Undocking from the space station

After 20 hours of zero gravity fun on the space station it is time to return to earth. The Docking processor handles the undocking procedure.

When it is time to say good-bye, the space station releases the vessel and the vessel accelerates to escape velocity (10 m/s in our case). This ensures that the vessel is far enough away from the station when it starts its de-orbit burn.

There is one manual interaction you have to perform: Close the docking cone of the vessel by pressing K on the keyboard.

Process definition

<Step>
  <Label>Undocking from station</Label>
  <Processor type="Docking" mode="Release">
    <Var name="TimeDocked"> 16:00:00 </Var>
    <Var name="VRel"> 10.0 </Var>
    <Var name="Cmds"> K </Var>
  </Processor>
</Step>

mode="Release" means the docking processor is going to undock our vessel from the space station.

TimeDocked defines the time we will be docked to the station.

VRel specifies the relative velocity after undocking (in m/s)

Cmds is a (currently ignored) list of commands for the vessel (closing the nose cone).