For those who fell in pursuit of science (Tellumo on Kerbalism)

[MacLuky]

For those who fell in pursuit of science (Tellumo on Kerbalism)

A picture heavy story of the voyage to Tellumo on Kerbalism. Lest we not forget those who have fallen in the name of science.

• Chapter 1: What came before
• Chapter 2: The Jebediah
• Chapter 3: Sights and sighs
• Chapter 4: And so it begins
• Chapter 5: Breaks and mistakes
• Chapter 6: Arrivals
• Chapter 7: Redecorating
• Chapter 8: Exploring
• Chapter 9: Local fireworks
• Chapter 10: The flight of the Eagle
• Chapter 11: The Jade Diver
• Chapter 12: Radiation
• Chapter 13: Going home
• Chapter 14: Riding the storm

[MacLuky]

Chapter 1: What came before

Bill sighed when he ran the numbers again. He would have a busy schedule when arriving at Tellumo. "At the rate the components are failing we wont have a base to live in" he muttered. Pressed for budget the KSC had opted for standard quality parts for their Tellumo base, and with an average lifespan of about a year, components started failing at an alarming rate. Still the redundancy that was build in the design was holding out, for now.

Bill leaned back and thought about the first mission that had arrived at Tellumo, almost 3 years ago now and the awe it had inspired back at KSC when the first images came back. Back in the day the SSC-06 was part of Scientific Scan and Communication program. Having flung the first set of probes off to the near moons, but with the increased capacity of the Thanos-02X lifter, and a contract for deep space exploration, KSC had sent of number 6 to the deep reaches of space.

The revolutionary antenna design resulted in a stable uplink to KSC and it also carried a small comm-relay sat that as ejected in a highly elliptical orbit in preparation of follow up missions. Over time the data had painted a nice picture of Tellumo and peaked the interest of the Kerbals. 

Although the majority of the focus (and funding) had gone in the funding of SpaceLab-2 after the death of 3 Kerbals on SpaceLab-1 and the ongoing missions in preparation for the manned landings on Iota and Ceti, a follow-up mission based on recycled hardware from the Ceti lander program was initiated. The atmospheric readings were a phenomenal success and overshadowed the ongoing landings on the moons. Finally Tellumo had the KSC's full attention.

 

Followup missions SSC-14 and SSC-17 brought multiple landers and small rovers that were dropped on various continents. Extended biome mapping led to the discovery of ideal landing sites and the inhospitable character of Tellumo's atmosphere. Several probes crashed due to ripped parachutes. Eventually, KSC mapped out a potential base site and discovered a relative flat area in the mountains at 11km altitude. 

 

With Iota base Tranquality running at near permanent crew and completion of the Ceti base Eagle completed, finally hardware was sent to Tellumo to build a settlement on Tellumo that could support a crew of three indefinitely. Now that hardware was failing piece by piece.

Bill woke from his day dream and headed out to Mission control to give his status update and check the pre-flight data for the next major step.

[MacLuky]

Chapter 2: The Jebediah

Year 5 Day 201, Bill and Tradien went over the latest data of the pre-flight checks. There was still a lot of work to be done. "Time to go boys and girls." Valentina flipped her sunglasses up and smiled. She was ready to ferry the two engineers from the desert launch facilities to the main KSC site.

"All flight checks complete!, C7 152R EagleEye is ready for takeoff." She announced. Eager to test the new aircraft that was licensed from Raptor9.

Designed as recon and survey vehicle the craft was mainly used as a luxurious taxi. Providing great workspace while moving Kerbals between the various basis. Valentina was however to determine the limits of the plane.

Trying to break the sound barrier

Determining altitude ceiling

And before they knew it they were at the main KSC facility, disembarking to meet up with the rest of the launch crew for a historic day.

Despite the fact that all checklist turned out ok, the launch would be delayed for another two days due to coronal mass ejections, then finally on the historic launchpad 2 it was time to test the latest in rocket technology. 

On year 5 day 213 the Aquarius-B02 ignited the engines of the Taurus-6A 5 meter lifter. The total launch cost racked well over the 700k funds, measuring 655,000 tons it started to move.

