Rendezvous MFD
Rendezvous MFD
Rendezvous MFD implements the Hill Equations to find a best solution for the final stages of a Rendezvous. This tool is not intended for long-distance rendezvous procedures, but is intended to bring the spacecraft close to its target from an already close distance much more precisely than "eye balling it."
Procedures
1. After you've already made a rough rendezvous to within 700Km of your target (see Urwumpe's Rendezvous Tutorial) you can bring up the Rendezvous MFD.
2. When you first bring up the Rendezvous MFD, you'll see the base screen which has an interesting looking graph and several numbers. In this section, we'll look at a quick method of using this wonderful tool to finalize Rendezvous and leave the more complex items for later.
3. What we'll do is look at the left set of buttons and click the one that says Tgt. This will bring up a textbox where you have to enter the name of your target.
4. Now look on the left side again and click DSP. This will change the display to a cross-circle screen with a blue line and possibly a blue cross attached to the line. In order to achieve a rendezvous using as little fuel as possible (critical for realistic craft i.e. Shuttle, Soyuz etc.) you need to find a time solution that will give as little Dv as possible.
5. On the right series of buttons is one labeled Set. When you click this one, you'll get a text-box. This is your time to intercept as measured in seconds. I typically use 2200 which is ~ 36 minutes. Generally, the longer the time, the lower the Dv required to slow you down at the Target.
6. 2200 Seconds is only a starting point. Now you can use the Tm+ and Tm- buttons on the right to increase or decrease the time needed to intercept your target respectively. I generally use Tm+ as that usually leads to a lesser Dv though Tm- can have good solutions as well. Once you've gotten to a point where Dv is as small as you want, just orient the craft until the blue cross is lined up with the circle. Then burn until Dv is equal to 0 or close to it. You can use Linear thrusters as Dv approaches 0 for a much finer effect. There is an AUT button on the left that suppossedly orients and burns automatically however I personally have not had much success with this particular feature.
This tutorial is a work in progress and may be modified by other users. Docking is not covered by this tutorial.