Astronauts arrive at International Space Station just 8 hours after launching

Posted by gmays 9 hours ago

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Comment by mmh0000 47 minutes ago

I highly recommend that everyone play the video game "Kerbal Space Program"[1].

It'll give you such an intuitive "feel" for how orbits work and how to solve the problem of "docking" in orbit.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/220200/Kerbal_Space_Progr...

Comment by lukeweston1234 8 hours ago

Interestingly, I found that the record for the Soyuz capsule is around 3 hours, as they prefer much more direct paths.

https://www.space.com/soyuz-makes-fastest-space-station-crew...

Doing a bit of napkin math, it looks like this Soyuz mission made only 2 full orbits; this mission making ~5.

Comment by potamic 4 hours ago

I never knew it took this long. Are they accelerating throughout this time? Would love to see some visualization of this journey.

Comment by schiffern 2 hours ago

Besides a couple thruster firings it's almost all coasting with the engines off after those first ~9 minutes of launch, and the coasting is why you feel weightless!

Mostly that time is spent hanging out in a lower/faster orbit, "catching up," which is needed because the station rarely passes exactly over the launch site at exactly the right time. This extra wiggle room gives them enough launch windows per day.

Scott Manley has a great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUi0yWc5Dnw

Comment by sammyo 4 hours ago

More just being very careful, no brakes on a rocket if coming in too fast and just a little bump is a big problem.

Comment by __s 8 hours ago

Surprised article skipped distance. ISS is 400km away, so 50km/h to reach? Obviously being a bit facetious, but gives some idea of what they're working with

Comment by majiy 8 hours ago

Obligatory XKCD, explaining what the basic problem of getting into orbit is: https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/