Hello and welcome back to this orbiter
2016 video series I'm Tex and this is
episode 3 of journey to Saturn in the
previous episode we aligned our orbital
plane with a plan and we conducted the
injection burn you can see we still have
the earth here just in view but not for
very long we're gonna coast out to
Jupiter conducts some mid-course
correction burns we will complete the
slingshot and probably get about halfway
to Saturn where we will conduct a little
bit more of a complicated mid-course
burn for our arrival at Saturn and Titan
so we have a lot to cover without
further ado let's go ahead and dive
right into this episode okay we're here
in the cockpit of course and let's go
ahead and just rotate the deep star here
toward Earth so we can enjoy the view of
Earth as we drift away from it now it's
always enjoyable to appreciate you know
our home as we drift away into the
darkness of space and I guess it's gonna
be a while until we get back to see it
so anyways I'm also gonna open up some
external MFDs that I'm just gonna use to
help us with our navigation throughout
the solar system so I'm just going to
position these in such a way that maybe
make sense and resize them a little bit
here okay so on this side I'm gonna open
up trans X and we will set that up on
the slingshot view which is already done
there and let me make it a little bit
bigger so hopefully it's easier for you
guys to see I just don't want to cover
up my RCS buttons over there so I can
see where we're set up as far as RCS
goes so that looks fine we'll leave
trans X on the bottom left side on this
side let's open up imfg down on the
bottom and we're gonna open up the map
program and then on the top external MFT
there I have orbit open just so that we
can monitor the the G contribution on
the bottom there as we escape earth and
of course we're going to use it to
monitor the G contribution as we
approach Jupiter so this is looking good
earth looks good
they're in the distance so yeah I'm just
going to time accelerate now and we can
sort of enjoy the view as Earth drifts
away and then we're gonna have to do
some course corrections probably once we
escape earth and we'll see how things
actually worked out as far as the
accuracy with with our injection burn
you
okay that's always enjoyable watching
the earth drift away but we're just
about out of Earth's SOI and there you
go you can see stage one has updated on
trans X on the left side actually see
the moon just ahead of us there that
looks really cool but yeah you can see
our closest approach is about two point
five just now under two point five
million kilometers off from Jupiter but
we didn't actually have a super close
pass by Jupiter for the sling so that's
honestly not that far off you can see
our top-down view there of our sling
past Jupiter it is a little bit off we
can confirm that also from looking at
the top MFD their relative inclination
at PE ratio which is what I'm going to
concern myself with so we're gonna do a
course correction here in a moment let's
just watch the the closest approach
actually if we watch relative
inclination and PE ratio it is counting
down so the better time to do the course
correction would be when those sort of
reach a low point but at the same time I
don't want to wait too long I want to
make sure that we're as close to on
course as we can be from earlier in the
flight so we'll probably just use a
little linear RCS for this it's so close
it's not going to take very much
adjustment at all on the right side on
imfg map program over there you can see
our position leaving the earth and we're
heading out toward Mars orbit and and
then you can see the massive gap that we
have to close between Mars orbit and
Jupiter so looks like we're about
halfway between Earth's orbit and Mars
now so we'll continue coasting forward a
little bit and just monitoring trans X I
think we're probably going to do that
course correction here in just a moment
things don't look like they're moving a
lot at this point so let's go ahead and
slow time down and we'll turn the HUD
back on I'm gonna go ahead and orient
the ship pro-grade and we'll probably
just keep it that way for our as we
traverse through the solar system
because it's just easier to conduct our
course corrections using linear RCS when
we're pointed in a direction that sort
of makes sense so pro-grade is the way
to go you can actually see on imfg that
our current position is exactly out at
Mars orbits so we're doing this first
course correction basically at Mars
orbit and then we'll probably do a
couple more on our way to Jupiter just
to keep the relative inclination and PE
ratio for the sling down to where they