"Ehm, its not moving" said Gene. Desipite the 6,5MN of thrust, the TWR turned out to be 1.03. "It will" said Bill. "Trust me." And indeed, like in slow motion the craft lifted itself and gracefully took to the skies. At 23km the first stage cut off and the second ignited and effortless took the payload to a 99x99km orbit at 8,6 inc.

 

It then flipped around and deorbitted itself. Leaving almost 80 tons of fuel in LKO. Ready for a spacecraft to dock with it.

"Its all risk management," Explained Gene. "Had the rocket blown up, we would have a second chance with the more expensive ship. And even without the boosters we can make a slingshot around Tellumo."

32 days later a second Thanos-6A stood proudly erected at Launchpad-1 this time. Weighting 653,081 Tons, slightly less.

It took off and went for a direct direct rendez vous, which went off without a hitch. Then began the tedious double port docking procedure. Fortunately the Aquarius was filled with enough monopropellant to align perfectly with both tanks and after a full orbit of fiddling the craft was complete. 

Next the science teams began to deploy the instruments, engineering fired up the cooling and power systems and slowly the giant ship sprang to life. It was designed to house 3 Kerbals for 3 years, triple nuclear reactors additional solar arrays, any kind of recycler and a fully functional 3D printer lab. The first of its kind. Whilst  the navigation teams were laying in the manoeuvre node 65 days from now that would take Kerbals beyond their soi for the first time in history.

Meanwhile Valentina prepared of her meeting with the overseeing council. "What is wrong with the name Aquarius?" The board seemed puzzled with Vals request. "Nothing sir, and the Aquarius class is a fine line of spacecraft, but.", she replied, before she was interrupted by the old Kerbal that now shifted his glasses while he peered at her. "Then why does this memo requests a renaming? Aquarius-0B-02 seems fine to me." Valentina realised the director had not read any further than the title. 

"The Jebediah, sir, we would like to rename the ship to the Jebediah, in honour of those who went before us."

And so it began, that very night in the tracking station, the Aquarius was renamed the Jebediah-1 and back in the VAB the decent vehicle was renamed to . Reminiscent of two heros of the early space program that had died on SpaceLab-2D.
 

[MacLuky]

Chapter 3: Sights and sighs

A couple of days later the Jebediah-1 passed over the Desert launch facilities and in the evening sun a shining silhouette of the Hermes-0B-01. It would be the second launch of the craft after its successful test fight several months ago. 

Both the booster and the spacecraft had been recovered, which implied lower cost, but small changes and refurbishing had taken their time nonetheless. On board of maintenance flight J-01-1 were pilot Harvin and engineer Tradien. Stuck in the cargo bay were two tourists that were paying for the flight. The KSC finance department was looking forward to this flight!

"Uhm, KSC, we are running low on RCS", going for fast dock. The launch had been painful and the craft had used most of its monopropellant fuel to counter the wind forces and align it on a rendez-vous trajectory. As a result, it was now running on fumes. Nevertheless the alignment was good, and with bingo fuel, the craft docked.

"Hmm, no RCS to fill our jetpacks" Tradien noticed. Can't EVA over to the broken reaction wheel. "Hang on, I have an idea" Harbin replied. He undocked, backed off the station, then  aimed for the booster and managed to stop within less than a meter of the craft. Tradien exited the Hermes and held on the rails. The reaction wheel proved to be out of his reach. After two more attempts, the team broke off the mission and headed home. "Well at least the tourists enjoyed themselves" KSC said.

During landing, RCS thrusters exploded, control surfaces failed to get a grip, fuel ran out and they missed the landing site by 28km, Harbin was not a happy camper. "Alright crew, brace for impact, we are going for a water landing." In the back the tourists got more than they bargained for. With a hard splash in the night, the Hermes landed. All crew survived and the majority of the craft. Despite KSC recovery, it would take some serious redesign before it would fly again.

Y5D274 Launch of -0A-01 on a Thanos-4A. The reliable launcher that had taken the Apollo missions to the moons of Gael was more than capable of lifting the descent vehicle in orbit. Named after  Kerman because of the onboard lab, sensors and security features. Its exact configuration was classified until it would reach Tellumo.

