OHM Earth to Moon: An Orbiter Tutorial by David Courtney

[OrbitHangar]

Author: blixel

Motivation: This tutorial started as a simple plain text document wherein I jotted down a few important reminders so I wouldn’t forget what I was learning. That plain text document grew organically over the course of an entire year. I eventually realized that I had a compilation of fantastic information that would be beneficial to others, so long as I took the time to format it in a presentable fashion. This tutorial is the result of that formatting effort.

Audience: This tutorial is intended to help beginners who want to learn how to fly from the earth to the moon without using automated methods that do most of the work for you (but leave you clueless as to how or why anything works.)

Every effort has been made to make this tutorial as simple, yet all-inclusive as possible, but it is not intended to serve as an installation guide for the Orbiter program, nor is it intended to serve as a guide for familiarizing beginners with the user interface of Orbiter. (Refer to the Orbiter.pdf document in the Doc folder to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals.)

It is assumed that you have already installed Orbiter, have it working, and have spent at least enough time to understand how to get into space and how to interact with the multi-function displays (MFD’s).

This tutorial utilizes the Delta-glider space vessel that comes with the default installation of Orbiter. This tutorial does not require any Orbiter add-ons. However, I highly recommend Orbiter Sound 3.5 by Dan Steph so you will have engine and thruster sounds.


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[GeeTee87]

nicely done!
how about getting back? i can't find any moon to earth tutorials?

 

[blixel]

nicely done!
how about getting back? i can't find any moon to earth tutorials?

I really, really, really wanted to include a "bonus" section on getting back to Earth. But I was running out of steam (so to speak) toward the end of that tutorial. I really had to push myself to finish it.

Check out this video I did just 2 days ago. If you can follow along, you'll be able to get back to Earth without any trouble. (Recommend watching at full screen, 720 or 1080 resolution.) This is a really crude (inefficient) method, but it works and it's pretty easy to understand. I would use TransX if I were planning a "serious" trip back from the moon.

Here is a real basic outline of what I did.

1. Hover off the lunar pad
2. Use the Level Horizon AP for the initial ascent so you don't pitch or roll
3. Raise gear
4. Rotate to 70 degrees
5. Main engines to full
6. Kill Hover after a few seconds
7. Kill Level Horizon AP
8. Pitch up to 5 degrees
9. Continue to burn main engines until ApA is about 30k
10. Align plane with earth / Circularize the orbit
11. Turn on glass cockpit and shut off MFD's for a full forward view
12. Time accelerate until the earth is coming up over the horizon
13. Bring up Orbit MFD on both sides. Earth / Moon (DST / FRM / PRJ)
14. Burn Pro Grade at full power for about 60 seconds. (Watch the moon Orbit MFD. You need to exceed the moon's escape velocity.)
15. Fast Forward to Earth SOI. Burn "negative outward" to fix Earth PeA.
16. Coast to perigee and circularize the orbit

 

[bruhaha]

Love the tutorial, but I am stuck on Earth. On page 3 of the pdf, you say, "In one of the MFD displays, we’ll open the Align plane MFD, on the other, we’ll open Map MFD. On both MFD’s, click TGT and select the moon as the target."

However, there are NO options showing up for targets. (see attached screenshots). What am I doing wrong?

 

[20 Litre]

You have 3 buttons under the MFD's: PWR, SEL and MNU. Click SEL and switch to the other MFD you want.
Edit says... Akk, forget it! My mistake...

Move with the cursor keys down to "celest. body", cursor right und you see the moon available.

 

[TSPenguin]

And then after clicking TGT you either type moon right there or use the arrow keys to navigate the submenus. You might want to read the orbiter manual.

 

[bruhaha]

Confused... Look at the screenshots. I do not have the option to type or select submenus. They are greyed out.

EDIT. Ahh. Okay, using the arrow keys allows me to see the 'Moon' selection. However I cannot select it by hitting 'enter'. Nor can I type it under Custom. Do I have to be out of Earth's gravity or at a certain place in the journey for it to be active?

Sorry to trouble you.

 

[TSPenguin]

Anything with an arrow next to it is a submenu you can access with the right arrow key. Is that what you meant? They look a little greyed out because they are no valid selection for a target, which is also why enter will not work on them.
Note: Moons is a submenu

You should be able to type in the name of any body in the "By Name" field which is selected by default upon opening the menu. Should that not work, you have some very interesting problems of a whole other nature.

 

[Ripley]

...However I cannot select it by hitting 'enter'...

Your keyboard should have 2 (different) "Enter" keys.
Tried both?

 

[bruhaha]

Ah. The other Enter key. My big duh. Now it works!