Jericho Interplanetary Mission

[PTNLemay]

A proposal was made to design a long-ranged interplanetary transport based on the venerable Julius platform.  The A3-Julius was a military cargo transport (often nicknamed the Space Truck) used extensively during the Minmus-Mun Conflict.  Even though the ship was unarmed, it's oversized manoeuvring pods gave it the thrust needed to side-slip in all directions.  Thus, it could perform evasive manoeuvres needed to avoid enemy attacks.  This, coupled with it's thick plating, gave it a reputation for reliability and survivability (albeit at the cost of delta V).

 

fig 1: A3-Julius military transport

 

The new ship will be named Jericho, and it's mission is to send a crew of four into the outer solar system. Prior missions have proven unsuccessful, as the attempted in-situ resource utilization ended in failure. Insufficient fuel for a return trip as well as a lack of vital resources resulting in a loss of life of all crew members.  To correct these oversights, the Julius-class will feature a state of the art ore scanner, capable of pinpointing viable ore deposits from a distance of over 600 km. High-ISP nuclear engines will serve as the main propulsion systems, with lower-efficiency, higher thrust engines providing extra thrust when needed. Nuclear power will also be used to provide electricity in the sun-starved depths of the outer system.

The ship will also feature an entirely self-contained mining and refinery system capable of refuelling it's tanks in under 2 weeks. This equipment will significantly dig into the ship's mass-budget, and as such multiple refuellings will be necessary to reach Jool. First at Minmus (where the ship will perform it's initial shakedown and extensive system's tests), then Dres, until finally refuelling at Pol when it arrives within the Jool system.  While there, we expect to perform the first ever manned landing of Laythe.  The lander (then unmanned) will be sent ahead of the Jericho and rendez-vous with it later.

The ship's ventral engines provide an acceleration of 0.12 g with fuel and ore tanks at full capacity. At reduced capacity the engines can achieve 0.20 g, meaning it could theoretically perform a ventral landing on the Mun (though his has yet to be tested, as it would be pushing the safety margins to their limit).

 

fig 2: the Jericho undergoing final tests before being mated to it's launch vehicle

 

Since the orbital shipyards have yet to be repaired following the end of the war, the ship needed to be constructed on the ground, and then hauled into orbit on boosters. After careful planning, a modified Boreal-class lift vehicle was successful at performing the boost.  The Boreal booster is capable of providing more than 13 million newtons of thrust at liftoff. Even this was not sufficient to lift the Julius, so modifications were made, adding 4 vector engines as well as 8 solid rocket engines to the first stage.

 

fig 3:  a Boreal-class booster in it's cradle prior to modifications

 

fig 4:  the Jericho escaping the atmosphere

 

The vehicle boost was meant to be unmanned (due to the extreme G-forces that the vehicle would experience on ascent), Jeb insisted on coming along for the ride.  The rest of the crew boarded via shuttle-capsules.  Boarding was finished last night at 21:00 hours KCT.   The ship is now ready to depart on your order.  The injection burn will require around 1400 m/s.   Upon departure the ship will be carrying a total of 4000 m/s (a significant excess and safety margin).  God speed, and good luck.

 

fig 5:  the mission begins

 

(( If the delta-V costs seem a bit high, it's because I'm playing on an up-scaled Kerbol system.  Everything is 2.5x bigger than normal, resulting in some pretty big delta-V requirements. ))

[PTNLemay]

Mission time is 17 days.  We spotted Minmus outside the port window.  We've been tracking it on sensors pretty much the whole way, but it's comforting to see our destination with the naked eye.

 

fig 6: Minmus just visible

 

We deployed one of the solar panels.  Bill wants to perform a full diagnostic of the refinery, but we don't want to put too much strain on the reactor just yet.   Minmus now fills the whole window.  We'll be performing our breaking burn soon.

 

fig 7: Minmus approach

 

Mission time 30 days.  We idled in orbit while every system was checked and rechecked.  We're good to go.  We'll be landing on the Lesser Flat, in a particularly ore-rich area.  This will serve as an important test of the ship's systems, but also as a refueling point.  Dres is a long way away, and we'll need every drop to reach it.

 

fig 8: Coming up on the landing site

 

fig 9: final approach

 

fig 10: group photo on Minmus

 

The landing rolled off without a hitch.  The ship is sluggish when only using the reaction wheels, but the maneuvering pods gave us the control needed to keep her steady.  Off in the distance we can just make out another mining ship that's making use of the same ore deposit.  We'll start drilling right away.

[PTNLemay]

Mission time 70 days.

While waiting for a more optimal launch window to Dres, we've put the refinery in slow-mode. Hopefully this will allow a higher quality fuel to be produced. We've also re-oriented the ship to have all solar panels facing the sun. In this gravity the manoeuvre was quite easy, despite the ship now weighing over 120 tons.

 

 

 

Mission time 120 days.

Due to a considerable oversight in calculating orbital trajectories, we will not be going to Dres. The astrophysicist responsible for the error has been dealt with. Instead we will be heading to Duna's moon, Ike. The ventral engines should be able to get us onto it's surface without problem, as it's surface gravity is almost identical to that of Dres.

With the tanks back up to full, the ship has another 5 km/s to give us.

 

 

 

 

Mission time 136 days.

We're leaving the Kerbin sphere of influence now. We expect not to return for several years. The ship is well stocked and equipped, but it will still be difficult being away for so long.

 

 

 

Mission time 356 days.

Duna spotted, Bob went EVA to do get some readings on the space near the planet.  Nothing much to report during the interplanetary flight.  All systems show optimal.  

 

 

 

Mission time 362 days.

We came in closer than we expected, a glitch in the navigation system caused our trajectory to dip into Duna's atmosphere rather than just pass over it. No apparent damage to the antennas or solar panels. We did get some interesting readings with our instruments. We're making preparations for the Ike landing.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by PTNLemay