The 230,000T vehicle provided 4.2MN of thrust and parked the  in LKO with 6000 dv. Waiting for its departure window. All was prepped.
 

Edited February 4, 2019 by MacLuky
pictures

[MacLuky]

Chapter 4: And so it begins

As was the custom of large undertakings at KSC, a large group of Kerbals joined at the flagpole. To commorade those who had died in the name of science. "We remember: Jebediah, , Marllian, Sigma, Adrod and Jade." Indeed, Space with Kerbalism had proven to be a dangerous endeavour. Engineers were still confused about the death of Sigma, Adrod and Jade on Tranquality Base. They should have had enough power, but due to the mystery of timeworping, their reserves were suddenly depleted and they died a horrible death. The base had not been occupied ever since.

But they also looked ahead at the boldest mission ever undertaken. The first step to becoming a bi-planetarian species. Headed by Mission Commander Valantina, the first to reach orbit, first to set foot on Iota and with more flight hours than any other Kerbal. Robert Kerman was the Mission Scientist. With long duration studies on Ceti and Iota he was more than qualified. Bill Kerman was the Mission Engineer. He had led the Aquarius project that that resulted in the Jebediah-1 and had designed most of the base modules for their home at Tellumo.

It was the 304th day of the fifth year when the Astra-0A-10 launched from the main site.
KSC was taking no risks. Overpowered and battle proven this was the 10th launch of this exact configuration. The Astra was the workhorse of LKO activities and regularly ferried passengers to SpaceLab-2E.

An uneventful launch, but they missed the initial rendezvous. Val dropped the orbit so they would catch up and after 3 orbits they could transfer to the Jebediah and dock to its main service port. 

Bill checked the RCS thrusters, engines and fixed the broken reaction wheel before the departure node would come up, 5 days later. The Astra was sent on an automated trajectory to SpaceLab-2E were it would serve as a lifeboat for future missions.

With a max thrust 2.2MN the 177 ton Jebediah-1 had a comfortable TWR of 1.29. "This is a party!" Said Valentina when ejecting the craft on its 282 day transfer. The -0A-01 would depart 5 days later, but arrive 10 days earlier. Bill powered up the reactor and radiation shield, Bobbert ran a solar particle experiment and so it began.
 

Edited February 5, 2019 by MacLuky

[MacLuky]

Chapter 5: Breaks and mistakes

Val was puzzling the orbit chart of Tellumo. They had brought two small relay sats, similar to those on all base modules before. There were at least 8 small relay sats orbiting Tellumo and 3 large dishes that could reach Gael. The mesh looked pretty tight, but Val was searching for blind spots, or weak ones that could use the redundancy.

The flight went as expected. The crew did experiments, broadcasted on Kerbal television and Bill had his hands full on midway repairs. RCS thrusters, an engine bell and the external life support units proved the most error prone. He actually reprinted a new unit at one occasion. 

"Bill here, I'm detaching the ECSL module from the lab." he said when he started unscrewing the device. "Yo, Bill go ahead" Bobbert came in. "Data is looking good, there's a switch here that has a blinking light btw." "Please repeat, I've just unhooked the power cables. Please wait" crackled the intercom. "Re-paint? Indeed that is what the switch said." Bobbert replied while he flipped it. "Whoa" Bill exclaimed when 1500 units of material kits zipped by him. "Whoops".

With no material kits left, Bill began dismantling the booster nodes and recycled components that were no longer needed. He just hoped it would be enough.
 

Edited February 5, 2019 by MacLuky

[MacLuky]

Chapter 6: Arrivals

The descent vehicle had arrived without problems at Tellumo. Mission control ran addition tests, deployed the airlock and retracted it. All systems seemed nominal and in fact, the science components on the rover returned some interesting new data as well. 

In the cargo bay a small satellite with scansat sensors was decoupled and pushed into a high inclination burn. It would map the remaining biomes. Not needed for the landing, but perhaps there were some interesting biomes at the poles that could be used for an expedition.

