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To infinity and beyond (Eve, Jool, Duna on Kerbalism)


MacLuky

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Brief

This thread will continue the tale of the brave kerbonauts hat traveled to Duna with kerbalism. After the disaster with the Illiad and the success of the Odyssey funding was dialed back on KSC and it would take a new president of United Kerbin to re-ignite the grand tours despite the risks of kerbalism. Time will tell if they are prepared enough. I will update during the mission and it will be picture heavy.

Contents

1.) Prologue

2.) An eve-ntful landing

3.) The highway to Eve

4.) The Jupiter disaster

5.) A new place to reach for the stars

6.) To dock or not to dock

7.) The Firebird

8.) Regular chores

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Prologue: every journey starts with the commitment to take a step

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“We have done amazing things,” said president Kilcannon Kerman during the opening of the Kerbin space exhibition. “Bringing a crew of 3..”, “uhm 4 Mr. president”, whispered Gene Kerman who was sitting at the right side of the table. “..from the surface of Dina”, Kilcannon continued. “and with the latest discoveries in near future propulsion, we as a united Kerbin will vouch to put a Kerbal on all planets and safely bring them back!” 
As the room applauded loudly, Gene frantically explained to Kilcannon that landing on Jool was not possible and Eve and Eelloo were way outside the current capabilities. “and before the decade is over, we will have landed on three of them!”, the president continued as if he had not heard a single word his advisor had just told him. “I will now give word to Wilbur, Warner, Waller? what was his name? to talk about this new space propulsion system.”

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Wehrner sighted, “Tziss just one word, imagine learning a new language ja.”
The rest of the new years evening progressed as one would expect, but it would be the day that the KSC secured the funding for their continued operation and mark their path to the stars.

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Chapter 1: A hasted departure

It took the bureaucrats a long time to set up the KSC with the new contracts and funding system and while the kerbonauts were happily shuttling between Mun base Atlantis and Mercury Station in LKO there had not been substantial mission plans on the table. In fact, all had been waiting for the 1.4 update, though none had any clue what that would mean. So Mission control decided that the current operation would be the basis for the next step of deep space exploration. 
In order to secure the funding and keep the public momentum going, they would need at least to look like a professional, planned space agency. “What is the earliest transfer window we can get?” Gene asked the Nav team at Alexmoon. “Well, there is a departure window to Eve in a few days.” “We don’t have something that can ascent from Eve,” Tamdock explained, “not even close.” 

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Gene zipped his coffee, “options people, we need options.” “We could try to visit Gilly again?”, Bob said. The room froze, everyone remembered the voyage of the Iliad. Where the Odyssey had successfully brought and returned 4 kerbals to the Duna system had its sister ship, that was heading to Gilly, suffered a severe and near-fatal disaster.  “But how? We can’t build a new interplanetary ship in 10 days, nor do we have the resources!” Harrick rose from his seat, grabbed everyone's attention by raising his green hand in the air when he said: “we don’t need one, we have one. The Odyssey is sitting in its parking orbit waiting for another challenge.” 

Engineering was skeptical at first. After all, the Odyssey had not been built for reusability, it had performed admirably within in the last 3 years, but sending it off to Eve would stress the aged systems. “The plan was to re-purpose her as the new Mun space station.” said Gene. “but given the opportunity….”

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The next few days went by very quickly and before we knew it a team of brave kerbonauts headed out to SpaceBus 1 to taxi to their spacecraft and embark on an exciting new journey. 

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The team consisted of Mission Commander Harrick, which had shown exemplary skills in research during the Duna/Ike mission and was the most skilled scientist that KSC currently had in their ranks. Senior Engineer Tamdock had volunteered. He had flown many missions to Mercury Station to prototype the systems that eventually had made their way to the Odyssey. Lolo Kerman was the rookie on the crew but make no mistake. He was selected due to his experience with Minmus geology research and had been on the team that had confirmed that the surface of Kerbin’s second moon was indeed not edible. Milfry Kerman was the pilot of the team, she had flown several missions to the Mun and Minmus and was more than qualified to handle the Odyssey on her interplanetary journey.

Bill had pulled an old Enterprise class shuttle from the mothballs. “This will mark the tenth flight of the Enterprise.” Said Bill to Jeb who was overlooking the launch from Mission control. Little could go wrong with a vehicle that had been so battle proven, the last flight had been to the Mun on a rescue mission and Valentina had nearly burned up in the atmosphere due to the high re-entry velocity. “And yet it is as ugly as the first, you have no feeling for UX Bill,” smiled Jeb at his old friend. 

