Gomendio wrote in Mon Oct 28, 2019 1:28 pm:But certainly, my achilles point is the orbital mechanics and
how to create a valid image in my mind to be able to deeply understand what I'am doing, in terms of phasing and rendez.
Completely Normal.
I have a comparaison in head, as you'r a pilot also.
Remember when we learnt IFR with needles and we had to mentally create a 2 D image just with a HSI and some needles.
It takes time, but after, you create that picture without thinking anymore
Same for the 3 D and movement in space.
Here is a good book
https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/spaceflt.pdfGet use to Basic Orbital parameters that are always mentionned ( and understand well what the angles represent, really helpful)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_elementsSome Orbiter begginer videos, valuable for any space sim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOxpvqrqLAoAlso Thorsten manual depicts really well a lot of interesting things.
I advise you to go through Orbiter also.
A sand box where you can easily play with your orbit parameters, see directly what a prograde burn do, a radial one etc
You can see directly the effect through MFD where you can appreciate what a change of velocity is doing on the orbit shape etc
If you are french speaker, I got some nice links.
Rendez vous is not that hard when you put all the small bricks together and say I want to go there, let's have a plan .
As it takes time to slow down and come to the target by matching its orbit, it is just a lot of planifications