Several days later the Jebediah-1 entered the sphere of influence of Tellumo. "All systems powered up!" Said Bill, "we are ready for retro and capture burn". The craft had been dormant for almost 200 days and many things could go wrong when the 6 engines jumped to full throttle. Pressed in their seats the three kerbals realised how long they had been without gravity, but then their thoughts drifted to a red alert light and the sound of a tin can being crushed, just before the burn was completed.

"Damage control, talk to me Bill" Val's voice was calm yet direct. It would be another 30 minutes before KSC got the telemetry and they were not waiting for the Kerbals back home to figure this out. "Seems like the entire structure is offset" said Bill. "Oddly I see no leaks, it seems to hold together". 

Very carefully the craft was manouvred in the target orbit. The external drop tanks were now depleted and discarded. Bill salvaged as many components as he could for the recycler and managed to restock some material kits that way. They also deployed a small communication relay before circularising. It was not a perfect mesh communication network, but since there were now more than 10 of these little relays in orbit and 2 main relay dishes in polar orbit, the chances of a connection back home were pretty good.

On year 6 day 126 5:44 KSC time the crew of Val, Bill and Bobbert shutdown the main systems of the Jebediah, put her in sleep mode and detached the descent craft for the first manned descent to the surface of Tellumo. "Orbital velocity 2930 m/s, altitude 706077, parachutes 1 to 7 ok, number 8 is refusing to deploy." Bobert was on comm duty whereas Valentina used the RCS system to adjust the target range.

The ablation of the heatshield stayed well within acceptable parameters and even with a parachute short the descent went without a hitch and 10 minutes after detachment the -01 roving lab was touching down at Tellumo

The crew struggled with the gravity, despite earlier reports it proved comparable to Gael, (as if someone changed the settings) but their long stay in space had made the legs wobbly.

After the formalities bert started with the atmospheric science and tried to figure out if it would be safe to take of your helmet. Valentina plotted the course. "20 km to Marillian base guys! Lets roll."
 

Edited February 5, 2019 by MacLuky

[MacLuky]

Chapter 7: Redecorating

When they rolled over the last hill the universe seemed to slow down when Marillian base came into the full view. 6 successful components had made it to the location beacon and successfully docked to form the final base, 2 units had been lost, all were showing signs of wear and tear. Age and wind had taken their toll and Bill quickly started with the removal of broken parts and fixing of many others.

The core module contained a large habitat combined with a small laboratory, it also housed a comm tower that could be erected to provide high gain communications with Kerbin. There was a small reactor and many supplies at the back, that allowed for operation throughout the Tellumo night.

The second module was the ISRU and rover module. It provided a sturdy small rover, nicknamed Nemo, because the first rover was lost over the ocean. The drills and pumps should be able to provide the base with a continuous supply of water and ore. A second reactor served as backup.

Three greenhouses were designed to replenish the food stores and would need to be reactivated. The fourth greenhouse had crashed during re-entry as well as a supply and science module, leaving our Kerbals with a potential food shortage. "Hmm the drills didn't touch the water, therefor the greenhouses didn't produce food" Bobbert concluded. "Easy to fix" said Bill, but hard to make up for the lost time. 

The final module was a 3D printing lab. It was the last to arrive and also carried a large relay antenna. It seemed to work fine and Bill had already started producing several parts as he unfolded his grand plan: "The current base just has too many parts. Well over 600, we need to reduce this drastically!" He explained. "So what is your suggestion?" Said Valentina. "Lets rebuild the entire base using only the components we need! By my calculations that should be less than 90" not just for the lag, but the base was slipping down the slope and several landing legs had already exploded under the stress.

Upon completion the brakes on the Marillian base frames was released and more than 300 ton of equipment rolled down the hill and was parked more than 3 km from the new "Jade" base. Bill marked the location in his log since he had the feeling he would need to visit this junkyard for spare parts in the near future.
 

[MacLuky]

Chapter 8: Exploring 

"Stress levels at 6%, nominal radiation. Team is in exceptional health" Bobbert was happy to report back to KSC that the crew was more than fit to start the core part of their mission: science. For the next two months they would track across the surface, visit many biomes and learn as much as they could of this mysterious sister of Gael.

