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

[jpinard]

Update. I've now had 15 attempts and still have not gotten close enough to see my rescue craft's lights. But on the positive side I've learned stuff about the game wayyyyy faster than I would have in accelerated fashion. So its just like science. Discovery is finally assured once your experiments have amassed every failure possible.

[Seret]

Discovery is finally assured once your experiments have amassed every failure possible.

I like your attitude!

[Smidge204]

Update. I've now had 15 attempts and still have not gotten close enough to see my rescue craft's lights. But on the positive side I've learned stuff about the game wayyyyy faster than I would have in accelerated fashion. So its just like science. Discovery is finally assured once your experiments have amassed every failure possible.

"Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success."

Set your stranded craft as the target. Get into orbit with your rescue craft (ideally, a lower orbit that the target on the same inclination). Use maneuver nodes to search for an intercept by manipulating the prograde/retrograde handles (the green-yellow ones) and adjusting the node's position. If nothing comes up, wait a few orbits and try again. The closer you can get, the better. Once you get an encounter at a reasonable distance - for LKO you should be able to get under 1000 meters easily - do the maneuver burn.

When you get close, exit map mode. You'll be flying using nothing but the nav ball! Click on the "Velocity" part of the nav ball interface so it reads "Target." This is your velocity relative to the stranded ship, and your pro/retro indicators are going to be relative to that.

First step is to gently burn along the pro/retro direction until you get that velocity down to zero. (0.1 is close enough!).

Now, gently burn towards the target prograde vector... the magenta dot in a magenta circle. Point yourself in that direction and gently burn that way. Your velocity prograde vector should end up aligned with the target prograde vector. Don't overdo it, because you are now likely on a collision course! Be gentle as you get closer, and remember that "big" engines will blow away objects... so use RCS.

Eventually you'll creep your way to within 50 meters and you should be able to see your target. Time to transfer! Switch to your stranded Kerbal's ship and EVA.

Let go of the ladder and press R to activate your jetpack. Remember that the controls are relative to the Kerbal (and therefore the camera): W is always forward, Shift is up, Ctrl is down, etc. If you move the camera the controls will rotate too so go slow and be careful not to get disoriented!

Get close to the rescue ship and grab the ladder! Get in! Go home! Don't crash on re-entry which would be really embarrassing!

=Smidge=

[jpinard]

Smidge, Jeb has no craft. It's just him floating. While waiting for rescue he got bored and went for a spacewalk... and accidentally let go of the ladder. If I'd realized he had a jetpack he'd at least of been in a cozy capsule. That capsule is now 1,000 km away. I don't know if that changes your instructions via targeting or not? But I'm fueling up for my next run at him

One other complication is the atmosphere. When I march orbit, I degrade faster than Jeb does since the periapsis is just 40,000m. Apoapsis is halfway to the Mun so it's a pretty wild orbit on a horrible inclination to boot.

[Blackstar]

One other complication is the atmosphere. When I march orbit, I degrade faster than Jeb does since the periapsis is just 40,000m. Apoapsis is halfway to the Mun so it's a pretty wild orbit on a horrible inclination to boot.

Jeb's MMU pack is more than enough to fix that, especially with such a high apoapsis. Wait until he's near apo, turn on the jetpack, and thrust prograde. It shouldn't take much to get his periapsis up to 70,000m and out of danger of re-entering. Once you do that, you can take all the time you need to mount a rescue mission without worrying about him plunging to his doom, or the rescue ship's orbit decaying.

Depending on how wide the orbit is and the location of the AN/DN, you might even be able to fix his inclination. If they're far out on the orbit, you don't need nearly as much energy for a plane change. Unfortunately those don't show for the planet you're orbiting, but you can set the Mun as target and see where the nodes are.

If you attempt the plane change, make sure to keep on eye on his pack fuel level. I'd be very conservative and save a reserve of at least 25% to make sure that you have enough to maneuver him back to an empty capsule in whatever rescue craft you send.

EDIT: Note that since you're mounting a dedicated rescue mission, you don't need to worry too much about his inclination. You just have to launch the rescue ship directly into a close enough one from the pad, by angling your trajectory north or south during the launch as needed. It can be tricky, but going to the map view partway through the launch (and bringing up the navball) can help get the angle right.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Blackstar

[Smidge204]

Smidge, Jeb has no craft. It's just him floating. While waiting for rescue he got bored and went for a spacewalk... and accidentally let go of the ladder. If I'd realized he had a jetpack he'd at least of been in a cozy capsule. That capsule is now 1,000 km away. I don't know if that changes your instructions via targeting or not?

Well.... that certainly complicates things! You can still control Jeb, and even select free-floating Kerbals as your target... so basically skip the EVA part 'cause you're already EVA! Just try to get really close and be careful not to blow him away with your engine exhaust.

I just tried it... went EVA and let myself drift >300km from my ship, then made my way back. That is some scary stuff... no nav ball or anything.

Edit: And wow, the jetpack is actually pretty powerful.

=Smidge=

Edited October 29, 2013 by Smidge204

[boolybooly]

jpinard I hope you found a solution but for the record you need to get jeb to make a prograde thrust at apoapsis [AP] to raise the periapsis [PE]. You wont need much push, just a few seconds, the problem will be aligning him correctly without a navball.

