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I must be doing this wrong. My current plan is: - Match Periapses with targets -Increase Apoapsis until I get a nice encounter Now here is what I don't get, I have to options of which way to point. One (usually) drops my speed, but increases the distance between us, while the other does the opposite. What must I do to get relative speed and distance to 0? I usually either end up flying at similar speed but being about a kilometre away from him. Also how do I actually get Richfal onto my ship? I haven't been close enough to see it yet, but I assumed I just EVAd him onto my ship, but there is no option to switch to his control. Do we dock or what? EDIT: Thank you everyone! Managed to bring back poor Jebediah after his failed mission to the moon! The A-Team is reunited!

Seriously, as per title. The contract system loves to get stuck on demanding activities you don't care about in places you've already explored. Could we consider some of the following... Not having rendezvous/dock/crew transfer as an "explore" type contract at all. It's nothing to do with exploration. Ending all further "explore" contacts for a body once it has had a flag planted on it. If players have got this far, they'll either go back for other reasons, or don't want to go back. Having at least two explore contacts available at all times, and not allowing them to be the same body, or parent body if a moon. Increase randomisation of exploration contracts. Duna this week, Eve the next, Eeloo, Jool, Dres... any time, any order. Let players decide whether to take them or wait for next week.* Allow blacklisting of bodies for contract purposes. Literally a ticklist of "never offer me these". Allow players to nominate the target of exploration and provide bonuses based on that. * I don't often feel that RNG is a good answer in games, but in this case, we really need more RNG. I have put boots on Mars, Deimos, and Phobos, yet I haven't even been invited to flyby Venus or Jupiter (yeah, I'm playing RSS but that shouldn't matter to the contract system). It leads to a very silly progression and is likely to have players just ignoring the exploration contracts forever.

last week i tried to get a ship to interplanetary rendezvous (from Vall) with another ship that was in a polar orbit around Laythe. i wanted to make the encounter that way i only had to adjust only one parameter to get the right inclination. but how hard i tried i couldn't find the right time or angle to get the correct burn. i tried many different positions in the planets' orbit to get an encounter but that didn't work. even with a lot of prograde, radial and normal adjustments. i eventually had to pick a very inefficient encounter with laythe and had to make an adjustment burn of 17 degrees to get a proper encounter with the designated ship. my question is: how do i get a ship efficiently aligned with a ship that is already in an certain polar orbit around another planet. I'm sorry if it all sounds a bit vague but I'm currently not available to make a proper screenshots. i could make some sketches in paint if that would be helpful.

Hey guys, so I am looking for some tips on how to efficiently rendezvous with asteroids in interplanetary space, as I've heard that it would be more fuel efficient in the end, when dealing with bigger asteroids (starting of with C-Class and then going bigger). I want it to be fuel efficient too, as I am planning on mining them in my career mode. Rendezvous with them, when they are in Kerbin's sphere of influence, I've got pretty much nailed down, as all that need is some "basic" rendezvous. I did do a few quick searches, but they didn't help me out much, so sorry if there if there is a topic with it (link then maybe?) All tips help, as it is always good to refresh some old knowledge too (been playing it for almost 4 years I think)

how would you be able to calculate a certain launch window? i'm also stuck on the rendezvous equations (i really need a detailed explanation because i want to do this in KOS for my Soyuz scripts) thanks in advance! by launch window i mean an inclined orbit not interplanetary window I.e a ISS window

I want to do an Apollo-style mission, with one difference: the Lunar Module launches first, unmanned, and enters Munar orbit. Then, the Command Module launches and docks with the Lunar Module in Munar orbit. The astronauts transfer to the Lunar Module and proceed as in Apollo, with the LM being used for descent and ascent and then being discarded. My question is this: where should the two spacecraft rendezvous for greatest overall efficiency? Should they aim for a high orbit or a low one? A low orbit takes advantage of the Oberth effect, but a higher orbit means it will be easier for the Command Module to return. If such a mission was carried out in real life, would it be better to use a place like L1 or L2 for the rendezvous?

