I use MechJeb. The ability to launch directly into a rendezvous so your circularization burn also nulls your relative velocity to the target when you're close to it (sometimes a little too close) has been a part of MechJeb for a while now. Of course, the fact that the game just out-and-out tells you your orbital parameters (updated every physics frame, which with a green MET clock is 60fps) makes the execution of such feats quite easy once you know which buttons to push (and not push). Tell you what, MechJeb almost makes fueling a mothership with 10 fueling flights bearable. Almost. It's still not bearable for me (I'm impatient) and because of that, I build my fuel tankers MASSIVE so that I only need to make a very few refueling flights for anything worth launching. Like many others, I send things to Minmus to get docked together and fueled, as that's effectively Kerbin's gas station. You're basically guaranteed to have an ore hotspot in one of the flats biomes which makes landing easy. Minmus gravity is only a few thousandths off of 0.5m/s^2, which puts it right in a sweet spot where there's enough gravity that you don't have to worry about bouncing off, but not so much gravity that it takes a lot of engine power to get to orbit (not even 200m/s to get into low Minmus orbit of 15km circular, and due to Minmus' low gravity if the craft can accelerate at 1.5 m/s^2 (Kerbin TWR ~0.15) you'll have plenty enough thrust to be getting into orbit of Minmus easily (that's a Minmus TWR of 1.5).
New strategy, if your impact velocity is high enough that parts of the two spacecraft are bonded together by impact welding that counts as a successful docking
That Progress MIR collision was human error. It was a manual docking system test, not an automated one. The incident is worthy of a video. The Cosmonaut remote piloting it didn't have a good visual from progress to MIR they were using the remote feed for guide it) so he just kept thrusting towards the station and built up excessive delta velocity, they'd also disabled the radar because it might have caused problems with the visual monitor on a previous attempt. They attributed it to inadequate training, because he'd never successfully completed a dock during training and had failed during a previous attempt, which speaks to bigger issues. But I can't understate how questionable that cosmonaut's actions were and just how half-assed their entire plan was.
Read the terrific book Dragonfly about Mir including the fire and the Progress collision. Terrifying, engrossing, and revealing of how "seat of the pants" the Russians were in their approach to space.
@@erikdevereux4997 I own a copy of that book, and it is a good read. So much was going on behind the scenes in both countries, when all the astro- & cosmonauts wanted to do was go to space today, and fly safe. 😉
The Soyuz spaceship has been mankind's only gateway to space five times already, and even now that it has competition from newcomers it still shows what i'ts capable of. Thumbs up!
Could the Soyuz reach the ISS if it launched from Florida? The ISS, in terms of orbital inclination, is perfectly positioned for it, and there is a reason for that.
@@rbrtck yeah, the reason is that if the inclination was even 1 degree lower the Soyuz would not be able to reach the ISS at all, and if it was 1 degree higher there would be an unnecessary loss in useful payload across all the vehicles supplying the ISS.
"five times" I'm counting four. 1. The Apollo-Shuttle time gap. 2.& 3. Two brief suspensions in Shuttle flights for study after each of two separate fatal Shuttle accidents. 4. The Shuttle-Crew Dragon Time gap. The Soyuz vehicle was first launched in 1967, in the middle of the Apollo program. The Soviets were, of course, the first to send a man to orbit, but previous launches were with earlier vehicles. The Russian space program has afforded mostly continuous manned access to orbit from Gagarin's orbital flight in "Vostok 1" to the present day and pioneered orbital space stations. That means there was at least one more time that Russian vehicles provided the only manned access to space, but not Soyuz.
@@digitalnomad9985 Apollo did not fly with crew onboard until 1968; Gemini's last launch was 1966. Therefor, there's a small gap in there for Soyuz to take. Technically you can argue that the last gap isn't shuttle-Crew Dragon, but actually Shenzhou 11-Crew Dragon, a shorter gap of 4 years where Shenzhou seems to not be launching due to a lack of in service Chinese space stations to launch to. But yes, that does appear to be 5 gaps. Maybe 4 if you want to get rid of the last one.
[12:38] - In Russian language, the idiom "stretch out legs" means "to die". So it's not a bad that you can't stretch out your legs in a Soyuz spacecraft. Agree?
It's rather awesome on how dependable the Soyuz has become, as well as upgradable. I guess that is an achievement the Russians can hold. This isn't even the first time that Soyuz has beat speed records in going from launch to rendezvous with the ISS, and such has challenged me to emulate it in KSP. I've achieved orbital rendezvous with a target within one orbit. It helps the target did have a simple circular orbit over the equator, unlike the ISS, but still made me feel good.
If you've got a few teraflops under the hood, sure. But it's not enough that computer is fast, it must also be reliable, and modern desktop computer hardware is anything but. They're still flying 8 bit machines because that's basically the only thing that proved itself to be capable of controlling real physical hardware.
@@michaelbuckers SpaceX shows another approach is possible: multiple redundant computers all checking each other. Allows you to exploit good computers while still ensuring reliable computation.
@@dsdy1205 Haha yeah no that's not how it works. When there is a hardware or software problem, they all have it, they all make a bad calculation and they all agree with each other. And if there's a program crash, they all crash simultaneously. Having redundant computers is for things like physically damaged circuits and cosmic rays flipping bits in the computer memory causing unrecoverable errors, it does nothing about inherent flaws of the machine.
@@michaelbuckers There is a little problem with your hypothesis: ISS runs on 32bit CPUs (80386SX). The russians use 32bit SPARC in their module DMS-R. As does Falcon (newer x86 CPUs). New Horizons also uses a 32bit RISC processor from 1988. Also: Radiation hardened hardware is not even required by NASA for the ISS (google "Dragon's "Radiation-Tolerant" Design").
Dean Su Redundancy is a double edged sword. Extra complexity may itself become a source for errors. And anyway if you just copy a single computer many times they will still all go down from the same software error. So, three different manufacturers/dev teams? The cost will be insane.
@@vibrolax Ah, yes. Gemini was the no-helmet-wearing Harley Davidson of spacecraft. No meaningful escape system bolted on explody rocket choc full of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, but is sounded cool starting up. And it had ash trays.
