Help Needed with Orbital Rendezvous

[QvestionAnswerNeeded]

Hey!

So, I got my station core into orbit, and then my Comms / Science module up there - only problem is, I have to stick them together. In space.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2507377161

There's an image of my problem. I've circularized my orbits, and the closest I get to the station is there. I quick-saved here so I can try any maneuver I want.

The separation is 12.4km, relative speed 32.7m/s.

I feel really stuck...

[linuxgurugamer]

7 minutes ago, QvestionAnswerNeeded said:

Hey!

So, I got my station core into orbit, and then my Comms / Science module up there - only problem is, I have to stick them together. In space.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2507377161

There's an image of my problem. I've circularized my orbits, and the closest I get to the station is there. I quick-saved here so I can try any maneuver I want.

The separation is 12.4km, relative speed 32.7m/s.

I feel really stuck...

Ok.  A fairly simple method, not the most efficient.

1. Set the core as the target
2. At the closest, go retro to the target and burn until the velocity is zero, this will get them moving at the same speed.
3. point toward the target, and burn to get a closing velocity of 10-20 m/sec
4. At the closest point, again, go retro and burn to equalize the speed.
5. Repeat, reducing the closing velocity to lower numbers as you get closer.

 

[Caerfinon]

17 minutes ago, QvestionAnswerNeeded said:

I feel really stuck...

I found this guide very helpful when I started with rendezvous and docking maneuvers

 

[Dman979]

Hey, @QvestionAnswerNeeded! I moved your post to Gameplay Questions and Tutorials- you'll probably get more detailed help here.

[QvestionAnswerNeeded]

1 minute ago, Dman979 said:

Hey, @QvestionAnswerNeeded! I moved your post to Gameplay Questions and Tutorials- you'll probably get more detailed help here.

Thanks!

[herbal space program]

Although 12.5 km is not so bad and you could definitely manage with several cycles of what @linuxgurugamer outlined, it seems that the orbits of your two vessels are both very close to and crossing each other, which can make setting up a close  encounter with the  maneuver node  quite a pain.  To make it easier, unless your orbital altitude and or fuel consumption are mission-critical, I would switch to whichever component is currently further ahead in its orbit and boost it to a ~10km higher one, circularizing at your new AP, so that the orbit of the lagging craft is completely inside the orbit of the leading one.   I would also make sure the two craft are in the same exact plane if they are not already (i.e. AN/DN are zero) by boosting normal or anti-normal as appropriate at one of the orbital nodes, whichever is reached first by either craft.  Then I would place a maneuver node a few minutes  in front of the trailing craft and pull on the prograde handle until the new orbit is tangent to the (now higher) orbit of the leading one. Once you get an intersect indicator, it should show you hitting your target orbit  somewhere behind your target craft. Assuming it does, grab the center circle of your maneuver node and slide it forward along your orbit until the trailing craft's intersect happens right at the target position by eye. You can then fine-tune that node by looking at the separation value and making small adjustments the pro/retrograde, radial in/out, and normal/antinormal handles, adjusting each in tiny increments successively to zero in on the closest possible encounter.  With that you should be able to set up an encounter within 1km. Once you've gotten to that, you can go back to doing what @linuxgurugamer said you should do near the closest point, i.e. boosting target-retrograde, except I'll add one thing: If you are closing and your  yellow target retrograde marker is not on top of your pink anti-target marker, you can move it there by pointing your craft some distance to the opposite side of the target retrograde marker from the anti-target marker and boosting gently. That should push your retrograde marker towards your anti-target marker, in turn making your closest approach closer. Once you get within a couple hundred meters of each other this way, you should reduce your closing speed to 1m/s or so by boosting target-retrograde,  then flip around to lock on the pink target marker. From there, use RCS translation to keep the pink target and yellow target-prograde markers right on top of each other, slowing down to ~0.2m/s closing speed right before docking. At some point in this process you also need to switch to the target craft and lock it on to the chasing one so that they will remain pointed directly at one another. Anyway, that was a bit of a mouthful to say, but if you follow all those steps you should be able to rendezvous and dock successfully every time.

Edited June 4, 2021 by herbal space program

[Snark]

23 hours ago, QvestionAnswerNeeded said:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2507377161

There's an image of my problem. I've circularized my orbits, and the closest I get to the station is there. I quick-saved here so I can try any maneuver I want.

The separation is 12.4km, relative speed 32.7m/s.

This is pretty good to start with.  Here's a tutorial to cover the next bit, from your current situation up to docking, which may be helpful:

 

[Echo__3]