It's better than what I normally use and I've been playing since .23, so I think this will help out a lot of people:

I wanted to share some rendezvous info that works pretty well for me and might be helpful for newer players also. I'm calling it a "brute force" rendezvous because it's a series of small burns to get you close, not a single exact burn. That's not to suggest that I'm claiming to have discovered this though...I'm sure it's probably nothing new for the more seasoned folks. If you're like me, you might want to practice in sandbox mode with fuel cheats enabled, put aside all the fancy details (like getting it perfect on the first maneuver) until later, and just do a plain, basic rendezvous to acquire some general familiarity with the whole process. Then move on to dealing the more complicated details like precise maneuvers, fuel efficiency/consumption concerns, etc. To start with, this rendezvous guide is fantastic and you should already be familiar with the maneuver node intersect indicators he talks about: His initial burn gets him within 4.7k of the station, but with a real heavy load (or due to certain noob factors on my part), after my initial launch maneuver I usually end up ~50+k away from the station instead. Clearly my launch maneuver was not very exact, but what to do? Revert to the launchpad and try the whole thing again? No! Assuming you have Target selected in the navball's velocity indicator (not Surface or Orbit) as you should: 1. Turn to face the yellow 3-prong petrograde marker and wait/warp until you are no longer closing the distance to the target. Then burn until velocity shows as close to zero as you can get it. 2. With relative velocity at (or near) zero, turn to face the magenta target prograde marker and burn toward the target. Choose a reasonable speed based on how far away you are. 3. Repeat step 1. That's it! It will use up a bit more fuel, so you're going to want to get better at reducing the number of burns, but following these steps over and over will eventually get you close to the station. The trick is: do not burn toward the target unless your relative velocity with it is zero, otherwise you might as well be trying to swim in a whirlpool. Some extra info: - As suggested in the video, it's easiest to sit on the launch pad and warp until the target station is directly overhead (+/- 20 degrees or so). Then launch. Otherwise you'll want your orbit to be above or below the target so you or it can catch up. - If you can't seem to get the intersect indicators to move closer together by dragging the maneuver node's prograde vector, then try moving the maneuver node itself to a slightly different location in your orbit. That almost always does the trick for me. - The further away you are from the station, the more affect a non-zero relative velocity will have prior to burning prograde toward the target. In other words, you burn directly toward the target, but by the time you get there you're way off. So take the time to chase the petrograde marker around and get your relative velocity as close to zero as possible prior to burning toward the target, as it will reduce the total number of burns you'll have to do. - This should go without saying, but the target's orbit inclination should be 0 degrees to make it easiest. Take the time to get your station into a good, workable orbit before trying to rendezvous with it. Anyway, I hope this is helpful for anyone else who has tried to follow some rendezvous tutorials and ended up in situations that weren't exactly like the "perfect world" situations depicted in them. - - - Updated - - - It wouldn't let me pick How To" as a thread prefix, so I had to pick [Answered].

Finally getting the tech nodes for some grabber mechanisms and I have a couple very lucrative "take tourists by an asteroid missions." The randomizer has very kindly provided me with an asteroid that is in orbit of Kerbin; it it did toss in a bit of a wrinkle: it is ~140-degree inclined orbit (or thereabouts). So what is the actual method to determine the launch time and inclination for this sort of rendezvous? What tools does the game provide to allow the user to determine where the nodal line is, what the actual inclination of the target is, etc.? I tend to approach problems like this with a "tinkerer" mindset and then use "simulation mode" (in Kerbal Construction Time) to get things figured out. In this case I've created a "Grabby Ship" that has about 10k dV at launch and launched it in a couple of different retrograde orbits. However both times, the size of the burn necessary to align the inclinations from 180 to whatever it actually is for the asteroid was gigantic: I'd have very little dV left with which to alter the asteroid's orbit and put it into a nice parking orbit of Kerbin. I'm not even entirely sure what the damn thing's inclination IS, and apart from using a space craft that is in orbit and looking at the AN/DN divergence values I'm not sure if there is a better way to determine it.

Whenever I'm trying to rendezvous with my KerbinLab 2 or other ships, I time warp slightly to make getting closer just a little bit faster. But when I do, the object I'm rendezvousing with seemingly "teleports" about 20 meters to its right. I only have a few mods installed, but the one that I use most is Near Future Spacecraft. Any ideas on why this is happening?

