On the approach to the system the pilot had been nervous. Only the slightest stresses had been applied to the engine systems over the course of the voyage, and sometimes such systems developed catastrophic quirks over time...and it had been a long time.
He tapped on the glass covering each of the dials again. Each needle jiggled slightly at the disturbance, wavered, then settled back. The orbit was stable.
Perihelion would be suitably close to the star to pick up most of the small, rocky bodies orbiting the sun. Aphelion was not quite at the Oort cloud, and with time would shift inward as the perihelion shifted outward. First he wanted to let the orbit meander around the sun; solar systems are big places, and the current orbit would shift directions while staying the same shape. Later on, short, strategic burns would jettison just enough velocity that a less extreme orbit would be attained and more extensive surveys could be run on the inner planets.
Earlier radar bursts had gotten a big reflection in that area; at about six times Jupiter's mass, the gas giant was about .75 AUs out from the star and so would be a major navigational hazard. He'd have to watch that.
After staring blankly at the dials for a few more minutes, he wandered over to the Kepler Weight and Constraint Set. He liked using them to simplify the more tedious orbital calculations; just turn dials to set mass, velocity, and position of up to four masses and the strings, weights and wires would automagically give you the stable solution over the next 100 years. It didn't account for the inherent nonlinearity of the actual relativistic and gravitic equations, but it was good enough most of the time.
It was good to be back in orbit.
(Especially around a star like MP539. --Ed.)
