Tutorial My Earth to Moon tutorial

[blixel]

I've spent the last few days working on a little project. I had a whole scrapheap of notes that I made for myself going all the way back to when I first got introduced to Orbiter. (About 1 year ago.) Over the months, I have added a tremendous amount of information to my notes.

Several days ago I had an urge to convert my "how to get to the moon" notes into something resembling logical and coherent thought. (The raw version of the notes was real rough.)

The process of cleaning up my notes quickly turned into a different project ... which was to create a Complete Tutorial that would hopefully benefit people who are new to Orbiter.

It may seem like a complete waste of effort ... since there are already tutorials and playbacks on the topic, but what can I say, I just felt like doing it. Plus, I think that my particular way of discussing things is different enough to justify a new tutorial. And if not, well - it's my time to waste.

If anyone is interested in dissecting my tutorial and telling me everything that is wrong with it, I'd appreciate the feedback.

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=5268"]http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=5268[/ame]

 

[Tommy]

I gave it a good look, and couldn't find anything "wrong" with your techniques. I also like that you didn't dumb it down too much. The maneuvers are all simple enough - but not oversimplified. It was nice to see a tutorial for "newbies" that paid attention to reasonable efficiency (without obsessing on it) - many take a rather "brute force" approach that seems easier - but causes problems down the road. This has a nice balance of "easy as can be" and "as detailed as it needs to be".

All in all, a good addition to the collection. Sure, it's been done before, but it's your time to spend as you see fit. I also think that this is well written enough to make it worthwhile - as you said, another perspective can help some people.

 

[innovine]

I am new to Orbiter, and I just made my first trip to the moon following this tutorial. Thank you very much for spending the time on this, it's clear and well written, and perfectly suited for my skill level.

I have one question though regarding the mid course correction. You say "During that time, our PeA is going to drop considerably as compared to what Orbit MFD reports out at this distance". By this, do you mean that the Oribt MFD is inaccurate? Or does the PeA actually change as the ship approaches the moon (I cant see why this would be..)

Once again, thanks. You made my first flight a successful and very memorable one

 

[thetraceur]

Even though I've just learned to go to the moon and land, my technique isn't that good, so I will download your tutorial and see if I can learn something. Thanks

 

[blixel]

I am new to Orbiter, and I just made my first trip to the moon following this tutorial. Thank you very much for spending the time on this, it's clear and well written, and perfectly suited for my skill level.

Excellent. I'm glad to hear this.

I have one question though regarding the mid course correction. You say "During that time, our PeA is going to drop considerably as compared to what Orbit MFD reports out at this distance". By this, do you mean that the Oribt MFD is inaccurate? Or does the PeA actually change as the ship approaches the moon (I cant see why this would be..)

It's not that Orbit MFD is inaccurate. The issue is that you are not yet in orbit around the moon when you are making the mid-course correction.

The "DG to the moon" playback explains it this way: "Note that the orbit parameter readouts are not very reliable yet, because of strong field perturbations from the Sun and Earth. You will notice that the PeA readout is decreasing as we approach the Moon."

Orbit MFD is perfectly reliable and accurate once you are in orbit around the moon, but it's not designed to work properly when you are transitioning between gravitational bodies. (In this case, between the Earth and Moon.)

But to try and directly answer your question, the PeA doesn't change as you approach the moon, the instrumentation (Orbit MFD) becomes more reliable as you get closer to Perilune. So in that sense, Orbit MFD is "inaccurate" when you're at the point of the mid-course correction.

Hopefully that is comprehensible. Perhaps someone else reading this thread can offer an analogy that would help explain the limitation of Orbit MFD in this instance.

Once again, thanks. You made my first flight a successful and very memorable one

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[innovine]

Hopefully that is comprehensible. Perhaps someone else reading this thread can offer an analogy that would help explain the limitation of Orbit MFD in this instance.

Thanks for the feedback.

That answers it nicely, thanks again.

 

[foundpra]

Just skimmed the tutorial. Looks great! Will begin today. Thanks!