rescue frofred kerman

[Cannon]

how do i rescue him, i got so close intersect with my ship, about 300m and then i switch to frofred kerman and i try to get aboard but ship is going too fast and i just can't keep up with him with my EVA jetpack, it's going too fast

[Master Tao]

Try blizzy78's rendezvous and docking tutorials or one of the video tutorial series for the same:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/28352-The-Drawing-Board-A-library-of-tutorials-and-other-useful-information

As you've noticed, it's not enough to have a close approach. You also need to match orbital velocity.

[Cannon]

but if i match orbital velocity they will never get close

[BDelacroix]

Master Tao has it right, basically treat Frofred as another object you are rendezvousing with. When you are close (within 100km is enough) swap to Frofred ( [ or ] key) and use his RCS to get to the now near 0 relative velocity rescue ship. Climb on in and go home. Or do like I did and park him at a station and forget to bring him home. Lost that contract because I only did half of it. You still get to keep Frofred, though.

Click the speed box on the ADI and it changes to surface and target relative speed. The target one near 0 (if not 0) is what you want.

You'll only run into a mismatch doing this if you ride out the orbit to the opposite side, but you will be done with the join up long before then.

Edited September 27, 2014 by BDelacroix

[bandi94]

1. Set the kerbin as target

2. When you are close to him ( 1.5 km will work to but if you are at 300m thats perfect ) press couple of times the speed indicator on the navball until it shows you the Target's speed instead of the orbit speed.

3. Do some burns against the target's speed ( on navball is a yellow circle with "X" inside ) until the shown speed is almost under 1ms/s at that point your orbital speed is equal to the kerbals speed ,so both of objects move with the same speed.

[Cannon]

1. Set the kerbin as target

2. When you are close to him ( 1.5 km will work to but if you are at 300m thats perfect ) press couple of times the speed indicator on the navball until it shows you the Target's speed instead of the orbit speed.

3. Do some burns against the target's speed ( on navball is a yellow circle with "X" inside ) until the shown speed is almost under 1ms/s at that point your orbital speed is equal to the kerbals speed ,so both of objects move with the same speed.

dude, if i burn against target's speed, my orbit is gone, and i'll fall right away

[dzikakulka]

It shows velocity relatove to the target. So if you burn that on to 0 you have the same speed as the target and granted you are close to it, you will be roughly static in relatiion to it. Then with matched velocities you aim at target, burn to get closer and zero velocity again if drfting off-course.

Just, uhm, do the stock rendezvous tutorial first, ask if you have problems with it.

[Reactordrone]

dude, if i burn against target's speed, my orbit is gone, and i'll fall right away

Burning retrograde to the target and burning retrograde to orbital direction are two different things. When you switch between orbit and target on the navball the prograde and retrograde markers will be in different positions most of the time and you only want to zero out your speed relative to the target once you're close enough to transfer.