Tips for orbital rendezvous?

[SergeantBlueforce]

I still haven't worked how to do that.

EDIT:

See blizzy's tutorial.

Edited November 30, 2013 by SergeantBlueforce

[blizzy78]

I've made an in-game rendezvous tutorial, perhaps you might want to give that a try. (see signature)

[Franklin]

My only real advice would be to do the inclination adjustment and rendezvous burn in the same maneuver if you're able. Always try to boil down operations into as few maneuvers as possible to save time and fuel.

[Specialist290]

I'm going to second blizzy's tutorial scenario, and I'm going to also recommend you read luchelibre's tutorial as well. There are a number of other useful tutorials and resources at the Drawing Board, which is conveniently linked through my signature.

That said, the keys to a successful rendezvous are mostly patience and familiarizing yourself with what's available on the navball and in the map view. The maneuver nodes and the targeting system in particular will be quite helpful.

[Taki117]

Take it slow. Orbital rendezvous, much like docking (And I'm assuming that is your ultimate goal) is a very slow process naturally.

[capi3101]

Alright - you've got your source craft and your target craft. Start by targeting the target craft on the map screen.

First thing is to put the two of them in the same orbital plane, which means decreasing the nodes (ascending node/descending node) to zero.

Assuming you're going east (090 is prograde), you want to burn north at the descending node or south at the descending node. Make it a slow burn and watch the other node; stop burning when it gets to zero and be realllly proud of yourself if you can get it to say NaN (Not a Number, Java's way of telling you you're right on the money).

Next is to adjust the orbit of your source craft.

If the target craft is ahead of the source craft, put the source craft's apoapsis at approximately the same altitude as the target, then lower the periapsis as far as you can safely put it (around 70k for Kerbin).

If the target craft is behind the source craft, put the source craft's periapsis at the target's altitude, then raise its apoapsis.

Then watch the intercept chevrons. If you get things to where two of the chevrons are really close to one another (within physics range at about 2,250 m), that's good; you'll get a rendezvous there.

If not, you might need to wait a few orbits. Don't be afraid to adjust the source craft's orbit if it looks like you're going to overshoot on a given pass.

That's rendezvousing. Docking itself is another ball of wax.

[700NitroXpress]

There's really nothing to it once you get a feel for it. The very first thing you want to do is adjust your inclination to your target so that it's 0.0

Next you need to figure out how to approach your target. If your target is outside of your orbit and in front of you, then you're going to catch up to it.

If your target is outside of your orbit and behind you, then you need to grow your orbit to be larger than your targets orbit so it catches up to you.

You want your intercept nodes to overlap so that there's only two of them. Once you get as close to your target as possible without overtaking it, you need to burn towards your target.

If you burn fast like 50 m/s then aim retrograde and try to keep the retrograde marker on top of the retrotarget marker.

Once you close to within 200 meters, start slowing down to 10 m/s or less. Once you're within 100 meters you want to kill all velocity.

If you're docking, then you want your target to be pointed towards Normal or North on the nav ball. That way it won't move as it orbits.

Then you can approach for docking using RCS and the docking controls.

You have the option of switching to docking mode or you can use the RCS translation controls H, N, J, K, L, I.

Here is a video of when I docked the last engine to my Duna Command Center. The first 25 minutes is a good tutorial.

Edited October 31, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[SergeantBlueforce]

Alright - you've got your source craft and your target craft. Start by targeting the target craft on the map screen.

First thing is to put the two of them in the same orbital plane, which means decreasing the nodes (ascending node/descending node) to zero.

Assuming you're going east (090 is prograde), you want to burn north at the descending node or south at the descending node. Make it a slow burn and watch the other node; stop burning when it gets to zero and be realllly proud of yourself if you can get it to say NaN (Not a Number, Java's way of telling you you're right on the money).

Next is to adjust the orbit of your source craft.

If the target craft is ahead of the source craft, put the source craft's apoapsis at approximately the same altitude as the target, then lower the periapsis as far as you can safely put it (around 70k for Kerbin).

If the target craft is behind the source craft, put the source craft's periapsis at the target's altitude, then raise its apoapsis.

Then watch the intercept chevrons. If you get things to where two of the chevrons are really close to one another (within physics range at about 2,250 m), that's good; you'll get a rendezvous there.

If not, you might need to wait a few orbits. Don't be afraid to adjust the source craft's orbit if it looks like you're going to overshoot on a given pass.

That's rendezvousing. Docking itself is another ball of wax.

*Very confused*

[Taki117]

*Very confused*

What confuses you? Set your target craft as your target (This is step 1) then follow the above. To set a craft as a target left click it, then select set as target (This is done in map view)

[xEvilReeperx]

I'll third blizzy's tutorial. I went through it three or four times and rendezvous was never a problem again. I went through it even more times to practice docking, too. It'll make you much better at intercepting planets and moons as well

[KvickFlygarn87]

Java's way of telling you

The besserwisser inside me says that NaN is from C#.

Java's name for NaNis null.

Just for your information.

[blizzy78]

Java's name for NaNis null.

No it's not.

[LtHeckard]

An orbital rendezvous is not an easy, it is rather difficult, but I'll try to explain it to you. If the object you are trying to rendezvous with if it is in front of you, contract your orbit so you can swing under it. if the object is behind you expand your orbit. If the object is behind you, you must expand your orbit so the object will swing under you. Anyways, once you have caught up to the space craft, (assuming you have set it as target) there will be "target speed" on your Nav Ball. You want to burn retrograde aka the circle with the X in it, you want to burn until the target speed is 0.0 m/s or close to it. once you have done that, you can burn directly to your target. Do not burn too much you'll overshoot your target, you will want to burn very gently until the encounter is about 0.2 Km. after that, you will want to make sure you don't leave the target, so you can make corrections in your orbit to ensure that the object won't escape from you. once you have stabilized your orbit, your target is in front of you, you will want to gently sail in using your RCS unit using IJKLHN. In case you didn't know, IJKLHN keys control your RCS thrusters. H thrust your spacecraft forward, N will thrust backwards. IJKL will push you up down left and right. After you get up close to your target, carefully, and approach the docking node you may want to save at this point, it may take more than 1 try. once you finally get to the docking node, the two docking ports will magnetically attach. Once you've done that, your done!

[capi3101]

The besserwisser inside me says that NaN is from C#.

Java's name for NaNis null.

Just for your information.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2618059/in-java-what-does-nan-mean

So I'm fairly certain it is indeed from Java. Or rather the IEEE standard upon which Java is based.

C# probably adheres to the same standard - I'm not familiar enough with the language to be certain of that, however.

[SergeantBlueforce]

How is it possible to slow down without falling out of the sky?

[SergeantBlueforce]

Never mind, anyway your tutorial was brilliant blizzy, I finally managed to rendezvous with a station! (I'm playing scarecrow's test pilot challenge). Here's a pic very pleased Jebediah