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“Count down has started.” “Booster, go. Retro, go. Flight, go. Guidance, go. Medical, go. Electrical, go. Kerbalism, go. Guidance, go. Mapview, go. Stability Assist, pressing T.. go. Comm, go. Valentina?, go. ”

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It proved to be a wise choice to use well-proven crafts. The launch went off without a hitch. Booster separation had been perfected and the parachutes pulled the first stage boosters away 35 seconds after launch and would make a nearly full recovery of their value due to their close proximity to KSC.

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The second stage was detached at 45km altitude when orbital velocity was almost achieved. The Enterprise 10 went for a direct rendez-vous ascent. This meant that the trajectory was adjusted in such a way that the circularisation was to happen practically on top of the Odyssey. This kind of precession ascent was exactly why Valentina was chosen to fly the mission, that and her familiarity with the docking procedure with the Odyssey.

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The crew had transferred in the Dragon capsule that had been lurking in the cargo bay. Repurposed from its initial design as a Mun transport vehicle, it was now equipped with a full science package since the Odyssey had been cannibalized on their last trip. The crew had also brought a fresh spare parts container which they had almost forgotten, had it not been for @Geschosskopf .

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“There she is,” Valentina smiled when she saw the Odyssey appear in her window and fired the RCS thrusters to get a better view. “She is not showing her age,”  Jeb said while watching the live feed, 120000m below. 

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Chapter 2: an Eve-ntful landing

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“Command, this is Valentina. Burning for rendez-vous. We are closing in for the dock.” KSC had started to take control of the Odyssey and started booting up her systems. Lights had been switched on and docking ports had been extended and their docking lights had been switched on.

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“Dragon we are close to the target. Disengage and head out.” Valentina had opted for a double docking sequence where the payload would head out to the front docking port whereas the Enterprise would recover the lab that was attached to the docking port.

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KSC here, we see some difficulties with the docking port.” sounded command over the aged speakers of the Enterprise. Telemetry had shown some incompatibility between lab section and the forward command port. “The Odyssey is on a very tight schedule, so we will detach the lab and hope you can dock it internally.” Valentina frowned but saw the lab section detach and the ejection force was sending the lab in her direction.

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“Closing doors KSC!” Valentina exclaimed. She was really happy to have found a way to dock the lab in the cargo hold, frankly, she was no sure the SSTU supplied lab would be a fit. But closing the doors proved the final nudge that the lab needed.

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14 minutes after dock Milfry ignited the engines of the Odyssey and reached escaped Kerbins orbital velocity. It would take the Odyssey 4 minutes to burn a little over 1200 m/s. “Capcom, this is Odyssey. Trajectory is looking good. Burn complete, engine shut down.” The reply came pretty quick. “Gene here, thank you Odyssey.  We’ve got some telemetry for you here. Please plot a correction burn of 10m/s in 42 days. Arrival at Eve in 149 days.” 

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The team was working franticly to power up systems and bring the Odyssey back to life.

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“Goodbye Kerbin,” Harrick reminisced when he looked out the cupola. “See you in a year or so.”

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The next day Bill established a comm link with an aged R21 scan-sat satellite that had been orbiting Eve for over a year now. With its mapping task complete it was time to see if there was anything more than the could be achieved without launching expensive hardware.

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“It won’t burn at full speed.” Bill was passing on the data to the Nav team. “You cannot burn at full speed since 2 out of  the 6 solar panels are broken.” The master engineer continued. “But at 50% you should be ok.” The Nav team had plotted a ballistic arc, this would not require a plane change and would bring the sat directly in a polar orbit of Gilly. The team waited for the proper moment and without a hitch, the satellite entered a polar orbit of Gilly.

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After the applause subdued, the science team had already activated the sensors and started mapping the surface of the little moon. Apart from data relay, the satellite's telemetry would prove extremely valuable for the approaching kerbals. Bill leaned back, “Let's hope the rest of the journey goes just as smoothly.”

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Two days later Valentina had completed her final set of experiments and with dwindling supplies, the course was set for home. When flying high over the Kerbin deserts Valentina fired the orbital thrusters since the main energy reserves were quite low.

