Talverd

I'm excited to go Glumo whenever the interstellar destinations are released.

UPDATE: We are back in business. I'll see you soon on a new thread!

Hi folks, I've decided to put CD on indefinite hiatus pending re-writes. If you look at the early missions of this series - they're frankly terrible and I know I can do a lot better to set up the story I want to tell. While this does mean starting back at square 1, CD should be much more its own thing. My build quality has also massively improved in a short span of time and I really want to use my new skills to make Chasing Dreams much better than it was before. Hope you can understand, and here's a rough sneak peak at whats in store! Don't mind the real life decals, Akermia is sticking around.

Just checking in - I'm still alive. I promise I'll have some more missions out soon, my first semester in college is finally about over. Here's a map of what Valropa looks like!

Lovely!

Looking good!

STS - 71-A, February 15th - February 21st Expanding Horizons Faulty Sensors: Starting off one of the busiest years in the Shuttle program's schedule, STS-71A will see orbiter Freedom rescue the failing Earth Radiological Observer satellite. This satellite was deployed by Intrepid over 2 years ago and operated fairly normally until recently, where it began displaying impossible radiation measurements and appeared to begin a very slow tumble. With this information, the ERO team decided it was best the mission be truncated and the satellite be recovered early. NASDA managers gave the plan a green light and 71-A's Spacelab payload was shifted to STS-71-E. In addition to recovering a satellite Freedom will be deploying INDSAT-1, Insulinda's first GEO communications satellite. In other news, Wilson Kerman was officially inaugurated as president of the United States of Akermia. It remains to fully be seen how this will effect NASDA but the changes will surely be drastic. His support for Akermia's space program is vital, yet his calls for the militarization of space have generated much controversy. It's all but guaranteed at this point that Stonewall North Akermian will be getting another order for an orbiter but it won't be for NASDA. Crew: Commander: Bart Kerman Pilot: Wayne Kerman Mission Specialist: George Kerman Mission Specialist: Wubbo Kerman Mission Specialist: David Kerman Mission Specialist: Jay Kerman No crew photo this mission due to a suit bug, sorry! ' "...We're just under.. 10 minutes from launch here at Cape Canaveral. We should see the, uh, crew tunnel retracting here shortly. Listening into the ground control and orbiter loop, commander says it feels good." "Crew tunnel should be retracting here in just a moment." "There it goes, rolling back now. APU startup to follow shortly. Crew still reporting everything feels good. This evening, we are joined by astronaut Valsen Kerman, Commander of STS-51-D. We hope to have her on shortly." "..and as we said before, the APU is now running. You should be able to hear it over the broadcast. Next up in the time-table is the retract of the, the "GOX" arm. The "Gaseous Oxygen Vent Arm." "Seems to be retracting just fine. Unfortunately it appears Valsen will not be appearing on the broadcast today as we're having some technical difficulties... we apologize for any interruptions. Ground control is still reporting a go for todays launch. " "Orbiter is now running on internal power. 50 seconds until launch." "Ground launch sequencer is go for auto sequence start, t-minus 30 seconds till launch." "T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7.. Go for main engine start!" "We have ignition! 4, 3, 2, 1.." "Go! Liftoff! We have a liftoff! Freedom now climbing off the pad!" "Liftoff of the 28th Space Shuttle mission! Go Freedom!" "That is something you never get tired of... She is a beauty! *Cough* Now, onto our next segment during this launch. NASDA was kind enough to supply our network with a rough outline of what each shuttle would be doing in 1985. Up first, we have Freedom. Freedom will be deliver the "Unity" escape vehicle to the Skylab space station. It will also be recovering an ailing satellite, which we assume is this mission here." "Pathfinder will also resume normal operations this year. It will be deploying the Hale Space Telescope and carrying out what appears to be an entirely classified military mission. We, of course, have no idea what payload it will be carrying and what the mission objectives are. Hopefully we can gain more information at a later date." "Intrepid will be performing preliminary observations of Halley's comet in preparation for its closet approach in 1986. It will also deliver the Valropan sponsored laboratory to Skylab and launch the first journalist into space!" "Voyager will be the first shuttle to fly from the Vandenberg Space Launch Complex, entering a polar orbit and delivering a payload for the Air Force. It will also see the deployment of a lunar probe on the first scheduled "Shuttle - Centaur" flight. Everything in Freedom's launch appears to be going nominally...." Freedom soars! Clean SRB separation. MECO. ET is cut loose. OMS-1 OMS-2 Freedom is now in a stable orbit. Crew will wait one orbit for systems checks before beginning mission duties. Freedom ready to get to work. The first major milestone in the flight comes about a day after launch, the deployment of INSAT-1. One orbit left before the deployment of INSAT. INSAT prior to sunshield opening. INSAT-1 Crew begin deployment procedures and the satellite is spun-up. Nominal deployment. INSAT fired its kick-motor about 30 minutes later and was successfully able to raise its apophasis to GEO. It's apogee kick-motor was also successfully fired, fully placing the satellite in a geostationary orbit. Next up, Freedom fires it's OMS engines to align it's orbit with ERO's. It spends the next day and a half playing catch-up with the satellite. Earth Radiological Observer Finally, the two meet. Commander Bart carefully maneuvers the orbiter closer to ERO. Jay and Wubbo don their suits and prepare for capture. Jay steps out and climbs into the MMU with the capture assembly. Wubbo follows shortly after. After triple checking his systems, Jay moves out of the payload bay. He's determined to go fetch a satellite. "Gotta pretty good visual here on ERO. Houston, I think we may just be able to grab it. It's not spinning to fast." "I got it!" Jay starts to bring ERO back. Wubbo waits in the extra MMU incase anything goes wrong. "Better hurry Jay, its gonna get dark soon!" "I'm going, I'm going." Wubbo exits the extra MMU and begins assisting Jay in folding the solar panels of ERO. Jay moves the satellite down into the cradle. "Capture!" The MMU is stowed and the pair begin making sure ERO is fully secured. Soon enough, their job is done. It's time to return inside and prepare to go home. Freedom has completed every major mission objective. The crew are ready to return to Earth. ERO 2 days later, Freedom is prepared for it's return journey. The payload bay doors are sealed. De-orbit burn, heading for Edwards Air Force Base. Another one for the books!

