Could need some basic help with reentry

[Hoggorm]

Hi again,

I try to follow “Mission 3: De-orbit from Mir” that's found in the Orbiter manual and have a few questions...

1 - In the tutorial, it seems like I should reenter earth’s atmosphere with zero pitch. Should I not use something like 40 deg pitch up like the Space Shuttle, or is that not so for the DG?

2 - When should I start banking to bleed of speed? In the manual it seems like I should start at about 50km in altitude, but that would mean I should bank while the outside temperature is at its most. Is that how the Space Shuttle does it? For me it seems like it would generate uneven heat, and maybe burn of one wing? How long shall I bank before turning to the opposite side? If I do not bank, I seem to skip out in space again. At what approx. altitude should I start to bank?

3 - How much backpressure should I have during the turns? None? Slightly? I tried with a lot of backpressure the first time, and that ended in a fireball... Again, is it the same for the DG and Space Shuttle?

4 - I've tried to reenter quite some times, and every time I need engine power to reach Kennedy. Either because I over or undershoot the landing site with too many miles. How can I calculate exactly where to do the deorbit burn so that I end up in gliding distance from KSC?

5 - In the manual it says that I should burn retrograde until PeR has decreased to 5.600M. I wonder where this number comes from. If I should do a reentry myself - how would I know how much I should fire the retro engines?

Once again thanks for the answers!

 

[caningo]

Details please... what about it?

 

[TSPenguin]

All these questions have been answered numerous times on the forum.
The search function will help you more than a possibly incomplete answeres in this thread.

The default DG is unable to hold high AOAs. There is a patch for it on OH.
AOA is also the thing you want for reentry, not pitch.

 

[ar81]

1.AoA or Angle of Attack is the angle between the longitudinal axis of the vessel and the direction of motion.
High AoA helps to brake more. If you do not brake and reach dense layers of atmosphere, your craft could burn.
High AoA also increases lift, so lift could bounce you back to space.

To prevent bouncing, shuttle uses S-Turns
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3424"]S-Turns animations[/ame]

2.What is important is to keep your aerobraking trajectory to reach base. If you are too high, you will leave your base behind and if you are too low you will get to the ground earlier than needed. If you pilot Shuttle Fleet you need to use GPC MFD in the proper Entry mode and be within the thresholds of upper and lower limits.

3.Fireball of plasma will appear as you reach certain temperature. The important thing is that temperature does not reach the maximum that your craft can tolerate.

4.You may use either Reentry MFD, GPC MFD in entry mode or Aerobrake MFD. I prefer Aerobrake MFD.

5.I try to lower my orbit as much as I can before deorbiting. When I am in the opposite side of the planet I deorbit until impact point in Aerobrake MFD is right on the target base.

Check this
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3428"]Tutorial: Concepts for atmospheric reentry[/ame]

This is a beginner forum.
You may feel free to ask.
Newbies not always know that questions have been answered before.

 

[Hoggorm]

TSPenguin,

You must understand that I’ve tried the search function. However I am not a professional internet user, and I feel it’s difficult to search for the right questions, especially since I not always even know what I would like to ask. And every time I try to find information about a topic I find myself reading about something completely different. I find myself diverted from my search in all the interesting facts found in this forum. You should know that the information in this forum and on the internet in general is intense for a newbie. There is so much information, tips and hints - and everything I read is news to me.

This leads to the fact that if I do not ask the questions I have, in a topic of my own, I will use many times longer to find the information I’m looking for. I have two goals I would like to accomplish with Orbiter:

1 – Fly the Space Shuttle from takeoff to landing including docking with the ISS

2 – Land on the moon and return to earth with the Apollo add-on.

However I’m far away from accomplishing this. I hardly know where to start - and when I’m unable to ask questions myself I’ll end up reading about a very interesting topic that is far ahead of my own skill. This is leading me to never be able to master the basic skills myself.

I am especially disappointed receiving such feedback from a moderator in a forum. I would expect you to encourage newbie’s to ask questions, not holding them back. I feel it's strange that a moderator in a forum ask its users to not ask questions.

Maybe you, TSPenguin, could be so kind to tell me what questions would be appropriate to ask in this Orbiter Beginner's Forum - so that I don't step on your toes again? Because I have thousands of questions, and you have scared me from asking them

 

[Woo482]

if you want to ask questions only use one thread don't make loads of them, and before you try a docking with the space shuttle use the Delta Glider first and all so if you want to go to the moon do that in a delta glider first because the space shuttle is very hard to fly.

 

[TSPenguin]

TSPenguin,

You must understand that I’ve tried the search function. However I am not a professional internet user, and I feel it’s difficult to search for the right questions, especially since I not always even know what I would like to ask. And every time I try to find information about a topic I find myself reading about something completely different. I find myself diverted from my search in all the interesting facts found in this forum. You should know that the information in this forum and on the internet in general is intense for a newbie. There is so much information, tips and hints - and everything I read is news to me.

This leads to the fact that if I do not ask the questions I have, in a topic of my own, I will use many times longer to find the information I’m looking for.
...
I hardly know where to start - and when I’m unable to ask questions myself I’ll end up reading about a very interesting topic that is far ahead of my own skill. This is leading me to never be able to master the basic skills myself.

