Nodens Space Program: Chapter 9 - Getting More Comfortable Away From Home

[OhioBob]

@Norcalplanner, FYI, GEP 1.0.1.0 is now available.  It includes several bugs fixes and a few improvements.

It should work fine in KSP 1.4.3.  Or if you want to make the switch to 1.4.5, you should be able to transfer your save game without any problems.

[Norcalplanner]

19 minutes ago, OhioBob said:

@Norcalplanner, FYI, GEP 1.0.1.0 is now available.  It includes several bugs fixes and a few improvements.

It should work fine in KSP 1.4.3.  Or if you want to make the switch to 1.4.5, you should be able to transfer your save game without any problems.

Awesome. Is Kopernicus playing nicely in 1.4.5 with planet packs?

I'm definitely thinking of jumping over to 1.4.5. My GEP career install has always been buggy, but recently it's gotten worse, crashing when rolling out to the launchpad more than half of the time. I'm committed to exploring GEP, so if I can't bring the save file over to a new 1.4.5 install, then I'll cheat in approximately the same amount of funds, rep and science that I currently have and just keep going.  Probably with a slightly different mix of mods that's more stable.

[OhioBob]

Kopernius 1.4.5-2 released earlier today and everything looks good.  I transferred my GEP_Primary save from 1.4.3 to 1.4.5 without any issues.

[Norcalplanner]

Sorry for the delay, folks.  My install got borked to the point where it was crashing to desktop nearly every launch.

The good news is that I've successfully migrated the career to 1.4.5, and things appear rock solid so far with a slightly altered mod mix.  BARIS and KCT had to leave our company, along with some other older mods that were throwing errors.  Things should be continuing shortly with a new chapter going up sometime this weekend.

[The Minmus Derp]

Yay!

[Norcalplanner]

Chapter 8 - Sirona Sojourn

With Kerbaled (Nodensianed?) missions having a bit of a mixed record of late, it's decided to focus on unmanned craft for a bit.  First, an over-engineered LDEF science satellite is sent up.

The satellite completes some orbital experiments which would normally take a MOLE station to perform.  Once they're done, it deorbits...

Told you it was over-engineered.  We were able to retroburn enough with all the extra fuel on board that we recovered every single bit of this craft except for fuel. (Stage Recovery took care of the initial booster during launch.)

Next, it's time to put the recently unlocked biome scanner to work.  We have contracts for scans of both Nodens and Belisama.  After scanning Nodens, the probe heads to Belisama...

...where it manages to go directly over the north pole.  I don't think we'll try landing there anytime soon.

There are some nice visuals landing at a higher latitude, though.  

Another Wren is launched, bound for Belisama station to finish up the experiments which weren't completed due to the sudden evacuation.  Billy Bob is on this mission, and he's brought the largest can of Lysol that anyone has ever seen.

After a few weeks on the station, the experiments are completed and shipped back to Nodens, completed their respective contracts.

Now it's time for something a bit more epic.  Introducing... the Boomerang.

We're heading to Sirona, our nearest and easiest to get to neighbor.  Big S is a gas giant with three moons.  We have contracts to get to Sirona, do some science, do a radar scan of Damona (the outermost moon), then return to Nodens.

Staging during ascent.  This craft packs over 16 km/s of delta V, using nothing but LFO engines and SRBs.  It'll need it that much - the transfer to Sirona alone is over 3.7 km/s.

Success!  Completing the orbital insertion burn a bit too close to Sirona.  The engineers on the ground aren't appreciative of the sandblasting the probe will receive from passing through the ring.

Lightning!  It's easier to see on the dark side of the planet.

Got to work on my gravity assists.  Sirona seems to be well suited for it, although it adds a lot to mission time to do it this way.  We'll probably use a different flight profile if/when we bring Nodensians out here.

Getting a gentle correction from Brovo, along with some nice visuals.  We did a low flyby of Airmed, the innermost moon, then headed back to Brovo.

Let's see, we have a good trajectory to Damona if we do a 40 km Pe assist off of Brovo.  Should be able to get some good science low over Brovo on this second flyby, too.

 Wait a second... Why did the music stop?!?  Is that a fuzzy horizon I see?!?!?

ABORT! ABORT! ABORT! 

A few seconds of full throttle radial out is enough to halt the descent into Brovo's atmosphere, which tops out at 72 km.  We got as deep as 56 km, but thankfully the atmosphere is pretty thin, and all our non-retractable solar panels survived.  Note to self - check to see whether any moons have an atmosphere before playing gravity-assist pinball in the future.

The Boomerang finally made it out to Damona, and completed the orbital radar scan.  Checking the fuel state, the decision was made to head down and try out those landing legs.

Nice view on the descent.  The first landing was unremarkable, but we were able to hop over to another biome...

This is more like it.  Similar to Belisama's Flats, Damona's Impact Basin biome has vast tracts of land suitable for future base building.

