Space hostile yet beautiful new haven
for the countless worlds that populate
its vastness it beckons us to venture
from the safety of our home and to
explore the mysteries of the universe
since humans have walked the earth
we've gazed up at the distant stars
illuminating our night sky we've dreamed
about the mysteries that lie among those
stars before we can explore them we
first must face a test of our own
endurance during a manned flight to the
outer solar system join me as we
discover Saturn in this orbiter 2016
video series
hello welcome to this orbiter 2016 video
series I'm Tex and this is episode one
of journey to Saturn in the previous
episode we did a lot of planning and we
put a bunch of data into some
spreadsheets we plan the entire flight
out to Saturn and back to Earth and in
this episode we're actually going to
finally get off the ground using the
dragon atop a falcon 9 rocket before we
actually begin I will just very briefly
show you the spreadsheet that we worked
on in the previous episode in case you
missed that but this is what we created
this is the entire flight again from
Earth to Saturn with a slingshot past
Jupiter will arrive at Titan and we're
actually going to do a to burn solution
when we get to Titan there we go there's
the data for that so yeah we spent a
long time working on this so I'm not
going to talk about it much more if you
missed it go back and watch episode zero
but I just wanted to briefly touch on
that and give you a chance to see what
we did in case you missed it so without
further ado let's go ahead and get
started with the flight okay here we are
in the Falcon 9 let's go ahead and get
things pulled up and get ready to go so
we're going to just do some housekeeping
here and get some MFDs open that we
would usually use but yeah this is
actually probably I think my first video
that I've made with a with a vertical
launcher here like this this add-on is
by Brian J and I believe the mesh is by
Adana me so it's a really great add-on
you know normally I'm not a huge fan of
flying Rockets because you know it's
just not realistically realistic to
manually fly them into orbit they do
come with auto pilots as this one does
you just saw that I open that up right
there just putting in the inclination
I'm anticipating it's actually going to
be twenty nine point six four so we're
gonna put that in and hit enter perigee
and Apogee is already set to match
deepstar they're almost four hundred
kilometers in altitude and the deep
stars orbiting the Earth but yeah like I
said you know
you you pretty much used an autopilot
all the time of these things and I don't
know for me I really enjoy the the
hands-on approach with like the xr2 or
even just the default Delta glider
because you know you fly the mission
from the ground take off go to your
destination come back and actually land
on a runway so you know just personal
preference but I thought you know we'll
do something a little bit different this
time so we're approaching the launch
window here we're gonna actually
activate the launch autopilot by
pressing V on the keyboard when time to
intersection reaches about 410 seconds
there it is Niner eight seven and we're
gonna be watching here in just a moment
you can hear the autopilot why
counting down there and there we go
we're off the ground we'll change our
view to behind us I think that'll look a
little better as we're ascending up to
orbit
so of course you can see we're using the
launch MFD over there on the right side
that's going to be useful for for our
launch up into orbit we want to try and
get the orbital plane as close to
aligned as we can because fuel is
certainly more limited with the dragon
than say the xr2 I did add as a note if
you look at the top part of the screen
in just a moment I'm actually going to
change the inclination here to 29.63
because it says desired inclination is
currently 29.63 on the launch MFD up
there the third line down from the top
but anyway what I was going to say is I
set the four dragon actually you can't
really see it but it does say payload
dragon up at the top and kilograms but
what I had to do is I actually had to
set the ballast inside of Dragon to add
weight to it to sort of simulate the
weight of our crew because this is the
cargo dragon add-on and I don't actually
have any cargo attached to it so we're
just simulating the dragon carrying our
crew up to orbit here and once we
actually get up to deep star we will
adjust that ballast number simulating
the crew transfer over to deep star and
we're actually gonna leave dragon in
orbit while we're gone I don't know you
know if that's super realistic or
anything but I figured that way when we
get back to earth we can use dragon once
again to return our crew back to to the
surface
so as we watch the autopilot pretty much
taking care of the launch for us here
you know there's just not really a lot
to talk about at this point because this
is just you know pretty much hands-off I
I am monitoring the desired inclination
throughout the launch and especially
toward the end of orbital insertion just
before me go I'm gonna make some
adjustments to the the inclination on
the autopilot by pressing K to open the
launch control panel and you can do the
same I'm gonna be providing the
scenarios for for the whole series here
and if you try and follow along exactly
you should be able to recreate the
launch exactly as I've done it here so
one thing that I did while I was talking
is I set the target periapsis and
apoapsis on launch MFT to 400 kilometers
although I don't think it was really
necessary because we're not using the
launch MFD autopilot but you know just
