Please help me rescue Jeb... He's floating in space ala "Gravity"

[jpinard]

In my first solid orbit, Jeb was sent up into space, but little did I know, after 3 full orbits I didn't have enough fuel to get back to Earth. So while enjoying the view and waiting 100x more periapsis's to de-orbit the craft (80,000m), I took Jeb for a spacewalk. He has no jetpack, and accidentally fell off the ladder!!

I desperately do not want to lose him, so I've made a crude rescue craft but am having an impossible time replicating his awful, oblong, slanted orbit.

Can anyone give me some helpful tips.

[Nahim]

Well, im facing a very similar situation here ...

I'll see what we can do ...

[cesarcurado]

The only chance of coming back home for him I see here (without "cheating"/editing ofc) is to rendezvous (even if it is hard) with him and bring him back.

[Seret]

Mechjeb's rendezvous planner or autopilot?

What part of the rendezvous are you having trouble with? Once you've circularised with the rescue vehicle, match the inclination by burning normal or antinormal at the ascending or descending nodes. After that you need to compare the orbits and see whether you need to speed up or slow down to catch him. Might be easiest to move to a much higher orbit and just wait for him to come around. Select him as the target and fiddle about with maneuver node until you get an encounter down to about 1-2km. At that distance Jeb should be able to jet over to the rescue ship pretty easily. Lights on the rescue ship should make it easier to spot for him.

[Beatlejuice]

all kerbals must have an EVA pack (press R).

the best way to replicate an orbit is just one "orbit dimension" at a time, first longitude of ascending node then inclination

then eccentricity.

just look up an tutorial for docking

alternatively you could cheat, alt f12 infinite eva fuel + no crash damage <- not sure if that would work haven't try'd myself.

SAVE JEB!

[Blackstar]

He has no jetpack, and accidentally fell off the ladder!!

Do you mean he ran out of pack fuel? All Kerbals have a jetpack, press 'R' to activate it.

[Scotius]

I faced similiar problem. After leaving his capsule on first orbital flight, Jeb was unable to board it again - probably due to some glitch with colliders. He loitered for about three days of real time in LKO until i've managed to send a probe-controlled ship to get him back home. MechJeb was a tremendous help, because i did have only very basic parts then.

[lajoswinkler]

Yesterday I had a similar thing with a Kerbal returning from Minmus. His vehicle lost all its fuel and after RCS was depleted, I've put him out and tried to reach one station, but failed. Only a small part of his jetpack fuel was left. Jeb hopped on a ship docked to the station and returned him safely.

It can be done, don't give up. It's a great rendezvous practice.

[kiwi1960]

In my first solid orbit, Jeb was sent up into space, but little did I know, after 3 full orbits I didn't have enough fuel to get back to Earth. So while enjoying the view and waiting 100x more periapsis's to de-orbit the craft (80,000m), I took Jeb for a spacewalk. He has no jetpack, and accidentally fell off the ladder!!

I desperately do not want to lose him, so I've made a crude rescue craft but am having an impossible time replicating his awful, oblong, slanted orbit.

Can anyone give me some helpful tips.

No Kerbal can EVER have enough fuel to reach Earth, its in a galaxy far far away...

Use MECHJEB, you can auto pilot to within 1 meter of Jeb if you're brave enough.

If you don't want to use mechjeb then you're NOT willing to do what it takes to save Jeb.... right?

Edited October 27, 2013 by kiwi1960

[BeefTenderloin]

The atmosphere begins at 69800m. Your 80000m periapsis is too high and your orbit will never decay. Press R to activate Jeb's EVA pack. Open map view, and time accelerste until you reach your apoapsis (Marked by an icon "Ap"). Then, work out which way you're travelling in relation to Kerbin, and turn your camera the opposite way. Hit W. Whilst holding w check the map view and see if your periapsis is going down. Keep reducing your periapsis until you run out of fuel. You should now be on a reentry course. It's now time to pray that your Kerbal survives the impact!