After the midlands and the lowlands the team reached the highlands and finally the mountains came into view. "I hope the rover will stand up to these slopes" Bill said, but Valentina was very confident. "If not, we are so screwed" said Bobbert. Indeed the team would be unfortunate if the rover could not reach the return vehicles that were landed on a mountain top, roughly 30 km from the current location but at least 8 km more than their current altitude.

Two day later the team reached the Venus-1 and Venus-2 ascent vehicles. As with all components of the mission, the ascent vehicle had come with full redundancy. Landed as a rover, it could drive to a suitable location. Eg. The current altitude was 11 km! Then, using the small engines in the front, the craft would be put in vertical position. Upon launch the rover would be detached and left behind. Serving both as a launch platform and comm relay.

While Valentina was planting fulfilling flag planting duty, inspected Bill the Venus-1. "Minor damage, nothing crucial, nothing that can't be fixed." He muttered. "Except for the fact that it is one seat short, and the ladder is in the wrong place." Indeed the Venus class was designed for 2 kerbals and the last minute eh year change of plans to include Bill on the mission meant that tinkering would be needed to get all on the same rocket.

"Venus-2 has a problem guys!" Bill sounded not very optimistic. "We can fix it, but we need new parts and ramp up fuel production back at the base" Apparently the hard landing had torn off several of the Venus-2 fuel tanks. It probably could make orbit, but it would be a very tight margin. Fortunately the Venus-1 was in good enough shape, if they could find a way to board it!

Deciding there was little they could do about it now, the team ventured onwards and cruised to the secondary base location. This site had been marked by the scout team as possible location but was passed over in favour of Marillian base. Mainly due to the low inclination and the fact that it was embedded between highlands. But the soil analysis would turn out very favourable.

While Bobbert was working on collecting soil and water samples, Bill decided he was going for a swim. "Crazy old Kerbal" Valentina smiled, secretly jealous that she didn't bring a swim suit herself. 

After having marked the beach location on the map as a good location for the next outpost Bill would adapt the roving lab by adding several propellers. "This is how I go swimming!" Exclaimed Valentia, when she drove the vehicle in the inland sea. What followed was a boring long sail trip back to base, with a treasure trove of science. 

[MacLuky]

Chapter 9: Local fireworks

Finally back home, Bobbert couldn't wait to get back to the lab to work on the science, Valentina was plotting the next expedition and Bill was bored. But after two days playing  with the mystery goo container and building domino sets from structural panels he had an interesting idea. "But I will need parts... lots of parts" he said to himself.

What followed was a short trip to Marillian Base that greeted him and the little Nemo rover with cheerful explosions of wheels and landing legs. Clearly the design had severe mistakes and the discussion to construct Jade Base from its components had been a wise one. Fortunately there was enough material to bring back to base.

It took several days and quite a bit of help from Valentina and in the 3D printing lab, but Bill's creation started to take shape. "See, we passed a small moon on arrival" he said. "So small that it is hard to lock on to, but why don't we research it from Tellumo"

The launch was a fully solid rocket engine system, very similar to the very first rockets used on Gael. Now it would suffice to reach a much lower altitude, and since the payload was extremely light, it packed huge amounts of delta-v for course corrections. Once it would get out of the atmosphere that is.

The small probe ended up with a close encounter with Lillth. After 2 orbits the alignment was well within parameters and without much problems it entered a polar orbit and started mapping the tiny rock. Which led to great rejoicing of the Tellumo team and the opening of the last bottle of skotch.

"That's odd" said Bobbert when studying the telemetry from the probe. "It appears that there is an anomaly in that crater. I wish we had made a lander." Indeed, the probe was designed as light as possible and landing legs were not the top of the backlog. "Perhaps we should not let that stop us" Valentina said, while plotting a descent course that would take the probe to the exact location. Sometimes a home-brew solution outperforms the highest degree of engineering and delivers science beyond all expectations.

[JadeOfMaar]

On 2/1/2019 at 11:28 AM, MacLuky said:

Chapter 2: The Jebediah

-snip-

 

What mod contains the thingies with blue glow? O_O

Also, I'm rather liking this thread. I've never seen Tellumo at sea level like you've shown. It's quite encouraging.

