My first flight to the moon

[Killer Toilet]

I did NOT use TransX or IMFD, but extensively used both Orbit and Map IMFDs, as well as burn up half of the world's fuel reserves during the process. I was reading in the PDF about how to go from a higher or a lower orbit. I did that, and it worked out great. I am still a noob at IMFD, and this is not my first flight to another body, as I winged it before and flew into the Sun only to end up on Mercury, then orbited it.

But I thought I realized that I could gradually make my orbit bigger, and still keep the eccentricy to 0 when I made it larger. It was fine, until I got my gravity to around 40, when my DVI started to act crazy due to low gravity. I was forced to go back into an orbit closer to Earth, and attempt this again.

Anyway, after that time, I was on the verge of giving up when all of a sudden, I turned prograde, and the Moon was filling up the full side of my entire right side of the screen. I now had the influence of the Moon's gravity, but unfortunately, I do not yet know how to orbit an object that I approach. I only know how to orbit one that I launched from. To orbit from another orbit, my best and only guess is to go enter at an angle at the desending node and do a prograde burn to attain orbit, which is impossible to do without understanding IMFD or TransX. I remember a few weeks ago that I landed only a few miles at KSC from where I needed to land, and landing at a precise location is nearly impossible for me to do, but decided to land at Brighton Beach. I knew I had no way to keep orbit, but I hit the Moon's surface HARD and glithced my way into a permanant roll.

I am still happy I got to another body other than Earth without cheating. There is NO way in Hell I will try to attempt to go to Mars without using IMFD or TransX.

Anyway, I went to the Moon at least, and possibly killed my passengers along the way. Oh well.

 

[Shadow Addict]

You set up a fly-by trajectory to the moon and then burn retrograde once you reach pericynthion to insert yourself into lunar orbit. LunarTransferMFD is a simple way to do this.

 

[insanity]

I have no idea why you went about it the way you did, but congratulations for putting yourself on another body! A few tips:

Your orbit HUD can be switched to show information about different bodies by selecting the body in the Orbit MFD and clicking HUD.

Watch the Orbit MFD- using the HUD try and adjust your moon-relative path so that you have a PeA between 50-150km. As your approach PeA burn retrograde and you will be in a lunar orbit.

IMFD is a lot simpler than it seems. Ask yourself questions about what you want to do and try and find programs within IMFD that will do that. For example, when I'm going from an aligned LEO to the moon I start by asking myself, "What am I trying to do?" The answer is intercepting a target by plotting a course. So I go to course->target intercept and click TGT and type moon. The next screen is the scary part because there is a lot of info to digest. The initial solution will need to be modified to meet your needs, so you ask yourself, "What kind of delta-v and time budget am I limited by?" The answer is related to fuel and life-support capacity. Using the 100x adjustment mode I lower my enroute time and check how much delta-v is needed for each new solution. Using smaller and smaller adjustments, I try to find the compromise point between fuel and time- with the moon that tends to be between 75-85 hours depending on objectives. Because I'm plotting a course within a system, real-time burns are acceptable from altitudes of 300km, so I click NXT->BV->AB to get the burn vectors and enable the auto burn.

Hints: watching the BV window enable AB when ever the burn-time begins to climb above 5 seconds or so to do an MCC. IMFD will more than likely put you on a collision course with the moon, so when you get within the moon's SOI use programs that will help approach.

 

[Killer Toilet]

I know about the orbit MFD about the different bodies. It would have been impossible for me to do it that way without it.

Now that I am thinking about it, I should have let it take me past a flyby then burned retrograde as soon as I would have been sure I was going to orbit it.

Anyway, this proved to me at least that the simplest MFDs can be used for a complex space flight for noobs. Is there any possible way for me to attain a stable orbit past 40? If so, then I would try this method again, but this time land on the Moon without screwing up on the landing part, as I would approach it by flying towards it in it's own orbit.

 

[Tommy]

This covers Earth to moon and back, interplanetary flights, etc, using IMFD.

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4142"]IMFD Full Manual/Playbacks[/ame]

It's a good place to start learning IMFD, but doesn't cover the theory very much. I'd recommend some of the more general tutorials like "Go Play In Space" and "Deep Space" to go along with it. Check the "Recommended Tutorials" links in the tutorials forum.

 

[atuhalpa]

There is no way in hell you CAN get to Mars without using TransX or IMFD. (At least at your level of familiarity with Orbiter.)

 

[Ghostrider]

congratulations for putting yourself on another body!

Now, this is just priceless.:lol:

 

[insanity]

Now, this is just priceless.:lol:

An accomplishment like that is monumental and is deserving of praise. Besides, it is common to experience problems the first few times. I remember my first go on another body... I think I crashed a bit sooner than I'd like, but I was young and didn't know better.

 

[Ghostrider]

An accomplishment like that is monumental and is deserving of praise. Besides, it is common to experience problems the first few times. I remember my first go on another body... I think I crashed a bit sooner than I'd like, but I was young and didn't know better.

