Spaceship Ike

[NewtSoup]

Introducing:  Spaceship Ike ( SpIke)



Under the supremely boring exterior is an even more boring setup - an Apollo-ish style mission - Orbiter + Lander each constructed around a MK3 capsule.  The lander has Overkill of fuel in order to go biome hopping and uses and engine plate with 3 sparks a science package and is powered by a single RTG.  The orbiter has a single NERV some cooling and some solar panels.  It will work.  Things will be more apparent later    There's 2 years until my next Duna Transfer Window.  Wondering if I should do something else in the mean time - not like this takes up any real time with the magic of time warp.

[DeltaDizzy]

It'd be cool if you tied this and YADS together somehow, for continuity. It wouldnt take much, just something along the lines of "After the Duna Mission, it was decided that Ike would be a great next target" or similar. Regardless, Im interested to see how this turns out.

Edited May 29, 2018 by DeltaDizzy

[NewtSoup]

Well it is the next mission.  I was wondering to myself in that thread where to go next to finish off my tech tree and then I said to myself ( in the words of the great Indiana Jones ) "I like Ike".  And thus, Spacehsip Ike was conceived!.

 

[NewtSoup]

Ladies and Gentlemen, Roll up, Roll up.  It's finally launch day and we're introducing the crew.  Step up Mission Scientist Lawig, the senior crew member on this mission.  Step up Mission Engineer Maudun - New to the KSC Maudun likes Piña Colada's followed by Long Island Ice'd Tea followed by Mai Tais and followed by pretty much anything else she can lay her hands on.  We'll have to keep an eye on our fuel levels with this one folks.  And finally,  Completing our trio of intrepid Ikesplorers - The known quantity of The Mission Pilot who commanded the highly successful Minmus Data Gathering mission and inventor of the highly popular Third Breakfast, Franmon Kerman!

Now wer're off to the launch pad for blast off.

Franmon, keen to get into orbit as fast as possible has chosen a highly aggressive launch profile aiming for the horizon low and fast.  It's only at Maudun's complaint that the shock heating was melting the ice in her drink that Fran has agreed to throttle back.

 

For the first time the contents of those fairings is on display.

And finally the two craft, comprising Spaceship Ike or Spike as we like to call her, are free of the lifter and and docked together ready for the journey to Duna and then Ike.

The shroud from the engine plate seems to have been retained but is not causing any issues.  So we are go for burn.

Edited May 31, 2018 by NewtSoup

[NewtSoup]

The mid course corrections have put Spike on an encounter with Ike.  With sufficient dV to do a direct capture it's decided to leave out the intended orbit around Duna.



Scientist Lawig gets out to inspect the science package as its' the most important part of this mission. 

[NewtSoup]

The approach to ike.  This was the last transmission before things got really busy in the capture burn and then essential data gathering from orbit around the small moon.



Once things had calmed down a bit it was time to attempt a landing.  Because the orbit is so low and Ike is so small things seem to go by awfully quick though the speed really isn't that high.



Franmon woke up Maudun with a freshly made cocktail and pressed her to the engineering console to watch the fuel balance between the three spark engines and watch the stress monitors on landing.  With the finesse of a well aimed half brick Franmon set the craft down upon the Ikean(?) surface.



The slope was deceptively steep once again. But there were no casualties and the crew got out to take a look.  It was soon discovered that the surface of Ike is every bit as boring as it looks from orbit.


The trio looked up into the not so inky blackness.  Lawig pointed out that Kerbin was just visible against the bright arm of the galaxy.

]

[NewtSoup]

A quick hop skip and a jump to Ike's central mountain range confirmed that Ike was indeed as Maudun put it "about as exciting as a diet virgin cuba libre with no ice and hold the coke".

Above them Duna's dark side stared balefully down at them.

Edited May 31, 2018 by NewtSoup

[Kerbalstar]

I like it @NewtSoup!

[NewtSoup]

But What is this?   My oribter seems to have vanished!.  New Plan, try to get into LKO on the lander with no heat shields and send up a rescue rocket!.

Dear me this mission has turned out to be more exciting than anticipated.

 

[NewtSoup]

The orbiter had been left unkerballed in orbit 9km above the surface.  Franmon suggested the Kraken had eaten it however  Lawig was certain it had been stolen.

[Wallygator]

I like your Ike mission!

At least there were no Kerbals in the orbiter.  

In a real-life example/analogy perhaps the onboard computer glitched and de-orbited itself.

In this instance the only option is to launch rescue mission! You have the technology...

(also, nice reference to ELP at mission launch  )

[NewtSoup]

Thanks  - I'll get around to finishing this at some point.  I think maybe this evening after work. 

I believe the orbiter was on too low an orbit and hit a mountain.

