Flight Question To be sure not to run into something while flying a mission

[SuprunP]

Let's say I'm flying to Jupiter and my TransX is deftly set up and my ship is ready to go.

How can I be sure that I'm not going to run (fly) into something big or small along the way? Although I acknowledge that hitting the Moon or Mars is a highly improbable prospect but there is still a possibility that our trajectories may coincide, isn't there?

Thanks.

 

[Grover]

ive only ever seen someone accidentally pass the moon once, and ive never done it myself. and although this WILL destroy your trajectory beyond repair, its only a simulation, so you cna just try again, or use that encounter to your advantage and do a sling to your target

 

[SuprunP]

Well yes, but especially because it is a simulator and not just a game we try to make it as realistic as we can, if not perfectly accurate.

It's not great fun to carefully plan a mission (spending a few hundred million sim-bucks on it :facepalm and after several days or even months end up as a heap of scrap metal on some distant celestial body... :dry:

 

[orb]

It's not great fun to carefully plan a mission (spending a few hundred million sim-bucks on it :facepalm and after several days or even months end up as a heap of scrap metal on some distant celestial body... :dry:

Careful planning with spent a few hundred million sim-bucks should include checking where other bodies will be when your spacecraft will cross their orbits.

 

[jedidia]

How can I be sure that I'm not going to run (fly) into something big or small along the way?

The chances are negligible, so usually it's rather hilarious when it happens. There's not really a tool to spot it in advance, though. You can call your first go a "simulated attempt", make some adjustments to the parameters so you won't need that many correction burns (or crash into something), and then you do it "for real".

 

[SuprunP]

Careful planning with spent a few hundred million sim-bucks should include checking where other bodies will be when your spacecraft will cross their orbits.

:thumbup:

What instruments are actually used to check it?

Thanks.

 

[orb]

What instruments are actually used to check it?

Well, you could use AGI toolkit for mission planning (if it was real mission). :lol:

But as you aren't launching anything in real world, you can always use Orbiter for simulating it (you can tune down all visual parameters), and you can get similar views of orbits as in AGI STK with [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4864"]Videnie orbit drawing 1.0[/ame].

 

[TMac3000]

When i do interplanetary missions, I pull up an Orbit MFD somewhere and reference the moon. I watch this carefully until I pass the Moon. So far, I've never had to alter my trajectory to miss it, but it should only take a short burn or two to correct a negative lunar periapsis. For the record, this has also been a concern for me when traveling to gas-giant moons. On the way to Europa, I find it very common to have a startlingly close pass to Io. Just keep your eyes on those instruments, and you should be able to see it coming and fix it

 

[Ark]

The chance is so outrageously remote that it's not worth bothering with. If you actually do end up plastered on a moon, you won't care because it'll be the funniest thing that's ever happened to you.

 

[SuprunP]

The chance is so outrageously remote that it's not worth bothering with. If you actually do end up plastered on a moon, you won't care because it'll be the funniest thing that's ever happened to you.

Sometimes I wish everything to be perfectly smooth... Why not? After all, it is celestial mechanics...

 

[Scav]

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=95830&postcount=14

That has happened.

 

[Piper]

In the years I've played Orbiter, I've only twice had anything close to a close-call with a moon, and both times was around Saturn. The first time was in the 2005 version of Orbiter when I was doing a transfer from Iapetus to Rhea. As I was travelling along, I noticed that my trajectory was beginning to change drastically, and after doing a couple of pointless course corrections I looked around and noticed Titan coming up to my side. I checked, and I wasn't going to hit it, but it was messing up my trajectory so I redid my TransX trajectory to include a slingshot by Titan, did a course correction, and carried on my way to Rhea. The second time was just the other night. I was repeatedly cruising over the rings of Saturn at an inclination of only 0.05 degrees with my periapsis inside the rings and my apsis outside the rings. As I was reaching my apsis, I noticed one of the tiny moons outside the rings pass by the front of the front of the spacecraft. While it was nowhere near close enough to be a risk, it did provide for a neat view.

 

[C3PO]

Sometimes I wish everything to be perfectly smooth... Why not? After all, it is celestial mechanics...

That's what test simulations are all about.

 

[SuprunP]

That's what test simulations are all about.

Well, yes... but I reckon that they do take a lot of time, don't they? I mean I have to fly all the way through half of the solar system to be sure that if I'm going to launch my vehicle at this or that time in this or that direction I won't hit this or that moon... Wouldn't it be much better if I could foresee these events right from the start?

(Call me a dreamer )

 

[C3PO]

I've been using orbiter since 2005, and I've never hit anything I didn't aim for. :lol:

 

[Codz]

The chances are so negligible that it is somewhat similar to not going outside because you're afraid of being hit by a meteorite.

 

[SuprunP]

The chances are so negligible that it is somewhat similar to not going outside because you're afraid of being hit by a meteorite.

As I have already said in the very first post "I acknowledge that hitting the Moon or Mars is a highly improbable prospect [...]".
The question is not about the actual chances (or 'almost no chances' in our case)...

Well, come to think of meteorites and other 'negligible' stuff.

According to NASA, more than 500,000 pieces of debris are tracked as they orbit the Earth and they all travel at speeds of up to 17,500 mph, "fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft".

As of July 2009, more than 19,000 pieces of space debris larger than 10 cm were known to be circling the Earth. Another 500,000 pieces are between 1 cm and 10 cm.

Emphasis is mine.