After an assessment of remaining fuel, it's decided to forgo any more biome hops.  It's time to head home.  Since Damona is already closest in its orbit to Grannus and heading retrograde, the Boomerang ejects directly from Damona orbit without any gravity well dive-bombing Oberth maneuvers.  After some mid-course corrections, the final stage obtains an intercept with Nodens.  The last few hundred m/s of fuel are burned to slow down a bit just prior to reentry.

It's still pretty darn hot.  Thankfully we have a slightly oversized heatshield to survive reentry.

Science, Baby!  Over 4K science is brought home.  This is on top of 1.5K or so that was transmitted during the trip.

So we've made it to Sirona and back with a probe.  What's next?  Find out... in the next chapter.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Norcalplanner
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[The Minmus Derp]

YAY! go to Taranis next!

[Norcalplanner]

Chapter 9 - Getting More Comfortable Away From Home

[Note: This chapter marks the beginning of the new KSP 1.4.5 install.  While this install is better overall, several mods were still creating problems and had to leave us, including BARIS, Pathfinder, Science Alert, and Editor Extensions.  We'll be adding mods back in as things get more stable in 1.4.5.]

With the successful Boomerang probe returning from Sirona, many more science nodes are unlocked.  It's decided to put some of these new parts to use making a better station to give our Nodensians more experience living and working in space.

Nodens Gateway station is sent aloft, and includes both our first centrifuge and the 3.75m Bigby Skylab module.

The station has significant fuel reserves, and completes orbital insertion itself.  This shot shows all the nosecones being jettisoned - I'll frequently place these on exposed docking ports to improve aerodynamics during ascent of larger unwieldy craft that don't have a fairing, then jettison them all at once via an action group.

The first crew is sent up shortly thereafter, including two engineers to handle deployment of the centrifuge.  As they approach the station, it becomes clear that something isn't right.

The lower tank, an SSTU part which includes most of the battery capacity for the station, appears to be askew.  Let's dock, deploy the centrifuge, then try a quicksave and quickload to see if it goes away. F5 F9 - looks the same... F5 F9 - looks the same... F5 F9...

Wow, that's a lot worse.   The engines are now messed up, so we're not changing this orbit anytime soon.

Subsequent investigation with the Nodens Gateway 2 and 3 craft traced the problem to auto-struts which couldn't be turned off, caused by the use of the full size wings as fins in the first stage and by the thrust plate in the second stage.  CURSE YOU, STRUTTY THE AUTO-STRUT! 

The crew attempts to work on some MOLE experiments, but it quickly becomes apparent that power generation is a little low, and battery reserves are woefully inadequate for transiting the dark side of each orbit.  All of the MOLE, Snacks, and Kerbal Health requirements translate to a need for moar powr.

Power Module to the rescue!

Heading in to dock.  This 2.5m SSTU tank is over 60% battery, and has six more Gigantors.  With full power available during the entire orbit thanks to over 130K of EC onboard, the crew completes the contracted experiments, then heads down in an undocumented fashion.

NSP administration decides to turn back to probes for additional science to unlock better station parts.  Some timely ScanSat contracts call for radar, biome, and resource scans of Airmed and Brovo.

Father, forgive me, for I have asparagus-staged the lifter for a scanning probe in a stock scale install.  In my defense, the probe is going to try to scan three different moons and land on two of them, all around a gas giant as difficult to get to as Eeloo.

As before, a tanker is sent up to top off the probe's departure stage before it heads off for Sirona.

A few months later, Sirona looms large as the probe approaches.

I just love getting up close to celestial bodies with rings.  The probe does a capture burn at Sirona Ap, comes in for a gravity assist off of Airmed, and heads into a polar orbit around Damona to start scanning.  The photographer was unfortunately in the restroom when all of this occurred, so it's undocumented.

Here's one of those tricks I learned a long time ago.  For solar-powered probes heading to outer planets, make sure that all the panels can function when the probe is pointed either directly towards or away from the sun.  Then target the innermost planet, and keep the probe pointed accordingly for maximum solar power generation.  

One of our contracts is for a rendezvous and spacewalk outside of Nodens' SOI.  Two craft are launched about an hour apart - this small probe...

... and this new crewed craft called the Sparrow (which underwent a lot of testing).  With the removal of BARIS, we lost the powerful 0.625m escape tower, and the other tower on hand is a 1.25m part.  In combination with a desire to shift over to the larger docking ports, a new craft was needed.  We're still using as many MOLE parts as possible, with the new craft consisting of an Appaloosa (back seat for the Mk1 capsule) and the Bigby Crew capsule.  We lost one capacity for one crewmember, (going down from six to five) but it will have to do.

Both craft are put into the exact same orbital plane, then ejected out of the SOI on near-identical trajectories.

The docking and spacewalk were undocumented, but here's a shot of the Sparrow IV heading back to Nodens.  Because of the discipline in launching both craft in such close proximity, total time to complete the rendezvous and then head back into Nodens' SOI was less than twelve hours.

Enger and Jensel get the first shiny gold and white ribbons. 

This seems like a good place to bring this chapter to a close.  Where will the intrepid Nodensians go next?  Find out... in the next chapter.

Edited August 15, 2018 by Norcalplanner
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