(Chapter 16) The Adventures of Sily and Bob/Project Timberwind

[Ultimate Steve]

12 minutes ago, fulgur said:

There goes my plan to blackmail you into...

*dramatic pause*

writing more chapters of PI and Voyager . (But seriously, how cool would a ITV with robot parts be?)

True.

To add to the above, there is a growing number of corporations that know more about me than I do...

I would totally try a robotic itv if I had the time before vacation...

[fulgur]

Is a vacation a holiday? (EDIT: It is. So bon vacance!)

EDIT in order not to double post:

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I would totally try a robotic itv if I had the time before vacation...

And 45 mins later, onto the last 20% of the project (which takes 80% of the time):

I present: The Kenlinstar Awesum.

Spoiler

In 0.1g:

Because there is only one ship which can be more awesum than the KSS Intrepid. And I always thought we'd have to have a feature like robotics before someone built something more awesome than that hallowed ship.

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by fulgur
Bon vacance!

[KerballingSmasher]

On 6/21/2019 at 6:43 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

I think I will take the link out but at this point I am not concerned about anyo w trying to find out who I am on the internet because it's almost trivially easy at this point. 

Ha! I almost posted something with my last name on my Discord, but I caught it before I posted!

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 14 - Departing for Duna

Spoiler

In order to further inspire future generations of astronauts, engineers, scientists, astronomers, and more, it was decided that something big needed to be done. The space program was expanding rapidly, and if it kept expanding at this rate, there would not be enough people to work it in a decade or two.

Cue Kerberos.

Kerberos, while technically a space station, was strictly to be referred to as just Kerberos, as if it were a moon of Kerbin.

It was the next step in long term habitation, as well as space tourism.

In order to inspire the next generation, people would have to be flown up to Kerberos. However, high school and college students, the ones needed to be inspired, will not have the money to make the trip. That is why both the RD and the SD have agreed to launch one mission every two weeks at no profit, with a few free seats subsidized by the sales of the others, to be semi-randomly given out, in the name of inspiration. I'm not actually going to fly these missions, though, only like one or two I think. It's more about the symbolism.

Kerberos massed around 150 tons, and required three Copernicus Heavy launch vehicles strapped together to launch it into Low Kerbin Orbit.

Separation was very, very nerve wracking. Fortunately, nothing blew up. Unfortunately, Kerberos ended up barely having enough fuel to enter a very low Kerbin orbit, far lower than intended.

So it will have to be boosted into a higher orbit at a later date, further adding cost to the already expensive, not profitable project.

The time came for Atlas II to rendezvous with the asteroid, which has been dubbed Branson Refueling Rock, sticking with the theme started by the Elon Science Rock.

The rendezvous went off without a hitch. Branson was klawed, and the engines began firing to get it into a low or medium Kerbin orbit. It will take a long time to correct its inclination and orbital altitude due to the relatively low thrust of the engine and the speed of the mining equipment.

Next up, the only operational Robinson class SSTO launched another secret payload, almost immediately after its announcement. It was referred to as Z5 or PROPULSION MODULE in the regulatory paperwork.

The plane steered weirdly down the runway, before alarmingly falling off the side, clipping the wing, destroying a control surface.

The decision was hastily made to continue the mission despite the missing control surface.

The payload, although only known to a select few in the SD, was a nuclear thermal rocket engine similar to but smaller than the one used on the Atlas II (although this one was planned much earlier, it launched much later). This marked the completion of what was the Spaceplane Division's attempt at constructing a ship that would fly to Duna.

The spaceplane flipped out horribly during re-entry, due to the missing control surface, moreso than expected. After some fiddling with the actuation toggles, the crew managed to get the Phoenix under control (alarmingly late into the descent) and pilot it to a safe landing at the KSC runway.

That's how close we were to the mountains, they apparently "discovered" the monolith there without realizing it. Cool, but I don't think I'll do anything with this information.

Next up came a flurry of activity from the RD, further assembling their own Duna ship in LKO.

They all look the same from the outside and it has been probably three weeks since I launched these. I don't know which ones they are, but this one is *probably* Spaceship 04 "Adventure." It launched unmanned.

Unfortunately, the booster for this one smashed into the ocean.

The upper stage was successful, though, and docked to the assembly in orbit.

S-03 Jeffree launched to refuel it. The booster landed really close to the launch pad.

Unfortunately, it destroyed the flagpole and tipped over, but it was only a bit damaged.

Jeffree landed okay, thankfully.