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“Val here, picking up quite a bit of drag and heat.” She sounded nervous. Not that anyone could hear her due to the plasma effects that were surrounding the antennas. This would prove fortunate since no one hear her scream live on TV: “Oh crap, can’t keep her steady, this will be a spin.” and soon after that, the shuttle started spinning uncontrolled. At 8km altitude, Valentina recovered from her blackout and ignited the main engine.

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Blowing all the remaining fuel and most of the RCS she managed to pull out of the spin, “Val, do you read.” Gene sounded quite nervous since radio contact had been reestablished. Val gave a quick status update. “Here’s what trajectories is telling us.” said Gene. 

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“Val here, gliding back to base.” It sounded easy but it was not, Valentina had overshot the landing site by 80km, and the craft proved difficult to control. The extra weight made the lack of a large vertical stabilizer quite obvious. “I won’t make it back to base,” Valentina said.

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“Losing altitude quickly, and running out of RCS to keep the nose up.” Valentina kept her cool when talking to KSC but also deployed the landing gear. “I’m not going to make it all the way back to land.”  She said.

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“Godspeed, Val.” Gene sounded dramatically over the nav lines which suddenly sounded crystal clear. With a big splash, Valentina became the first pilot to successfully perform a water landing without breaking the craft into a zillion pieces. 

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“Very eve-ntful landing, Val.” said Jeb. “well done.”
 

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Chapter 3: The highway to Eve

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Four days later a Proton rocket was rolled out to the launchpad. Despite numerous requests, the team still had not replaced the fuel barrels that made up the second stage with the more elegant SSTU provided tanks that the other lifters used. “It works, and it’s mostly reusable,” Jeb explained to the press. And just as the sun was rising over the VAB the majestic vehicle blasted off to low Kerbin orbit, revealing the first rays of light.

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Upon reaching 12km the boosters burned out and got detached. Due to strong winds one of the winglets got knocked off the rocket, but the main engine had enough gimbaling to compensate for the lack of control.

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Upon reaching 80km the second stage would boost back to Kerbin, hoping to get a reasonable recovery rate while the third stage would go for circularization and interplanetary boost.

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The payload was the R26 Eve Ranger. The 26th robotic probe that was launched by the KSC and the third attempt to send a rover to Eve. It would take 1468 m/s to insert the probe into a trans-eve trajectory and it was scheduled to arrive in 142 days, slightly later than the Odyssey would. The idea is that the crew of the Odyssey could control the rover locally and reduce lag to get better speed and coverage from the little rover.

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Meanwhile at the Odyssey Tamdock was performing a series of EVA’s. The heat shield would be properly mounted, several of the life-support systems were inspected and the containers with spare parts were transferred and mounted properly. The empty ones were accidentally discarded and became the first projectiles on a collision course with EVE.

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Tamdock needed to fix also some broken radiators and ended up creating more space debris when he discarded the old ones. “I hope this was the last of it,” he muttered. But a couple of days later he would put on the EVE suit again, this time for a more serious problem: one of the engines refused to come on-line.

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“Looking good kids,” said Harrick. “Well done.” when the engine came back on-line. Back at KSC the engineering team was re-doing their MTBF calculations, wondering when the engine would give out permanently.

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Meanwhile, the Progress D2 launched almost a year ago finished its final correction burn. The Nav team had calculated that the craft didn’t have enough delta-v for a capture burn, so they decided they would go for skinny dipping in the atmosphere. A risky maneuver since all previous attempts had failed. Altitude was set at 85460m and the craft would hit the atmosphere at almost 5500m/s. With a signal delay of 20 minutes all, they could do now was wait.

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At 85 km the first systems started to give out,  solar panels exploded, RCS thrusters overheated and even the heat shield was not able to get rid of all the heat that was building up.

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Just before it would leave the atmosphere the heat shield exploded and the containers reached critical temperatures. But then the spacecraft left the vigorous strain of Eve’s breath and started its journey to the 12 million km apoapsis. KSC quickly shut down the batteries so that there would be a bit of juice left 5 hours later. The last RCS thruster managed to raise the orbit slightly and put the supplies into a 12Mx140km orbit. Safe but not easy to reach.  
 