I'm making this to set in stone what the orbiters look like! I keep making mistakes myself when I'm doing missions so hopefully this should prevent that in the future. I plan on making these for the whole fleet.

Please stop.

STS - 61-G, December 1st - December 8th, 1984 Walking It Back The Shifting Political Landscape : In a surprise to virtually no one, Wilson Kerman won in a complete landslide against incumbent Dortmund Kerman. The rabble-rousing Unionist from Alta Kalionia was projected to win by virtually every pundit since the race had begun due to his willingness to act tough on communism and take a hard stance against the Union of Socialist Federative Republics. In his victory speech, the president-elect made several comments directly relating to NASDA, touting the agency as the greatest spaceflight administration to exist on Earth. However, some parts of his speech made NASDA managers worried. "..Akermia's military strength cannot end on the ground, it cannot end on the sea, it cannot end in the air. We have to further extend our reach into space to protect ourselves from the Ruslavians and their evil empire,", the president elect stated. "We must not allow ourselves to fall behind and come the 20th, I will do all I can in my power to make sure we don't." This statement surely wouldn't reflect well on the agency in the eyes of the USFR, especially at a time where trust and mutual understanding was paramount. Administrator Harding made sure to downplay the comments at the next Skylab - Soyuz (The planned escape vehicle for Skylab) meeting, lest Interkosmos pull out of the deal. Moving on from the political climate and back to NASDA operations, STS-61-G is ready for launch. The orbiter "Freedom" is ready to spread her wings once again, carrying a diverse assortment of satellites and experiments. It is also the first flight to be apart of NASDA's new hitchhiker program. The hitchhiker program was formally known as the Shuttle Academic Experiment Packages or SAEP, a small program dedicated to flying university sponsored experiments on-board the shuttle. However, the criteria was extremely strict and didn't allow for many important universities to get their payloads to fly. After much protest from many academic sectors, NASDA higherups decided to loosen the requirements and allow hundreds of other colleges to get a chance at getting their projects flown in space. Freedom will also be delivering three international satellites into orbit. MSAT-1 and 2 and VeSat-1 from the United States of Mejeca and the Republic of Vesperia respectively. The only satellite to come purely from the US onboard is SXO-2, part of NASDA's Phoenix program. The launch date of this mission marks the last flights of Voyager and Intrepid for around 2 months, since they are being prepared for the up-coming Shuttle-Centaur project and require modification. Crew: Commander: Kim Kerman Pilot: Jimmy Kerman Mission Specialist: Eugene Kerman Mission Specialist: Sally Kerman Mission Specialist: Charlie Kerman Orbiter: OV-101 "Freedom" Crew of STS-61-G pose with the new Akermian flag design. "..As far as I know we are still GO. Coming up on t-minus 9 minutes." "Crew arm is now retracting. APU's to fire up shortly." "GOX arm is now retracting. Crew reporting everything feels good." "10, 9, 8, 7.." "We have.. we have main engine start...4, 3, 2, 1." "Booster ignition and lift-off the of the shuttle Freedom!" "Tower clear!" "Roll program, Houston!" "Roger roll, Freedom." "Beautiful separation.." OMS 1 (OMS 2 not photographed) Freedom plunges into the darkness, soon ready to begin operations. Doors opened. "Houston, Freedom." "Freedom, Houston, go ahead." "We are happy to say you are GO for deployment after the next 2 revs." "We copy your all. Hoping to get some good photos of the deployment." Another important event on 61-G is the first flight of the new Akermian flag in space. Due to the dissolution of the commonwealths and return to the state system after the 1984 election, the national flag of Akermia had to be changed. This design was chosen above others and features 37 stars. 