The next launch was a launch of a brand new Spaceship, S-08 Possibility. This was the first one designed to land Kerbals on Duna. The only major change was the addition of ladders.

The launch featured another incredibly accurate booster landing.

The next few launches were all fairly successful refueling flights of S-03 Jeffree, so I'll skip over those.

Eeloo Spryte 1 was launched a long time ago towards Eeloo. However, due to lack of fuel, it went to Jool instead. With their dwindling funding, the university that launched ES-1 pushed miniaturization even further and came up with Eeloo Spryte 2. They purchased a small solid rocket booster and launched.

The fairing size is 1.25m btw.

Unfortunately, it burned up on ascent.

They were able to scrape up enough money for one more launch. That SRB had its thrust limiter tweaked, and the launch successfully put Eeloo Spryte 3 into Kerbin Orbit. Unfortunately, it did not have enough fuel to get to Eeloo, so they sent it to Ike instead.

Despite the large number of ships going to Duna, Ike is being ignored a lot for some reason, so I guess something good will come from this.

You can see just how tiny that rocket is. It doesn't even have any science experiments on board, as those cannot be scaled down and would be too big for the lander to carry!

Due to the failure of Vau, no Galactus capsules available, an under repair Phoenix, the schedule tightness (and competition) of spaceship, and mechanical problems with the available Voyager class SSTO (but mostly my laziness) the decision was made to launch the Spaceplane Division's Duna crew on the launch of the Duna Descent Vehicle, which, while being crew rated, was never launch rated, and had no launch escape system.

A press conference was scheduled a few days prior, when the SD made public its Duna ship that they had been building in LKO and the exact crew that would be flying on the mission.

"EXCUSE ME?" demanded Sily Kerman.

"Now, Sily, you really must understand - " said Gene.

"Am I not the most qualified person in the agency to fly the Duna Exploration Plane?"

"Well, you are, but - "

"Did I not express interest in going on a long term exploration mission for once?"

"You did, but - "

"And did I not train really hard for this opportunity?"

"You did. But - "

"Then why, Gene, was I not chosen?"

"For the simple reason that we need you here. Sily, you are the best atmospheric pilot, and our top - and pretty much only - test pilot. You and Bob are pretty much the public faces of the space program right now. We cannot risk sending you on a trip to Duna, and we cannot have you out of the public eye during the long transfers. I am sorry, Sily, but the decision is final."

Sily was very upset to not be on the Duna mission.

I don't remember exactly who was on the Duna mission, but I don't think they were plot relevant at all.

The whole world watched with excitement as the crew of six prepared to launch on a Copernicus Light launch vehicle.

The spaceship was christened the T-02 "Vision." It fired up its nuclear engine and departed for Duna.

Later that week, someone caught Sily in talks with the rocket division, trying to bargain for a seat on their Duna mission. However, there was no available room on their mission, especially since the use of the Duna plane was strongly biased towards the SD.

A short time later, a Copernicus M3-2 launched. This mission revealed more about the RD's Duna plans than intended.

It appeared to be a Duna base with experiments. It also appeared to be very rapidly thrown together, and if the base was rapidly thrown together, than the RD may be rushing...

The RD announced their Duna crew a few days after the SD launch. It included, among others, Bill Kerman.

They also used the DDV as a manned launch capsule.

The launch was just a bit on the shallow side.

The docking to the main mothership (which had not been named as it was comprised of mostly two named ships) went perfectly.

The Adventure fired its main engines and pushed the full stack onto a trajectory for Duna.

A few days later, though, it was obvious that not all had gone to plan...

S-03 Jeffree launched into LKO and stayed there.

A new spaceship, S-09 "Fade," was launched. It too was a refueler variant.

Unfortunately, the second stage engines were lit too soon. The probe core was destroyed and the booster plummeted into the ocean, unable to control itself.

The Fade launched a few times, refueling the Jeffree.

And then, well...

Due to be retired in fairly short order, Spaceship Serial Number 03 "Jeffree" was launched towards Duna to refuel the main mothership, which was already running low on fuel this early into the mission. While the exact details behind the fuel levels on the Duna ship were classified, it was believed that unless it aerocaptured at Duna perfectly, the ISRU ship landed perfectly and worked, the refueling worked, and the mission itself worked, well...

Unless everything worked perfectly, this would be a one way mission for the Jeffree.

Not a good PR move on the RDs part. The spaceships had developed fan clubs of sorts, and Jeffree was among the most famous.