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Chapter 4: The Jupiter Disaster

One month later the largest rocket in Kerbal history was rolled out to the launchpad. Part of the new Jupiter program this beast stood over 60 meters tall, 7.5m diameter a fairing of 11 meters and nearly 600 tons. “I wonder where Werhner learned about aerodynamics,” said Jeb when he and Bill were inspecting the launchpad. “It just doesn’t feel very smart, shouldn’t it be more pointy?” Bill smiled, “The TWR on the first stage is quite low, we want to make sure the cargo doesn’t fall through the fairing.” 

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The stabilizers disconnected at the exact same moment as the boosters ignited, and slowly did the majestic vehicle leave the launchpad for the blue skies. The Ommadawn had lift off the pad.

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Nine core engines where throttled down while the two side boosters did most of the heavy lifting. Just before the boosters had completely burned out the core was heated up and the RS-25 engines really started to sour.

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“Clean booster detach.” called out the mission commander. “That is one hell of an expensive booster that is just falling into the ocean,” mumbled Jeb. Who looked at the size of the boosters that were 3 times larger than his first rocket to space. “Just over a million,” replied Bill.

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Once the first stage had burned out another 700k of funds fell back to the planet while the 9 J2 engines kicked in and boosted the craft into a perfect 90x90 km orbit. It was only then when the fairing was released and the payload was revealed to the audience at KSC.

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The Ommadawn spacecraft command section. A next-generation craft for the long voyage to Jool. It would need multiple engineers to construct the ring section in space but that could wait. For now, the reactors were shut off, habitats were disabled and the mighty craft waited for the first crew to arrive. But first, it would need a drive section.

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Meanwhile, the second stage was deorbited and tested for re-usability. It appears that the Jupiter has the potential for recoverable stages.

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Three days later the press, the president and all dignities of Kerbin were present for the launch of the Jupiter 2. Bigger, better, and cheaper! At least that was as it was advertised. The payload was a new drive system. Based on the latest research this fusion drive carried 40,000 delta-v when properly docked. It would be the ultimate ticket to Jool since the distance was not the main issue, the travel time was. This unique propulsion system would change the way Kerbals traveled in space.

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“Well it looks like Wehrner took your remarks into consideration,” grinned Bill to his friend, “at least this looks more like a fairing.” “Yeah, but why no boosters? I get that H2 is lighter, but still, boosters make it look cooler.” 
The latest iteration weighted 666 tons, stood 70m tall, 7.5m rocket diameter, a fairing of 12 meters. 
The countdown has started:10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, engine ignited, 4, 3, 2, 1, releasing clamps and staging!

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Smoke filled the launchpad as the blast windows of the observation bunker closed automatically.

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When they re-opened, the launchpad was a smoking pile of debris and so was the Jool program. “Crap,” said Jeb, “Classic case of check yo staging!” 

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Chapter 5: An new place to reach for the stars

Later analysis would show that the retro rockets on the second stage fired with the first stage, forcing the second stage into the first. All that didn’t matter now. With the launchpad destroyed KSC had no platform to launch an alternative drive system, unless….

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With the fission pellets cleared the runway and Bill, Bob, Jeb and Herley Kerman found themselves in a Bear class cargo plane on the runway. “I’m really excited about these new engines,” said Jeb. Completely ignoring Bob that was checking the radiation meters every 20 seconds. “I do hope these don’t explode too,” said Bill when igniting the fans and retracting the thrust reversal brakes.

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Bills fears proved ungrounded. Cruising at an altitude of 8km and with a max speed of 240 m/s it took them well over 2 hours to reach their destination. “Target spotted, slightly west. Suggest bearing 280 to swing around that hill.” Bob was really good at reading maps, Jeb was happy to have him on board.

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“Gear deployed, heading for that old large building over there,” Jeb said when he reduced airspeed and lifted the nose slightly to drop the horizontal velocity. “Touchdown! Let's deploy the cargo asap,” Herley sounded excited.

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Their mission was a simple one. The main thing the KSC needed was a new launchpad, and the Bear was caring the Atlas 1 mobile lab. The prototype that had led to successful Mun and Duna missions, but now its telemetry and camera systems would not be used to survey an unknown world but to provide a mobile launch lab - slash - relay for upcoming missions.

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“Looking good,” said Bill when inspecting the tarmac of the old launch site. In fact, since the unification of Kerbin and the creation of the new KSC facilities this pad had been unused. Jeb scratched his head, he couldn’t remember ever launching from this place. It was fortunate that Bob had remembered it from the early Fokker program where they had surveyed much of Kerbin to gather science. “Link is up, telemetry is good,” Herley would stay behind while the other three would head back after the first launch.

