1. From a new Orbiter session, select Delta-glider and Docked at ISS as your scenario.
Launch Orbiter.
2. You are initially in Virtual Cockpit mode (nice for visuals, but not how we
normally control things).
3. Press F8, and you will see two large MFD screens. This is a "generic glass
cockpit" mode, and ideal for what we want to do for this flight.
4. On the left MFD, hit SEL and bring up Sync Orbit.
5. Hit TGT, and look at the target choices. You will see ISS and Mir under
spacecraft, and Moon under celestial bodies. Select Moon for now.
6. Press Ctrl-D, and you will undock and push back from the ISS.
7. Press H, and you will see the heads up display (HUD) switch from docking mode
to orbit mode. Note your orbital velocity on the top of your screen is 7.698 km/s.
(This is how fast you need to be going horizontally to sustain an orbit at this
altitude.)
8. Press "T" to go to 10x speed. (Use "T" and "R" to change time acceleration).
9. Press PRO GRD to select the Prograde Autopilot, and watch the ship align to the
velocity vector (the circle with the plus in it), with Earth off the left side and we
are pointing at right angles to the Earth.
10. Press Ctrl-Keypad+ to engage and lock the main engines.
11. Watch your Orbit MFD: the shape of your orbit will become oval, and watch
the Ecc readout, which is your Eccentricity. (If Ecc is close to 0.000, you are
in a circular orbit. As Ecc rises between 0.000 and 1.000, you are in an
increasingly oval orbit. Once you break through Ecc = 1.000, you have
overcome Earth's gravity, and you are in a hyperbolic orbit, headed for
deep space.)
12. As Ecc gets close to 1.000, try pressing R a few times to go to lower
time-warps, and eventually to 0.1x time, right at the Ecc=1.000 point. As
you get to Ecc = 1.000 (or just past - it doesn't matter), press Ctrl-P to
pause.
13. Let's look around at this point. You have just broken out of orbit. Your speed is
close to 9.154 km/s. And the Orbit MFD display just changed to show a different
view now, for the hyperbolic orbit.
14. Press Ctrl-P again to unfreeze, and continue on full throttle, watching the Ecc.
15. As you get close to Ecc = 1.200, reduce time-warp again, and see if you can
freeze the moment you go through Ecc = 1.200. (Nothing special about this
point, but I'm encouraging you to have good control of your time acceleration.)
You'll see a speed of around 9.584 km/s. Press Keypad-* to cut engines.
16. Press PRO GRD again to disengage the autopilot, and time-warp up to 1000x.
17. Now watch the gravity influence meter on your Orbit MFD (the G 1.00 will
start to become G 0.99 and so on downwards). This indicates that the
gravitational influence of the Earth is starting to lessen with respect to the
forces on your spacecraft, and the influence of something else (the Sun in
this case) is starting to become noticeable.
18. As you get to G 0.50, I want you to come down to 10x to watch carefully
what happens. There will be a few seconds where G 0.50 is green, and then
it switches to a red G 0.50. This is the instant when the dominant
gravitational influence switched to the Sun. Although at this point the Earth
is still very significant (i.e. nearly half the influence is still the Earth's),
from this point on, the Sun is now in charge.
19. Press "AR" on Orbit MFD, to auto-reference the dominant gravitational body.
You will see the "Orbit: Earth" is now replaced with "Orbit: Sun", and the
graphics change to put the Sun at the center of the Orbit MFD.
20. Now go back to the Sync Orbit MFD, and try TGT again. You will now see
that there are no spacecraft (in this sim run) in orbit around the Sun, and
the celestial bodies are now the planets (and dwarfs!!). Only now can you
select Saturn, as you originally intended.
21. Exit the simulation at this point.
but I don't want to.