When I rendezvous with ship in orbit, the target information is not showing up on ship screen. Orbital info shows up; but when I go to ship view, distance information box on target doesn't show up... I get withing 20 meters; and click ship and nothing I do gets it to show up. Happens on EVA too. Looked in settings; but I don't know what half of those buttons do, so I leave them alone. Is one of the game settings need highlighted (or un-highlighted)?

I made my first youtube video as a supplement for this tutorial. Please leave a comment on ways to improve. If you are like me then the most expensive part of playing KSP is your time. With that in mind I thought it would be nice to make a tutorial for rendezvous in less then 10 minutes. First you have to build the right Rocket. Important things to note. 4000-5000 dv. Extra fuel can be delivered to the station. Starting TWR of at least 1.7 and it is good to keep it consistent. Rendezvous TWR of around 1. 1.25 is nice as your learning .8 is about my low limit. Select your target and time warp until it is at the Island peninsula. QUICK SAVE F5 Launch and set up a nice easy gravity turn (we are not going for efficiency that is why we packed 4500 dv) After the first stage burns out switch to map mode. This is our chance to correct AN/DN while we continue the gravity turn. However in my example I launched at the worst time so I will simply have to correct as I get closer. Once you get an intercept node you will be either too early or too late. It is better and easier to be too early simply burn up away from kerbin. If you are too late you can burn horizontal or even downish but you may or may not be able to catch up. Get the nodes close. Anything within 25km is fine. You can overshoot the orbit and this will buy you more time for the station to catch up but generally you want to be just as early on one side as you are late on the other. Switch the nav ball to target mode. From here the approach is entirely visual. Because the difference in speed is so large orbital mechanics do not come into play much at all. I suggest following the rule of 10. If you are 80km away you should reduce your speed to less then 800 m/s difference. 40km/400 m/s, 10km 100 m/s, 5km 50 m/s. If you want to get there faster you can apply the rule of 5 (40km / 800m/s, 10km 200m/s, 1km 20 m/s) This will help with passing right by the target. Use these burns to push the retro grade marker directly into the target. As you can see I made it to my station in a little over 8 minutes with over 1000 dv left. With practice 5 minute 3500 dv rendezvous are possible quite easy.

As title. If my parking orbit is usually around 80x80, what is the best altitude for a space station? What about parking orbit at 100?

Hello all! So I have been playing KSP for a day or so now, and unfortunately I can't seem to get past the Docking training. I have: -Set the stranded ship to target. -Added new maneuver node (near the ascending, correct?) -Adjusted ascending and descending so the 'angle' or 'degree' is that of the stranded ship (still trying to understand this). -Executed successful burn. Here's where I'm getting confused (and please bare with me): -Added new maneuver node (anywhere?) From what I understand the idea is to get the 'two orange intercept icons' to meet up within 5km of each other? This is accomplished by... adjusting the prograde and retrograde icons, AND also adjusting the node location? (Wow!) What are the 'two pink intercept icons? Do they need to meet up as well? After 2+ hours of attempting it I resorted to searching for YouTube videos, but still can't wrap my head around it. But I am defiantly still feeling optimistic and want to nail this! Sorry I don't have any screenshots or more information! If anyone has any additional links to helping me understand this better, it would be much appreciated!

Hello, I have a "tiny" problem with my scientist beeing stuck on return from Minmus (I forgot to pack parachutes, lol). So I've launched a rescue vessel with a mechanic to use KIS/KAS to attach the (missing) part. The problem is; I su** at rendezvous. I have matched the planes/inclination with the target. Do I also have to match the targets Ap and Pe (Ap= 7.87166Mm and the Pe= 85.975Km @ 5.989 inclination)? (I'm playing on the 1.2.1.1604 Windows x64 bit version).

I'm a newbie in career mode and have hit a roadblock in attempting to fly by and gather scientific data near the Mun - I've followed Scott Manley's tutorials on how to do this, but I'm doing something stupid because I can't succeed - after achieving a stable orbit around Kerwin, I place a manuever node 90 degrees ahead of my target (Mun) - no matter how I try, I cannot get a projected orbit to get closer to the Mun than 2429.6 km - no matter how many ways I try to do it (ahead of it, behind it, near it), the closest approach miraculously stops at 2429.6 km - also, the application is so sensitive as I increase the projected orbit near the Mun that I instantly "pop" into a totally different orbital arrangement (is that the effect of the Mun's sphere of influence?), but still keeps me 2429.6 km away from it - and finally, is there a way to zoom in on the projected near encounter of the Mun in map view? Mine remains centered on my spacecraft and when I try to zoom in the "spaghetti" of orbits near the Mun I only zoom in on my spacecraft so it is impossible to analyze what my projected path(s) are doing very easily. Sorry for all the questions - I love the application but I'm up against a "wall" that's preventing me from advancing - the issues are exactly the same in sandbox as well as career mode. Thanks in advance for anyone's assistance/suggestions.