My wife just shouted from another room: "HOW MANY VIDEOS THAT GUY HAS DONE! I'm sick of his voice". I dunno if your channel it is good for our relationship, Scott
Love the new, rather menacing 'fly safe'! Also, love the fact that there are no visible TH-cam awards behind Scott. If you're good, there's no need to have to prove how good you are...
Was checking your channel every hour waiting for a new video lol. Space rocks and your channel is definitely at the top. Have plans to work at the industry, wish me luck
Yeah, if they can foresee the emergency about half a year earlier to start building a Soyuz, or in case they happen to have one ready, a couple weeks to put ISS into the rendez-vous orbit...
I watch your videos, when I'm drunken, because then I feel dumb. It's such a beautiful feeling to know, that someon intelligent is alive. I love you, Scott!
It does help that the orbital inclination of ISS was designed specifically to accommodate the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch sites. As such, that makes such quick dockings possible.
@@BlakeFlood yes. Due to Baikonaur being on a higher inclination, the rotation of the earth doesn't give it as much of a boost. This gives it more of a benefit for launching to high inclination and polar orbits, like the ISS, but less for equatorial and lower inclination. Since florida is much closer to the equator, that gives them a big boost when launching eastward, but this also makes it harder to launch into high inclination orbits. This is why if you look at rockets flying out of the US they often have significantly less payload in polar orbits.
@@BlakeFlood Absolutely. The Falcon 9 and other boosters that carry spacecraft to the ISS have to muster quite a bit more performance just to get to the ISS, and it's not just because some/all of the spacecraft are larger and heavier. The ISS was placed in the orbit it was so that the Soyuz could actually reach it, and this makes it harder on everyone else. If the Russians wanted to launch the Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS from Florida, for example, they would have to use something like the Proton (which I wouldn't recommend for other reasons).
@@imanalfarizi6214 The first module was launched from Baikonur. The vast majority of the modules and components were launched from Florida in the cargo bay of the Shuttle.
Nice to see some actual coverage of Russian achievements, without resorting too (to much) jingoism or SpaceX worship for a change; in particular that Soyuz does have the space to relax, but that everything is a compromise between time, adapting to zero gravity, and efficiency rather than just the tired old jokes about Russian technology. Ars Technica in particular is becoming unreadable, and the wider political situation is toxifying science in appalling ways, so more coverage like this which just focuses on the achievement itself, and not trying to score (too many) cheap points as if science was a sporting event would be welcome...
@@ldkbudda4176 Propaganda is absolutely everywhere...in any country - there is nothing wrong with that. It is bad when this propaganda is false. But the truth is that the most powerful and effective propaganda is in the hands of the United States,and it is very stupid not to see this. Just do not be like politicians on such wonderful channels.
Essentially, the Space Station is doing a phasing maneuver many days ahead of time so the Capsule doesn't have to spend the time phasing. The Progress actually did a de-boost burn to bring the Space Station down in altitude for Soyuz MS17 rendezvous. I would be surprised if the Russian only make plane adjustments with the second stage of their Rocket. It is much more efficient to start the dogleg at liftoff, than to wait until second stage.
Plus, the first stage guidance in a lot of these launces is open-loop; that is, the main concern is just getting out of the thicker parts of the atmosphere in the general direction of your target, so the rocket just follows a basic pitch program to achieve just that. Once you drop to the second stage and are effectively in vacuum, then the rocket will start actively guiding on target again, having less aerodynamics and drag to deal with.
The dogleg has to wait until the craft is in the same plane as the ISS, since you can't achieve a perfect alignment anywhere but at the ascending or descending node of the 2 trajectories.
@@Jimorian That too, and that also explains why waiitng until later in the boost phase, as cross-range/plane change capability requires being off-axis to the trajectory of the rocket, and if done at lower altitudes, it would cause the rocket to spin and become destroyed.
@@eddievhfan1984 It's a very simple equation to rotate the azimuth of the trajectory at launch, even with open loop guidance. First Stages adds in some cross-range velocity second stage takes the cross-range out and doing it from lift off maximizes the time for the cross-range velocity to move the rocket. Waiting until second stage to do this would radically reduce the amount of cross-range available. Rotating the launch azimuth wont affect the pitch profile or loads, they essentially remain the same.
If you assume all hyperspace drives travel at the same speed, the only way to get from A to B faster is to take a shorter path. Thus 12 parsecs is faster.
Michael Fixedsys a 12 parsec long asteroid belt would be like 36 light years long. Also, asteroid belts are mostly empty space so you’d likely never need to even avoid many if any obstacles.
@@seanbeadles7421 The Star Wars universe has had FTL space travel for the majority of their history. While in nature that would be the case, it's entirely possible that this asteroid belt is artificial, and is close together and significantly faster due to miningoperations, warfare, or even terraforming.
Last time Ukranian system used for flight control was on 25 September of 2019. Since then a new digital system is used with all details you explained. As for the leg room - a new spacecraft is developed - Orel (eagle). First flight is planned for 2023. They are planning it for Moon program. According to news there will be 4 crew members with 2 times more space for each one than now in Soyuz.
@@scottmanley Speaking of that, haven't the russian switched to their own version of Kurs called Kurs-na a couple years ago? Current soyuz should be ukranian component free (at least the critical parts)
6:18 ah yes the TORU "manual" docking system. Russia basically gave cosmonauts a couple joysticks and a blury CRT display in the 90s and told them to have fun (they did have telemetry data for docking on screen). These days TORU (probably upgraded) is still in use as a backup to Kurs. Hopefully the ones in charge are good with joysticks.
That system has been used with European ATVs (when they were a thing of course). And they practice a lot. A big problem in MIR times were there was a short blackout space due to the way TORU antennas were mounted. Normally it's not a problem as alignment is done outside of that space, but in that case it was, and so operators could not see that spacecraft was out of alignment until it was too late.
@@andmos1001 because Ukraine took offense at Russia and imposed sanctions for the fact that Russia did not come to the war that Ukraine declared to it. ) But seriously, in Soviet times, dozens of enterprises that are now located on the territory of other States took part in the production of the Kurs system. And these foreign enterprises have now either ceased to exist or are no longer able to produce components of this docking system. Well, or for political reasons, they stopped supplying their products to Russia. Therefore, Russia made a difficult and expensive decision to transfer ALL its military and space products to use only Russian parts. This means that a lot of things had to be developed from scratch. And I am glad that Russia is successfully coping with this.