32 in the circles for the contiguous 32, 4 for Akermia's non-contiguous state and a single star in the center for the federal government. The first satellite to be deployed will be MSAT-1 for Mejeca. MSAT-1 will act as Mejeca's first independent satellite communication system, breaking away from the North Akermian Satellite Chain. After two orbits, the sunshade is opened and MSAT-1 exposed. "She's away! I got a great photo of it, I think." "MSAT-1 is away. Everything appears nominal." Freedom drifts above the Earth, waiting for the next window to deploy MSAT-2. MSAT-2 is identical to MSAT-1 and very similar appearance wise to VeSat-1 as they are all built on Boltan 376 satellite busses. "Freedom, you are go for this next window coming up in about 2 hours." After a couple hours, MSAT-2 is prepared for deployment. "Setting it free in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.." "Separation of MSAT-2 confirmed." "I think I got it with the IMAX." In the meantime while the crew waits to deploy VeSat, Mission Specialists Charlie and Eugene operate the S.H.O.O.T experiment by Gagnon University. S.H.O.O.T, or Superfluid Helium On-orbit Transfer is a demonstration of the technology required to store and transfer liquid helium in space. Of all the hitchhiker containers on Freedom, it is the only one that requires astronaut input. Freedom is also flying an experiment for the Airforce, though the exact nature of it is not known by the crew. The best description they were given is "exposing certain elements to the vacuum of space." Next to the Radioactive Exposure Facility Experiment is the Altitude Sensor Package by Sandfort University. Behind that is the HUGAS cannisters, sponsored by the Hoover State University. They both contain a multitude of small experiments developed by students are the colleges! The Radioactive Exposure Facility Experiment is meant to see how some elements respond to radiation exposure in space. Freedom over the Nihon Islands. Nihon and their NASA are expected to soon approach NASDA for cooperation opportunities. Finally, after several hours and orbits it is time to deploy VeSat. VeSat is for Vesperia, a relatively new country on the world stage. It separated from Arcadia in 1963 due to significant cultural differences and their staunch views on language. VeSat-1 Soon, she will burn for GEO! VeSat arrives at GEO, long after it's deployment. MSAT-1 and 2 also make it to GEO. The deployment of SXO-2 comes next. It will be grappled by the arm, released and then recovered a few days later. Mission Specialist Sally Kerman takes control of the arm and maneuvers it towards SXO. "Capture!" "Release the clamp, Charlie." "Rog." ... "Charlie, what's up? Something wrong?" "I'm trying to release it but nothing is happening. See if you can get something from Houston." "Houston, This is Sally here and we're having issues getting SXO off the clamp and out of the bay. Charlie is flipping the release switch but nothing appears to be happening. Circuits show the signal is reaching the clamp but it just isn't releasing it." "..Roger that, Sally..uhh. We'll take a look at it and get back to you with a recovery procedure if possible." "Son of a b*tch! This thing just won't work!" Two orbits pass and finally, Houston has orders. "Freedom, this is Houston, we are no-go for the deployment of SXO. We are going to leave it there and take a look at it back on the ground when you get back. I repeat, no-go for deployment of SXO." "Can't we just EVA and inspect it up here?" "Sorry, that's a negative Kim. This payload is not worth the risk." "Damn." "Y'know, I was actually looking forward to that." SXO is released and the arm is stowed. The Airforce payload deploys it's materials rack. The next few days are spent quietly drifting above the Earth, performing other various experiments onboard the middeck and monitoring the ones in the payload bay. As the mission draws to a close, final preparations are made for landing. Touchdown! Wheel stop, welcome home Freedom!

