Well I guess they finally used orbiter to do a 4 orbit docking

[dre120v]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/...th-space-station-after-fastest-ride-ever?lite

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

As mentioned in the mission updates thread, I am encouraging someone to try out the 4 orbit docking procedure on Orbiter and post the results! :thumbup:

 

[Bloodworth]

You know, I would laugh my ass off if some astronaut, someday, said "let me just check this on orbiter...yep, looks like its possible" I would love to just hear about a real astronaut actually TRYING orbiter and giving their opinion on it.

 

[Kyle]

4 orbits? Pfft, I've done it in less than 1 before.

 

[dre120v]

4 orbits? Pfft, I've done it in less than 1 before.

Same here.
But, seriously they would have taken months of planning and testing on paper before actually being done. I know the whole time they were thinking about fuel.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

4 orbits? Pfft, I've done it in less than 1 before.

With a Soyuz? (note: it's possible - see Gemini 11 and these two early unmanned Soyuz docking tests - but it needs very careful launch operations)

 

[statickid]

Just timing and accuracy, you can dock with iss in a matter of minutes...theoretically, ...and in orbiter where no money and lives are at stake.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Just timing and accuracy, you can dock with iss in a matter of minutes...theoretically, ...and in orbiter where no money and lives are at stake.

It really depends on how much delta-v budget your spacecraft have. That's why you can make 1-several orbit docking with the DG / XR series even if your launch orbit target can be off by some degree - it has high maneuverability. Not quite so for the Soyuz - hence the need for high precision launch procedures by the rocket, and that the Russians need a team of ballistic and orbital dynamics experts to calculate the burn parameters before AND after launch (the first two burns are done with pre-loaded parameters, then after that the ground stations sent up new parameters for the next few burns after the results from the first burns were known).

 

[statickid]

I'm not talking about maneuverability and high delta v, I'm talking about launch window and trajectory precision. Like as if you wanted to shoot the space station down, you could intercept it. If you want to rendezvous just almost as fast ( human rated rocket), you could use time it perfectly to park in orbit a few hundred meters from the station. Of course, such a manoeuvre would be incredibly risky.

 

[Kyle]

With a Soyuz? (note: it's possible - see Gemini 11 and these two early unmanned Soyuz docking tests - but it needs very careful launch operations)

With a Space Shuttle. :thumbup:

 

[Keatah]

"Well I guess they finally used orbiter to do a 4 orbit docking"

Who used Orbiter?