@@santalex1982 "Ukraine took offense at Russia and imposed sanctions for the fact that Russia did not come to the war that Ukraine declared to it" fuck you, dude.
Thank you for your comment on the Nightwish song, "Shoemaker". Tuomas did quite a bit of research into Eugene's life and thought into the song. Thanks again!
How simple would it be if the ISS were in a circular equatorial orbit and launches were from the equator, e.g. east Brazil or Kenya? Identical launch windows every 90 minutes (weather dependent).
In this case there wouldn't be any constraints by your relative inclination so you could always launch at the perfect time and do rendezvous in one orbit by inserting into a orbit with a ~400km Apogee and rendezvous the ISS when you reach Apogee. However there would be a higher relative velocity to the station during rendezvous so in a realistic scenario spacecraft would probably still use a multiorbit approach to raise the orbit in several steps.
For the simplists virgins, it would be a wet dream. Just point and shoot at the right time. For the Chad scientists, it would be a nightmare. First of all, you need to ensure that you have a launch base on the Equator, which I think only the French have, in French Guyana (fun fact, Soyuz also has some launches from there, but not to ISS). So, you would first need WW3 for who controls a part of Latin America or Central Africa suitable for launching this thing. And it would also make monitoring a bit more challenging. Frankly, you cannot get a 'universally' good orbit. ISS is placed with it's current inclination because 2 of the first modules (including the ver first) were built and launched by Russia, so they launched on the best orbit for them, which could also be serviced by US rockets. If it was for US, they would have rather placed it somewhere near the 20 degrees inclination range, so it would pass right over Florida, from where they are launching. China would probably place it somewherenear 45. Only EU, if we ever have the money for something like this, would ever place it on the ecuator.
In Orbiter, using the magic-power delta glider and various MFDs for guidance, I managed to do a docking in 11m06s by doing a continuously-throttled burn to within 100 meters on the ascent. It would be utterly insane to try that in real life, but fun in the sim.
Some nice, bare-ass speculation on my part suggests that even if they could add the delta V to the falcon 9 and/or dragon (expendable falcon 9), they'd still have to slow back down. Not really feasible at all.
Soyuz is flight proven. Dragon Crew Test were also testing manual control and a bunch of other experiments proving its capabilities. I'd expect NASA would want a track record of reliability before they begin to slowly optimize time to intercept.
I think what it needs most is a reason to do it. If the crew has the space to move around and be comfortable, it's probably not worth it to move the whole space station to get them there faster.
Your thumbnail game is top notch, Scott. That being said, it needs some split times. The milestones used for approach (correction burns, stable orbit) should be suitable. Also, that was a very intense “fly safe.”
The Space Shuttle used to return KURS docking system hardware from Progress vehicles for refurbishment and reuse. One mission I worked that did that landed at Armstrong (Dryden at the time) Flight research center on Edwards AFB. Because the NASA facilities were immediately adjacent to Air Force facilities, we NASA payloads folks had to keep our Russian guests responsible for processing their KURS unit for shipping back to Russia from getting into areas they weren't allowed to go and from taking pictures of anything but their hardware. They were courteous and respectful for the most part, but they did push the limits to see how far we would let them go. I could understand that though, there WERE some cool planes to be seen. I had to remind myself that I wasn't allowed to take pictures of them either.
@@d.jensen5153 ISS was placed in a specific orbit that caters to Russia. If and when axiom space launch a new space station will be launched from Florida. Placed in a more favorable orbit that would allow quick docking and 7 seat config. Not need to be in transit a day in a half.
IIRC it was Buzz Aldrin who picked the short straw after astronaut selection and wrote the manual on orbital mechanics and docking. It was only after the Apollo decision to use the rendezvous technique to get to the moon (and back) that synchronising orbits became a critical part of the program and just how complex this was. Aldrin’s, Armstrong’s and Collin’s books give fascinating insights into what was involved using what are now primitive computing facilities. It’s not for nothing that the phrase “...not rocket science” has entered the lexicon!
It wasn’t that he picked the short straw, he wrote his PhD thesis on orbital Rendezvous and the introduction essentially says ‘I wish I could join you astronauts in space’
@@scottmanley I know that, Scott - wrong choice of words! What I meant to say was that he was way ahead of most of the rest of the original astronauts in orbital mechanics and had to answer all their questions!
Nice video with some missing points. Digital avionics upgrade for Soyuz launch vehicle and Soyuz spacecraft should be mentioned separately. Spacecraft was upgraded several years ago. Certification of Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle for manned mission took extra years. It seems like NASA was not happy that "warm analog" imported launch vehicle avionic should be replaced with Russian made digital one. Two orbit scheme requires maneuvering capability of the 3rd stage of launch vehicle (You've mentioned it as 2nd stage) which become available only on digital Souze-2.1a.
This is another great episode from you, Scott! Thanks! Very informative. However, can you please tweak the spelling on the "icon view" that reads "Speedruning The Space Station..." It sounds you're discussing some kind of quick destruct-o-matic operation. (Perhaps this has already been mentioned by others.)
"... still lacks Lego!" Well, I s'pose there's less time to build anything anyway. In the old days with all those phase orbits they had plenty of time. (Les daydreams of Lego in microgravity)!
I had no idea that the Soyuz had a second cabin until now. All we've see is the shot of those cramped cosmonauts who can't even reach the controls without a stick.
![30 ชั่วโมงคนเดียว บนรถไฟชั้น 3 โซเวียต [Around The World Ep. 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MlE9boAVqDA/mqdefault.jpg)
"That would drop rocket stages on China, and apparently, that is China's job." That had me howling.
I literally LOL'd!
Stage(s) Fired!!!!
You’re not the only one. Dying here
I watch Scott's videos while eating breakfast, I think I nearly died from cereal inhalation.
Lol
Literally faster than public transit could take me to work
Sojuz is sort of public transit taking people to work.
@@quazar5017 Well yes but...
What? In 4 hours I can reach the other side of the country with public transport.
@@Spollekop Try living in the countryside
@@Spollekop Belgian?
TL;DR: They installed the latest version of Mechjeb
LOL
Gehteuch Nixan it do be like that
I use MechJeb. The ability to launch directly into a rendezvous so your circularization burn also nulls your relative velocity to the target when you're close to it (sometimes a little too close) has been a part of MechJeb for a while now.
