General Question Help with direct ascent

[dgatsoulis]

Hi everyone,

Every time i want to make a direct ascent from an Earth base to an orbiting station or satellite, i am using... "experience-and-common-sense-MFD", to "eyeball" an ascent that gets me from "wheels up" to final approach, within reasonable distance from my target. (less than 300km)
But if i change any settings in my scenario (ship/configuration/load/base/etc..), i usually have to make at least two "test-runs", to get it right. (Sometimes i get lucky from the first try... sometimes NOT!)

There has to be a better way than that!

Has anyone figured out how to make a direct ascent to ANY orbiting station from ANY base?
(within reasonable limitations of course: Target's orbit intersects or passes very close from the takeoff site and target is "behind" you when you take off.)

So far, all i have found relative to this, is LaunchMFD.
(Btw, great work guys!):thumbup:
But it's only usefull for planets/moons without atmosphere and for close to equator launches. Plus, most of the ships that i fly can't handle the extra Dv required for the approach described in the manual. (7. Direct ascent theory)

Any help will be much appreciated

 

[Tommy]

Seems to me that IMFD's Target Intercept and Surface Launch together can do this. I know it's possible with TransX. The main trick is selecting a reasonable window (fairly in-plane), and the target in just about overhead.

 

[Enjo]

Hi

So far, all i have found relative to this, is LaunchMFD.
(Btw, great work guys!):thumbup:
But it's only usefull for planets/moons without atmosphere and for close to equator launches. Plus, most of the ships that i fly can't handle the extra Dv required for the approach described in the manual. (7. Direct ascent theory)

Thanks for your comment
Yes, you got it right. Only without atmosphere, close to equator and needs some dv. The second limitation is being worked upon just now, and the third one is the main subject of my Master thesis. The dv has to be optimised. What ships do you fly? The atmosphere unfortunately is a totally different story and will be the last thing I'm going to work on. My professors don't care much if it works in Orbiter or not and time is passing by quickly, so I have to stick to priorities.

Generally, I'm not promising that the MFD will satisfy you, but what I can say is that I'm working on it now more rapidly than ever. If you want to have a look how the direct ascent solver looks now, check out the latest posts in this thread:

http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=152912#post152912

The windowed app shares the most important code with the MFD itself.

I see that the direct astenters market is growing