 

[Gordon Fecyk]

On 2/5/2019 at 8:34 AM, MacLuky said:

I'm surprised these guys aren't struggling for breath with 10+ atmospheres of pressure and density. Hearty bunch, these Gaelans are.

[MacLuky]

11 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

What mod contains the thingies with blue glow? O_O

Also, I'm rather liking this thread. I've never seen Tellumo at sea level like you've shown. It's quite encouraging.

 

Its the WorkShop for the mod with the same name

Chapter 10: The flight of the Eagle

  
The eagle had been a marketing stunt by C7 Aerospace Division. They had claimed that their product was "out of this world" and had sponsored the 120k to send it to Tellumo. Over the last few days it had been refilled, configured with the science package of the -01 and after some final checks it was time to fire up the engines and take Bobbert and Valentina on a long duration flight to check out some of the biomes that had been left out of the scouting tour.

In particular the polar region proved to be very accessible, thought the collected science would not reveal any new insights. Several sites, like the glacier were examined for possible base locations, but none were selected. It was time to head home, before the night would fall, since the craft would run out of power really fast.

In their absence, Bill had turned his mind to the ladder problem of the Venus craft. Not only would they need to get on-board, but the capsule would need some rework in order to fit a third seat. This meant lifting equipment and supplies and a stable working platform. With the help of rotatable docking ports, the 3D lab and parts salvaged from Marillian base, he managed to build a small crane. Some more excitement came during the night when one of the radiators broke apart due to "wobbling" or Tellumoquakes.

[MacLuky]

Chapter 11: The Jade Diver

Valentina brought the team together at the kitchen table, what had become the center of the small base. "We won't make it on these rations" she started. The greenhouses had done their best, but they were eating faster than the greenhouses could produce. "The Jebediah has enough resources, so we could cut the mission short, but I don't want to do that." Bobbert was the first to reply: "We need to find the LEM-4C. I have a signal, I just can't triangulate it." The supply module had crashed into the ocean and shortly after that communication had been lost. No-one knew if it was floating or on the bottom of the ocean.

Bill spent the next few days designing and developing a small probe that could seek out the missing supply module and with a very minimalistic design it took off and started searching.

"The signal appears to come from below, it could be a reflection though" Bobbert was going over the signal scope. "FFT shows a range of 90 meters below the surface." Valentina landed the little diver on the surface and began diving. Once it reached the bottom of the sea, it gathered reflection data and was capable of making an accurate location fix. It locked on to the signal and began ascending to the source.

Once it had breached the surface, the remains of the supply tankers were found. One had lost its payload upon impact, but the second one seemed intact. The high cliffs would make it hard to tow it out of there, they would need to make it airborne somehow.

Bill had come up with a nifty new solution and printed 4 rotor parts. In theory they should be able to lift the supply tanker and fly it back to base. But getting them there would be an issue. Also, landing a plane on water typically has disastrous effects on the landing gear. Using the spare parts Bill created a hydrofoil that should be able to lift and land the Eagle safely on the surface of the water.

It didn't took them long to locate the Jade Diver, but it would take some time to mount it in the cargo hold as Bill insisted on taking it back with them.

It would take Bill hours, together with Valentina to mount the rotors more or less aligned on the craft, upgrade the guidance system and move some solar panels so that it actually powered up. With the falling night and limited supply of electricity it became a race against the clock to get the system operational.

Flying a VTOL is not for the faint of heart, and it proved to be very difficult to stabilise the craft and lift it over the cliff hill. Ultimately the LEM-4C landed with a big bump less than 200 meters from Jade Base, where it would be dismantled and its supplies added to the rapid diminished supplies. Finally they could get proper rations.

[MacLuky]

Chapter 12: Radiation

Back at Gael a junior scientist woke up behind his monitor after he dozed off dreaming of Minmus ice cream. A sharp alert sound from the console was caused by a message that had originated from sentinel 4, the deep space solar observatory. Whilst looking for astroids that passed in front of the sun, it doubled as a solar observatory. The young scientist ran outside and nearly bumped in into his superior just outside the tracking station: "Solar radiation, heading for Tellumo, lots of it!" He screamed while trying to catch his breath.