Of course, the fact that the game just out-and-out tells you your orbital parameters (updated every physics frame, which with a green MET clock is 60fps) makes the execution of such feats quite easy once you know which buttons to push (and not push).
Tell you what, MechJeb almost makes fueling a mothership with 10 fueling flights bearable. Almost.
It's still not bearable for me (I'm impatient) and because of that, I build my fuel tankers MASSIVE so that I only need to make a very few refueling flights for anything worth launching.
Like many others, I send things to Minmus to get docked together and fueled, as that's effectively Kerbin's gas station. You're basically guaranteed to have an ore hotspot in one of the flats biomes which makes landing easy. Minmus gravity is only a few thousandths off of 0.5m/s^2, which puts it right in a sweet spot where there's enough gravity that you don't have to worry about bouncing off, but not so much gravity that it takes a lot of engine power to get to orbit (not even 200m/s to get into low Minmus orbit of 15km circular, and due to Minmus' low gravity if the craft can accelerate at 1.5 m/s^2 (Kerbin TWR ~0.15) you'll have plenty enough thrust to be getting into orbit of Minmus easily (that's a Minmus TWR of 1.5).
I was expecting them to do bunny hopping in reverse and some clipping bugs
Yep we did.
ISS docking speedrun any%
Its technically 100% glitchless
@@quantumx9729 do you have proof that they weren't using glitches (for example footage of the entire flight)?
@@Magnedyne Starts sweating nervously*
New strategy, if your impact velocity is high enough that parts of the two spacecraft are bonded together by impact welding that counts as a successful docking
That wouldnt bee 100%tho
MechJeb can do it within the first orbit.
Pulled it off on the first orbit without MechJeb ;)
@@adamk203 Direct launch to rendezvous is SOP, at least in low orbit.
mechjob can do it while circulizing the orbit.
MechJeb has the rendezvous but I beat it on docking finesse. XD
Try it from a launch site which isn't on the equator...
was about to sleep but alright lets get educated on matters of spacecraft docking.
A wise use of time
Now you have to wait for 23h46m52s
Or turn your bed 1.2 arc seconds anti-clockwise
Gosh its like half two for me and i just started the video
So relatable 🤣
Great minds think alike? Laying in bed...ohh space!
That Progress MIR collision was human error. It was a manual docking system test, not an automated one. The incident is worthy of a video. The Cosmonaut remote piloting it didn't have a good visual from progress to MIR they were using the remote feed for guide it) so he just kept thrusting towards the station and built up excessive delta velocity, they'd also disabled the radar because it might have caused problems with the visual monitor on a previous attempt. They attributed it to inadequate training, because he'd never successfully completed a dock during training and had failed during a previous attempt, which speaks to bigger issues. But I can't understate how questionable that cosmonaut's actions were and just how half-assed their entire plan was.
Yes, TORU is a manual back up rather than another automated docking system.
Also, did they move the production sites for KURS? Because one time I said it was made in Ukraine and some russian nationalist started to insult me 😅
Read the terrific book Dragonfly about Mir including the fire and the Progress collision. Terrifying, engrossing, and revealing of how "seat of the pants" the Russians were in their approach to space.
They tried to beat the Kurs-less% record
@@erikdevereux4997 I own a copy of that book, and it is a good read. So much was going on behind the scenes in both countries, when all the astro- & cosmonauts wanted to do was go to space today, and fly safe. 😉
The Soyuz spaceship has been mankind's only gateway to space five times already, and even now that it has competition from newcomers it still shows what i'ts capable of. Thumbs up!
Ahem SPACEX DID YOU FORGET ABOUT SPACEX
Could the Soyuz reach the ISS if it launched from Florida? The ISS, in terms of orbital inclination, is perfectly positioned for it, and there is a reason for that.
@@rbrtck yeah, the reason is that if the inclination was even 1 degree lower the Soyuz would not be able to reach the ISS at all, and if it was 1 degree higher there would be an unnecessary loss in useful payload across all the vehicles supplying the ISS.
"five times"
I'm counting four.
1. The Apollo-Shuttle time gap.
2.& 3. Two brief suspensions in Shuttle flights for study after each of two separate fatal Shuttle accidents.
4. The Shuttle-Crew Dragon Time gap.
The Soyuz vehicle was first launched in 1967, in the middle of the Apollo program. The Soviets were, of course, the first to send a man to orbit, but previous launches were with earlier vehicles. The Russian space program has afforded mostly continuous manned access to orbit from Gagarin's orbital flight in "Vostok 1" to the present day and pioneered orbital space stations. That means there was at least one more time that Russian vehicles provided the only manned access to space, but not Soyuz.
@@digitalnomad9985 Apollo did not fly with crew onboard until 1968; Gemini's last launch was 1966. Therefor, there's a small gap in there for Soyuz to take.
Technically you can argue that the last gap isn't shuttle-Crew Dragon, but actually Shenzhou 11-Crew Dragon, a shorter gap of 4 years where Shenzhou seems to not be launching due to a lack of in service Chinese space stations to launch to.
But yes, that does appear to be 5 gaps. Maybe 4 if you want to get rid of the last one.
[12:38] - In Russian language, the idiom "stretch out legs" means "to die". So it's not a bad that you can't stretch out your legs in a Soyuz spacecraft. Agree?
Actually you can stretch your legs in the Soyuz spacecraft. Crew can move from decent to orbital section, toilet is available as well of course.
It has the same meaning in polish. 'To stretch legs' is synonym of 'to die'.
In Russian there are two different words for that. "протянуть" - this one is the part of idiom. And "вытянуть" which is means literally stretch.
It explains the legroom in a запорожиц...
In czech, it means to "Push through something", like a small hole
That's quick enough to order a pizza from the ISS.
And slow enough for free delivery
not the quickest delivery, but still in appropriate range.
When Blue Origin starts flying, will they offer Prime delivery on the ISS?
@@michaelfixedsys7463 sounds like a win-win to me. Especially to save on the $5000+/kg cost to get it to orbit.
@@moosemaimer
Probably not
3:47 I would say that Scott burned China bad, but apparently that's China's job.
Ha ha oh yes!