STS - 61-E, September 20th - September 30th, 1984 For Sale Recovery: STS-61-E is the Space Shuttle program's most ambitious mission yet, setting out to deploy two commsats and then moving onto recover two more for return to Earth. Voyager will deliver WCom 15 and Huwako 9 (KSA) to orbit. After this mission goal is met, Voyager will then rendezvous with Huwako 5 for recovery and then move onto AZIC-9. These two satellites will be refurbished and reflown on later missions, though they will not be launched aboard the space shuttle. The MMU will see extensive use on this flight, being instrumental to assisting the recovery of the two satellites. Crew: Commander: Neil Kerman Pilot: Deke Kerman Mission Specialist: Huey Kerman Mission Specialist: Mike Kerman Mission Specialist: John Kerman Orbiter: OV-104 "Voyager" "..All systems look green. Coming up on GOX arm retract here shortly, t-minus 3 minutes and 58 seconds..." "GOX arm now moving back.." "T-minus 15, 14, 13, 12, 10...Excess hydrogen burn off systems online.." "T-minus 8, 7, go for main engine start.." "We have main engine start.." "Liftoff! Liftoff of the 26th space shuttle mission." "Coming up on SRB separation." After recovery, excessive burn through on the O-Rings of the SRBs was noted. This event nearly lead to the total loss of vehicle and crew. OMS-1 OMS-2 "Voyagers payload bay doors now open, proceeding with primary mission objectives." First objective is the deployment of Huwako 8, a commsat for the KSA built by Western Communications. "Spin-up started, deployment proceeding nominally, Houston..." "We've got nominal deployment." Huwako 8 burning it's apogee kick motor. "Everything with Huwako 8 went smoothly. WCom 12 deployment is still on-schedule for deployment in the coming days." "Alright Houston, we're still go for deployment of WCom. How are things looking down there?" "We read you Neil and we don't have any issues on our side. Go for deployment of WCom." "Rog." "Make sure you get it on the IMAX, Huey!" "I got it." WCom 12 deployment. WCom at GEO. "Voyager - Houston, we're good to move onto recovering AZIC and Huwako. Plugging in the burn now." "Houston, we have visual of Huwako. She looks good." "Huey and Deke in the airlock now, should be stepping out any second now." Deke making his way to the MMU with the TPAD attachment. Huey will standby waiting in the secondary MMU for potential rescue operations. "Alright, I'm moving outside the bay. I have a good vis. on Huwako. Making my way out there now." "Uh Houston.." "Go ahead." "I'm seeing a problem here..." "And that would be, Deke?" "Huwako is spinning, faster than expected." "...." "Is it manageable?" "I think I can get it. I'll try to match it's spin." "Alright, here we go.." "Houston, we have a satellite!" "Good going, Deke! We'll see you back here soon!" "Good show." Huey now moves to assist Deke, installing a grapple fixture to the front of Huwako. There was an issue with the grapples in the orbiters payload bay. I had to relaunch so thats why the pallets look a bit different. AZIC-9 rendezvous burn. Similar setup to before instead Huey will be the one recovering the satellite instead of Deke. Huey leaving the orbiter's bay. "Alright Huey, let's wrap this up and get on inside. I'm getting hungry." Recovered satellites photographed by Mission Specialist John Time to return to Earth Welcome back, Voyager, Huwako and AZIC!

