Docking Launch Times?

[March Unto Torment]

Hello everyone,

I'm sure that this is an incredibly stupid question, but I can't figure it out for the life of me.

How do I figure out how to align orbits for docking? I can match up my orbits perfectly, but every time I do, I end up with my two docking crafts on opposite sides of Kerbin.

Is there some trick to knowing exactly when to launch, as so that you can dock?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Best regards,

- March Unto Torment

[Tex_NL]

Old but still accurate:

[mrclucks]

Launch and circulize your rocket, taking note of your targets position before launch and after. Then just revert and time warp untill your target is where you'll end up circulizing. You may not get it perfect but after a few times you should be pretty close

[Champ]

If you play in carreer, dont try that without upgrading tracking station & mission control : you need flight planning.

If you have flight planning, just launch to orbit (dont matter where is your target), then do a classic rendez-vous (explained in the video in the first answer).

[wrexecute]

Best way to eyeball it is wait until the orbiter is directly overhead or perhaps a minute before, launch into orbit as normal but keep your Ap lower than the target's by a little. Circularize at Ap, and now you have an orbit a bit smaller than the target, but you are steadily catching up now. Coast until you've gained enough ground but don't allow yourself to pass the target. Gradually extend your orbit to match the target and you will notice you don't catch up as fast anymore. This is how I do it the first few times, until I get that Tracking Center upgraded.

BTW: You don't NEED to wait until the target is over the launch site, this just drastically cuts down the catch-up time you spend coasting at a lower orbit. If the orbital periods of 2 craft differ at all, enough time-warping will eventually lead them together, no matter how far on opposite sides they are at the moment. This just isn't always ideal like when you're using life support and need to work quickly.

[A_name]

Best way to eyeball it is wait until the orbiter is directly overhead or perhaps a minute before, launch into orbit as normal but keep your Ap lower than the target's by a little. Circularize at Ap, and now you have an orbit a bit smaller than the target, but you are steadily catching up now. Coast until you've gained enough ground but don't allow yourself to pass the target. Gradually extend your orbit to match the target and you will notice you don't catch up as fast anymore. This is how I do it the first few times, until I get that Tracking Center upgraded.

BTW: You don't NEED to wait until the target is over the launch site, this just drastically cuts down the catch-up time you spend coasting at a lower orbit. If the orbital periods of 2 craft differ at all, enough time-warping will eventually lead them together, no matter how far on opposite sides they are at the moment. This just isn't always ideal like when you're using life support and need to work quickly.

I second this method, it's what I was going to say. You might want to try launching just a bit before your target passes you overhead, to compensate for the time it will take you ascend and get up to speed. If you happen to overtake your target during launch, just allow yourself to reach a higher orbit so that the target now catches up to you.

[Snark]

If the target is in LKO, I find that what works best is to launch when the target is about 5 to 10 degrees above the western horizon (eyeball this in map view by rotating the camera so that it's over the south pole). Then launch and do gravity turn per usual; this typically works out to put your apoapsis at least approximately near where your intersect is. As you're coasting up to apoapsis, your navball will switch to "target-relative" mode when the target gets within 60 km. When that happens, just adjust your vector to keep your target-relative velocity aligned on the target, and thrust to match velocities. It works out pretty well.

Note, the above advice is for vertical takeoff. If you're a spaceplane guy, those typically need a much longer curve into orbit, so you'd need to launch a fair bit earlier than that.

If the direct-intercept mode is hard, then just launch into a circular orbit that's either lower or higher than the target, then timewarp until the target lines up, as the previous posters have suggested.