 

AND I AM MAD.

HOC Gaming's Space Probe parody, which is the theme song of Jeffree basically, was taken down from YouTube. I'll inquire with him about what happened to it...

Grr.

 

Anyway...

Project Timberwind has again been trying to get profitable. They have recently sunk a lot of their investors money into R&D for new, advanced engines, and were running even lower on cash than before. It was decided that since Jool had the strongest magnetic field of any planet, there would be an attempt to collect antimatter there. With funds running low, a near identical or completely identical satellite to Timberwind A-1 was launched, called A-2, under the guise of a surprise Munar resupply that would fail...

Unfortunately, due to the massive fairing, the vehicle flipped out on ascent.

A decision was made to attempt a return to launch site landing, as had worked on one previous Copernicus Heavy mission.

Unfortunately, it didn't work. The payload survived, albeit shaken up, though. The Timberwind team was offered a free launch. Money was spent fixing up the payload, though.

The second launch? Well... The center engine was destroyed during separation. The payload managed to make it into orbit, but only barely...

Meaning, it could not make it to Jool unless it had propulsion equipment and fuel to do so. And it's not like there's going to be a convenient fuel tank just sitting in orbit...

Hmm...

 

===

 

"Sily."

"Ah, Doctor T."

"Timothy, please."

"Okay, doctor Timothy."

"I am here to talk to you about Duna."

"Don't bother. Therapists have tried, I'm just... Just... Disappointed. And the next opportunity will be probably about two years from now, unless they want to send me one way down to Eve or something."

"I know you are disappointed. But, well... Do you still want to go to Duna?"

"I mean, duh. It's not like I can, though." Timothy sat down at the other end of Sily's desk.

"The following is extremely confidential."

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

"No, Sily. Extremely confidential. Tell nobody."

"Not even Bob?"

"Not for the time being, at least."

"What's this about?"

"Sily, what do you know about Project Timberwind?" Sily straightened up. Her expression grew more serious.

"I know it exists. I don't know what it is."

"Three years ago, scientist noticed odd patterns in various radio telescopes across Kerbin. Most people thought nothing of it, but under the Project Timberwind name, two years ago, we bought, modified, and launched the defunct VESPERO radio telescope on a Copernicus Heavy."

"That was you?"

"It was us. With it, we were able to barely make out some of the signals. The signals originate from a distant star, and seem to describe all sorts of futuristic technology. Why the inhabitants of whatever world that sent us this would send just technology, and not any identifying information, is out of our grasp. With the information from this, we were able to develop a magnetometer satellite powered by an RTG rocket, which we disguised as NetSat 1 to test it."

"Oh. The one I destroyed."

"Yes. The one you destroyed. We later launched a crew to the VESPERO, and a second observatory, and crew, to the orbit of Minmus. While they are not crewed any more, we are still receiving data from them. With that data, we have made breakthroughs in propulsion technology. The nuclear engines on the Atlas II and Vision? Those were us."

"They were?"

"The space program doesn't know. They think it's a product of their own research. They have no idea we exist."

"Huh."

"With this information, we developed nuclear jets, with near infinite range."

"Wait... You mean - "

"Yes, Sily. The ones you flew."

"Really?"

"The X-5 Darkside. The X-7 Nightside. The X-10 Dawnbringer. The X-11 Vanta. The X-12 Exos. Those were all us."

"And the telescope you had me blow up!"

"Yes, that too. Both of them, one of them didn't work."

"How many things have you launched?!?"

"We have another radio telescope en route to Eeloo to get better reception as we speak, and two antimatter generating space stations, one of which is not currently operational."

"Okay. So you're using alien transmissions to develop advanced propulsion technology. Why are you telling me?"

"Because, Sily, we need your help." Sily listened. "Our investors are almost at the point of stopping funding. If we release the information to the public, who knows what it will be used for? It is crucial that this needs to remain secret... And in our control. We had hoped that selling antimatter would bring us profits, but Kerbin orbit stations are not profitable, and our Jool bound station remains crippled in Low Kerbin Orbit."

"That's not good. So you want me to fix your Jool station?"

"No. We may take care of that at a later date. For further experimentation with advanced technology, we need an extremely heat resistant material, one that we can use for our own purposes, and one that we can sell to fund these proceeds. We are calling it Timbium. Small traces of it exist on Kerbin, not enough to do anything with."

"Let me guess. It is found more commonly off-world."

