Flight Question When to adjust alignment?

StevoPistolero

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I am going to Saturn, and just spent 10% of my fuel aligning with Saturn. When should I adjust my orbital alignment? Do I want to be beyond Earth's gravity first?
 

Shadow Addict

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Yeah, I believe you want to do it at the Sun's node.

EDIT: Are you using IMFD? There's an autoburn feature that will do the plane change burn for you.
 

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Ah. I suppose you should just do a standard plane change at the node, then (or just do an off-plane transfer to start with).
 

Mafuskas

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Remember that its cheaper to change the plane of your orbit when you are going slower, so if you are going all the way out to Saturn, see if your plane change can be made to be as far out as possible before you get to within Saturn's influence. But you will probably only have one spot on your trip where its correct to line it all up, so it may not be the optimal location either. Thats where good launch window planning comes in. You probably want to eject and expand your orbit from Earth at close to the end of one node (the grey line in transX) so that your apopsis (and Saturn) is near the other end and at the other node. (assuming a hohmann transfer orbit). But don't make it spot on because then you will be too close to Saturn and it will be too late to align planes when you get to the node so close to Saturn.

That or just forgo the aligning by making an offplane transfer. You can do that by launching precisely on one end of the grey line. (where it intersects earths orbit) and meeting Saturn that the other end.


I hope that what I wrote made sense, I'm typing this quickly while I'm tired. :embarrassed:
 
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