TransX - Inclination

jimm

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I am a bit confused. Seems no matter how often I play with velocities and man dates, I just can not seem to pass the moon retrograde at an inclination above 150 degrees. Other than a pre-established scenario where this is all too easy, any time I begin a random scenario, achive circular parking orbit aligned to the ecliptic, there are times I can and times I can not set TransX to represent exactly what I desire in orbital presentation.

Any ideas on how to fool-proof this?

Thank you
 

tblaxland

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To get into that orbit, you will want your parking orbit to have an inclination and LAN pretty close to that of the Moon's obliquity. That way you will do an off plane transfer to the Moon but you will come in on a plane pretty close to the Moons equatorial plane. You can find the inclination and LAN of the Moon's obliquity in its config file and use that to target your parking orbit (LaunchMFD would be a good help). If you have non-spherical gravity turned on, you won't want to stay in that parking orbit too long because your LAN will drift and you will end up out of plane again.

EDIT: BTW, once you have got into the right parking orbit, you will want to plan your transfer orbit so that you have little to no off-plane component in the TLI burn. Such opportunities will come up about every two weeks, ie, half the Moon's orbital period.
 

flytandem

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So you want go from Earth to moon and to arrive going around the moons equator clockwise as seen looking down on the moon's north pole.

But from a random orbit at the Earth you are probably not anywhere near in plane with the moon's orbit. Tblaxland described needing to get in plane with it and that's the most precise way to do a single transfer to arrive going around the moon's equator. But it can require a lot of fuel if you do the plane changes in low Earth orbit. Your question does actually ask about starting from a random Earth orbit. So let's see what can be done with TransX.

An offplane transfer can work quite well and although it doesn't give a full 180 inclination there is a graphical way to quickly and easily dial in probably close to inclination 160 or 170, or more.

The trick would be to pretend you are doing a free return sling around the moon back to Earth and swing the outward angle in toward Earth as needed to bring the Pe/Pl ratio down to something like 1.15 (so you pass just a couple hundred Km or less above the surface if you so desire). Ignore what the Pe will be back at Earth because you aren't coming back :) The inclination angle of the sling should be left at "0" so it will have brought you back to Earth arriving at an orbit in plane with the moon. This will give you about as good an equatorial arrival at the moon as possible given your offplane transfer.

Here's why this is a great way to do it. It's because you have a sling set up, and there will be a great visual indication of what's happening in the Stage 2 slingshot view. It will show you what happens to your arrival at the moon relative to the desired sling when you do maneuver changes in prograde and date and you can quickly dial in the maneuver to hit the sling.

If you are highly offplane at the Earth, it's probably a lot less fuel to arrive at inclination 160 or 170 and do the 10 or 20 degrees plane change at the moon then to do the plane change beforehand at the Earth. You might even be able to mix some of the lunar plane change with the orbit insert burn.

I just ran the stock scenario "Delta-glider/DG Mk 4 in orbit" and it's in low Earth orbit something like 51 degrees offplane from the moon. The transfer is easy to set up using the sling method and arrives at 169 degree inclination so only 11 degrees plane change while going 1600 m/s is far less work than changing 51 degrees while going 7500 m/s.

If you like, post a random low Earth orbit and I'll see if I can do a screen capture video tutorial of how to do it.
 

tblaxland

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Tblaxland described needing to get in plane with it and that's the most precise way to do a single transfer to arrive going around the moon's equator. But it can require a lot of fuel if you do the plane changes in low Earth orbit. Your question does actually ask about starting from a random Earth orbit.
In my defence, he does imply that he is launching from the surface and aligning to the ecliptic. If you can get aligned to the ecliptic, why not get aligned to the Moon's plane? ;)

I just ran the stock scenario "Delta-glider/DG Mk 4 in orbit" and it's in low Earth orbit something like 51 degrees offplane from the moon. The transfer is easy to set up using the sling method and arrives at 169 degree inclination so only 11 degrees plane change while going 1600 m/s is far less work than changing 51 degrees while going 7500 m/s.
Also, if you do your LOI close to an equatorial node and leave your apolune high (say 10,000km), your plane change delta-v will be much lower (you will only be going about 350m/s at apolune).

Out of interest, one trick for getting into a prograde equatorial orbit is to sling around the moon on your first pass and then intercept the moon again. This should get you very close to an equatorial orbit with very little propellant expediture. The sling needs to be planned so that the period of the resultant orbit has a period that matches the moon, so you meet the moon back at the same spot a 4 weeks later.
 

flytandem

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Out of interest, one trick for getting into a prograde equatorial orbit is to sling around the moon on your first pass and then intercept the moon again. This should get you very close to an equatorial orbit with very little propellant expediture. The sling needs to be planned so that the period of the resultant orbit has a period that matches the moon, so you meet the moon back at the same spot a 4 weeks later.

Interesting you say this. I hadn't had much interest before this post in trying to be lunar equatorial. I had usually either tried to arrive passing over Brighton, doing a free return or to aim to make my Pe at a node with the wheel's orbit and do a high Ap plane change, dropping the Ap at the next Pe which inspired the lunar rescue in this challenges folder.

But in looking at the equatorial objective, I did see that making the free return round trip first using the moon to return to Earth in plane with the moon then at the Earth's Pe to adjust with a minor prograde or retro burn to make the 2nd orbit with Ap somewhere near the moons height but only a time killer of about 17+ days or a so, there would be the usual 5 days left from the next perigee to climb to meet the moon. I thought of this after powering down the computer and sitting with the wife pretending to be watching TV.

---------- Post added at 09:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:44 AM ----------

report: doing the 3 orbits out to moon with first being a plane change then the third arriving on equator worked well. The first return to Earth was hard to know the exact period to set up so I did a save and a couple of trial runs. It took very little fuel to adjust the period to make the third a hit at the moon. A small MCC was needed to arrive with the Pe on the equator, and the inclination was 177 so I was still 3 degrees off. But about 60 m/s plane change was mixed in with the orbit insert so it was barely felt. I planted a surrogate in orbit at exactly 180 inclination to act as a target for the insert burn.
 

tblaxland

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I thought of this after powering down the computer and sitting with the wife pretending to be watching TV.
:rofl:Been there, done that - one of those you know you're addicted moments...
 

n122vu

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I thought of this after powering down the computer and sitting with the wife pretending to be watching TV.

:rofl:Been there, done that - one of those you know you're addicted moments...

Also guilty. Planned an entire station building mission last week while supposedly watching American Idol ;)

Good stuff guys. Learning a lot here myself. Food for thought during the Idol results show tonight LOL
 
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