I wrote a tutorial about Aerobrake, while applying it myself so i describe my actions and use screenshots, this way it should be very easy to understand even for a beginner .
Needs :
XR-2 Ravenstar
http://www.alteaaerospace.com/Wideawake International (Ascension island)
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3666Base Sync MFD
http://koti.mbnet.fi/jarmonik/Orbiter.html (bottom of the page)
Aerobrake MFD
http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2139(Note : activate the MFDs in the "Modules" section of the Orbiter launcher
If you have more MFD than 1 page of the MFD display list, click on the Select button to go to the next MFD list page to see more of them)
- Load the XR-2 Ravenstar "Docked to ISS" scenario.
Being docked to ISS, means you're at an orbit of 358 / 371 km altitude.
Press the H key 2 times to have the Surface Earth HUD (allowing to see the speed and altitude in km).
- In the MFD select the Base Sync one. click on the TGT button.
Type manually (unlike other, there's no drop down menu to select it directly unfortunately)
Wideawake International
We can see in white the 5th orbit is the one that will be the closest to KCS, so the one that will have us wasting the less fuel to align.
NOTE : You can see 2 squares on your orbit in this MFD (the green line is your position) :
the empty square is the Descending Node, in this one we'll use the Normal+ autopilot.
the white square is the Ascending Node, in this one we'll use the Normal- autopilot.
- Undock from ISS
Start the APU, then close the Nose Cone
Wait until it's closed and Turn the APU off again.
-Wait until the XR-2 is near the descending Node, go with the Normal+ autopilot and burn until you're below 200k in the Base Sync MFD.
-Wait now until the XR-2 is at the Ascending Node, go with the Normal- autopilot and burn until you're as close to 0 as possible (be sure to be in Translation RCS mode instead of Rotation, this way you can fine tune with Numpad 6 and Numpad 9)
There by example it means my 4th orbit will be only 37 meter close to Ascension Island, that's great.
Now wait until you're at the white orbit.
At the Ascending Node (Normal - autopilot) make another correction in case this orbit moved a bit too much away for you from the target. But it should be good as long as you made your normal correction at those 2 nodes and not anywhere else it should not have changed much.
-on the MFD the yellow line is Wideawake International, our target.
We will burn in retrograde from the opposite side of the world in comparison to that yellow line.
So before we're there, it is time to use the Aerobrake MFD.
Bring the Aerobrake MFD and click on the TGT button. and like for the Base Sync, type manually and press enter :
Wideawake International
The grey line is what we will move when we will make our rentry retrograde burn.
The goal will be to have the grey line exactly where the yellow line is.
At some point during the retrograde burn , the display will "jump" , don't worry it's normal.
-So for now wait until you're at the opposite side of the world from the yellow line.
Once you're +/- there, use the Retrograde autopilot and then burn
At some point the display will jump as i said, then burn more carefully.
In the end , being in Translation RCS mode instead of Rotation RCS mode, you'll use Numpad 6 and Numpad 9 to adjust, the goal is to have the grey line in the same location as the yellow one.
Seems OK.
-Bring back the Base Sync MFD, you will notice the distance between our Orbit and Wideawake International increased during our retrograde burn.
So at the incoming descending node, use the Normal+ and burn/adjust to lower this distance (remember to fine tune with the RCS). There i lowered it +/- like it was in the previous correction
-Now move to Prograde autopilot
Once the XR-2 is fully in prograde, click on the Attitude Hold autopilot.
With numpad 2 and Numpad 8 adjust so our angle of attack is at 40
-Use now the Aerobreak MFD
You will notice the grey line is not anymore exactly on the yellow one, don't worry about this.
Press on the PG button
Press on the PRJ button , this display will appear :
See on the grid, the center is Wideawake, the green line is you, according to the current display you will overshoot Wideawake.
But do not worry, it's not yet adjusted to our attitude, but it will do it progressively the aiming will come back on Wideawake :
During the fall, adjust the Attitude Autopilot to keep the aiming square near Wideawake by using the 0.5 increments/decrease to keep this aiming close to the center :
Important : never ever do more than X10 acceleration time, and even better do not use acceleration time at all, there's nothing better to screwup the internal calculations of everything that is going on during a re-entry.
-At some point (+/- 90 km altitude) the APU will autostart.
Now is a good time to close the Radiator, or the XR-2 will not survive when it will go below 60 km.
At 90 km it is a rather critical time for all the internal calculation (atmosphere, angle, friction slowing you down, autopilot etc... ) it is better to not accelerate time anymore or you can end very very badly.
If you managed well with the 0.5 increment/decrease for the attitude, your aiming should always be good and near Wideawake International.
And you have always +/- 40% of fuel left.
At 70km you should be at +/- slowed to mach 24
At 60km , +/- mach 21
At 57km, you should see the shields beginning to heat up in external view and soon enough you should have
magma some fiery descent.
At 55km we should be at +/- mach 19
At 50 km you should have been at mach 17 and will be burning more.
Don't worry about the temperature of the hull despite our fiery re-entry, our planning and trajectory IS good, so the temperature will never get too high, the shielding will resist.
At 45 km we're at mach 14 , the atmosphere is slowing us very nicely
At 40km we're at mach 11
And as you can see, we're doing good in the Aerobrake MFD
The white dot is us as now we're close to Wideawake, and in external view, Ascension Island is in view, it will be a night landing on Wideawake International.
At 35km, we're at mach 8 and we're not burning anymore, see i told you there was nothing to worry.
At less than 30 km you can start with controlling the Attitude Hold with the 2.5 increment/decrease instead of the 0.5 one to keep our aiming on target.
At 25 km you're not falling anymore, you're gliding and then now it's simple atmospheric and classic flight, no more need of your MFD you can drop the attitude hold.
Get aligned to the Wideawake airfield and land safely, if you did great you should not even have to use the main engine.
And in the end you should have used only 10% of fuel since ISS
Good luck, this should work for every kind of ships and shuttle.