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A grossly overpowered and extremely expensive Saturn rocket was rolled out to the pad. With the new Jupiter class design still under investigation, KSC was not taking any risks. The problem with the Saturn class was that it was a 5m rocket and fairing could only hold part of the drive section, hence multiple launches would be needed. “Ignition, and liftoff,” said Herley. “and we are not registering any explosions, can you confirm?” Gene was far away but glued to the nav computers.

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“Roger, capcom, with have clear separation of the pad. All systems green.” Things were going really well, almost too well. But the drive section ended up perfectly aligned with the Ommadawn in orbit. Despite quite a bit of wobble during its ascent.

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“Ehm, KSC1, this is KSC2. I think we have a problem.” Gene dropped his coffee mug.

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Chapter 6: To dock or not to dock

The Ommadawn was built with a completely new technology stack and used many new and untested parts. One of them was the welding docking ports. Or better put, not welding or not docking ports. Whatever they tried, they could not get the two massive crafts to dock. After parking the drive in a slightly lower orbit, KSC pushed the flight of the Eagle forward.

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The Eagle 7 was an intermediary shuttle design that had been servicing the space station in its early days. The relative cheap boosters made the craft cost-effective and capable of caring both supplies and people up to the station. Now it was flying in its cargo configuration as Valentina and Tomoly took off to bring replacement docking ports and attempt to construct the ring.

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After a rather uneventful flight, they aligned with the drive section to dock and replace the welding docking port for a trusty Sr. docking port. They also recharged the batteries which had depleted by now and activated the guidance systems to set the craft on a slow intercept, while they would speed ahead to the dormant command section.

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It took the team a couple of hours to rendez-vous, replace and discard the welding docking ports. Back at KSC they were not sure if they were just mounted in the wrong way or dysfunctional, but they were not taking any chances.

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The next day the drive section caught up and docked. “EVE time,” Valentina sounded excited when she and Tomoly put on their suits and flew out to the ring segments that they would need to disassemble and put together piece by piece. The dry run they had done spaceplane hanger turned out a perfect replica of the real thing.

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“All systems nominal,” Valentina exclaimed. “We can’t really spin up with the shuttle attached, but it looks like everything is properly attached,” Tomoly explained. “Running low on O2 people, time to head back out.” KSC kept a close watch on the consumables. The shuttle was stocked poorly and KSC didn’t want to tap into the Ommadawns reserves. After 3 days in space, the Eagle detached and headed back home.

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“Beep, beep, beep.” The master alarm was running overtime during descent as heat built up really quick. Valentina’s descent rate was steeper than normal but she really didn’t want to overshoot again. Two of the RCS thrusters exploded before the eagle slowed down enough.

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“Alignment is good, Center of Mass is good.” Valentina read out the displays as she went for final approach. “Brakes on, too bad I don’t have RCS to raise the nose.” She said while plunging the nose wheel into the tarmac. “Amazing, the beating these wheels can take,” said a curious Tomoly while being pushed into his seat by his seatbelt.

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Meanwhile, Gene put down his mug as the error reports from the Odyssey flowed in. Another solar panel was down and Milfry destroyed the treadmill during his last exercise. “Let us plan a bit more EVA time for them then,” Gene said.

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Chapter 7: The firebird

With 254 days in the mission the R25 Laythe was ready to perform its correction burn. Based on the current trajectory it would take a little over 2 years to arrive at Jool and the probe would probably be surpassed by the planned mission of the Ommadawn. It was good to see proven designs that respond well to the commands and the probe entered its new orbit which would take it to a Tylo capture.

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Meanwhile back at Kerbin the teams were planning the launch of the next Saturn which would bring the spare fuel containers to the Ommadawn and to make sure that all systems would perform properly Bill was tasked to oversee the launch at KSC2. His transport was an experimental scramjet plane that was re-designed after the latest crash, eh test flight.

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“The craft responds really well to the controls,” Bill reported. “Heading is laid in, opening fuel gauges, let’s see what this baby can do.” Being on a tight schedule pushed the flight forward and where Jeb previously tested the crafts high altitude capability in search of SSTO technology, Bill was looking for vertical velocity.

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“Whoa, picking up some serious speed here.” Bill sounded excited as flames started to engulf the cockpit. The scramjet reached top speeds of 1255 m/s, cruising altitude of 18km and reached KSC in less than 16 minutes. “Preparing to land,” Bill sounded almost sorry.