🤣🤣🤣
I would say Challenger is more spectacular.
It's rather awesome on how dependable the Soyuz has become, as well as upgradable. I guess that is an achievement the Russians can hold.
This isn't even the first time that Soyuz has beat speed records in going from launch to rendezvous with the ISS, and such has challenged me to emulate it in KSP. I've achieved orbital rendezvous with a target within one orbit. It helps the target did have a simple circular orbit over the equator, unlike the ISS, but still made me feel good.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it seems to be their mantra
an achivement, they have many. us had to bring pvt players to beat ussr in space race 25 years after it collapsed.
I was wondering about this when I heard about the speed run. Happy to have a great explanation from Scott pop up in my notifications.
"Onboard systems that can now calculate the orbit in real-time..."
*Boots up KSP with MechJeb*
If you've got a few teraflops under the hood, sure. But it's not enough that computer is fast, it must also be reliable, and modern desktop computer hardware is anything but. They're still flying 8 bit machines because that's basically the only thing that proved itself to be capable of controlling real physical hardware.
@@michaelbuckers SpaceX shows another approach is possible: multiple redundant computers all checking each other. Allows you to exploit good computers while still ensuring reliable computation.
@@dsdy1205 Haha yeah no that's not how it works. When there is a hardware or software problem, they all have it, they all make a bad calculation and they all agree with each other. And if there's a program crash, they all crash simultaneously. Having redundant computers is for things like physically damaged circuits and cosmic rays flipping bits in the computer memory causing unrecoverable errors, it does nothing about inherent flaws of the machine.
@@michaelbuckers There is a little problem with your hypothesis: ISS runs on 32bit CPUs (80386SX). The russians use 32bit SPARC in their module DMS-R.
As does Falcon (newer x86 CPUs).
New Horizons also uses a 32bit RISC processor from 1988.
Also: Radiation hardened hardware is not even required by NASA for the ISS (google "Dragon's "Radiation-Tolerant" Design").
Dean Su Redundancy is a double edged sword. Extra complexity may itself become a source for errors.
And anyway if you just copy a single computer many times they will still all go down from the same software error. So, three different manufacturers/dev teams? The cost will be insane.
The #1 feature I look for when I'm shopping spacecraft is abundant legroom. After that I look for a good air conditioner and plenty of cupholders.
I remember reading that in China the most important feature car buyers look for is rear-seat legroom... How big are their space capsules?
If you have to put up with it for less time then the discomfort matters less.
That's why Gemini capsules are so cheap on the used spacecraft market. No legroom, and you always bang your shins entering or egressing via the hatch.
@@vibrolax Ah, yes. Gemini was the no-helmet-wearing Harley Davidson of spacecraft. No meaningful escape system bolted on explody rocket choc full of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, but is sounded cool starting up. And it had ash trays.
@@Miata822 NASA did spring for the less-explody upgrade package for the Titan II. I don't think they had to use the warranty even once.
My wife just shouted from another room: "HOW MANY VIDEOS THAT GUY HAS DONE! I'm sick of his voice". I dunno if your channel it is good for our relationship, Scott
Time for a set of headphones mate...
where headphones
Scott Münley > Wife.
Get yo priorities set straight
Yeah, time for a *NEW WIFE.* 😉
My dad also doesn’t like Scott’s voice, but he has many other wrong opinions as well 😜
KSP players with overengineered RCS and zero regard for Kerbal safety: Pathetic.
If you're not docking with your first stage still lit, are you really even docking?
@@jttech44 Look at Mr SSTO here flexing on da haters
@@jttech44 Jesus....
Psh, who needs RCS when you can rely on completely overpowered reactions wheels?
@@argh1989 Won't help you translate
Love the new, rather menacing 'fly safe'! Also, love the fact that there are no visible TH-cam awards behind Scott. If you're good, there's no need to have to prove how good you are...
I’ve wondered for a long time about these short trips to the ISS and I’m so glad you made this video
That last punch line 'LEGROOM' made me smile.
Me too, I guess at the end of it all, having too little legroom simply screams for a really short ride as possible!
Summoning Salt speedrun documentary in 5...4...3...
kekw
Live life, breath air...
Yes please.
World record progression: ISS docking from Baikonur
I can hear the music...
Was checking your channel every hour waiting for a new video lol. Space rocks and your channel is definitely at the top. Have plans to work at the industry, wish me luck
Next challenge: a direct ascent to the ISS in under 1 hour. Bonus points if done in a properly reusable SSTO.
Solid motors only.
Starship! Lol
Thunderbird 3....
I hope the last sentence is a joke
@@nottoday3817 Nope.
The Russian space craft seem to be rushin'... "This is not a pun."
You damn well know I laughed at this anyways, Scott!
They have rations to deliver.
at least they aren't stallin
@@davidanalyst671 haha bravo
It was perhaps not intended as a pun, but a pun it is nonetheless.
Anyway, come on now, no plural.
Soyuz Prime
When it's 20:59 and you order a bottle of vodka with same day delivery
@@bluemountain4181
hell yes
Was wondering if Commercial Crew would exercise this option. Best they've done so far has been DM-2 at 18 hours. Shuttle Orbiters were 2-day phasing.
I guess the Russians don't do orbital adjustment manoeuvres for them.
I guess its good to practice these quick rendezvous in case of an emergency at the ISS.
The ISS has an escape pod system.
@(S)-Riley Dunn That's what an escape pod is..? The ISS always has enough docked pods to de-orbit all personnel onboard.
@@rockspoon6528 Yes, they are the same spacecraft they arrived in though.
Yeah but during an emergency your launch window would probably be shit
Yeah, if they can foresee the emergency about half a year earlier to start building a Soyuz, or in case they happen to have one ready, a couple weeks to put ISS into the rendez-vous orbit...
I watch your videos, when I'm drunken, because then I feel dumb. It's such a beautiful feeling to know, that someon intelligent is alive. I love you, Scott!
ISS docking speedrun any% glitchess (wr attempt)
I feel like it's more of a 100% lol
Any% would be challenger
So, all we need to do is jump backwards to glitch into the wall and get to a glitched warp zone. Got it.
Any% is Starliner territory
any% would more seem like blowing the rocket up right before SECO and hitting it with debris
TASbot assisted though.
