NASSP 8 alpha Apollo 7 w/MCC t+028:27:00 Orbiter 2016 rendezvous question

bcbarnes

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I have successfully performed the phasing maneuvers (thanks Indy91) and I am now starting the rendezvous portion of the checklist. I am at the part where I am supposed to center the 'target' in the SCT. I assume the 'target' is the SIVB. Unfortunately, I can't locate it either in the SCT or just from looking around in the external view.

The 'Orbit Sync' MFD tells me that it is 117.6Km distant, and closing, the 'MAP' MFD shows the orbits aligned and the target in front of me (ahead of me in my direction of travel) and the 'ORBIT' MFD shows it to be a couple of kilometers 'above' me in altitude.

Should I be this far from the SIVB? I believe the flight plan called for a total 70nm separation, which is approx. 133km, so it seems right. Is there a limit to how far away a craft can before you see it? Am I supposed to wait for it to get closer? I have all the 'visual aids' turned off except the yellow box around vessels, to help me find it.

Note that I can shift my ship focus to the SIVB, but from their I cannot find the AS-205 (CSM) either.

If someone could tell me if I should just wait until it gets closer and then I'll be able to see it and center it in the SCT, I would really appreciate it.

Brian
 

indy91

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If I recall correctly the yellow marker doesn't appear until a few minutes after the start of the rendezvous phase and even then only in the sextant at first, not in the scanning telescope. So what you can do is use the HUD overlay of the Docking MFD to find were the S-IVB currently is. When the yellow marker appears you can disable the Docking MFD HUD. And even later you will be able to see the S-IVB through the sextant visually. In real life the S-IVB had some lights on it, so it was fairly easy to see for the astronauts, even at distance.

All of this of course assumes that the NCC-1 maneuver (and NCC-2, if it was necesary) and the NSR maneuver were all exectued accurately. Your distance to the S-IVB seems about right, you should be about 80NM behind and 8NM below the orbit of the S-IVB just after the NSR maneuver at 28h GET and from there on slowly catching up to it.
 

bcbarnes

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Thanks again indy91 - don't know why I didn't think of using the docking HUD (I had the docking MFD open ...). Played with it a little and I think it is going to work out very well.
 
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