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The next week the Saturn arrived on the launch pad and after a series of checks, the countdown for the final piece of the Ommadawn has started. At the exact moment that the spacecraft crossed over the launch site, the rocket took off and inserted itself in the proper inclination.

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Gene tapped the navigation planner on the back. They had gotten really good at this launch to rendez-vous thing, meaning that launched payloads catches up with its targets during launch and then circularises its orbit very close to the destination. “Moving on to detaching stage 3 and docking,” said the ground controller.

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And while one commander was de-orbiting the third stage, another was swinging the second H2 tank to the other side of the spacecraft. “Docking controls are go, moving in for hard dock,” sounded the speaker. “Using old-fashioned Sr. Docking ports,” Tomoly added in his thoughts.

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The small detachable probes provided excellent camera footage of the completed spacecraft. Fully fuelled and ready to depart, the Ommadawn slowly came to life as the gravity ring started to spin, reactors started spitting out electricity and lighting were switched on. Meanwhile the Nav team was checking if they could still make the maiden flight to Mun and Minmus but for now, they were prepping for Jool.

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Chapter 8: Regular chores

With all the exciting new developments one would almost forget that KSC still had a space station to run. Sitting in low Kerbin orbit Mercury station proved crucial for MTBF, food growth and component testing. It had seen regular crew rotations and structural additions over the last 4 years. 

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So on the runway a small, Sparrow class shuttle was prepped for the transport of Siefel, Noa and Lizemone Kerman. Apart from Lizemone they entire team were new to space and eager to embark on this great adventure.

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The trajectory was slightly steeper than usual, but since the latest flights had confirmed that the structural integrity could withstand more than previously anticipated, the flight path was the new standard. For sure it provided great PR pictures.

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Upon docking with the old lab module the team discovered that it had a Jr. docking port and their inline docking port was significantly larger. After shifting some modules around they made way to a port connected to the central hub and completed their docking sequence.


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After some cheers with the new crew, some last minute material experiment, replacement of faulty power module, harvest and other outstanding contracts. Kizzer Eilbas and Gerry entered their own Sparrow which had been docked to the station for more than 150 days.

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Reentry however would need to happen on the dark side. “Eilbas, I am reading an under voltage on main bus A, do you confirm?” Gerry had just lowered the periapsis into the atmosphere when he noticed the low power. “Confirmed commander, switching to bus B. Battery levels are dropping rapidly.” Back at KSC people had noticed as well. Designed for the sun side and departed with almost empty batteries the Sparrows environmental systems were sucking the craft dry to combat the heat that was building up outside. Just when the systems started to fail the sun rose over the horizon and the craft came back to life.

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“That was close,” said Kizzer. And despite the fact that they overshot by 180km they ended up back at KSC due to the enormous fuel reserves of the little spacecraft. “Mission accomplished, glad to be back,” said Kizzer as he parked the craft next to the spaceplane hanger.

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It is with great sadness that I must announce the death of this thread. My installation and save are corrupted beyond my repair skill. The last screenshots can be found at:

https://ibb.co/album/iHMQtv

and show the new shuttle design, the landing of the base on Duna and the Odyssey arriving at Eve, making multiple aerobrake passes and the landing of the rover and destruction of R26.

Updating to 1.4.1 and DLC as we speak for a new series ;-) 

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1 hour ago, MacLuky said:

It is with great sadness that I must announce the death of this thread. My installation and save are corrupted beyond my repair skill. The last screenshots can be found at:

https://ibb.co/album/iHMQtv

and show the new shuttle design, the landing of the base on Duna and the Odyssey arriving at Eve, making multiple aerobrake passes and the landing of the rover and destruction of R26.

Updating to 1.4.1 and DLC as we speak for a new series ;-) 

I liked this originally then realised that it must have been horrendously frustrating! Godspeed  for your next adventure!

Peace.

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16 hours ago, MacLuky said:

It is with great sadness that I must announce the death of this thread. My installation and save are corrupted beyond my repair skill. The last screenshots can be found at:

Wow, the same thing happened to @Alpha 360 a few days ago.  Fix your game stability, Squad!

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Well, it was 1.3.0 with a bunch of patches. I hold Kerbalism responsible for background processing. Still, if you could run that in "mod" thread, you should be able to prevent the entire game from crashing.

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