How the heck to you get spacecraft close to each other in orbit!

[Cooly568]

I don\'t know how...

[Vostok]

There are good tutorials around the place. The basics are - synchronise orbits, get your periapsis/apoapsis on the orbital trajectory of the target you\'re trying to get to, burn to make the opposite apsis also on the same orbit, so your orbits are the same. Then, to catch up, burn slightly retrograde, making your orbit take less time, and thus catch up on the target. To slow down to meet it, burn prograde and you\'ll slow down relative to it.

always keep the apoapsis or periapsis on the same orbit as the target though. When you\'re within, say, two KM (it takes some practise) then you can start manoeuvring towards it, remembering that you have to burn engines to slow down, or you\'ll fly past it. A good rule, if you have spare fuel, is burn towards it until you\'re halfway, then burn away from it. That should slow you down in time, although rendezvous without an RCS system is not a nice thing to do, for your first time. Don\'t do what I did, which was pick an elliptic orbit at a funny inclination, and a ship with no RCS for your first rendezvous. Pick a nice circular orbit, with loads of spare fuel. 100km is a good orbit to start with.

[VincentMcConnell]

Eh, Vostok\'s idea of rendezvous is not really how they do it in real life.

The best thing to do is to use Kosmo-Not\'s rendezvous chart. That can be found here in 'Orbital Rendezvous made easy'.

For Rendezvous, I have a target (space station) in a 200KM orbit. I put myself into a 180KM orbit and when I am exactly 50.5KM from my target, I burn to increase my Apoapsis to 200KM. Then at Apoapsis, I burn to increase my Periapsis. Usually ending up a few hundred meters from the station. From there, it\'s a matter of fine control with the RCS and then I end up right next to my target.

The distance from the target at the burn will vary depending on the altitude of the orbits. That\'s where Kosmo-Not\'s chart is helpful.

[boolybooly]

link

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=9726.msg144123#msg144123