Off-Plane Transfer tutorial

[Piper]

I've noticed over the years quite a few people that don't seem understand how to do an off-plane transfer. I wrote up this quick tutorial on how to do one using TransX.

http://www.ioss.ca/OffPlaneTutorial/index.html

The level of difficult for this shouldn't be too high. If you can do an in-plane transfer to the moon, you can definitely do this.

 

[astrosammy]

Off-Plane Transfers are a cool new thing to try out If you don't know what to do in Orbiter. I just made a transfer to moon from a polar Orbit.

 

[Piper]

How did you find the tutorial? Was it detailed enough?

 

[xmariox]

Hi Joe,

Very interesting missions

Have you left you IOSS project yet?
Any new modules and plans?

 

[Piper]

Hi Joe,

Very interesting missions

Have you left you IOSS project yet?
Any new modules and plans?

I was planning and designing a whole bunch of new modules, but unfortunately my laptop that had everything (including the originals of the models I had already released) got wiped, and I lost everything. I've done all the missions up to the modules that were lost, and I'm in the process of making the pages for it to upload, but I don't know if I'll go back and redo the modules that were lost. Loosing months of hard work in a single night kind of killed my enthusiasm.

 

[xmariox]

hmm thats sad:-/

 

[orwellkid]

Nice tutorial mate! I just popped into an equatorial orbit around "Luna" after topping off the tanks at the ISS. Sweet deal. Always found I used too much fuel to align my inclination to the moon after visiting ISS... made for some hairy LOI manouevers.

_O.K._

 

[Piper]

Nice tutorial mate! I just popped into an equatorial orbit around "Luna" after topping off the tanks at the ISS. Sweet deal. Always found I used too much fuel to align my inclination to the moon after visiting ISS... made for some hairy LOI manouevers.

_O.K._

Always happy to help a fellow Canuck!

 

[ar81]

If I am not mistaken, off plane transfers are not too efficient. Right?
What is the advantage of off plane transfer? I used it in my tutorial because it did not require any course correction.

 

[tblaxland]

If I am not mistaken, off plane transfers are not too efficient. Right?
What is the advantage of off plane transfer? I used it in my tutorial because it did not require any course correction.

True, an off-plane transfer is not as fuel efficient as an in-plane transfer if you are only considering the fuel used in the transfer burns.

The problem is, the source orbit is not always in the same plane as the target orbit so an in-plane transfer cannot always be used. For example, say you needed to launch from Baikonur to the Moon. You can never launch into the same plane as the Moon because the latitude of the launch site is too high. In that case, an off-plane transfer is the most efficient way to transfer to the moon. Any other option involves wasteful plane change manoeuvres.

 

[Piper]

If I am not mistaken, off plane transfers are not too efficient. Right?
What is the advantage of off plane transfer? I used it in my tutorial because it did not require any course correction.

The TLI (the burn to send you to the moon) should take no more fuel in a an off-plane transfer, then it does for an in-plane transfer. This was partly why I wrote this tutorial, hearing people say that off-plane transfers where ineffecient was driving me nuts.

 

[Linguofreak]

The TLI (the burn to send you to the moon) should take no more fuel in a an off-plane transfer, then it does for an in-plane transfer. This was partly why I wrote this tutorial, hearing people say that off-plane transfers where ineffecient was driving me nuts.

Yeah, you do get two launch windows every month where TLI is just as efficient as for an in-plane transfer. But for the impatient people, off-plane transfers are inefficient.

 

[Piper]

Yeah, you do get two launch windows every month where TLI is just as efficient as for an in-plane transfer. But for the impatient people, off-plane transfers are inefficient.

It's not two times a month, its twice a day.

EDIT: I should clarify, you have two opportunities a day if you are launching from the ground. If you are already in orbit (IE, going from the ISS) then yes, it is only twice a month.

 

[Enjo]

Thanks for that, very nice.
Next time though, consider making screenshots of the MFDs in 2d panel only, so that the screenshots are smaller, fit to the page, so you don't have to click on every one of them. This kind of breaks some mental processes - it's easy to forget what the text was about while you wait for the image to load. When you do such screenshots, I advice using PNG (losless) format. You'll see that the screenies take less space for the same quality of the corresponding JPG. Less space = quicker loading

 

[Piper]

Thanks for that, very nice.
Next time though, consider making screenshots of the MFDs in 2d panel only, so that the screenshots are smaller, fit to the page, so you don't have to click on every one of them. This kind of breaks some mental processes - it's easy to forget what the text was about while you wait for the image to load. When you do such screenshots, I advice using PNG (losless) format. You'll see that the screenies take less space for the same quality of the corresponding JPG. Less space = quicker loading

Very good points, I think I'll do that next time.