1) OK Super, so that would be the excess velocity from the starting assumption of an eccentricity 1 (parabolic) orbit I assume. Either way, it's much clearer now, thanks.
2) Fair enough, I don't have enough experience yet to know the best use cases for the flyby maneuver planner but I am open to tips .
3) The mission architect is truly lovely. There's very little hand-holding, and so I'm still developing a feel for how to best guide the optimisations to get out of it what I want, but it's really fantastic - thanks again for the tool.
I do have one question that I haven't been able to solve yet, that is making a planetary transfer starting from an inclined (28deg) orbit. The porkchop plotter finds a good window and passes the departure and arrival times (UT) to the burn computer. Since I'm unable to get the porkchop plotter to start with an assumption of a certain SMA and inclination, when I do finally add these details to the burn computer it sometimes gives me really bad suggestions (like burning retrograde with -5k dV to get to Mars). I suppose this is because (I'm a physicist but no astrodynamicist so I'm only guessing here) that the selected window works given the position in the synodic period but not with the relative inclinations. Do you have any advice for this situation? Something I have found which works, is to ask mechjeb for its best injection burn, and use mission architect to optimise a path near to that time.
Edit: OK, I have managed to figure out that I should correctly choose my RAAN for my pre-injection orbit and I can then use the launch window planning tool to figure out how to get there. But how do I correctly calculate the optimal RAAN given a departure and arrival UT for the chosen transfer?
Seeeeriously cool tool
