Docking Tutorial 1.0.5

[alpha tech]

Rendezvous and docking are one of the most complicated maneuvers in spaceflight and like some of you I was a beginner too and couldn't even make it to orbit. So one day I sat down. Ad I told. My. Self that I would prefect my rendezvous maneuver well it didn't go so well. Any way to get to the tutorial part.

1.Use The maneuver node system. It will help you a lot

2 depending on the orbit inclination you have to match the plane that the orbit is on so basically just match your inclination to your target. Skip this if you are in a perfect 0 deg Inc orbit.

3. Depending on where you target is and where you are depends on if you need to go above or below your targets orbit.

4. Using the maneuver nodes and you will have to spin the around to get the encounter so play with untill you ge either one blue marker or one orange and dark purple or pink node hover over one or the other depending on whether which one has a shorter separation distance and you can tweak the node more to give you a shorter distance and you may even have to delay the burn for a couple of orbits to get close once you have got this set up go ahead and make your burn

5. You are now on an intercept course switch your nav ball setting to target mode the only two nodes you will use from here on out is the retro grade, target, and the (Prograde only for docking alignment) when you have made your burn and switched to target mode align your craft to retrograde position. At the closest encounter fire the engine until your. Relative speed to target is close to zero or S < 1.0 m/s.

6. From here on out engage your rcs system and you will point target and use rcs to get closer or if your still a couple of kilometers away. Use your engine and switch from target to retro grade untill you are within 50-100 meters. Of your target.

Docking tutorial.

1. If you haven't selected target mode on your nav ball then do so.

2. Select control from here on your docking port on Your Spacecraft and select target on the target's docking port now you will need to align the ports an docking mode would be more helpful for beginners so use this that way you won't misfire you engine you switch between translation and rotation. Once you are aligned then slowly move forward with rcs. Wait until it tries to just grab it like a magnet and disable sas and rcs cause sometimes it won't dock until you do.

and that's all I hoped that this helped you and I will edit this later because I am at highschool right now and I promise to add pictures if I can. And please if you have any questions or comments regarding this tutorial please feel free to post a comment.

Edited March 24, 2016 by alpha tech