STS - 61-D, August 18th - August 29th, 1984 Power Tower Skylab 11: Expanding Skylab's power output has always been a priority of NASDA. Ever since it's near-disastrous launch in '73 the station has been operating minus one solar panel, a configuration that has severely hampered any plans for future expansion. The solution for this roadblock is the "Power Tower," a large module chock-full of batteries and topped with two massive solar panels. The added power generation will make it possible for the addition of more scientific modules, meeting NASDA's original goals for Skylab expansion. In order to actually assemble the tower, MMUs will be used due to the awkward location of its attachment point on top of the SDA. While this has been called risky by some, the Arcarm simply does not have the range to safely extract the tower and berth it. Crew: Commander: Gus Kerman Pilot: Trabas Kerman Mission Specialist: Conrad Kerman Mission Specialist: Walter Kerman Mission Specialist: Colby Kerman Mission Specialist: Layne Kerman Orbiter: OV-103 "Intrepid" "Liftoff of Space Shuttle Intrepid! Expanding Skylab and our horizons." "Houston - Intrepid, roll program." "Intrepid - Houston, nominal SRB separation. You're looking good and are right on the money." "Roger Houston." OMS -2 & Skylab rendezvous burn (OMS - 1 not photographed) Intrepid returns to Skylab once again Shortly after arrival the EVA team suits up and begins preparations for the EVA. This will be the first 3 Kerbal EVA on the Space Shuttle Program. First up is Walter Kerman who climbs into one of the MMUs with a docking probe. Layne Kerman follows after, hopping into the backup MMU. He quickly detaches from the payload bay and begins his way up to the two ATM panels. After some finicking, the two ATM panels are successfully stowed. Layne returns to the payload bay. Meanwhile, Colby is heading to dock with the power tower for extraction. Successfully extracted. Walter will dock with the other side and the pair will begin moving it up towards the SDA. Darkness soon falls on them but the pair decide to push on after briefly arguing with mission control. After a few orbits, Layne oversees the solar arrays extension. (Unfortunately I don't have an image of successfully berthing the power tower due to computer issues.) Successful rollout of both solar arrays, Skylab is now ready for expansion! Photo of Mission Specialist Gus Kerman, taken by Colby Kerman. The crew spend the next several days getting the kinks of the system and cataloging items in the on-going long duration exposure experiment. A second EVA is planned to leave a micrometeorite detector on top of the ATM. Walter Kerman to emerge from Skylab's airlock shortly. Walter would have to abort this EVA before being able to visually inspect the station for damage due to expected loss of suit pressure below his waist. No further EVAs were to be conducted until a reason could be determined on the ground. Finally, it's time for Interpid and her crew to return to Earth. Undocked. STS-61-D concluded, welcome home Intrepid!

Hey all, my KSP is bugging out whenever I try to land the shuttle. If I cant fix it, Im going to upload a half post tonight and the rest tomorrow when I fix the issue.

I am back. Mission post will be up tonight.

Hey all, bit of an update here. I'm taking a vacation from CD until the 18th, STS-61-D should be up then. In the mean time, have a tidbit of lore about the upcoming Akermian flag change. Wall of text so I'll spoiler it