Thanks Scott - that was a very good explanation of the latest Soyuz fast-track rendezvous to the ISS.
It does help that the orbital inclination of ISS was designed specifically to accommodate the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch sites. As such, that makes such quick dockings possible.
I was wondering about this. Is there a difference in delta v to get to ISS from Russia vs USA?
@@BlakeFlood yes. Due to Baikonaur being on a higher inclination, the rotation of the earth doesn't give it as much of a boost. This gives it more of a benefit for launching to high inclination and polar orbits, like the ISS, but less for equatorial and lower inclination. Since florida is much closer to the equator, that gives them a big boost when launching eastward, but this also makes it harder to launch into high inclination orbits. This is why if you look at rockets flying out of the US they often have significantly less payload in polar orbits.
@@BlakeFlood Absolutely. The Falcon 9 and other boosters that carry spacecraft to the ISS have to muster quite a bit more performance just to get to the ISS, and it's not just because some/all of the spacecraft are larger and heavier. The ISS was placed in the orbit it was so that the Soyuz could actually reach it, and this makes it harder on everyone else. If the Russians wanted to launch the Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS from Florida, for example, they would have to use something like the Proton (which I wouldn't recommend for other reasons).
its not designed when ISS was basically launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome
@@imanalfarizi6214 The first module was launched from Baikonur. The vast majority of the modules and components were launched from Florida in the cargo bay of the Shuttle.
Everybody loves accurate orbital insertions, especially with no leg room.
There is an entire second compartment for ones who wanna stretch or take a dump. Otherwise, it's not like one can't take a 3-hours long ride in a car.
Think cramped economy class seat, with a separate bathroom.
Lol
Now we only need to find an infinite fuel glitch
easy, just eject intake air
@@somethingsomethingsomethingdar also don't forget unlocked scroll wheel.
Magsail with rotovator ftw
Any plans for a video about using teabags to find a leak on the ISS and using "Grey Tape" to fix it temporarily?
Nice to see some actual coverage of Russian achievements, without resorting too (to much) jingoism or SpaceX worship for a change; in particular that Soyuz does have the space to relax, but that everything is a compromise between time, adapting to zero gravity, and efficiency rather than just the tired old jokes about Russian technology. Ars Technica in particular is becoming unreadable, and the wider political situation is toxifying science in appalling ways, so more coverage like this which just focuses on the achievement itself, and not trying to score (too many) cheap points as if science was a sporting event would be welcome...
Who first used the word "батут"( the trampoline) to downrespect colegues in the Space branch? Right the Russian head of space agency mr. Rogozin!
@@ldkbudda4176
And the years of sanctions against Roscosmos had nothing to do with this phrase apparently. It wasn't about colleagues BTW.
@@ldkbudda4176 what you did right now is called "whataboutism", the very thing Russian propagandists are heavily blamed for. Don't be like them.
@@ldkbudda4176 Propaganda is absolutely everywhere...in any country - there is nothing wrong with that.
It is bad when this propaganda is false.
But the truth is that the most powerful and effective propaganda is in the hands of the United States,and it is very stupid not to see this.
Just do not be like politicians on such wonderful channels.
Thanks for the video! This is exactly what I was wondering for the past week.
About 40 mins faster than I can drive 250ish miles up north. Not bad Not bad.
Essentially, the Space Station is doing a phasing maneuver many days ahead of time so the Capsule doesn't have to spend the time phasing. The Progress actually did a de-boost burn to bring the Space Station down in altitude for Soyuz MS17 rendezvous. I would be surprised if the Russian only make plane adjustments with the second stage of their Rocket. It is much more efficient to start the dogleg at liftoff, than to wait until second stage.
They can not do plane change at lift off since that would defeat whole purpose of launch time wiggling.
Plus, the first stage guidance in a lot of these launces is open-loop; that is, the main concern is just getting out of the thicker parts of the atmosphere in the general direction of your target, so the rocket just follows a basic pitch program to achieve just that. Once you drop to the second stage and are effectively in vacuum, then the rocket will start actively guiding on target again, having less aerodynamics and drag to deal with.
The dogleg has to wait until the craft is in the same plane as the ISS, since you can't achieve a perfect alignment anywhere but at the ascending or descending node of the 2 trajectories.
@@Jimorian That too, and that also explains why waiitng until later in the boost phase, as cross-range/plane change capability requires being off-axis to the trajectory of the rocket, and if done at lower altitudes, it would cause the rocket to spin and become destroyed.
@@eddievhfan1984 It's a very simple equation to rotate the azimuth of the trajectory at launch, even with open loop guidance. First Stages adds in some cross-range velocity second stage takes the cross-range out and doing it from lift off maximizes the time for the cross-range velocity to move the rocket. Waiting until second stage to do this would radically reduce the amount of cross-range available. Rotating the launch azimuth wont affect the pitch profile or loads, they essentially remain the same.
It's not impressive until they do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs and don't yell at me that it doesn't make any sense.
The Kessel run is through an asteroid belt with numerous paths of varying safety and skill.
It makes more sense than you think.
If you assume all hyperspace drives travel at the same speed, the only way to get from A to B faster is to take a shorter path. Thus 12 parsecs is faster.
Have people still not seen the original script? "Obi-Wan rolls his eyes at this obvious misinformation" is right there!
Michael Fixedsys a 12 parsec long asteroid belt would be like 36 light years long. Also, asteroid belts are mostly empty space so you’d likely never need to even avoid many if any obstacles.
@@seanbeadles7421
The Star Wars universe has had FTL space travel for the majority of their history. While in nature that would be the case, it's entirely possible that this asteroid belt is artificial, and is close together and significantly faster due to miningoperations, warfare, or even terraforming.
Last time Ukranian system used for flight control was on 25 September of 2019. Since then a new digital system is used with all details you explained. As for the leg room - a new spacecraft is developed - Orel (eagle). First flight is planned for 2023. They are planning it for Moon program. According to news there will be 4 crew members with 2 times more space for each one than now in Soyuz.
0:23 My question is why is that little dish antenna looking thing on the space station spinning like a banshee?
It’s a conical scan antenna.
@@scottmanley Thank you!
I just asked that question, I was very curious what it is.
