Ok, first off, I just *had* to load my little special config to get the specs I wanted.
That killed a few seconds. I ran with just one person, the payload, realistic fuel, and my precious markV engine. (more
power = more fun!) I'm also writing this as it happens, so read it like it's happening.
Date of start: Same as you guys
Same scenario too. (duh
)
15:50:30
Engaged full thrust *AND* turbo pump at same time
Rotated at just under 200 M/S
going straght up. ( >85 degree ascent)
Autopilot isn't used due to limitations of freedom of choice of target altitude.
15:53:17
lowering nose from high angle to 40 degrees
Current altitute is 57.71 kilometers.
15:54:30
leveled the horizon. Rising a tad faster than expected
15:56:09
Reached desired altitude of about 164 Kilometers. Only at speed of 2600 M/S
Raising nose to prevent fall, but no more altitude gain is planned.
planned tragectory is somewhat.. off. better than expected though.
tilted nose slightly to the left to lower Rinc before course correction becomes costly
15:57:15
tilted nose back to the right to original position.
nose at about 23 degrees above the horizon. but lowering gradually as speed increases.
speed at 3684 M/S
16:00:42
Reached orbit! (ecc .0002)
altitute is 165.7 Kilometers
Speed is 7504 M/S.
Fuel: Main 2420 KG, RCS 596.6 KG
ISS Rinc is at an amazing 2.4 degrees. (I got lucky)
Plane adjustment still planned. (I always do it for good measure)
Beginning to fine tune orbit...
by 16:04:30 I had...
Ecc lowered to 0.
Distance to ISS is learned to be 4460 KM away.
Dyn Pressure is at 0.0006 Pa. No threat of a firey death, eh?
(At least as long as I keep an eye on it, but no worries)
70% of the RCS fuel was put into the main fuel tank, to roughly make equal percentage in both tanks.
16:14:43
It's time to adjust orbital plane now. (Edit: adjusted orbit to 0.02 degrees after burn)
Distance to ISS is now at 4187 KM. (getting there)
No orbital decay is noticed. Surprised me just a tad.
Time to arrival is estimated at 2.72 hours based on time taken to get the disance covered so far. I know this to be a
relatively bad number to judge by, but it's nice to know.
16:41:10
Well, I screwed up my last plane change and I wound up with a less than perfect orbit. I've corrected this entirely, but I'm just a tad higher at 165.8 KM now. I'm far too lazy to correct this because it's so small a change.
Now it's time for the next plane change. This time I'll get a Rinc with the ISS to 0 for sure! (edit: I sure did)
distance to ISS is at 3804 KM.
Now preparing the instruments for the burn to the ISS's altitude in a few hours.
19:33:14
Distance to ISS is now 540 KM.
Current altitude is the same. still NO orbital degrading. Big surprise from me.
Transfer MFD says my burn to get to ISS's altitude at the time it gets there is coming up soon. Preparing complete.
19:37:45
Burn complete! If my calculations are correct, then all I need to do now is do another burn when I get to ISS altitude
to keep me at that height and the ISS should even be in visual range (if I'm lucky, but it seems to be on my side
today, so..)
20:17:20
35 KM away from ISS. A tad further tan planned. I would have gotten closer if I wanted to, but that would require
killing more time, And I wanna beat you guys.
Adjusting relative velocity to catch up with the ISS
20:20:24
Funny Time, not intentional. If it was, I'd go for 20:20:20.
19 KM away from the ISS. It's now a visible pixel or so on my monitor. But visible nontheless. Approaching the ISS at a
relative speed of 110 M/S. pumping up the speed to 300. (yeah, I'm reckless)
20:21:20 slowed back down to 90 M/S and continuing to slow. only 1.5 KM away and closing fast! *DAMN* my
recklessness!
20:22:25
going at 34 M/S and only 495 Meters left. Looks like I'm beating Mcbrain. hehehe. Opening the nosecone...
20:22:47
used the retro thrusters to stop that puppy and used the translation trusters to cancel out that accursed upward
force the retro thrusters create... going at about 4 M/S and 153 Meters away.. using RCS thrusters to align with a
docking port and close in.
20:25:28.
Docked! I had bad luck aligning myself, but I'm satisfied with my performance.
I beat mcbrain by a bit over an hour. *does a victory dance*
Total time of 4 hours, 34 minutes, and 58 seconds.
fuel remaining. Main 23.5%, RCS 28.7%.
To close, I will say that this run was not my best, and I could have easily gotten a better time if I wasn't weighted
down by the payload. The two important things in this scenario are getting into orbit as fast as you can, and STAY
LOW to catch up. I stayed low for as long as I could. I could have also went even lower if I had dared to. 160 KM is
lower than my normal flights, but I have tried chasing down the ISS at far lower in the past. One time I was so low
that I needed to adjust my orbit with the rcs thrusters every 25 second or so to keep me from going further down
and causing more friction. in mcbrain's case he was bogged down by all the fuel he had. so he couldn't get into orbit
as quickly as he possibly could. I burned all mine up during my ascent. so anyway.. Any challengers to my title?
(If you beat my time, I'm allowed another go at it.)
Post Edited ( 05-23-04 23:26 )