should be so we are oriented program
linear RCS now and it's going to take a
little bit of outward or inward and up
and down so basically using one and
three on the numpad and eight and two
also on the numpad to adjust the PE
ratio and relative inclination so we
again we want PE ratio on one that's
pretty good where it's at just tweaking
relative inclination now and there's
zero so I don't think we need to worry
ourselves with anything beyond that that
looks fine so we can time accelerate
again so we're back at maximum time
acceleration and I'm not actually
speeding the video up here just because
I felt like you guys might get a little
bit more of appreciation of the
distances involved going to the outer
solar system here so hopefully things
aren't too boring I'm gonna try and
narrate as much as I can and maybe we'll
fill in with some music here and there
but at this point you can see the top
down view on the bottom left MFD there
of trans X you can see Jupiter's in the
center and you can see our our green
curve of our trajectory coming around
Jupiter underneath of our our green
trajectory there is a dashed yellow
and the dashed yellow line is is where
we're supposed to be according to the
plan and because our green trajectory is
laying exactly on top of it we are dead
smack on course that directly correlates
with what we're seeing on the top trans
XM ft when relative inclination is on 0
and p/e ratio is is about 1 or as close
as it can be the top-down view on the
bottom there's going to be spot on so
you can see p/e ratio is actually
dropped a little bit under 1 but it's
still pretty close it is slipping off a
little bit more as time goes by so you
can start to see the green curve
starting to slip off of that - yellow
line just a bit and we're just going to
make small Corrections with our linear
RCS as we traverse out to Jupiter just
to keep things on course but I mean
honestly at this point it's not even
worth tracking what we've spent so far
in our fuel log I think we'll probably
just wait until our final course
correction at Jupiter encounter and then
we'll see how much fuel we actually used
for the mid-course corrections between
Earth and Jupiter so you can see on imfg
we're actually about half way to Jupiter
between or about halfway between Mars
orbit and Jupiter anyways so this is
probably a good time to go ahead and
reference Jupiter on the orbit MFT on
the top right external MFD i've just
done that you can see we're still not
experiencing any gravity from Jupiter
but it won't be long we'll start to see
the G increase from 0 to 0.01 so we're
still at maximum time acceleration here
and it looks like our PE ratio has
slipped off a bit more so let's go back
to normal time here and I'm not even
going to orient the ship here I'm just
going to use some linear RCS and we're
just going to swing PE ratio back to one
relative a clinician on zero as close as
we can get it I'm honestly having to use
the ctrl key that's how little thrust
it's actually taking to to adjust that
and I'm having trouble getting relative
and clinician exactly on zero but again
you can see the top-down view on the
bottom left side
I mean we're spot on course so no issues
there were back at maximum time
acceleration here and we're just gonna
sit back and enjoy the the trip here for
a minute and we'll we might have to do
one more little linear or RCS correction
but we'll come back and talk about
things as we're as we approach Jupiter
strong SOI and we do the final course
correction okay we're on final approach
for Jupiter you can see the G field
contribution is just about at fifty or
zero point five zero so we're just
making a small linear Arceus adjustment
and there we go PE ratios perfectly on
one relative inclination as low as they
can get there so that is our final
course correction for Jupiter let's take
a look at our total Delta V remaining
seventy three thousand one hundred and
eighty nine meters per second so we're
gonna just input that into here
I'm not going to concern myself with how
many days it's been we're just going to
attract the fuel itself so we used a
total of 34 meters per second for our
mid-course Corrections from Earth to
Jupiter so that's not bad at all so
we'll take that
okay so hopping back into orbit er here
let's go back to IMF D on the right side
and we don't really need to keep Jupiter
targeted anymore but we'll just zoom in
here so that we can actually see our
approach to Jupiter and you'll actually
see how the sling works as we approach
Jupiter or I should say as us and
Jupiter approach each other so it's kind
of cool to actually watch it on i'm FD
but yeah you can see we are now within
