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Spaceman.Spiff

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    Terran(ism) Space Program (finished!)

    in KSP1 Mission Reports

    Posted

    2 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

    It's time.

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    And then...

    Tim: OK people, time to do the flag-planting ceremony. You two stand there and I'll plant the flag-

    Brian: I thought I was planting the flag?

    Terri: No, I was!

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    Tim: OK, we've all planted flags. Now can we do it properly this time?

    Brian: ...fine.

    Terri: Spoilsport.

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    It's been a long time coming, but at last: CREWED MARS LANDING COMPLETE!!! :D

    The crew did some reports, gathered some samples and did other science-y things for thirty days, before gathering everything they could into the upper compartment and preparing for liftoff. (For redundancy reasons the lander carried 60 days' worth of food, however the majority of that was stored in the habitation module and service module on top of that, both of which were left behind on the surface. Oops...)

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    Returning to orbit was pretty easy, but rendezvousing took time as the Mars ship was at pretty much the exact opposite side of Mars at the time the lander circularised. Two days later they finally got there.

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    With most of the fuel gone and minus the heavy hab/service modules, the lander turned out to be pretty agile and with a decent amount of delta-V just from its RCS thrusters- information that will be very handy for the Phobos leg of this mission. Docking was a pretty simple process and soon enough the crew were back aboard their ship, along with the precious surface samples that Terri immediately dragged down to the lab for analysis.

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    The trans-Phobos burn was performed with the core booster, however there wasn't enough fuel left in that to do the capture burn too so the remaining fuel was siphoned into the lander and the booster was discarded, sent onto a collision course with the little space photato.

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    During the series of burns to capture into Mars orbit- initial capture, plane alignment with Phobos, lowering periapsis to 250km and circularisation- the final circularisation burn almost ran into trouble when the two engines performing that burn exceeded their rated burn times and the mean time between failure started dropping precipitously- from hours to less than two minutes! Fortunately the burn completed before either engine failed and by then they were out of ignitions, so the other pair of engines were engaged for the trans-Phobos burn.

    The ship's own pair of engines were used to capture at Phobos, braking to a frankly ridiculous 6m/s orbital velocity. That leaves four ignitions to get back to Earth with- getting out of Phobos orbit could feasibly be done with RCS, then trans-Earth burn, course correction (which will probably be needed) and capture burn, with a spare pair of ignitions in case of failures.

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    'Landing' on Phobos is a relative term: the Kerbals' EVA jetpacks are more than enough to do that, however the contract requires 2 crew and a 12 hour stay so the lander is required. Fortunately, the puny gravity is no match for its RCS thrusters, which have oodles of delta-V for the task, and with a relative velocity of less than 5m/s compared to the surface it's not like it'll use much fuel.

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    The landing site was on the eastern edge of Stickney Crater; fortunately there are plenty of those strange ridges with the nice flat bits in between (probably due to low-resolution terrain mapping from real-life missions, I suspect the real terrain would be smooth), but unfortunately this landing site is on the outer side of Phobos and so will never face towards Mars for some scenic shots. Oh well, I can always do another landing later...

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    Due to the design of the lander, the crew hatch faces vertically up making boarding a little tricky. Not everyone got in on their first attempt...

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    With the flag planted and science gathered, the crew returned to orbit moving at speeds of up to 7 metres per second! Wow!

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    Full album: https://imgur.com/a/jIiDmqj

    Coming up next time: I could do landings in every biome on Phobos to get all the surface samples, try a precision landing beside the little lander currently parked on the western edge of Stickney or even jetpack down and back up, though that last option is a bit risky due to the limited supplies carried while on EVA. There's loads of science to be gathered out here and the transfer window home is over a year away.

    Hard to believe it's been over a year since this series started!

    Shuttle Adventures: An Album of Kerbalized Space Shuttle Missions

    in KSP1 Mission Reports

    Posted

    10 hours ago, Kuiper_Belt said:

    Bring a spray bottle and a squeegee!

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    I've fleshed out Hubble and the payload bay (more difficult than I initially thought!) of STS-125 to a point at which I'm satisfied with! I've been busy with life as of late but I've been chipping away at this project when the opportunity arises. If I'm lucky I'll have time to squeak it out before the weekend is out but hopefully I'll have it out before next Thursday!

    STS-125 Coming Soon!

    WOW! That Hubble look perfect!

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