to since deepstar is that 400 kilometers
just figured I'd go ahead and set that
correctly so yeah we're what about 130
kilometers in altitude already ground
speeds in 1620 meters per second so we
are on our way to orbits you saw a first
stage separation and so now we'll be
riding this remaining stage to two orbit
it's like the nosecone just got ejected
off there so yeah like I said at this
point there's not really a lot to talk
about unfortunately I'm not manually
flying this this is sent to orbit so I
think maybe what I'll do is go ahead and
leave you with some cinematics maybe
some music or something and we'll enjoy
the view as we complete the ride up into
orbit so we'll see you in just a bit
three two one zero
all right hope you enjoyed that launch
sequence there but yeah now we're inside
of dragon and it's time to get over to
deep start we're going to use a little
bit of a different method than my
traditional method of course it's going
to involve interplanetary and we're
going to use the target intercept
program so I've targeted deep star and
first thing I'm going to do is adjust
the time of each action here and just
increase that from the basically current
time now mmm
I'm just gonna go with something like
that for right now and then I want to
adjust the time of encounter so we know
that we were just crossing into the
night side of the planet so we're we
just passed orbital sunset I guess so I
want to rendezvous around orbital
sunrise so that's basically on the other
side of the planet so you can see I'm
swinging the time of encounter line down
so it's on the other side of the planet
and just roughly I mean that's fine for
now what I want to do is go back to time
of ejection and I want to find the
lowest DV number I can get looking at in
route the DV number is coming down I
guess that's about thirty five point
seven seven meters per second at the
moment so we want to try and adjust both
the time of encounter and time of the
ejection to get the the DV as low as we
can get it basically okay so that's
looking pretty close thirty three point
six four meters per second is like it's
about the lowest that I could get it
there so let's go ahead and go with that
I guess I opened a line plane over there
you can see we're not perfectly aligned
but the target intercept program should
take care of everything for us so that
we don't need to actually align our
orbital plane the traditional method
there like I said usually I would use
that and then you sync orbit MFT and
that may be more fuel-efficient because
I think this is going to get us there in
one orbit from the time of the burn
basically so yeah so I've opened up burn
vector and hit Auto burn we're at ten
times acceleration and I am fde we'll
just take care of the burn for us so it
looks like what a total of thirty three
point four five meters per second of
Delta V and because the dragon engines
are not super powerful that means we're
looking at two hundred and just over two
hundred and forty seconds of burn time
so we'll let the autopilot here run and
we'll see where things stand
once the burn is completed so that's
being conducted now at ten times
acceleration of course so let's see how
this works out I'm not as familiar with
doing a vessel rendezvous using target
intercept program but I think it should
work out okay
okay the burns about done we're at
normal time speed again and there we go
the burn is completed so interesting
we're still not perfectly aligned
actually relative inclination is at 0.03
however technically we should have a
rendezvous we should have an intercept
point over there so let's go ahead and
set up our calm now frequencies at any
rate we're gonna put two nav one on the
transponder frequency there it is and
then we're gonna choose number five
docking port so it's one thirty four
point five zero four nav two there we go
okay so that is set and I guess we can
open up the docking MFD here we can
monitor our distance to deepstar there
and we can also watch the time to
encounter counting down over on imfg
so that's about almost three thousand
seconds now and now we are under three
thousand seconds now we're basically on
the other side of the planet from where
we're supposed to rendezvous and I
noticed that the DV has gone up it's not
on zero anymore so I wonder if I Coast
over to the note here if I set up
another solution just to try and get
that DV back down to zero because I
think if if we don't keep that DV close
to zero then we're not going to have a
close pass by deep star so I've just put
some time into the time of ejection to
give us time to mess around with a time
of encounter here so I'm increasing the
time of encounter and that was
decreasing Delta velocity so that looked
like that was about as low as it's going
to go and we have fourteen seconds of
the burn so let's very quickly hit Auto
burn here maybe that's not so efficient
but yeah if we four seconds in three
seconds supposed to be burning and we're
yeah we're not burning in time but I
think it
okay so we're I guess we're looking at
what 12 meters per second here okay so
and we just are right on the note I
don't know if that made a difference or
not actually but anyway well if we take
a look at orbit MFD what's happening
here so the burns being conducted and it
looks like we're raising our periapsis
back up we initially lowered it so that
we could catch up to deep star because
deep star was just in front of us so
burn time I mean I'm sorry I am FD I
guess that the first burn we did lowered
our periapsis quite a bit so that we
could catch up to deep star because it
was just barely in front of us and it
looks like this course correction raised