Jupiter's SOI or at least strong SOI
that is so we're just going to point
pro-grade here relative to Jupiter and
yeah we we just had to do some time
acceleration with the video because it's
just too far it's just too too far too
much too much time too much distance to
get out
to the outer solar system I I can't
imagine a flight to Pluto but I've done
it before and it just it it takes
insanely a long amount of time I think I
was at maximum time acceleration and I
literally had time to run errands do the
dishes practice the piano I mean I it
was it was insane I came back and we
still weren't at Pluto so if we ever do
a video going out to Pluto we're gonna
have to do some serious editing anyways
you can see us approaching Jupiter here
everything looks good we'll just
continue adjusting imfg so we can see
our approach and you can see actually as
we're approaching as Jupiter and us or
approaching each other you'll see how
our trajectory is going to take us by
Jupiter and then the sling is actually
going to adjust the angle of our
trajectory out towards Saturn you can
actually see the curve of that happening
so that's pretty awesome to watch so
let's just get imfg set up here let's
maybe just go ahead and Center on
Jupiter so we can watch our approach
past Jupiter and I don't know let's
maybe just enjoy the views here for a
minute because I think this is sort of a
highlight of our trip is being able to
fly by Jupiter here and just just enjoy
the views so so let's put a little music
up and just enjoy the view and we'll
come back for our escape from Jupiter
and probably the mid-course correction
out to Saturn so we'll see you in a bit
okay we are now halfway between Jupiter
and Saturn the G filled contribution for
Jupiter has reached 0.01 that's honestly
the lowest it's going to reach so this
is a good time to go into our first
course correction on IMF D on the right
side I've went ahead and referenced
Saturn let's just target Titan for a
moment so we can find where it's at and
that is Titans orbit there we'll change
the projection to perhaps equator now we
want to target the equator of Saturn
actually right now we do not want to
target Titan yet
so that is important on the Left MFT
let's open up orbit and let's go to
let's reference Saturn and let's target
Titan okay so that's fine
we don't really need the display we're
just gonna concern ourselves with the
numbers there okay so we have linear RCS
activated for now let's take a look at
our periapsis at Saturn is actually six
thousand i'm sorry six point four
million kilometers obviously we need to
bring that down because we want to take
a advantage of the Oberth effect which
we calculated already so we need to
bring our periapsis down to about three
thousand kilometers above Saturn's
surface that ensures that we're just
above Saturn's atmosphere so there you
can see it's coming down very nice okay
so we brought our periapsis down we need
to bring it closer however we also want
to swing that line of nodes that dashed
line going through the center of Saturn
there we want to swing that around so
that lays directly over our periapsis so
all I'm using at this point is just some
linear RCS I'm using outward and so
number one number three and then plane
change number eight number two on the
keypad and I'm just doing that to ensure
that we get that line of nodes laying
directly over our periapsis and then
make sure peña is right about 3000
kilometers so it's a little high still
it's at 6,000 and there's 5,000 you can
see just one little bump just brings it
down a bunch but also pay attention to
relative inclination up on the top of
IMF D we do
want it to be retrograde we want to make
sure we're coming in Pro grapes so it's
a 26 degrees now 27 so that's fine we
are coming in pro grade so I'm just
making these small adjustments here
getting that line of nodes sitting right
on periapsis and periapsis right at
3,000 or close to it
that's 27 but you know there's three
perfect okay that will work so what will
happen when we encounter Saturn is we
will do a capture burn at our periapsis
which we just set up at three thousand
kilometers and we'll continue burning
until our apoapsis comes down to the
altitude of titans orbits so bear with
me here what we need to do essentially
is calculate it so that when we Coast up
to our Apple abscess after our capture
burned that both us and Titan are there
at the same time so we can then
encounter Titan so this is where we need
to calculate what angle Titan should be
at relative to our apoapsis and that is
going to help us ensure that we
encounter Titan right after our capture
burn at Saturn so we can do that pretty
