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Hi guys, I'm doing some sat contracts (in RSS) and need some advice. I'm talking, of course, about launching into the appropriate inclination. I know there have been threads about this topic before, but I did pretty extensive searching and couldn't find what I was looking for, so here goes. Since I'm using RSS, I'm launching from Cape Canaveral AFS in Florida, which is at 28.6 degrees. The orbit I'm going for is a tundra orbit 71,000x460km, inclined at 110 degrees. The orbit appears to cross the equator about half way between Ap and Pe. I've noticed though, that the ascending/descending nodes slide around and change value as I time warp on the pad. As a full day passes on the pad, the nodes swing back and forth along the target orbit (~45 degrees), and vary between 88 and 145 degrees. I looked up a launch azimuth calculator and it gave me ~202.9 as a heading, which sounds right to me. I rotated the rocket in the VAB 115 degrees so I'd only have to do a little yaw correction achieve the proper heading. Does all this sound right? I assumed it would make sense to launch when the nodes read 110/-110, but when I tried it, I was off by more than 15 degrees. I then tried launching when they read 138/-138 (110+28.6), but I was off by 40 degrees. So does anyone know when I should actually launch? Am I not taking travel distance during launch into account? How should I calculate this?
