AcmeAerospace Mission logs

Acme Aerospace · March 16, 2016

I just got back into KSP after taking an extended an extended Haitus. I had read through most of Brotoro's mission logs a while ago, and I was inspired to do my own.

*NOTE - Selene is the mission designation for mun missions, after the Greek goddess of the moon, I know, I am super original.

Jeb - "This is Selene 1 to KSC, staging malfunction during decoupling of drop tanks during de-orbit. Transfer stage has detached, thrust still on full. It's stuck to us, going into a spin..."

(Explosions)

Bill - "KSC, this is Selene 1, command pod has detached from the rest of the lander."

This was an actual mission failure that I had, leaving nothing but a capsule in a polar orbit around the mun. Instead of reloading I decided to send a rescue mission.

This is Selene 1.5 on the pad. This mission, headed by Valentina, along with Anla and Siglie is preparing to launch. The rocket is built with three in atmosphere stages around the main transfer/rendezvous stage, the outer tanks have drop-tanks on each side, these are asparagus staged.

Selene 1.5 was a rush build, hoping to rescue the big three, Jeb, Bill, and Bob, as quickly as possible.

Selene 1.5 lifting off, for some reason my game was hating the mainsail thrust animation, and whenever they were burning my fps would die. I am never flying a rocket at 2 fps again, it is fine now though, so...

Valentina - "This is Selene 1.5 to KSC, we have dropped our first drop tanks, and are beginning our gravity turn, ascent path is good."

Anla - "Apoapsis is approaching 75 km, preparing to cut engines and drift up."

Anla - "Approaching apoapsis, beginning circularisation burn."

Valentina - "We are performing transfer burn... Apoapsis aproaching mun, and... We have an encounter. Adjusting inclination."

Valentina - "We are beginning rendezvous burn, expected closest approach is at 5.7 km, hang on guys, we are on our way."

Anla - "1 km, and closing, visual contact confirmed, is it just me or does that look a little bit big for a command pod. Selene 1, do you have a visual on us?"

Jeb - "Negative Selene 1.5, we do not have visual contact, we are not getting a ping from you on short range sensors either."

Siglie - "Um, guys, that looks a bit like the rest of the lander, aren't they in the capsule... KSC, are you seeing this?"

KSC - "Roger that, it seems that the rover cockpit is still sending telemetry, and is also claiming to be Selene 1, rechecking munar orbit for the pod."

Val - "Are you telling us that you sent us to the wrong place."

KSC - "Affirmative"

KSC - "We have acquired the capsules orbit, sending now."

Val - "Beginning rendezvous... And... we are closing in, closets approach it 13.2 km, I couldn't get any closer, we will have to adjust once we get closer."

Val - "Closing in, 9.6 km out, hang on guys, we are almost there."

Approaching Selene 1, it is hard to see in the picture, but the capsule is just off to the right, at this point I had been working on this rescue mission for over an hour, and it was getting very late on a school night, so I was in a rush to get the boys home.

Approaching Selene 1, took a few tries to get relative velocity down to less than 0.1 meters per second, and for some reason, the Selene 1 cockpit was responding to wasd inputs even though I was controlling Selene 1.5.

Jeb - "We have visual contact, it's nice to see you Val, what took you so long? We have been sitting here for days now."

Bill - "Yhea, do you have any idea what it is like sitting in a capsule with Jeb having nothing to do for days on end, I am lucky to be alive."

Val - "Sorry guys, blame the boys back at mission control, not us."

Jeb - "Crew preparing for EVA to Selene 1.5, it's gonna be nice to stretch my legs for a bit."

After Bill and Bob made their way over to the rescue ship, Jeb was the final one to make the walk.

Jeb - "Back on structure and preparing to board."

After the crew was all on Selene 1.5, Val began burning back to kerbin, everyone is on their way back home.

Only a 479 m/s burn to get back to wonderful kerbin. The trajectories mod was telling me that this was just enough to get caught in kerbin's atmosphere, and land.

Making the burn back to Kerbin.

Val - "This is Selene 1.5 to KSC, we are on our way home, make us a batch of coffee.

Val began burning off most of the excess fuel, because they are landing anyway. Might as well slow down, the tank is just going to burn up anyway. Also you will see how much fuel I have left, even with the amount of unexpected maneuvers we had to do. I have a habit of overbuilding my rockets, and quite frankly, I am happy to have excess fuel.

Val - "We are coming in hot, heat-shields are holding up fine though."

Selene 1.5 was a rush build, the engineers slapped it together from scratch in a matter of hours. Yeah, they are that good. But in the rush, the engineers forgot to consider the excess weight of the hitchhiker crew cabin, and the extra weight that entails. This means that the cabin came in much faster than normal, so drogue chutes should have been included.

