Help! I can't Dock!

[ThePresD]

Hi, I'm a bit of a noob to the KSP community. I have send several ships into orbit and I have even sent kerbals to minimus and the mun. However, docking is proving to be much more troubling than I previously expected. Right now I have two ships in orbit around Kerbin I wish to dock. One is around a 300-350k orbit. The other is at 400k orbit. Here is my issue. When I try jumping into a higher orbit, to dock the separation is around 200k. Why? because one ship is significantly behind the other. So, my question. How would I increase my velocity without increasing altitude to drastically to catch up with the other ship? I'm sorry this is a very noob like question but... I guess I launched at the wrong time ect. so....

[Nobody]

In this situation time warp and wait. The one in the lower orbit will catch up to the one in higher orbit in time. Then you do burn to cross their orbits.

[vexx32]

Simple orbital mechanics here, my friend. You cannot increase your speed without increasing your altitude. What you need to do is actually decrease your speed when you're at your Periapsis to bring yourself into an overall lower orbit than your target. I know that sounds really counterintuitive, but the lower your orbit, the shorter your orbit is and the faster you go. Increasing your speed at a single point actually means you're moving around the planet slower than you otherwise would and will lower your speed at the opposite end of your orbit.

However, since both of these craft are almost a half orbit away from each other, you could really go either way. What you want to do is either slow down, shrink your orbit, so that you can catch the other one up; OR you can accelerate, enlarge your orbit, and let it catch up to you. When you're still a little ways from catching up, make a manoeuvre node and either pull prograde or retrograde, in order to re-sync your orbits. Move the node around on the orbit path a bit to get the closest approach markers as close as is possible. If it ends up being still extremely far away, time warp until you're a bit closer to your target and try again. It takes some getting used to, but once you've figured it out once, you'll be able to do it significantly easier.

EDIT: Ah, I see I misread. The orbits are already different enough. All you need to do is timewarp till you're closer, then try making the node again and seeing what the closest approach is.

[Silverchain]

You can't "go faster" around the same orbit. If you thrust prograde (i.e. fire rockets while pointing "forwards" in the direction you're going) you will raise the height of your orbit on the far side of the planet.

Your ship which is in the lower orbit will go round quicker than the one in the higher orbit.

With your ships in the position as shown, using the lower ship thrust prograde at periapsis until the apoapsis marker overlaps the higher orbit. You will see a red (and maybe an orange) marker showing where the point of closest approach is.

Speed up time and watch as the point of closest approach gets nearer and further away.

When it is close (say about 100km) try firing retrograde or prograde at periapsis and see what difference it makes; the closest approach will get larger or smaller. Find what makes it go smaller and get it down to about 5km.

Speed up time again and wait for the ships to get close together. When they are near, the velocity marker on the navball will switch from "orbital" to "target".

When you get close enough, thrust against your target velocity to bring your ships to a relative halt.

At this point, you can start to move cautiously closer to the target ship. And then the real fun starts...

[Taki117]

What Vexx32 Said. Since Ship A is in a lower orbit it is naturally moving faster than Station B. (Due to having a much shorter orbital period) It will eventually catch up to Station B, it's just going to take a while. I would also advise matching planes while you wait (If you haven't already) as this will save you some trouble on the back end. What I would do is when they get about 15deg apart plop a maneuver node down and pull it prograde (To raise your orbit) and see where that puts your encounter it you are withing 2km that's good. 1km is great, and anything less than 1km is absolutely beautiful. Once you get your encounter execute the node. Once you are almost at your new apoapsis switch the Navball to target mode (By clicking the green bar at the top where it gives you your speed) and point your ship at your Relative Retrograde(This is important) then do a burn to cancel out all of your relative velocity (This will circularize your orbit, kinda) then point target prograde (the pink meatball on the navball) then execute a short burn in that direction, no more than about 5m/s, then it's RCS from here on out.

[JiWint]

make your apoapsis touch your target orbit.now the marker should be at apoapsis too.After several warps,you should see the "target location at closest point" should be behind the intercept point.Then make your periapsis higher.after you have like 20km between you and your target,switch to target speed,and burn to him.

It's like racing.I finally got my new tower,I'll make a video about it.I will.

[Pauly]

I watched many videos on how to meet up and dock and this was by far the most noob friendly for me. Once I watched it I built my first space station.

It may not be the most delta v friendly but it is very easy imo.

[minerman30]

Find the indicator labeled "ascending node", set a maneuver node there, and raise your apoasis until you get an intercept.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

This has mostly been said by the above posters but I thought I would post just so you can see it written many ways for clarity.

1. Obviously both ships need the same sized docking ports.

2. One ship at least should have RCS thrusters and hopefully these will be balanced with the center of gravity so it doesn't turn while you try and move is sideways. Took me a while to get this at it can be a subtle but annoying effect.

3. The lower the orbit the faster you go around. Counter intuitive but that's orbital mechanics.

4. Click the slower ship as the target while flying the faster/lower ship.

5. You will see an AN and ON green nodes. Click on the first of these you will hit and make a node. Adjust the purple inclination maneuver nodes until the AN and ON read 0.0 of NAN.

6. Make the burn. You are now orbiting in the same plane.

7. Wait till the lower orbit/faster ship is a bit behind the higher ship about 20-5 degrees or about 2 hours to half and hour if looking at it as a clock. Then make a maneuver node for the lower/faster ship so that the purple or orange markers line up. You will see that one purple is target at interception and the other is closest interception. You want these to be the same, and colour must be matched with colour. Anything within about 5k is OK but closer is better.

8. Make the first burn.

9. Now add a second maneuver node at the interception point, with this node line up your orbit with the second orbit so that when you burn you will have identical orbits and be very near the other craft.

10. Make the burn.

11. You should now be floating near the other craft and not moving very fast relative to it. It should be selected and be green in the real world (Kerbin real world) view. Your speed indicator should now show target speed but this doesn't show if you are moving towards it or away. Burn towards the other ship a bit.

12. Turn both ships so that their docking port is facing the other ship.

13. You want to approach slowly 10m/s or less at 1k separation, about 1m/s at 200m, 0.5m/s at 100, 0.2-0.1 at 50 meters. You will want to turn on RCS and docking control. Try to get your prograde marker to be over the target marker (pink symbol I think).

14. As you get closer go back to step 12 every so often. Repeat 12 and 13 until you touch docking ports.

15. You should now be docked. If not then I wrote something wrong, missed something or you didn't follow a step right, I don't know

[ThePresD]

Thanks Everyone, I was able to dock the two ships successfully! I'm well on my way to creating my first space station.