easily if we open up our spreadsheet
that we calculated for the to burn
solution and we consider what was the
additional time of flight days in our
case it was three point zero three days
and we also look at what is titans
orbital period on the right side of the
spreadsheet we can see it's fifteen
point nine five days so we're gonna take
our additional time of flight days three
point zero three divide that by titans
orbital period fifteen point nine five
days and then we're going to multiply
that by 360 degrees that gives us an
angle of sixty eight point four degrees
relative to our apoapsis now I've opened
up this free protractor here and I'll
put a link in the description below
where you two can download it this is
going to be helpful for us to calculate
where Titans positions should be so the
first thing I'm going to do is move this
protractor into the center of Saturn on
I M FD get it perfectly centered up as
good as you can then what I want to do
is rotate
so the bottom of the protractor lays
directly over that line of nodes and our
periapsis but it's important that we're
zero degrees is on the protractor is at
our periapsis so make sure you rotate it
the correct way now I've done that
because it's easier to line this up on
our periapsis and the line of nodes
because we can see it right now we
cannot see our apoapsis so since we're
going to take the angle from our
periapsis we just need to convert what
we've already calculated the angle was
from our Apple APS's that's pretty easy
to do so we'll just take 180 which is
half of 360 of course so we're gonna
take 180 minus the angle we calculated
was sixty eight point four degrees that
gives us a new angle of a hundred and
eleven point six degrees so the angle
tighten should be relative to our
periapsis is a hundred and eleven point
six degrees so all we have to do is if
you'll see this protractor if I start at
where the where our periapsis is at zero
degrees and I move it counterclockwise
the direction Titan is orbiting Saturn
you'll see that the angle is increasing
now I want that angle to be at 111 point
six
we're just going to get that as close as
we can somewhere in here it might be
helpful to temporarily target Titan so
that you can see clearly where its orbit
is and where Titan is in its orbit
before you actually move your protractor
to one hundred and eleven point six
degrees so if you haven't done that you
can just go ahead and do that very
quickly and then move your mouse back
over until you see the angle of a
hundred and eleven point six degrees on
the protractor or as close as you can
get it and then what you want to do is
just leave the mouse there and speed
time up until Titan moves along its
orbit and is lined up with that angle so
now that Titan is sitting directly over
the angle that we calculated what we
need to do is we need to arrange it so
that our p ET shown on am FD there the
second line down below relative
inclination that is the time to our
periapsis
when Titan is sitting at that angle that
we calculated we need to arrange it so
that our PE T is a multiple of titans
orbital period we can see what titans
orbital period is in seconds from the
orbit FFT when we have Titan targeted
looking at T T for time you can see it's
1 million three hundred and seventy
eight thousand seconds so that's how
long in seconds it takes Titan to orbit
Saturn one time so if we take our PE T
which is thirty five million three
hundred and twenty thousand seconds and
divide that by titans orbital period
which is 1 million three hundred and
seventy eight thousand seconds we want
to make sure that it is a multiple and
in this case it is not a multiple in
fact it's it's almost in the middle but
it's a little bit past so in this case
it would make more sense for us to slow
down so in other words it would make
more sense for us to increase the time
that it's going to take for us to reach
periapsis so that's sort of unfortunate
because that means it's going to take
more fuel than if it was closer to being
a multiple of titans orbital period so
if we take titans orbital period
multiply it by twenty six that gives us
thirty five million eight hundred twenty
eight thousand so in other words we want
our PE T to be thirty five point eight
three so looking at imfg over there it's
35 point three two right now so we would
want to increase our PE T to thirty five
point eight three so we'll make a note
of that write that down 35 point eight
three and we can close the calculator
now how do we do that how do we increase
our PE T well we would slow down if we
slow down then we're increasing the time
it's gonna take for us to reach
periapsis at Saturn where if we sped up