I was referring to the double entendre, but you just upped the ante on this! :lol:

 

[insanity]

I was referring to the double entendre, but you just upped the ante on this! :lol:

I have no idea what you're talking about

P.S. Good catch, I was hoping someone would take the bait.

 

[Ghostrider]

I was hoping someone would take the bait.

How can one resist...

 

[Pilot7893]

We can always rely on GhostRider to post something witty and original.

 

[Ghostrider]

We can always rely on GhostRider to post something witty and original.

Thanks, but please give Insanity his due: there was absolutely no way that exchange could have taken place without his absolutely great bait game!

 

[Killer Toilet]

I went to the Moon again, but this time following the exact instuctions in the IMFD tutorial. I was shaking like crazy and was scared out of my mind when I saw that the ship in Auto Burn was going to the moon's surface fast. I was freaked out when I saw both the altitude and the time to burn drop quickly. Thankfully, it stopped at 12KM exactly as I put it in the instuctions. But then again, I got a stable orbit around the Moon. I needed to reboot my PC because Windows Explorer crashed and wouldn't get the tabs at the bottom back.

On the IMFD tutorial about going from Mars to Phobos, it said it was the exact same as going to the Moon. Does this mean I could do different fuctions in IMFD to get to one place?

 

[kneejo]

hey killer. you might find [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3992"]Map3D MFD[/ame] a useful help. It shows a 3d map of the solar system, so you can always see where your current trajectory will take you. It helps visualizing how everything orbits around each other.. it also shows the Spheres Of Influence of the bodies, so you'll know if you'll be captured by the moon, or mars, or whatever body, by checking if your trajectory line intersects with the SOI.

 

[Tommy]

On the IMFD tutorial about going from Mars to Phobos, it said it was the exact same as going to the Moon. Does this mean I could do different fuctions in IMFD to get to one place?

No. What it means is that going from Mars to Phobos is the same process as going from Earth to the Moon. It's the same for going from any planet to one of it's own moons. It will be the same for going from Saturn orbit to Titan, for instance. Or going from a low solar orbit to Earth.

As a sidenote, this type of flight (from a major body to it's minor) that the transfer burn should be executed with the AB from Target Intecept. For any interplanetary flight the transfer burn should be executed with Orbit Eject.

 

[Killer Toilet]

No. What it means is that going from Mars to Phobos is the same process as going from Earth to the Moon. It's the same for going from any planet to one of it's own moons. It will be the same for going from Saturn orbit to Titan, for instance. Or going from a low solar orbit to Earth.

As a sidenote, this type of flight (from a major body to it's minor) that the transfer burn should be executed with the AB from Target Intecept. For any interplanetary flight the transfer burn should be executed with Orbit Eject.

Still confusing as the tutorial on how to get to Phobos does things differently than going to the moon. I used IMFD to go to the Moon for the third time today, but I still have no clue how to use it to do anything else. Then again, I still don't know how to land at all, and each attempt at me trying to land ended in disaster, except for that one time in which I missed my landing spot about 2 miles away from where it was supposed to be.

Anyway, all I need to do to go to Phobos is to go to the Burn vector, autoburn as soon as I leave the atmosphere, abuse the autoburn until I get about halfway, set it about 2 to 5 km away from the moon to orbit it, open up IMFD 4.2 to AB one last time to actually orbit it? That's it?

 

[insanity]

To get to Phobos you need to get to Mars first. Approach Mars, using the planet approach mode to match phobos inclination. MOI and transfer the way you would from earth-moon

 

[Killer Toilet]

To get to Phobos you need to get to Mars first. Approach Mars, using the planet approach mode to match phobos inclination. MOI and transfer the way you would from earth-moon

I meant from Mars' surface itself.

 

[insanity]

From mars, launch into an orbit using the correct heading (azimuth) to reach phobos as its plane passes over your position. If you've used the DGIV autopilot, make sure to do a small burn after the program is finished so IMFD will use the right full-throttle setting to calculate a burn.

Then it's the exact same as going to the moon. Remember that Phobos does not have a very large mass ergo its gravity is not much. I'll fly from Mars-Phobos and confirm the method.

On Edit: Okay, so I just landed on Phobos (more like sunk into the mesh, as Orbiter assumes it is a sphere regardless of the model)

Olympus only has one solution for Phobos, 90 degrees when relative inclination is at its lowest.

Make sure when you plan to get to Phobos you have a PeA above the Martin atmosphere, adjust arrival time. My flight took about 10 simulated hours. Because the gravity of Phobos is so weak POI isn't an option. Instead I just waited till I got close, circularized my mars orbit (orbital tools program) to nullify the inertia of the transfer orbit then just started burning towards Phobos until my velocity vector put me on surface of Phobos. Then I just coasted until I was right above the moon, killed off my Phobos relative velocity using retro thrusts, and canceled out the altitude drop with hover thrust. All that was left to do was pick a landing site. Because of the weak gravity you can cruise around with RCS thrusters until you find a nice place to sink into the mesh.

Getting to Phobos isn't hard, but actually getting on Phobos isn't super easy (I may have flown it wrong though).