The three have taken off from the surface of Ike and got into a high orbit over Duna.  The plan is to hit a Kerbin intercept and then do multiple aerobrakes into LKO.  I've got 599m/s of dV left and the monopropellant tanks are full so this is absolutely doable.  I just hope the RCS thrusters don't burn off in aerobreaking.

Forgot to post that earlier!

 

[NewtSoup]

I am now finishing off the mission.

There was a long time to wait for the Duna to Kerbin Transfer window so please enjoy this picture of an Ikeclipse onto Duna while you starve.

 

Annoyingly it turns out that the injection burn or whatever you call it is going to take 10% more dV than I actually have.  Not to worry, we can get out and push if need be!  I do have 70 units of monopropellant in the ship but one can never be too sure how "units" translates to dV for whatever mass you have left.  Bit of an unknown quantity really!.

I burned out all the fuel and then kept the RCS thrusters running until I got a Kerbin encounter!  Then after some mid course finagling I managed to get a nice Kerbin PE to capture with at 45km.  It would throw me into a polar orbit but beggars can't be choosers.  As a bonus I still had around 20 units of monoprop left.  Of course I did all this first go and I most certainly did not shoot out into space a couple of times with too high a PE and burn in fiery doom with too low or crash into the surface at all.  Absolutely not.  No.  Didn't happen and anyway I've deleted those screenshots.



Hello Kerbin, Nice to see you again!

 

As home loomed closer and closer the crew cheered!  Maudun broke out the reserve alcohol and prepared some aerobraking cocktails.

Into the fire!

 

 

 

[NewtSoup]

Everyone thought re-entry was an absolute hoot.  A couple of consoles blew out and there were some important sounding explosions which made Franmon wonder if they'd lost something.  Nothing was going to dampen their spirits however apart from Maudin's cocktails which rearranged themselves into a fine green mist.

Once through the other side Franmon declared them captured into an elliptical and kicked Maudun out of the airlock - time for an inspection.

The inspection revealed that all four landing legs had gone, not an issue as under the circumstances the ability to land what's left of this thing was irrelevant.  More disturbingly however it was noticed that two of the four RCS thruster blocks had taken one for the team.  Lawig said not to worry, at least they still had half a ship!.



 

Once back at apoapsis, Franmon nudged the periapsis back up to 60km and set about making many, many breaking passes, only two of which were documented for brevity.

Edited June 4, 2018 by NewtSoup

[NewtSoup]

And oh my word that was many many passes.  Can't dig too deep into the atmosphere to speed it up for fear of running out of monoprop when you're low enough and want to circularise.  I bailed at 116km Ap while keeping the Pe at 60km.    Then the last of the monoprop was used up to circularise giving me this orbit.

Now it's time to launch a rescue mission.  Quick to the BatVAB!
 

[Nivee~]

On 5/31/2018 at 7:30 PM, NewtSoup said:

about as exciting as a diet virgin cuba libre with no ice and hold the coke

But..But....isn't that just an empty glass??? 

I like Spike! Its a wonderful mission report!

[NewtSoup]

6 minutes ago, Nivee~ said:

But..But....isn't that just an empty glass??? 

 

An empty glass with a little umbrella in it. 

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by NewtSoup

[NewtSoup]

It's Valentina's turn to step up.  She will be piloting the rescue mission thrown together by bill.



The time is right, Spike won't be far behind if we launch now and we'll be in roughly the right plane so minimal plane change when we hit orbit.

To the heavens

By putting the rescue rocket in a higher orbit than Spike we've allowed it to catch up and have an encounter with it set up.

Valentina is an expert pilot and doesn't need RCS to dock with Spike.  Just turn the thrust right down on the poodle engine and take your time.

And we have hard dock!.

 

The Spikes Crew have all transferred to the rescue ship except Lawig who takes one last space walk to check for smugglers and to collect the precious data from Spikes data core.

Franmon makes the de-orbit burn and once in the atmosphere dumps what's left of poor Spike and the engines from the rescue ship.

The last re-entry for this mission  Everyone is cheerful and looking forward to snacks back at the KSC.

Finally under canopy! 

 

I've no idea where we are, somewhere in the mountains north of the KSC but entirely uncertain which continent.  I think it's the same one.  But it doesn't matter.  Look at the View!



And this is the end of Spaceship Ike.  It really didn't go as planned.  Next time I'll have to remember where I parked the orbiter.  My kerbals all got home safe though and I've now finished my tech tree.
Next on the list is sleep and then some base and station building.  I'll be putting up a Kerbin Orbital,  Minmus Station and Minmus Mining Facility.  People who've followed me in the past know exactly what that means.

 

Bye for now.

Edited June 4, 2018 by NewtSoup