Flight Question alignment problem

[coffeene]

I'm confuzed. I watched tutorials and it doesnt line up. tried everything I can think of but still it wont come close. Here is a screen shot I took and as you can see DTmin is almost 0.0 (it was when I first aligned) but the distance is almost 100k off. If you need more info let me know as I dont know what info is missing. I was able to get close enough to the ISS last night to touch it but it flew by so fast I hardly got a look, certainly not to dock.

 

[Iberville]

I see that your relative inclination is 0.25 degrees off, which in space and all the huge distance it does a big difference. Before you sync your orbit, you should use the Align Plane MFD to be sure to align your plane as close as you can to ZERO Rinc. With 2 orbits (and 4 passes near one of the two nodes), you should easily be able to do it. After this, now is the time to sync your orbit with the Sync Orbit MFD. I like the Apoapsis Mode personnaly. Here is a brake down of how I get to ISS:

-Lift off to an orbit around 250 km (almost zero eccentricity, wich means 250 km for both ApA and PEa.

-Align Plane to zero rinc.

-Sync orbit with Apoapsis mode (at my periapsis, I thrust prograde to bring the Apoapsis to ISS's altitude).

-At last I correct to bring the Dtmin asa close as I can to zero.

Read Go play in space. I learned everything with it.

Have fun!

 

[coffeene]

I fixed my Rinc to 0. (it was 0 when I started the sync) took 2 more orbits to get close again but I was still 10k out, but close enough to get autodock to work.

I'll have to record what I'm doing to find out exactly what I'm doing wrong.

Now all I have to do is land.

Finding docking to the ISS a lot harder then landing on the moon...

 

[Mister Mxyzptlk]

Another trick is to learn to use the "orbital" program in IMFD. When you have rel. inc. of zero and you are synced to ISS, pull up IMFD orbital program and use the "velocity match" program. Watch the burn time on velocity match and the time to intersection on "sync orbit" and when the time to intersection is about half of the burn time on "velocity match" , engage autoburn on "velocity match" and you will end up pretty darn close to ISS and your relative velocity will be nulled out. Then you can finish up with auto dock or whatever you want to do.

 

[Tommy]

10k is plenty close enough - that's "spitting distance" when it comes to rendezvous.

 

[Iberville]

Go read again the part in the manual Go Play in Space about docking. At 10 km, you only need to kill to zero your relative velocity. At that point, it should become much easier than what you previously did.

 

[jangofett287]

I kill my relative velocity manually using the docking hud. I forgot to do this the first few times and ended up sailing straight past the ISS!