[boolybooly]

while controlling the rescue craft, go to map view, right click Jeb and set as target, at one of the two orbit intersection nodes (dotted line with yellow tab) plan a maneuver (left click the orbit line) using the purple axis icons (push or pull them) to turn the rescue craft orbit so it is level with Jebs ie on the same plane

then make a different sized orbit with the yellow axis, smaller if you want to catch up and larger if you want to slow down, (adjust elliptical form with the blue axis markers) make the burn following the dark blue navball marker and watching dV indicator on the right of the navball

when jeb gets close use maneuver node planner again to plan a maneuver which will bring the orbits together in a way which brings orange or purple intercept tags (one for each craft, so two per colour) into alignment so the distance is under 1km,

once done, where the target intercept markers align, plan another burn for timing purposes only, to tell you where to burn but ignore the dV marker and blue marker (else follow the range to target info in the main screen looking for minimum value) either way follow the retrograde target velocity marker on the nav ball (click the nav ball velocity indicator until it reads target) ie the marker showing the opposite direction of travel relative to your target so you can burn when you are close to Jeb and reduce relative velocity to zero, then you will have matched orbits

then use your skills to get jeb into grabbing distance of a ladder (use [ ] keys to switch craft/kerbals) leading to an empty capsule (R gives jeb EVA RCS but if you are role playing you will have to bring the ship to him)

[Sirrobert]

The atmosphere begins at 69800m. Your 80000m periapsis is too high and your orbit will never decay. Press R to activate Jeb's EVA pack. Open map view, and time accelerste until you reach your apoapsis (Marked by an icon "Ap"). Then, work out which way you're travelling in relation to Kerbin, and turn your camera the opposite way. Hit W. Whilst holding w check the map view and see if your periapsis is going down. Keep reducing your periapsis until you run out of fuel. You should now be on a reentry course. It's now time to pray that your Kerbal survives the impact!

He won't

Just use your jetpack (he does have one, you just have to activate it) to fly back towards the spaceship he got out of (I doubt he drifted far away)

If the orignial spaceship is gone, send up another one, rendevous it and get jeb into that one (you need to have an empty crewseat to do that)

[Nahim]

I was Playing in carrer mode...

So, i does not have a single useful piece of tecnology when my Pod suffered a power drain (i was sending too much science transmission ) and Jeb get stranded...

thats ok if were any other Kerbal out there...

But is Jeb, I never will let him forsaken...

So, im send Bill, without RCS, Without SAS (carrer mode remenber?), Just with his ship to deorbit jeb.

At first time i thought that its just bump Jeb's Pod Retrograde, but its not work...

at last, with my pod's batteries almost depleted, and without propellant to deobit myself, i try a last desperate move.

Pull jeb's Pod with my Lander and with the fuel almost at the end, i activate the Bill's abort escape rocket...

Thas was so amazing that i recorded the landing! Both Bill and Jeb survived the reentry and pass well. ^^

[Sirrobert]

I was Playing in carrer mode...

So, i does not have a single useful piece of tecnology when my Pod suffered a power drain (i was sending too much science transmission ) and Jeb get stranded...

thats ok if were any other Kerbal out there...

But is Jeb, I never will let him forsaken...

So, im send Bill, without RCS, Without SAS (carrer mode remenber?), Just with his ship to deorbit jeb.

At first time i thought that its just bump Jeb's Pod Retrograde, but its not work...

at last, with my pod's batteries almost depleted, and without propellant to deobit myself, i try a last desperate move.

Pull jeb's Pod with my Lander and with the fuel almost at the end, i activate the Bill's abort escape rocket...

Thas was so amazing that i recorded the landing! Both Bill and Jeb survived the reentry and pass well. ^^

All Commandpods have torque and SAS automaticly. All kerbals have jetpack by default

[Nahim]

All Commandpods have torque and SAS automaticly. All kerbals have jetpack by default

Yes, and it work... well until the last moment when my pod's batteries wast out and i navigate only with my already ignated throttle and bare hands...