How do people ever figure out where other planets and stuff are going to be? Help? Haven't even been able to get to the moon cause of this

In honor of love lost Place (or have) a space station in orbit of Kerbin in range of 100x100 to 120x130 with at least two docking ports Place a female kerbal in the space station. The method of doing so is expected to use up one of the docking ports. Send as a male kerbal to to the space station at high speed. In particular: * Have a TWR of at least 2.5 on the pad. * Get shock heating during ascent * Get a space station intercept within 2.5km while still suborbital (PE below 70km); use the velocity matching burn also as your orbital insertion burn * Dock with the space station within one orbit after launch. Hard mode: * Intercept space station with PE still below the ground * Exceed 5 TWR at some point during flight. * Dock within half an orbit * Do not rotate the space station Insane mode: Do it in RSS (adjust space station height to something reasonable) I have done easy mode entirely by accident in my career save, and hard mode on purpose. My entry (hard mode): http://imgur.com/a/nLjVU I got to intercept and matching velocities within 6 minute of launch. I managed to fail to record the time to dock, but from this point it was without time acceleration and couldn't have been more than 5 more minutes. Balanced mods welcome. If you really want to keep score, probably the best way in keeping with the spirit of the challenge is minimum time to dock. Yeah that leads to radical risky docking maneuvers but that's the Kerbal Way.

I managed my first asteroid rendezvous last night, but it didn't work as I expected, so hoping for some advice/clarification. My probe didn't have a Claw on it (I don't have the tech yet), but I was hoping to at least touch down on it and gather some science. Collision: I cruised up to it as something low like 40mm/s and my ship passed right through the asteroid. I reversed course and tried to bump it again. This time my ship hit at 10mm/s but bounced off. At least the second time it actually collided instead of passing through. Science: At no point during the encounter was I able to gather new science. my Biome was always deep space. Do I have to have a Claw on board for all Asteroid encounters or was I just encountering strange behaviors?

Im having trouble when I get close to the target craft, maneuvering towards it when it's say 7 km away how do I get closer without overshooting the target.(console edition)

I'm trying to put up my very first space station in orbit around Kerbin. I've got the core of the station "ODS1 (Space Station)" up at a circular 150,000m orbit. I've got the living quarters "ODS1 (Living Quarters)" about 5km lower, but accelerating away from the SS by 13m/s. I also have a 2.6km intersect coming up. As you can see, my faster, lower ODS1LQ is now infront of ODS1SS. I'm stuck as to what to do next- the guides online don't seem to explain the burning to the target very well ! I'm trying to use a guide by Entropius: If I slowly burn towards the "Target Prograde" icon I end up flying in large circles around the space station and messing up my orbit. I'm not sure how to "drift" over to the ODS1SS. If I burn prograde to orbit to get my orbit a little bigger, I will get even further in front of the ODS1SS? Interestingly I've just noticed my target / prograde icons are the opposite of the Entropius guide (I guess because my LQ is infront of the target not behind...) so I would be... pulling retrograde? So what should I do once I'm at that 2.6km intersect?

In the Board Game Geek forums for the excellent space board game Leaving Earth, a question came up about rendezvous to fly-by (as happens in The Martian, for instance.) I realized I don't think I've ever attempted this in KSP and wonder if anyone else has. If you're trying to catch a fly-by, do the normal rendezvous rules apply? (Speed up to fall back, slow down to catch up.) I'm tempted to set up a HyperEdited scenario and try it out.

Hey, I am having troubles trying to dock with my return vessel left in muns orbit, any tips would be very appreciated. Currently I am leaving the return vessel in a 20k high orbit, I land on mun with my small lander and have enough fuel to get back. The problem is I can't for the life of me figure out when or how to launch to meet back up with my return vessel Thanks