it back up just a little bit and now I
noticed that we're speeding time back up
and cruising over to the interception
point and DV is going back up again so
we are let's go ahead and it Auto burn
because it's what six meters per second
so let's let IMF D bring that back down
to zero here and we're about 44
kilometers away from deep star right now
okay so there we go
so now we're should be back on course
for an intercept here and it did look
like it raised our periapsis back up a
little bit on orbit MFT okay so let's
time accelerate once again we're under
40 kilometers from deep star and I'm
just watching DV it's climbing again so
I don't know if I'm doing something
wrong here actually like I said I'm not
as familiar with using IMF te to do this
but I just thought it'd be fun to do
something different than the usual way I
rendezvous with some you know with a
vessel in orbit so yeah what our DV is
already over five again so maybe we
should do one more course correction
here
so I've hit Auto burn and it's burning
will speed time up okay so I think this
is probably gonna be the last course
correction we do because we're just a
mere 20 kilometers away from deepstar at
this point so I like said I don't know
if that was the most efficient way to do
that all I know is that if I didn't do
any course corrections there and I'll
let the DV continue to climb I think
that would impact how close we actually
pass the deepstar and it may not have
ended up being a very close pass at all
it could have been could have been off
by you know hundred kilometers I mean I
don't I don't even know but all I know
is right now we're about 14 kilometers
from deepstar and I guess we'll go ahead
and do one more correction here just
trying to get that DV back down to zero
here
well certainly we're getting to deep
start pretty quickly so that's that's
one benefit and it looks like we're
doing okay on fuel so it's not the end
of the world here yeah so what we're
just about 300 seconds from encounter
with deep star according to IMD I am FD
anyways however docking MFD says about
eleven point eight kilometers away so
I've opened up the velocity match
program and i targeted deep star and
let's see it's saying burn time is three
hundred and eight seconds but it's
falling so i'm not actually sure how to
calculate when to use the velocity match
program here when hit auto burn i do
know that we need to probably get a
little bit closer because we're still
ten kilometers out from deep star at the
moment
so the Delta velocity there is off a
little bit but I think we're so close
now just riding a little bit of linear
RCS and yeah I think we're too close now
to really worry about that so whatever
pass we get here is what we're going
what we're gonna have to take at this
point because we're under 10 kilometers
to deepstar we should probably really
think about starting to break here and
that's what I'm trying to figure out how
to calculate so I know I'll use I can
use burn time of course but I'm just
looking at the closure velocity on the
docking MFD versus the Delta velocity on
the velocity match program over there so
let's put in 39 meters per second in
burn time so that's a yeah okay so I
guess we're okay we don't need to brake
just yet but we're getting them probably
pretty close here
let's check burn time again here let's
put it in DV 37 so that's four point
eight kilometers and distance we would
need to break that velocity so so we're
getting pretty close we're just now
under six kilometers so I think that's
probably what I'm going to go for is
about four point seven kilometers in
distance so let's uh let's keep an eye
on that distance because we're getting
pretty close to it and then we'll hit
Auto burn and we'll see what we get like
said I'm not actually 100% sure I'm not
I'm not as familiar with velocity match
program here either but let's see what
happens we won't know to what try right
so here we go we're burning all right so
we'll let the velocity match program do
its thing and if all goes well we'll be
reasonably close to deep start here I
guess we already are we're within four
kilometers and falling as I speed time
up here
okay so closure velocity came down and
now it says that we're not actually
closing on deepstar anymore
however the velocity match program
should work properly here before
matching the velocity and so the burn is
just about done and there we go so
technically our velocity has been
matched with deepstar and it looks like
it has our closure velocity on the
docking MFT looks good so we're just
under just a hair under three kilometers
away so not too shabby I generally like
to get a little closer than that but I
suppose that's pretty realistic and wow
there's deep stars so I guess as big as
deep star is three kilometers away isn't
too bad after all so I'll take it
like I said yeah I don't know if that
was the most fuel-efficient way to get
here I bet I could have done that better
fuel efficiency wise if I had done my
traditional method but this got us here
faster and this was a new way to get
here so yeah I mean if you have any
comments below about something I did
wrong with the target intercept program
or velocity match please do let me know
I'm learning new things everyday with
you guys so you know it's great to hear
from you but um yeah we're here so let's
go ahead and get docked up I'm gonna
open up the remote vessel control I'm
going to select deep star and put it in
pro grade there and it's going to it's
going to get itself pointed pro grade
and I'll open it back up in a minute
and I'm gonna use the remote vessel
control just to kill rotation on deep
star and that'll that'll make it a
