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Burn duration fluctuations


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I learned to pop the full thrust key z, and then instantly shut down to get a burn estimate, but am I doing it too far away from the node, or something?  it keeps changing if I try the pop trick again.

I know you're suppose to half the burn time to get your time to maneuver node ignition point, but it seems impossible to do in the docking tutorial.  It keeps changing.  Even if I wait until fairly close, it seems, the estimation seems to be more than the burn I get when I start it, causing the burn to terminate even before reaching the node.

Am I doing something wrong?

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12 minutes ago, Rmack said:

I learned to pop the full thrust key z, and then instantly shut down to get a burn estimate, but am I doing it too far away from the node, or something?  it keeps changing if I try the pop trick again.

I know you're suppose to half the burn time to get your time to maneuver node ignition point, but it seems impossible to do in the docking tutorial.  It keeps changing.  Even if I wait until fairly close, it seems, the estimation seems to be more than the burn I get when I start it, causing the burn to terminate even before reaching the node.

Am I doing something wrong?

Doing the trick of pressing Z key then X quickly DOES change your current orbit numbers, so that will affect the current node. You can make an estimate of the burn time and assume it is a value between the multiple values you have seen, then execute the node based on that, then after you execute the node, make any required corrections not to far from the original location of the node... This is how I do it at least...

If you are having RCS on, then turn it off before turning towards the maneuver node. RCS generates thrust when turning or rolling, thus affecting the upcoming node.

Also SAS can have some effects, but not major like RCS...

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If you hit X too soon after hitting Z you'll shut the engines down before they get a chance to get to full thrust. If you look closely at the throttle gauge, when you hit Z it takes a little bit of time to get all the way up. So if you hit X too soon then you'll get an estimate that's too long, because it didn't register full thrust. 

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