"Correct. Preliminary scanning reveals a few places where relatively small, but concentrated amounts of Timbium can be found on planet Duna."

"And you want me to go there?"

"Yes, Sily. We would like you to be our pilot."

"In a heartbeat if Bob is coming."

"We are going to talk to him soon. We have also talked to an engineer, a colleague of yours. She will be accompanying you on a three person mission to return Timbium to Kerbin, assuming you all agree."

"Three of us... Mining. Short on cash... Are we going to stow away on a Spaceship or Robinson mission and steal the Spectre, landing and ascending on Jeffree, meeting up with some mining equipment stowed away on the Red Vau?"

"While that is creative, it is very dangerous, convoluted, and visible. We have an approach that is simpler, but in ways vastly more complicated."

"Spill, then!"

"Sily, the Project Timberwind team would like you to pilot the X-17 Moonlight Shadow on a top secret mining expedition to Duna. The X-17 is a spaceplane loosely based around the X-8 Robinson class, utilizing many spare parts from test and crashed articles. It is powered by four nuclear ramjets which can also act as nuclear thermal rockets, and one gas core nuclear rocket."

"Hold up. Gas core? Liquid core isn't even a thing yet!"

"Or so you think. It is equipped with full ISRU technology. And you are leaving tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night?"

"Your cover story will be retirement from the agency, at least a temporary one, due to personal issues. Bob will take time off to support you and you will live on an island somewhere for a while. Now I'm not going to lie to you, the mission is very risky. The vehicle has not flown before. More details are available here," he passed her a packed. "You have a day to tie up loose ends and prepare for the mission. Come to the runway tomorrow night. It's a holiday, so most of the staff will be gone. The remaining ones are mostly Timberwind staff, and the ones that are not will be occupied or bribed."

"I'm in."

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 14A - Minimal stuff, but didn't fit the pacing

Spoiler

The sudden retirement of three kerbonauts left the KSC with a problem.

Only four Kerbals remained. Three scientists and an engineer, no pilots, all girls too (not that that matters but usually I try to have my missions with equal numbers of all genders). This is a problem for two reasons. One, many tourist contracts require a pilot to be on board. Two, if a kerbonaut dies, it is the duty of the longest serving pilot on Kerbin to plant the memorial flag. If someone dies before a new pilot is found, well...

Speaking of tourism, all of the tourism contracts have reset for some reason and I have to do the kick off space tourism mission one more time. So to tie that into the storyline, let's just say that Tito Kerman was to usher in more inspiration by paying to be the first one to set foot on Kerberos.

Okay, for some reason the LES disappeared. I'll look into that. That's weird.

Anyway, Galactus 9 was launched to boost Kerberos into a higher Kerbin orbit. It used a Copernicus Heavy and the Fuel Service Module (rather than the utility one). I don't think this has happened ever before now, but due to the lack of astronauts, three seats on the Galactus were left empty.

Thankfully, the launch was successful. If it wasn't, the lack of an LES and the lack of a pilot (or anyone for that matter) to plant a flag, well, I wouldn't know what to do.

Now this, this was one of the hardest dockings I have ever had to do. It took a few trues because for some reason there wasn't much RCS on the Galactus. And it's so long. And Kerberos can't maneuver at all besides with reaction wheels.

There are only a few dockings that have been harder than this, most notably that one time I had to dock with a mothership that was bouncing down a hill on Gilly at night with a side mounted docking port.

Tito Kerman toured Kerberos and found it satisfactory. Initially, the station was only supposed to be raised slightly, but it was decided to raise it much higher, mostly because I wanted to be able to capture all of Kerbin in the screenshots.

After checkouts, Kerberos was left in its orbit and the crew of Galactus 9 returned to Kerbin.

I might have actually messed things up here, the station might be in an orbit too high for Spaceship to reach without refueling now.

Now this, well... It is the most accurate parachute capsule landing I have ever had in my six years of KSP.

Tito had a serious case of Deja Vu afterwards.

After a long time, the inclination of the Branson Refueling Rock and the Atlas II had been corrected, and the periapsis dropped. It was decided, to save fuel and time, that the whole thing would be aerobraked into a low-ish Kerbin orbit. The governments of the world weren't the happiest with the space program intentionally maneuvering a large asteroid into Kerbin's atmosphere.

Eventually, though, the asteroid entered a 141 kilometer high orbit. It awaits outfitting...

A new Spaceship, S-10 Valiant, was launched on another Space Camp mission.

The booster, unfortunately, did not land completely intact.