[Taki117]

Well, if Jeb has enough Pack fuel to get back to the command pod you could always push. Everytime you get inside the pod it refills his pack fuel so you can push your craft into a degrading orbit if you get below about 60km. At this point JEb gets back in and lands safely.

[jpinard]

I had no idea all Kerbals had jetpacks. Before I came back here I was testing out a whole bunch of "rescue" craft. His periapsis is 47,000m and decaying 100+ (and faster) with each orbit...

On another forum, an individual was able to rendezvous and collect him, but I'm trying to do it without Mechjab as I figure I need to learn intercept burns better before automating them. Here's some pictures to show his situation:

-------------------------

Head on view of Jebediah's orbit.

----------------------------------------------------------

This shows his periapsis and apoapsis:

---------------------------------------------------------

Another view of his orbit - you can see how he's running out of time.

[MockKnizzle]

First, use his jetpack to raise his periapsis the next time he goes around so that he's out of immediate danger, but make sure to leave a little EVA fuel for later maneuvers.

Then, wait for KSC to pass underneath his orbit and launch a rescue vehicle into a circular orbit that matches his inclination (so you're not mucking about with a plane change). It's pretty trivial to plot a rendezvous from there.

[Lheim]

Yeah, don't let him die. When you reach the peek of your orbit work out which way you're moving, hit R, face that way, and then 'w' till your periapsis is at least 80-100,000. Leave him a bit of jetpack fuel to climb into the new ship.

Then get a ship up into orbit with plenty of fuel - it looks a polar orbit? Just face north while ascending, if he comes in from the south and loops up north at least. Get it into a parking orbit of about the same periapsis.

Select Jeb as your target. Burn at periapsis until you get a roughly close intercept - 5-10 kilometers.

When he starts getting close to you, turn your navball to 'target' mode. From then on it's a matter of matching vectors .. basically, you can use off-angle thrusts to 'pull' your prograde vector towards the pink marker that represents him, or 'push' the retrograde marker towards his own pink retrograde marker. Since he's coming round faster you're probably going to be pushing your retro marker onto his - and then keeping it there, slowing down gradually relative to him as he gets nearer to you.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Lheim

[JayCheetah]

If you still have RCS fuel on Jeb, try and stabilize his orbit a bit ( but keep plenty of fuel left ) launch a rescue mission that will rendezvous with Jeb within 500m or so and have jeb EVA to the ship.

You gave me an idea for my next Kerbal Space Program Troubleshooting series :-)

[Sirine]

What you IMMEDIATELY should do. Copy your save file and backup it. If something did went wrong, replace back the save file.

[Smidge204]

If you still have RCS fuel on Jeb, try and stabilize his orbit a bit ( but keep plenty of fuel left ) launch a rescue mission that will rendezvous with Jeb within 500m or so and have jeb EVA to the ship.

Yup, been there done that. Career mode makes it harder for lack of useful bits... I actually had to do a bunch of science gathering missions just to get the Stayputnik so I could send an empty capsule.

Never occurred to me that I could *literally* get out and push, though... not sure which way would have been faster.

=Smidge=

[JayCheetah]

Yup, been there done that. Career mode makes it harder for lack of useful bits... I actually had to do a bunch of science gathering missions just to get the Stayputnik so I could send an empty capsule.

Never occurred to me that I could *literally* get out and push, though... not sure which way would have been faster.

=Smidge=

You can launch 2 capsule at the same time ( even more )

Edited October 28, 2013 by JayCheetah

[Smidge204]

You can launch 2 capsule at the same time ( even more )

I tried that but couldn't get anything to work sensibly. This was rather early on in career mode so options were all very limited. That was my first and most obvious idea, though.

=Smidge=

[Nahim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpnjgXPUG40

mine mission!

this is how i recued Jeb!