gives good results. You should try to reach 15 kilometers high before you start making any real speed. You can either adjust your trust to weight ratio in the VAB by editing the rocket engine's max thrust, or by throttling down a bit while in flight. 3. Don't turn to quickly. Try to turn towards the east a bit slower then you do here. The point is to first get out of the thickest part of the atmosphere, and then start developing the needed horizontal speed to achieve orbit. Usually starting your turn at 1 km high and ending up at an angle of 45 degrees towards the east at a height of 15 to 20 kilometers gives good results. Then continue on until your apoapsis reaches a height above 70 kilometers (outside of the atmosphere). 4. Circularise your orbit outside of the atmosphere. When your apoapsis has reached a height of above 70 kilometers (between 75 and 100 km works best), turn off your engines and wait until you coast up to the highest point of your trajectory. Then, at that highest point, turn on your engines and burn directly eastward until your orbit is a perfect circle around the planet, and outside of the atmosphere at both the apoapsis and the periapsis. This will be a stable orbit, and you're now practically halfway to any other destination in the solar system you wish to travel to!

Just a few tips that i try to implement during my launches. 1: You want your thrust to weight ratio to be around 1.3. This is high enough that you will leave the pad, but not so high that you burn all your fuel in the atmosphere. 2: During launch, unless you are doing an unorthodox mission you always want to launch *with* the rotation of the body you're launching from, in this case Kerbin. You adopt the rotational energy of the home body, and essentially get a discount in DV requirements. 3: Assuming your TWR is around 1.3, you want to go basically straight up until your apogee is around 10km, at which point you can start tilting. I generally aim for around 20 degrees of tilt, until apogee reaches 50km, at which point I tilt to 45 degrees. At 70km apogee I turn 90 degrees, to be parallel with the surface, and begin raising my perigee. You can tilt back and forth to raise it more or less efficiently, but if you follow my tips, you can make it into a low kerbin orbit with around 3400 m/s of DV. 4: Dont forget to bring burn back fuel. Getting into orbit is only useful if you can get back out of it. Good luck! I'll be watching your further uploads to see your progress! Edit: I just saw your latest upload! Congrats on orbit! Im not lying when I say the biggest hurdle is crossed. The only further advice i would give is that while minimus *is* further away, it is generally easier to land on. I would learn how to do transfers with the mun, then use that to go land on minimus. Good Luck and Have Fun!

You would've achieved orbit if you didn't spent all the fuel while in the atmosphere. Basically, you should've been burning to above 70 km with your apoapsis (Kerbing atmosphere), then timewarp to that point and circularize the orbit so you don't end up on a suborbital trajectory. The rocket seems to have more than enough delta v to reach orbit and come back.

Oh goodness. Yep. Wrong way. No need for me to explain as I see you already have good advice in the comments. Keep flying! Enjoy! Learn!