Fortunately it would take 5 hours to reach Tellumo, and by then Jade base would be on the dark side of the planet. Giving the team 17 hours to come up with a solution. "Either we fly to the dark side, or we hide under water" Bobbert explained. Valentina didn't like the flying solution, the Eagle had flown admirably, but the water landings had taken its toll. "Can you whip us up a submarine Bill?" She asked while wondering how they would get that thing to ocean.

The team work ferocious throughout the long night and quickly constructed what would be known as the tin can. By now all spare parts of Bills stockpile were used and the last two boosters made sure that the craft blasted off lowlands, sharply bent off the cliffs and then slowed down using parachutes for a soft landing followed by a deep sink.

"Wish I could say dive, but due to the lack of reaction wheels and uneven mounted engines we are just guessing" Bill said while the craft continued to sink. They would never quite hit the ocean floor. By the time they reached 3km depth, the majority of the storm had passed over them and Bill jettisoned the ore tanks to start start their journey to the surface.

Back at the lab, they would find their radiation levels had crept up to 20%, still not a bad number, but they were almost a year away from home and in a year a lot could happen.

Later that week Bill added the science package back to the Eagle and Bobbert and Val went on a final trip to the poles to gather core samples and figure out if an underground base would shield future kerbals to the harshness of space.

The samples would take some time to process, but even at the poles radiation was a thing and colonisation of Tellumo would prove hard.

[MacLuky]

Chapter 13: Going home

With great sadness Bill completed his final round of repairs. He chucked at the idea that originally there was engineer foreseen on this mission. He had made daily inspection rounds over the last year and every week some part had needed adjustment or duct tape. He fixed the last oxygen harvester and open the comms: "I'm ready let's go"

The team gathered for their last photo before they put the base on automated mode, shutting down a reactor, one of the water drills and an ore drill for future use. The rest would keep running, keeping the lights on, growing food and pressurising Jade base for the next visitors.

After two weeks of driving they passed SSC-17 Scout. The little rover had given up its struggle against the inclination of the mountain range, but its drill contained some interesting experiments that were worthwhile to recover.

A day later they found some debris that made Bill worry about the state of the ascent craft, but fortunately they would prove to be more in less in the same state as last time. In need of repair but fuelled and mostly upright.

And so the repairs started. Using the rotatable docking ports Bill had created a small crane that could lift him within working distance (sometimes referred to as KIS range) of the craft, allowing him to make repairs and ultimately to board the spacecraft.

"Fuel, go!", "Nav, go!", "Guidance, go!", "Power, go!", "Life-support, go!", "Ignition!" With a loud bang the decouplers detached the rocket and with a TWR 1.2 the craft slided from its cradle and into the sky, quickly picking up speed and re-establishing the comm relay link the the remains of the Venus launcher, which now functioned as a repeater.

"Altitude is looking good, we are slightly too low for the speed we are picking up", Val was doing her best with the sluggish controles, but it was a delegate manoeuvre. Where in the Iota / Ceti landings they could do a couple of orbits before rendezvous, they would not have that luxury today. It would need to be a direct rendezvous or they would run out of power, (unless they would be on a very low orbit).

"Dammit Val, my feet are not tucked in behind that nosecone" Bobbert shouted over the crappy comms, that were completely blacked out due to the plasma sheering around the craft. The last part of the atmosphere proved to be thicker than expected. Valentina pushed on but it meant the rendezvous time shifted to the dark side of the planet. They powered down the reaction wheel, guidance computer and even the pressure regulators, co2 scrubbers and relied on their suits for the next 20 minutes coast to the spacecraft. One hard burn emptied the tanks and the next problem arrived.

"Look at the amount of thrusters that are down!" Bill squeaked over the comms, "There is no way automated docking is going to work, we need to EVA over". After hopping over they at least had power and oxygen, once they had past through the dark side, they would hop back to gather science and surplus materials before abandoning the Venus. 

[Pretorian28715]

Ok, I like, awaiting MOAR

[septemberWaves]

A few things I have considered for interplanetary missions with Kerbalism may be of interest to you in future, to mitigate the issue of parts breaking down on the interplanetary transport vessel.