little bit easier for us to dock so we
don't have to worry about the rotational
alignment quite so much if we just use
the forget ourselves lined up
rotationally and then hit kill rotation
on our vessel and use the remote vessel
control to hit kill rotation on deep
star as well it should make things a lot
easier and then we're pretty much just
focusing on translating right up into
the docking port so alright yeah we're
uh we're still a little ways away we
need to
start closing on deep start a little bit
quicker or it's going to take forever to
get over there translation
okay so I started moving over in that
direction we'll just try and speed time
up here a little bit video is already
getting a little long so we'll we'll do
our best to keep it close to thirty
minutes here and probably what we're
gonna do is we'll get over to deep star
and get roughly lined up and speed the
video up a little bit with maybe a
little bit of music and that way you
guys can enjoy watching me doc since
you've seen me do it a million times
maybe enjoy a little bit of a cinematic
view of it anyways so okay so we are
heading over that way just adjusting the
velocity vector trying to keep it up
there in the docking corridor speeding
time up quite a bit now let's open up
the remote vessel control again because
I went over 10x so that would have
disabled the autopilot on deepstar so I
hit pro-grade again and so we'll just
rotate down and wow we got pretty close
to deep star there we need to adjust our
velocity vector or we're gonna run right
into deep star that would be a mission
killer for sure so let's just translate
up and bring our velocity vector up into
that docking corridor it's going to
guide us right down into the docking
ports old time accelerate here oh boy
we're going to be coming in pretty close
here I don't know if that's very kosher
I don't know if OSHA or NASA or whoever
handles the safety side of things would
approve of this approach let's get an
outside view and see what's going on oh
good lord
we are like right up the butt of deep
start here that's not good
yeah okay well if there's anyone on
there guys we would sure appreciate it
if you do not ignite that giant engine
right in front of us here oh my goodness
well it certainly gives us a sense of
scale if anything else holy cow that was
a that was kind of cool actually but not
perhaps very realistic so just trying to
get over there as quickly as possible
because once again we're sort of taking
a lot of time here on the video but I
guess we should enjoy it
because after this we're gonna be
heading out away from the earth in the
next episode so to speed time up and try
and get ourselves to line up a little
bit here before we hop into a cinematic
sequence
all right so yeah I'm rotating over and
I did drag the remote vessel control off
to my other monitor so it wasn't
blocking the view or anything but once I
get ourself set up rotationally here I'm
actually just gonna hit kill rotation on
deepstar so it's no longer holding it
pro-grade but it just kills rotation and
it'll do the same thing with us so just
about there
let's get that white X in the center of
the target as usual and make sure that
white triangle at the top is pointed up
I'm also translating over just a bit we
need to move over to the right and move
down toward deepstar so okay so just do
this final adjustments rotationally here
rotate up there we go okay so I'm
hitting kill rotation on the remote
vessel control for deepstar and then
let's rotate to the left a little bit
kill rotation and then looks pretty
lined up okay
so that takes care of the rotational
alignment like I said from time to time
I'll kill rotation on our vessel and
then hit kill rotation on the remote
vessel control so if you're have any
trouble docking I would suggest trying
using that remote vessel control it's
it's really really handy in any case
we're gonna translate down to the
docking port here go ahead and get
docked up before we in the episode so
let's hop into a quick cinematic
sequence and we'll come back whenever
we're docked up and talk about things
before we take off so we'll see you guys
in just a bit
okay we're about to make contact here
distances point four zero there's two
one one five one four one zero zero
point zero nine zero point zero six five
four three and we have contact all right
it looks good okay now that we're docked
with deepstar before we take off let me
see
we got a press believe it's in yeah we
got to press in to get down inside of
dragon here and let's see what I'll want
to press okay we want to open the hatch
so we're gonna press G to open the hatch
there we go and we're gonna transfer our
virtual crew if you will over to deep
start here so what I'm gonna do is press
W to adjust the ballast I had set it to
six thousand kilometres and now I've
lowered it to three thousand so our crew
has been transferred over to deep star
so I guess we can hop over into deep
star let's close that and there's deep
star hit apply and close okay so that
puts us in deep star for the next
episode and that's going to wrap up this
one guys
I hope you guys enjoyed the episode we I
guess it was quite a bit of things to
cover but at least we got up here two
deep stars so the journey begins in
Episode two so as always man I really
appreciate you guys watching and be sure
to leave me a like in comments below
always love to hear from you and I'm
really excited to bring the following
episodes to you I'm working hard on them
and I think we have some exciting times
ahead so as always guys really hope
you're doing good
show the best and until the next episode
take care and we'll see you then