Val - "KSC, we are coming in hot, parachutes are still red, altitude is getting low, please advise."

KSC - "Copy that Val, stay on, don't pull your chute until they go green, I repeat, don't pull the chutes."

Jeb - "KSC, we are getting very low, speed is still very high, we have to pull the chute."

KSC - "We repeat, don't pull the chute, you are too fast, it could tear."

Val - "600 meters... 500... 400, chutes are still red... 300... 200... Screw it, pulling the chute."

KSC - "Selene 1, are you there, impact at 150 m/s... I repeat, Selene 1.5 are you there."

Val - "KSC, this is Selene 1.5, high velocity impact, hitchhiker was destroyed. Jeb, Bill, Bob, please respond."

Jeb - "Copy that Val, we are still here, That hurt a lot though."

Actually, yeah they died, but sandbox mode, so they are just going to spend a bit of time in the sick bay, and will be back in a little bit.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Acme Aerospace

Acme Aerospace · March 19, 2016

PART 2

Today we retry Selene 1, and this time we do it right. After the absolute failure of Selene 1, we went back to the VAB and fixed some of the issues we had. Lets have a look at our rocket.

Here we can see Selene 2, the rocket is exactly the same as its predecessor, the only fix was one fuel line that was previously missing. The lander uses 6 LV-909 engines to land, and for take off, and transfer back to kerbin, there is a poodle, There are also sepratrons for a starting kick. The transfer stage is a poodle with three Rockomax X200-32 tanks. The launcher is asparagus staged.

Here we can see the Selene rover. It is fairly compact, with a large battery pack/solar panel on the back. It also has plenty of science, because that is important in sandbox. It is also running on four tank treads.

Selene 2 is sitting on the pad, the crew for this mission is Anla, Sigle, and Valentina Kerman, the same crew that just got back from saving the big 3 for the failure that was Selene 1.

Val - "KSC, this is Selene 2, we have liftoff, see you guys in a few days."

Beautiful sunrise during our burn for the mun. As always, the rocket is over built, and the launch stage gets us most of the way there.

Decoupling the burnt out stage, and switching to the poodle. A couple of fireworks as a decoupler gets blown up. Freaking out EVERY SINGLE KERBAL ON THE FRICKING ROCKET. Ok, ok, calm down, it is not like they are all highly trained kerbonauts. oh, wait.

Making a capture, then de-orbit burn, placing ourselves on the far-side crater. Sigle, being the engineer that he is yelled at me for how much extra delta-v we had in the transfer stage.

Val - "Decoupling the transfer stage. Whoa, transfer stage is still burning, going off on its own, thank god we got out of the way of it."

Val - "Touchdown. KSC, this is Selene 2, we have successfully touched down on the surface of the moon."

The landing was a little bit hard, partially because it was very dark, and I could not see our shadow, but nothing broke.

Valentina posing for a picture in front of the sunset with Selene 2 in the background, Valentina is now the first kerbal to step foot on the mun, or any other celestial body for that matter.

Dropping the rover down onto the surface, Valentina is going to hop in, and go for a ride over to a nearby crater... Inside of the far-side crater, how cool is that.

Val - "Selene 2, are you reading me"

Sigle - "Yhea, copy that Val, KSC has cleared you to head out for the drive."

Val - "Copy that, heading out.

The trip took a while, 10 m/s was faster then we got most the time, and the Kerbal foundries tracks don't seem to like it. Anyway, we'll just skip to when we get there.

Val - "Here we are, man that is a big drop, let's not drive down that, I don't know if I could get back from it. Anyway, heading back now."

You can see the magnetometer boom extending off the back of the rover, just one of the few things added by D-magic orbital science, because again, we need science in a sandbox play through.

Going back to Anla and Sigle, back at the lander, as Val is off having all the fun in the rover, they walk around collecting science, planting flags, and having fun in low gravity.

Val - "Holy crap, guys, I am rolling, this is Selene rover to KSC, I have rolled the rover."

At this point, the rover started going to fast, then freaked out, and flew up in the air, once it landed, the magnetometer, and the solar panel/battery pack were the only things that were destroyed, despite there roll cage. Great.

Val - "Guys, I am not going to walk, 3 km, I am going to fly over."

This was going very well until she landed at literally 3 m/s, and just decided to pop, so we are going to say that she landed a bit hard and hurt her leg, so they just got her in the command pod, and posed for a photo.

*Posing for a photo*

Anla - "Hey KSC, do I get to fly the rocket with Val being hurt?"

KSC - "Yes Anla, you get to fly it."

The sepratrons firing to help us get off the surface, good thing to, because I forgot to throttle up the poodle. Lots of great stuff done down on the surface, a very successful mission so far. Lets see if we get back in one piece.