I am especially disappointed receiving such feedback from a moderator in a forum. I would expect you to encourage newbie’s to ask questions, not holding them back. I feel it's strange that a moderator in a forum ask its users to not ask questions.

Maybe you, TSPenguin, could be so kind to tell me what questions would be appropriate to ask in this Orbiter Beginner's Forum - so that I don't step on your toes again? Because I have thousands of questions, and you have scared me from asking them

I am sorry if I gave you that impression. That was not my intent.
I was short on time and in retrospective, my wording did not reflect what I was trying to say.
You did not step on my toes at all. Your writing style gave me the impression that you might be one of those guys who simply could use the search function but choose not to. And you don't believe how glad I am that you are not that type.
I certainly understand how hard it is for someone who is new to this forum to find exactly the right stuff.
Again, I am sorry for the impression I gave you. Let's call it water under the bridge


As woo said, you should train in the deltaglider or any other futuristic vessel.
The shuttle and almost any historic vessel have nearly no margin for error and imperfect executions.
Also, reentry is probably the hardest thing to get right. So usaly people learn orbital operations and interplanetary flight before even thinking about reentry.
Ar81 has made an excellent tutorial, you should also check out his other tutorials.
For orbital operations I can highly recommend Orbital Operations. For a simply trip to the moon you should watch the replay "Lunar transfer" which come with orbiter. Whilst AMSO and NASSP use different MFDs, this will help you understand the basics of what is involved in such flights.
For reentry you should refrain from using the default vessels. I recommend training with the DGIV or the XR Class vessels (I'm a big fan of the XR Class...). It makes sense to do it in them as you can simulate the reentry pattern you plan to use with the shuttle, but are able to correct if something goes wrong and better learn from that experience. AerobrakeMFD is your best friend!

What kind of computer are you using? If it is powerfull enough you should try using SethEdens L10 textures, and a lot of McWogs excellent textures. They do wonders for the immersion.

Happy Orbiting

 

[Hoggorm]

TSPenguin,

Apologies accepted, and I thank you for the much more informative feedback in this last reply.

I’ll use some time in the DG or XR vessels. I’ve also started to study the Aerobrake MFD and BaseSync MFD manuals, hoping they’ll help me a bit on the way to a good reentry.

My computer is a Dell XPS M1530 laptop that should be fairly high end, with Intel Core Duo 2.20 GHz, 4GB RAM and Vista, however it seems like the MFDs make Orbiter lag a bit (that might be because my computer is not good enough for Orbiter after all?)…

I also have a problem with my screen “flickering” as described in this post:

http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5488

Regards,

 

[ar81]

To fly space shuttle, I recommend to try Shuttle Fleet addon.
It has autopilot for take off.

If you use Delta Glider you might like this
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3074"]Tutorial: DG to ISS[/ame]

 

[Hoggorm]

ar81,

If I might ask: What might be the difference between the following two addons

Space Shuttle Ultra
Shuttle Fleet

Thanks

 

[ar81]

ar81,

If I might ask: What might be the difference between the following two addons

Space Shuttle Ultra
Shuttle Fleet

Thanks

The name of authors and probably some different features between them.
It is like AMSO and NASSP addons. Both are Apollo addons, but authors and features are different.

 

[TSPenguin]

The shuttle fleet has been around for a long time.
The SSU is currently beeing developed here in this forum, check out their subforum. They aim for complete simulation of all systems and realism as high as it gets.

Your laptop is more than enough to handle orbiter with high res addons etc.
Regarding the MFDs, per default they are set to refresh only once a second. I recommend setting MFD refresh rate to 0.05. That gives you 20 refreshes per second.
Also make sure you have the proper HAL T&L device selected in the video tab. Checking always enumerate devices might help keep it selected.

Happy Orbiting

 

[ar81]

Oh and welcome to these forums... :speakcool:

 

[TSPenguin]

Yay!

And one thing. Would you mind not using a custom color on your whole posts?
People with different skins might have a really hard time reading them...

 

[Hoggorm]

Thanks!

I've used the weekend to read a bit in the manual "Go Play in Space" and trying some of the different tutorials. For some reason it seems that when I start AeroBrakeMFD Orbiter crashes... It seems to happen when I'm at or around the moon only. Might this be because there is no atmosphere around the moon?

TSPenguin,

What do you mean in the last post about skins and custom colour?

 

[Urwumpe]

You have for me, for example Black text on dark gray background.

Don't write the post offline and copy and paste it into the browser - Orbiter-forum keeps your color settings.

 

[Hoggorm]

Thanks Urwumpe,

That was really strange. Never seen that before. I write here in Orbiter Forum, but uses Word to check my spelling before I paste it back to the forum. This time however I don't use word. How is it now?

 

[Urwumpe]

Better readable, as you use the default colors now.

BTW: There are browser plug-ins for spell checking around, at least for Firefox and the commercial browsers.

 

[Hoggorm]

Ok, thanks. It looks the same to me, that's why I did not do anything about it... Sorry.

 

[ar81]

For some reason it seems that when I start AeroBrakeMFD Orbiter crashes... It seems to happen when I'm at or around the moon only. Might this be because there is no atmosphere around the moon?

Yes.