Tutorial: Orbital Docking with the Kergena Target Vehicle

Docking is a relatively hard task to do and may get you really frustrated, so until you got the basics of flying and orbiting I suggest you put a halt on docking for a while.(pictures to be added soon)

Step 1: Getting in to Orbit

What you want to achieve here is getting the firs ship in a circular orbit (this is not necessary but will make your life a lot easier). To circularize your orbit you want to use your burn at periapsis and apoapsis. now launch your second ship and get it into orbit. Try to launch a bit sooner then the time that the target passes over KSC.

Step 2: Orbital adjustments

Now set the other craft as target (by right clicking on it from map mode then set as target). It is very important that the ascending and descending nodes are 0.0 , if not you will need add maneuvers to fix this. To get your ships closer together, use a bigger orbit if you are ahead of the target, and a smaller orbit if you are behind. In either case the ship on the smaller orbit goes faster, and will catch up to the ship in the bigger orbit. Also, keep the orbit of the second ship elliptical, with an intersect along the first ships orbit. I may take several orbits to catch up if the second launch was not very close.

Step 3: Orbital rendezvous

Once your orbit is adjusted you will need to add a maneuver that will match you with the other ships orbit as shown. If you have done a good job on the launch you should have an intercept of 4km or less on the maneuver. Now you will need to retro burn until your relative speed to target reaches almost zero. So now aim your craft at the purple dot that resembles the target and fire your engines!! Make sure you're not going too fast:

• A relative speed of 20m/sec is a good speed for 2km or more.
• When you reach 1km decrease it to 10m/sec.
• As you are at 600m you should decrease your relative speed to 5km/sec.

When getting close to the target you want to stop using the engines because you may blow up the target ship ^_^, and use RCS for the remaining movements .

Step 4: Maneuvering next to the target

To maneuver while close to the target, you want to use the option docking mode at the lower left corner of the screen. Now enable RCS. Remember that wile in docking you can not turn the ship but you can only rotate it so before you move in to dock stop at 50m away of the target make sure your relative speed is 0.00m/sec, and switch to the first ship and make sure its docking port is facing back at the second craft.

Step 5: Docking

Now quick save so you don't screw it up ;)

Move toward the target port slowly making sure booth ships have SAS on, and.... tada they are connected! If not it's because both ships have SAS on and one has drifted off angle. Don't panic just turn SAS off and it will connect by its-self due to the magnetic attraction of the docking ports. After a short pause, the view will change indicating both ships are now as one.

Step 6

Now jump off your chair say f<3 yea and pat yourself on the back, "congratulations" you just made your first docking.

This tutorial needs quite a bit of improvement fell free to edit.