Deorbiting:
Should you ever want to come back to Earth, you need to deorbit. This means to drop the
periapsis point to an altitude where the orbit intersects the dense part of the atmosphere, so
that your vessel is slowed down by atmospheric friction.
· Deorbit burns are performed retrograde. Click the “Retrograde” button, wait until the vessel
attitude has stabilised, and engage main engines.
· Keep burning until the periapsis point is well below Earth’s surface, then cut the engines.
Strictly speaking, the deorbit burn must be timed precisely, because too shallow a reentry
angle will cause you to skid off the atmosphere, while too steep an angle will turn you into
a shooting star. For now we are not concerned with such fine detail...
· Turn prograde again and wait for your altitude to drop. As you enter the lower part of the
atmosphere, friction will cause your velocity to decrease rapidly. Reentries are usually
performed with a high angle of attack (AOA) – about 40° for the Space Shuttle.
· Once your aerodynamic control surfaces become responsive again you can turn off the
RCS system. Your glider has now turned back into an aircraft.
· You have probably ended up a long way from your launch point at the KSC. Re-entering
towards a specified landing point requires some practice in timing the deorbit burn and
the reentry flight path. We’ll leave this for a later mission. For now, simply look for a dry
patch to land your glider.
· This completes your first orbital excursion!
You are now ready to try more advanced missions. Try the “Launch to docking with the ISS”
flight described in section 19. First you might want to learn a bit more about orbital maneuvers
and docking procedures in section 16.
編集者：
Design of Spacefrontier(2009-12-01 08:11:21)