@@scottmanley Speaking of that, haven't the russian switched to their own version of Kurs called Kurs-na a couple years ago? Current soyuz should be ukranian component free (at least the critical parts)
@@fabiosemino2214 Yes, Kurs-system is now being made by Russian company - Izhevsk Radio Plant.
Brilliantly explained! It’s incredible how many factors go into choosing the particular rendezvous schedule
6:18 ah yes the TORU "manual" docking system. Russia basically gave cosmonauts a couple joysticks and a blury CRT display in the 90s and told them to have fun (they did have telemetry data for docking on screen). These days TORU (probably upgraded) is still in use as a backup to Kurs. Hopefully the ones in charge are good with joysticks.
That system has been used with European ATVs (when they were a thing of course). And they practice a lot. A big problem in MIR times were there was a short blackout space due to the way TORU antennas were mounted. Normally it's not a problem as alignment is done outside of that space, but in that case it was, and so operators could not see that spacecraft was out of alignment until it was too late.
That was super interesting! Thanks for taking the time to post :)
Russia stopped using Ukrainian parts for Kurs system since 2016.
Hm, wounded why
@@andmos1001 because Ukraine took offense at Russia and imposed sanctions for the fact that Russia did not come to the war that Ukraine declared to it. ) But seriously, in Soviet times, dozens of enterprises that are now located on the territory of other States took part in the production of the Kurs system. And these foreign enterprises have now either ceased to exist or are no longer able to produce components of this docking system. Well, or for political reasons, they stopped supplying their products to Russia. Therefore, Russia made a difficult and expensive decision to transfer ALL its military and space products to use only Russian parts. This means that a lot of things had to be developed from scratch. And I am glad that Russia is successfully coping with this.
@@santalex1982 it was sarcasm of why they did not use Ukrainian parts.
And, by the way, it was not designed in Ukraine from the start.
@@santalex1982 "Ukraine took offense at Russia and imposed sanctions for the fact that Russia did not come to the war that Ukraine declared to it" fuck you, dude.
Thanks for the interting details involved with a quicker rendezvous and docking.
Now I feel less bad about taking a few dozen orbits in Space Flight Simulator to achieve a rendezvous.
Yeah. I’m always like: “they’re probably dead rn”
Thanks for all the work you put into your videos and much appreciated.
I wonder what glitches were used for this speed run
Antigravity I heard
Probably just prop-jumped into orbit
Abuse of the J2 terrain generation bug I think
The thought crossed my mind recently. Thank you for providing a very elaborate answer ! I'm looking forward to SpaceX beating this record :D
the only logical step after this is doing a zero orbit rendezvous
Straight up and rendezvous over launch?
this is difficult, ISS needs to be like Agena Target Vehicle to do direct ascent rendezvous
Anti-sattelite missile developers are working on it
@@rossMoHaX but anti-satellite missile intend to crash it, not to rendezvous
Space elevator
“According to the smart people”
Definitely stealing that line...
For reference Bob and Doug's trip to ISS took 22 hrs iirc
Plenty of time to press their clothes and enjoy an inflight snack ;-)
Thank you for your comment on the Nightwish song, "Shoemaker". Tuomas did quite a bit of research into Eugene's life and thought into the song.
Thanks again!
When the crew first boarded the Soyuz they had planned for 2 days, but then saw the "Out of Order" sign on the Toilet. 🤣
Thanks Scott again I'm learning all the time thanks for your awesome Vlogs you ROCK
How simple would it be if the ISS were in a circular equatorial orbit and launches were from the equator, e.g. east Brazil or Kenya? Identical launch windows every 90 minutes (weather dependent).
In this case there wouldn't be any constraints by your relative inclination so you could always launch at the perfect time and do rendezvous in one orbit by inserting into a orbit with a ~400km Apogee and rendezvous the ISS when you reach Apogee. However there would be a higher relative velocity to the station during rendezvous so in a realistic scenario spacecraft would probably still use a multiorbit approach to raise the orbit in several steps.
And the view from ISS would be a narrow strip around the equator. The higher the inclination the more from the planet you can see or be seen.
For the simplists virgins, it would be a wet dream. Just point and shoot at the right time.
For the Chad scientists, it would be a nightmare. First of all, you need to ensure that you have a launch base on the Equator, which I think only the French have, in French Guyana (fun fact, Soyuz also has some launches from there, but not to ISS). So, you would first need WW3 for who controls a part of Latin America or Central Africa suitable for launching this thing. And it would also make monitoring a bit more challenging. Frankly, you cannot get a 'universally' good orbit. ISS is placed with it's current inclination because 2 of the first modules (including the ver first) were built and launched by Russia, so they launched on the best orbit for them, which could also be serviced by US rockets. If it was for US, they would have rather placed it somewhere near the 20 degrees inclination range, so it would pass right over Florida, from where they are launching. China would probably place it somewherenear 45. Only EU, if we ever have the money for something like this, would ever place it on the ecuator.
In Orbiter, using the magic-power delta glider and various MFDs for guidance, I managed to do a docking in 11m06s by doing a continuously-throttled burn to within 100 meters on the ascent. It would be utterly insane to try that in real life, but fun in the sim.
At least Soyuz can find the station unlike the Boeing
This comment aged so well, considering that Boeing couldn't bring its astronauts back because the Starliner was "haunted".
Great explanation Scott. Great vlog!
What would it take to allow crew dragon/falcon 9 to achieve the same results?
Some nice, bare-ass speculation on my part suggests that even if they could add the delta V to the falcon 9 and/or dragon (expendable falcon 9), they'd still have to slow back down. Not really feasible at all.
Just some extra mission planning.
Soyuz is flight proven. Dragon Crew Test were also testing manual control and a bunch of other experiments proving its capabilities. I'd expect NASA would want a track record of reliability before they begin to slowly optimize time to intercept.
I think what it needs most is a reason to do it. If the crew has the space to move around and be comfortable, it's probably not worth it to move the whole space station to get them there faster.
I remember that during demo-2 mission they actually delayed docking so that Bob & Doug could get 7 hours of good sleep before docking.
God! How do you always create the most interesting videos?