To do this you can use Kerbin and the star field in the map and match landmarks and stars to the starfield/Kerbin in the flight screen, aim appropriately and press the appropriate key. Check PE in the map after a quick keypress to be sure it is going the right direction, it wont be much more than a couple of seconds of push that if you get the direction right.

[jpinard]

jpinard I hope you found a solution but for the record you need to get jeb to make a prograde thrust at apoapsis [AP] to raise the periapsis [PE]. You wont need much push, just a few seconds, the problem will be aligning him correctly without a navball.

To do this you can use Kerbin and the star field in the map and match landmarks and stars to the starfield/Kerbin in the flight screen, aim appropriately and press the appropriate key. Check PE in the map after a quick keypress to be sure it is going the right direction, it wont be much more than a couple of seconds of push that if you get the direction right.

I'll do that! So are you saying I thrust when he's headed back towards the planet right after apoapsis (semi-aiming towards the planet and a bit to the right of the planet)? Do I use the "W" key to thrust? I've had trouble motoring around with the jetpack and it seems like he stays facing the same direction and won't follow my mouse.

[boolybooly]

At AP the prograde path is actually parallel to the planets surface for a while, so you should actually burn parallel to the surface to speed the kerbal up just a bit, so it flies further before falling to the planet and so goes wider around Kerbin, like trying to make orbit after a launch. You can detect AP in the map but also in flight as the altimeter climb needle shows zero, neither rising or falling.

Kerbal orientation is currently not very intuitive IMHO, so if it is facing the direction it is travelling then yes it should be W, but you may need to be using the shift key if it is face down to Kerbin flying head first to make it go "up" in order to go forwards for example.

The jetpack & Kerbal orientation is a bone of contention for me, I havent fully analysed it but it is often relative to the planet when it souldnt be and is very awkward as the kerbal is feet down and keeps changing orientation if you are in a close orbit, then if you use the EVA pack it wastes a huge amount of EVA fuel reorienting the kerbal (up to 3% but usually a tap on the D key speeds that up a bit), so keep that deactivated until you want to use it. The fuel runs out btw, if you right click the Kerbal you will get a report on how much is left. You will need at least 10% left to make a rendezvous typically especially if you have to change orientation in the process.

Kerbals also have an annoying tendency to flip themselves off ladders if the ladder axis is perpendicular to the Kerbal, in which case its easiet to either reorient the craft so the ladder is parallel to the Kerbal or wait a quarter orbit for the Kerbal to rotate 90°.

Edited November 5, 2013 by boolybooly

[Spyritdragon]

As said, backup your save if you havent done so already. I can give you an explanation on how to rendezvous with Jeb, its really quite easy. If its too long, just ignore it .

First of all, important, get Jebediah into a safe orbit. When you're near his apoapsis , find you prograde direction, the way youre currently moving, and thrust that way with W untill periapsis is above 80km.

If you rotate your camera youll notice theres a "looking straight downward" upon which your camera will refuse to pan any further, and similar for "looking straight up". If you consider these directions to be vertical, WASD will always move your Kerbal horizontally while shift and control will move him vertically. W will always move your Kerbal away from your camera horizontally to this reference, so orient your camera so its facing the right way and press W. Your periapsis will rise if you so this right, so you can get Jeb out of danger, i.e. periapsis 75 km or over id advise. Make sure you have about 10% or more fuel left.

Then construct a ship with sufficient fuel to reach this orbit, have spare for maneuvring and parachutes for landing. And at least one spare place for a Kerbal. Get it into an orbit, in this case a polar one, and burn prograde/retrograde at your apoapsis and periapsis untill your rescue craft has both its apoapsis and periapsis within about 2000 metres of your kerbals periapsis in height.

Now youll want to do a rendezvous. Its harder in an elliptical orbit, but its not too hard at all; you just might need a few tries. Back up your save again at this point (ie backup your persistance file, not quicksave.)

First, timewarp untill Jeb is at his periapsis. Then warp a little bit more till rescue craft is at the same point around Kerbin as Jebediahs periapsis. Burn prograde there untill your apoapsis is around Jebediahs, but still under it.

That was probably a little bit confusing, but if you did it right, your rescue craft now has an orbit similar to Jebediahs, but with a lower apoapsis, and Jebediah is slightly ahead of the rescue craft.

Because the rescue craft has a smaller orbit than Jebediahs, it will gradually gain on Jebediah. At this point, quicksave.

Now set Jebediah as target by right clicking him and selecting "set target". Place a maneuver node at your periapsis and drag thebprograde icon prograde until the dots orbit, i.e. the orbit youll reach after the maneuver, is about the same as Jebediahs, with a slightly higher periapsis. Timewarp untill you see two little pointer shapes on the orbits. These indicate your closest approach to the Kerbal, and should be reasonably close to the apoapsis. Then drag your prograde/retrograde icons in the maneuver node around so these get as close as possible to eachother, within 12km, then preform the maneuver when you hit the node.

To be continued, sorry for the delay. Tell me if anything is unclear.

Edit: since im not getting any replies, im assuming your mission has already succeeded. If you would still like to hear the rest of the explanation, just tell me.

Edited November 7, 2013 by Spyritdragon