obviously we'd get to Saturday we would
get to Saturn and therefore we we would
get to our periapsis quicker so since it
was slightly over halfway I mean it I
guess this would be the more efficient
way to do it it's kind of kind of sucks
that it was that close to halfway so
that means this course correction is
probably actually going to take
quite a bit of fuel here but it's
important that we're doing this far away
from Saturn so that we minimize that
fuel expenditure so you can actually see
our periapsis has fallen below the
surface of Saturn but we're not
concerned about that just yet we're
going to fix that we're going to bring
it back up to 3000 kilometers above the
surface and this is only the fourth the
first course correction we're doing for
our arrival at Titan and Saturn we're
gonna have to do this basically every
time P the P ET halves we're gonna do it
again and we're gonna have to do it
probably a couple of times until we get
closer to Saturn and things get more
accurate and they don't they don't slip
off as much I guess so to speak so I'm
just pointing retrograde because we know
we're gonna have to slow down and in
order to in order to increase our time
to periapsis by that much it's just
going to be better to use our main
engines so when I burn with the main
engines when I burn retrograde I'm also
going to have to use linear RCS probably
outward or in inward I'm probably going
to have to use inward linear RCS as I'm
burning in order to in order to keep our
periapsis from slipping out too far away
from Saturn so you can actually see I'm
burning with the main engines now I'm
not using the full power of the engines
just put a little bit of power in we
might increasing increase it a bit more
so we're just pointed retrograde here
and we're just going to keep burning
with our main engines here using some
some linear RCS to try and keep our
periapsis down relatively close to
Saturn will fine-tune that once we get P
et set so P et again we're looking for
that to get at 35.8 3 and it is
increasing 35 point 5 5 now so we've got
a little bit more to go so let's just
keep burning here
and then we're gonna take note actually
how much Delta V this is going to take
but I'm guessing this is probably going
to take several hundred meters per
second here which is a way over what I
calculated but I guess again it's a good
thing that deepstar has plenty of Delta
V here okay so we're getting closer now
PT's at thirty five point seven seven
seven eight just about there okay
there's eight one eight two and eight
three so engine cutoff so P et looks
good let's go ahead and adjust our
periapsis and make sure that that line
of nodes also sits right on our
periapsis so just use a little bit of
linear RCS and translate up and down to
adjust the plane also make sure you're
still coming in pro-grade so relative
inclination looks good it's under ninety
degrees anyway so I should say okay so
PE a twenty honestly you know if you get
it around two thousand nine hundred
kilometers that's that's fine the
atmosphere I think technically cuts off
at 2900 so so that's looking good yeah
there we go so we've got PE T perfectly
set up it's a multiple of titans orbit
and we've got periapsis right at three
thousand kilometers and the line of
nodes a sitting right on periapsis so
let's take a note of our fuel seventy
two thousand six hundred and twenty
meters per second remaining so we're
gonna hop over to our spreadsheet and
let's put that in to our fuel log and
see just how bad things came out here so
72 620 there we go
okay and so Wow okay so that ended up
taking 569 meters per second ouch that
one hurt a little bit but I think I
think any further course questions we
need to make are just going to be you
know small amounts of linear RCS so I
guess we got the big one out of the way
while we were still far away from Saturn
so I don't know I don't recall it taking
that much when I've done this maneuver
in the past but I could be I could be
mistake and I think the reason is is
because unfortunately the way the timing
worked out with with titans orbit
orbital period and where we were in any
case we are about half way to saturn
we've got the first major course
correction complete and that is going to
wrap up this episode so in the next
episode we're gonna be obviously
encountering saturn doing the capture
burn and also probably orbital insertion
at titan so hope you guys are as excited
as I am there's some fun times to come
and as always I really appreciate you
guys watching and following the series I
hope you guys are all doing really well
and I wish you all the best until next
time guys take care and we'll see you
then