And now we're caught up to the present!

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 15

Spoiler

The day had finally arrived... The KSS Modulin had finally arrived around planet Eve with its crew of 6!

After they braked into elliptical orbit, they released the lander probe.

Its touchdown was successful, becoming, if I remember correctly, the first ever Eve lander to not crash!

The crew then proceeded onwards to Gilly.

All six of them boarded their Vau spacecraft, modified with science experiments on board, and began their descent to the surface.

The landing was picture perfect, but then...

Suddenly, something inside Vau exploded, sending the whole craft high into the air, with many components lost. The crew managed to get it under control and attempted a second landing.

However, upon exiting the craft, there was another malfunction destroying the antenna, and strangely enough, the materials bay and docking port!

Vau was now down an engine (and by association the opposite engine), a heat shield, a docking port... Somehow none of the crew compartments had been affected... Yet, at least. It was decided that the best course of action was to abandon all plans to visit the other biomes, quickly do some exploration of the current biome, and get off back to the mothership as fast as possible.

During the picture, Vau decided to hop again, much to the alarm of the crew.

So much for Kerbalkind's first moments on an interplanetary world being inspiring...

The crew borrowed a docking port from the Modulin to allow the Vau to re-dock.

The crew discovered that there was, in fact, a reasonable rapid transfer back to Kerbin. As there was really nothing to do besides sit around waiting for the window home, it was decided to cut the entire mission short and use the Modulin's ample fuel reserves to return to Kerbin as soon as possible.

If the destruction of Arkangel Station wasn't enough, the incidents on Gilly, ruining Kerbalkind's first interplanetary steps, were the final nail in the coffin as far as any new Vau launches went. Some thought Vau's failures were all due to bad design choices, some thought Vau was cursed. Either way, the Vau program was officially dead, besides the three still in space. Namely, Red Vau (to land on Duna), Grey Vau (to shuttle crew too and from the Mun station and base) and the Gilly lander, which would be returned for historical reasons only and was in no condition to be used again.

With that came the likely retirement of the Titanium I and II launch vehicles. There wasn't much that they could do that Copernicus couldn't.

Some mourn Vau for what it could have been, some are thankful it was cancelled before it killed anyone.

S10 Valiant returned to Kerbin from another Space Camp mission.

Speaking of Vau, shortly after this the Mun crews were transferred between the Mun base and the Mun station. This marked the halfway point in the 2 year mission of those crews.

At this point, as the Vau team was in the process of being disbanded, control of the Grey Vau and documents and expertise pertaining to the design, flaws, and maintenance of Vau in general were transferred to the team operating the Mun base. Hopefully the lander could serve the base well in the coming years. However, at the slightest hint of a problem, replacing and retiring the ship would be the number one priority.

Again, speaking of Vau, the early wave of the Duna flotilla had begun to arrive. The first spacecraft to make it was Red Vau.

The last task that the Vau team was scheduled to complete was the landing of Red Vau on Duna.

The spacecraft was incredibly unstable during re-entry for some reason, but it made it through.

The heat shield was jettisoned.

The engines were fired.

And the Vau program ended on a high note.

Unfortunately, the rover did not become friends with the atmosphere.

It was missing two wheels, but a structural bar meant to separate was kept in place as a buffer to prevent it being too much of an issue.

Other than that moderately major issue, the rover made it down just fine.

(this is parachute jettison, it is normal)

The scansat made it into orbit just fine.

I launched something but I forgot what it was and I don't have any screenshots of the payload.

The X-6 CA Pendulum aerobraked into Duna orbit. It would wait there until the Spaceplane Division's ship arrived and landed, so it could better target the landing site.

Eeloo Spryte 3 tried to save on fuel by aerobraking.

It was unsuccessful.

Project Timberwind's Eeloo radio telescope and massive relay entered orbit, deployed its antenna, and began collecting data. The transmission was much clearer behind Eeloo.

S07 Earnest then attempted to land on Duna. This would be by far the largest thing landed on another planet in one piece, maybe even including the Mun and Minmus. It was the refueler Spaceship.

I could almost have not asked for a better landing! I did have a bit of a Neil Armstrong moment where the terrain was too steep to land on, but I had enough fuel to hover and come down on flatter ground.

This is good news for the Rocket Division's plans, as this and the Red Vau landing validated propulsive landing, which was how their crewed ascent vehicle would land, albeit with parachutes as a backup.

The Duna Exploration Plane had enough fuel to enter Duna orbit without aerobraking.

