First orbital rendezvous!

[grynspan]

Finally was able to make a rendezvous between Kerbdock I and a craft designed specifically for space station rendezvous, the Petulance LKO Lifter. The former uses all plugin parts and has a solar-fueled ion drive, while the latter is completely stock and can carry two passengers and one pilot to a destination in LKO.

Image gallery, because otherwise you guys totally wouldn't believe it was possible. ;p

Kerbdock I is parked in a 4.7 million metre circular orbit and has a permanent crew of three. It includes a return module in case the station must be abandoned in an emergency (such as Jeb going on another rampage.)

The Petulance-class LKO Lifter has enough fuel to get up to a circular orbit between the Mun and Kerbin, after which it discards its ascent stage and uses a single large LV-909 for maneuvers. It is equipped for a return flight but not for controlled landings on the Mun/Minmus/other bodies.

One thing I found was that the final maneuvering to bring the lifter to the station was very difficult to do manually. It mostly consisted of reducing distance by 100m, then turning in the direction of apparent motion, then repeating until within 100m of the target. (Getting within 100km was a huge pain too, but that was mostly because the orbital planes weren't perfectly aligned.) Anybody have tips for streamlining this process? Any in-game (i.e. stock) tools I might have missed?

Edited August 26, 2012 by grynspan
Good god typos, man...

[Anachronda]

Image gallery, because otherwise you guys totally wouldn't believe it was possible

Like an image gallery is going to stop us *cough* photoshop *cough*.

[grynspan]

That's crazy talk! I don't even know what Photoshop is! What is it, something you put in salad dressing!? That has nothing to do with images! BAH! *runs away*

[rasheed]

U can use rcs thrusters to help

[bsalis]

Congrats.

IMO orbital rendezvous is the hardest maneuver to do in the game at the moment.

[YURI KAGARIN]

In my experience getting the planes right early on is the best way to speed up rendez vous. After that its a lot of adjust, time accel, repeat, and as a general rule don't go straight for the target until you're within 5km. RCS is your friend here, I try to make sure my ships have some easy way of identifying "up" so that the controlls make sense.

Pictured: The junk buster rendezvous with a a newly launched LKO station to destroy its boost stage:

[khyron42]

Congratulations!

It takes work, but it's so very satisfying when you get a perfect match of the two orbits.

[grynspan]

I've been practicing by shuttling crews to/from Kerbdock III (Kerbdock I had to be abandoned after Jeb rammed it with his lifter, and Kerbdock II was deorbited intentionally.) Getting pretty good at it. Now if we could just get a docking clamp part in the stock kit, I'd be ready for some real adventuring.