1. Making a small surface base on a moon of the target celestial body, both for exploration purposes and so that the interplanetary transport can be parked in orbit around the moon. With this method, I would leave a maintenance crew and a simple reusable shuttle on the moon so that they can easily access the interplanetary transport and repair it if needed, rather than the crew on the planet having to use up what is probably their only ascent vehicle for an early return to fix maintenance issues.
2. For planets which lack a moon that is convenient for this purpose, simply making the interplanetary transport function as a fully-equipped space station, thus allowing a maintenance crew to stay on it directly for the duration of the surface crew's excursion on the planetary surface. This method lacks the secondary scientific goals that a moon base would accomplish, but would be able to be used even when there is no small moon available.

Edited February 20, 2019 by septemberWaves

[MacLuky]

Chapter 14: Riding the storm

"T-10 seconds, alignment looks good." The Jebediah had sprung back to life after a dormant period of almost a year. Reactors powered up, all broken down parts had been replaced or repaired, nav computers had been spun up and a course to Gael had been plotted. 

The crew were knocked into their chairs as the spaceship blasted off. They had lost two engines, one had broken down, the other was now out of alignment. But the thrust was more than enough to kick them out of orbit in a single burst.

As they left the rings of Tellumo behind them they snapped the last pictures, made some final measurements and prepared for the long journey home.

Close to the end of the journey an alarm light popped up and a siren squeaked through the audio system. "I should have fixed those speakers" Bill thought to himself while he floated from his bunk to the control panel. "Now what?" Asked Bobbert. Data spat off the monitors, a radiation storm was heading directly for them. "Looks like a big one, can't go around it anymore." Said Valentina. The team spent the next 5 hours and 57 minutes in the radiation shelter, but even with the shields at maximum output and the lead walls of the hitchhiker container their levels of radiation rose considerably.

What was worse is when they entered the Gael solar system the dreaded alarm went off again. The team look at each other in fear. "We won't survive another storm" said Bobbert. Valentina jumped behind the controls. "If we speed up now, we will be inside Gaels magnetic field before the storm hits us." She yelled. "If we speed up now, we won't have fuel to break." Bill said.

The choice between radiation death or finding alternative ways to break, was an easy one to make. Dipping the atmosphere at 45 km with more than 3 km/s meant lots of parts exploded on re-entry. They lost solar panels, RCS thrusters, some structural components and the contents of Bills stomach.

With the remainder of the fuel, the Jebediah circularised its orbit at year 8 d94, 1:42h and with mission time 2y 275d 3h it had reached a safe parking orbit after traveling distance 26 Mm. Most of the storm passed while they resided on the dark side and the magnetic field of Gael, combined with the Jebdiah's counter measures were just enough to keep the team alive, albeit very sick.

Even before dawn was reached a new Dragon crew spacecraft was launched on top of the Thanos-2X. Marking the 30st launch of the lifter and actually the first crewed Dragon. On board were medic Shelgas and pilot Galileo on a direct rendezvous trajectory. 

"Cruising altitude reached. Detaching booster" With a loud crash the solar panels got torn off the service module and joined the core stage in its inevitable fall back to the planet. "Activating backup fuel cells and starting rendezvous burn" said Galileo as if the loss of primary power supply was something that happend all the time. "Don't worry, we can even make this on battery only." He smiled.

Docking went smoothly and the crew were happy to finally see a different face. "This is not good" said Shelgas looking at the medical data. "We need to get you on the ground as fast as possible." The kernels grabbed over 10000 points worth of science and stepped into the new capsule for a fast and precise re-entry that would put them almost on the helipad of the VAB

"Parachute deploying, I'm not relying on the landing engine" Galileo was not taking changes and parked the craft safely on the green. "Finally home"

The team posed for the mandatory photo, "Tellumo is a beautiful world, worthy of the risks, a second home for the Kerbal people" Speeched Valentina, "but a harsh mistress for Kerbal equipment" Bill added. "We will be back, to do what Kerbals were meant to do" said bert. "Science in the face of danger".