Another Eeloo probe arrived at Eeloo, this one having been launched by a Robinson class SSTO.

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 16

Spoiler

And now, for yet another Kerbin space station!

Just for keeping tack:

Arkangel station was blown up and had split into two pieces, both too small to be very useful. The smaller is still called Arkangel but the other is called Phoenix. There are some tentative plans to return Arkangel to Kerbin and reassemble it as a museum piece, but this is far off. Phoenix will likely be broken up for whatever needs the modules or de-orbited.

The Elon Science Rock is in medium Kerbin orbit and was never made into a station. The Atlas I asteroid mover is still docked to it.

The Timberwind Station/VESPERO has been uninhabited for a while.

Timberwind A-1 is still trying to make antimatter.

Branson Science Rock/Branson Tourist Rock/Atlas II is in LKO pending development into a refueling station. There isn't much demand right now, however, so it may be a while before it is developed.

Kerberos will be used for tourism in medium Kerbin orbit.

This leaves the KSP without a suitable next generation general LKO science station. Phoenix may be used but it is becoming outdated and small. Spaceships and Robinsons dwarf it.

 

Enter Halo Station.

There was, however, a very unfortunate stage separation problem, and the first stage was lost.

This first module provides control, habitation, power, and docking ports.

And in the most perfectly timed suicide burn of my entire life, the upper stage safely landed back on Kerbin.

S-10 Valiant was launched on another Space Camp mission, as it is pretty much the cheapest way to get astronauts.

The returning booster destroyed the pad, but landed safely a ways away afterwards.

Next, the second module of Halo Stqation was launched.

Both stages of the Munwalker 1A landed successfully.

Some probe made a course correction.

S-10 Valiant returned to Kerbin from that Space Camp mission.

The T-02 Vision, with its crew of six, approached Duna.

They entered orbit.

No sense waiting around. The descent vehicle was undocked and sent to the surface of Duna.

Descent on drogues and mains went well.

Unfortunately... The engine was fired too late.

One landing leg had broken in the impact. The ship was now on its side, and the team could not right it.

Until...

Harshly opening the cargo bay at the right orientation would send the ship alarmingly high into the air. This was enough time to fire up the engines and start the ascent.

It was risky, but those six astronauts didn't come all this way for one broken landing leg to stop them from the last hundred kilometers.

First, however, the habitation module needed to be landed.

In this case, the X-6CA Pendulum I think. Landing on Duna with a plane was a very risky venture... Especially in a nearly no revert career.

Fortunately, the approach was looking at least moderately okay. The land, however, was not as flat as wanted.

The plan was to stall out, using drag to slow down dramatically, then nose down so the gear took the brunt of the impact, then deploy the emergency parachute. The craft would spin around and slow to a stop. However, the chute was deployed too early.

That would prove to be the Pendulum's final swing.

By some stroke of luck, however, the entire habitation section was still intact! Yes, it had just slid through a bunch of radioactive debris, but it was intact!

It was fairly simple to right. Unfortunately, it was several kilometers from the ascent vehicle.

Next up was the X-something Duna Exploration Plane.

Despite being designed specifically for flying on Duna, the plane was surprisingly unwieldy.

The landing was, fortunately, successful.

Ah, its been a long time since we've launched the Agesis.

It sent a science module derived from the common Arcadia vehicle bus to Halo Station.

S-10 Valiant was once again launched.

Unfortunately, the booster did not make it.

The space camp mission also, I believe, carried two scientists, who manned the station's lab.

Good old Spaceship S-03 Jeffree aerocaptured at Duna.

The combined S-04 Adventure, S-08 Possibility, DDV-02, Fuel Module, and Duna Station Science Lab approached Duna with their crew of six.

Aerocapturing this thing was... interesting... although less difficult than anticipated.

The rocket division's hastily put together base de-orbited and went in for a landing.

Unfortunately, well, this one tipped over as well. Fortunately, it was relatively simple to right this one.

Only 3.2 kilometers from the ascent Spaceship, not bad!

The top secret X-17 Moonlight Shadow entered Duna orbit...

S-03 Jeffree met up with the other two in Duna orbit. Fuel was distributed. The fuel situation was definitely not as dire now.

And with that, it was time to land the ascent vehicle.

Everyone held their breath.

And the S-08 Possibility successfully landed on Duna, only 220 meters away from S-07 Earnest! It was a big day for the space program!

...But not as big as tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the crew would land.