KSP Orbital Maneuver, Rendezvous and Docking Tutorial

Channel:

Robert Dodd

Subscribers:

1,010

Published on January 8, 2013 4:32:05 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0GcNLmQ3lI

Game:

Kerbal Space Program (2015)

Category:

Tutorial

Duration: 1:13:28

5,828 views

42

The second tutorial in my Kerbal Space Program Tutorial Series, this one deals with orbital maneuvers, rendezvous and docking. KSP has some great orbital maneuver and rendezvous tools now, but making the most efficient use of them still requires some understanding of the underlying principles of orbital maneuvers. Fuel can often be a limiting factor on KSP space missions, and you want to try to achieve your goals using the minimum amount of it.

The first step in rendezvous is aligning your orbital planes, and so that is what we do first in attempting to rendezvous two spacecraft in this tutorial. Once you have done your inclination change to align your orbital planes, you have to arrange for your spacecraft to come together in the same location on that plane. You can often do a high-power maneuver straight away to bring your spacecraft together with the target, but sometimes this is not the most fuel-efficient thing to do. If you are willing to trade off a little time, you can often get better fuel efficiency and this becomes more important when doing a rendezvous with a target in Munar orbit or in orbit around another planet, where every drop of fuel counts.

Finally, once you have a rendezvous, you have to know how to close the distance between the spacecraft and your target, how to cancel out any differences in motion and direction between you and your target, and how to do your final maneuvers for docking. We had a little mishap in our rendezvous (which sometimes happens) and you have the opportunity to learn from my errors and how I fixed them.

As always, if anything in this tutorial is unclear or you are having problems with orbital maneuvers or need general advice on similar matters, please feel free to ask. My brain wasn't always working at 100% efficiency when I recorded this, so sometimes things might be unclear: absolutely feel free to ask.

My Tutorials:

Mun Rocket and Landing:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CAz9qWUDpU
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT5JL9Z8tfk
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp1oizkOArw

Orbital Maneuvers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0GcNLmQ3lI

Rocket Design:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNbcGsV4fHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RtdFRdiamE

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Kerbal Space Program is copyright Squad - https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

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