“They would drop rocket stages on China and apparently that is china’s job” I literally said “oh hell yeah he went there!” Hahaha
Good video, Scott; couldn't help but notice your safety's off - super space pilot or not, that's a hot weapon ;)
Hahahahaha i sprayed my drink all over... "Apparently it's China's Job" hahaha
Scientists: *develop new quantum mechanics powered vehicle capable of traveling at the speed of light
Scott: Agh, it doesn't have a cupholder
I thought the Progress impact was due to a Kurs module that had been previously used failing.
Your thumbnail game is top notch, Scott.
That being said, it needs some split times. The milestones used for approach (correction burns, stable orbit) should be suitable. Also, that was a very intense “fly safe.”
The docking control system name should be pronounced as "coorse", not as "curse".
Thanks Steve for anothere informative video and thanks for answering my last request for today's topic. 👍😀
On the later Apollo lunar missions the LM launched and accomplished lunar orbit and rendezvous with the CSM in less than one orbit.
please tell me this is a joke
ok that's interesting... do you know why and how they did it?
@(S)-Riley Dunn oh i assumed he meant the cm reorienting with the lm
The moon also rotates much more slowly
@@ReinoGoo and the orbits were near equatorial, so it all came down to phasing by selecting correct launch time
Scott, not sure how to tell you, but having no legroom on the Soyuz for 4 hours is better than shitting in a room with the same people for 1 day.
Hazard-ish or Stratzenblitz will beat it within a week. Hard Mode is SRB only.
Thanks for the explanation.
Starting from the first launch of Soyuz 2.1a there is no parts made in Ukraine. And it has different guidance system.
Scott, you are so manly. And your videos are awesome. Keep up the great work. ;)
Gotta love that 60's soviet engineering. They're beating modern F1's with a 60's soviet Lada.
Gulag engineering was good. Later they removed Gulag from their engineer education program all went downhill.
albert johnson These days, if you haven’t emigrated, you are not smart ;)
Modern f1?
Ummmm modern F1 rockets the F1 is utterly 50 s to 70 s only and cannot be built anymore because modern engineers are so crap at actual engineering
@@gowdsake7103 woosh. Lada is a car brand, F1 is a racing class.
Nice touch with the thumbnail to have the Games Done Quick layout 👍
They literally backwards long jumped to the station.
Three, two, one.
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! YAYAYAYAYAYAYYAHAHAYYAYAYAY-
Ok, we are now docking.
Interesting Scott. I've been wondering about this. Thanks!
Going space station requires less time than me trying to get out of bed
The Space Shuttle used to return KURS docking system hardware from Progress vehicles for refurbishment and reuse. One mission I worked that did that landed at Armstrong (Dryden at the time) Flight research center on Edwards AFB. Because the NASA facilities were immediately adjacent to Air Force facilities, we NASA payloads folks had to keep our Russian guests responsible for processing their KURS unit for shipping back to Russia from getting into areas they weren't allowed to go and from taking pictures of anything but their hardware. They were courteous and respectful for the most part, but they did push the limits to see how far we would let them go. I could understand that though, there WERE some cool planes to be seen. I had to remind myself that I wasn't allowed to take pictures of them either.
Elon Musk:
The gauntlet has been thrown down!
Dragon will reach the space station in 69 minutes!
Not possible till we have Axiom Station at 27° N don't have to accommodate for Russia launch windows
@@tomcat124us Please elaborate!
@@d.jensen5153 ISS was placed in a specific orbit that caters to Russia. If and when axiom space launch a new space station will be launched from Florida. Placed in a more favorable orbit that would allow quick docking and 7 seat config. Not need to be in transit a day in a half.
@@tomcat124us Thanks :)
IIRC it was Buzz Aldrin who picked the short straw after astronaut selection and wrote the manual on orbital mechanics and docking. It was only after the Apollo decision to use the rendezvous technique to get to the moon (and back) that synchronising orbits became a critical part of the program and just how complex this was.
Aldrin’s, Armstrong’s and Collin’s books give fascinating insights into what was involved using what are now primitive computing facilities.
It’s not for nothing that the phrase “...not rocket science” has entered the lexicon!
It wasn’t that he picked the short straw, he wrote his PhD thesis on orbital Rendezvous and the introduction essentially says ‘I wish I could join you astronauts in space’
@@scottmanley
I know that, Scott - wrong choice of words! What I meant to say was that he was way ahead of most of the rest of the original astronauts in orbital mechanics and had to answer all their questions!
Yep, dropping rocket stages on China is definitely China's job. Best true statement here. :D
Scotty. You slaughtered it. Still laughing. Scotsman at work. Thanks bub. Well done.
SpaceX: I docked within a day
Souz: Hold our vodka comarade
Nice video with some missing points. Digital avionics upgrade for Soyuz launch vehicle and Soyuz spacecraft should be mentioned separately. Spacecraft was upgraded several years ago. Certification of Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle for manned mission took extra years. It seems like NASA was not happy that "warm analog" imported launch vehicle avionic should be replaced with Russian made digital one. Two orbit scheme requires maneuvering capability of the 3rd stage of launch vehicle (You've mentioned it as 2nd stage) which become available only on digital Souze-2.1a.
"how can Soyuz reach ISS in only 3 h?" - "they have small legroom" :)
This is another great episode from you, Scott! Thanks! Very informative.
However, can you please tweak the spelling on the "icon view" that reads "Speedruning The Space Station..." It sounds you're discussing some kind of quick destruct-o-matic operation. (Perhaps this has already been mentioned by others.)
Soyuz Expedited Delivery, that’s how!
Haha
'nuff SED...
Thank you! I was hoping you or Everyday Astronaut would do a video about this.
Imagine a SpaceX Webcast where they try to beat that record and have a timer running like speed runners on twitch usually have
i can imagine the Soyuz playing Scott's intro theme while on its way to the ISS
"... still lacks Lego!"
Well, I s'pose there's less time to build anything anyway. In the old days with all those phase orbits they had plenty of time.
(Les daydreams of Lego in microgravity)!
Since you've entered the world of speed running, I expect you to come out with a Summoning Salt style history of speedrunning to the ISS video soon
I had no idea that the Soyuz had a second cabin until now. All we've see is the shot of those cramped cosmonauts who can't even reach the controls without a stick.
Not everything is what American advertisment tells you.
Fully digital soyuz? I didn't know that. Thanks.
Russian rockets: "They took our jobs!"
That GDQ speedrun slide was really good.