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Kānāwai: Ares to Mars


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13 hours ago, PeteKonrad said:

Sorry to double post, but I was just reading through this fantastic thread again this morning and had a question regarding the Orion 1 mission. Do you think it is perhaps a bit risky for NASA to allow the first flight of a new engine (J2-X) on a rocket with 4 crew members aboard? Especially given the increased safety culture after Columbia, I wonder if they would perhaps go for an unmanned flight of the whole Ares I stack before allowing it to be flown with crew. 

You're probably right, but according to this mission list they didn't really call for an unmanned flight of the upper stage, only dummy versions of it.

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Orion 5 to the ISS, Early 2017

Orion 5 lifting off from the KSC is starting to become a routine sight for the space program.

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After Orion 5's arrival at the station, the crew of Orion 4 is relieved from their duties and is able to return home

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Testing on the ground for future flights is going on as well. Starting off with the KS-68 which will power the Ares V rocket

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Along side this, testing of what will become the descent portion for the lander goes on as well

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Both components are just small pieces in an otherwise bigger part of the puzzle that will be needed to return to the Mun.

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Orion 6 to the ISS, Late 2017

Orion 6 launches without issues once again proving the capability of Orion and the Ares I. This is the first crew of 6 on the Orion.

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Orion 5 returns home as well after fufilling its duties and Orion 6, 7, and 8 all go off without a hitch.

Ares V on the test stand, Late 2018.

Meanwhile on the ground, the Ares V is undergoing testing of the core stage and usage of all KS-68 engines.

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After the test is successful final preparations for the first flight of the whole stack begin for a 2019 launch.

Bit of a lighter post today, but I wanted to use the opportunity to skip ahead quite a bit and get to the cool stuff coming soon.

Edited by Jay The Amazing Toaster
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Really great post, your images continue to amaze! I'm trying to recreate your Orion myself using the mod list for my own attempt at a Kerbalised Constellation play-through, but I've got a snag. I'm sure the round solar panels are from Near Future Solar, scaled up to suit the service module better. However when I try and adjust them with TweakScale I'm not given the option to edit the scale. Would you mind sharing how you did this? Thanks!

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3 hours ago, Barzon said:

You paste it into a notepad document, and save it as patch.cfg or whatever you want, as long as it has .cfg on the end

Hi, thanks for the help. I've done this, but I'm not sure where to place it. I've tried adding it to the NF: Solar patch directly but that hasn't worked either. Is it possible to edit the part directly? 

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Ares V-Y, 2019

After years of development, the Ares V prototype vehicle sits on LC-39A. The largest rocket ever developed beating out the Sarnus V (Saturn V).
Core stage 6.25m diameter also making it the widest tankage ever used.

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Kerbin Departure Stage

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The Ares carries a dummy descent stage as a test payload.

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With the succesful launch, final preparations begin with one final test flight taking place before the return to Kerbin's Moon.

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/15/2020 at 5:47 AM, Jay The Amazing Toaster said:

Orion 5 to the ISS, Early 2017
Along side this, testing of what will become the descent portion for the lander goes on as well

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Both components are just small pieces in an otherwise bigger part of the puzzle that will be needed to return to the Mun.

what mod are you using for the lander? it isn't included in redirect

Edited by moguy16
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10 hours ago, moguy16 said:

what mod are you using for the lander? it isn't included in redirect

I'm using Making Alternate History by @bcink (also try and cut the images out of the quotes so the thread isnt cluttered with repeat images)

Update: I haven't forgotten about this project, I'll return to it as soon as I find the time/motivation, college and recent world events has been totally draining up my time and energy. I have the screenshots of the next mission so I'll upload those when I can.

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Orion 11 and Altair 1, 2020

Mission objective is to test the Altair in low orbit akin to how Apollo 9 tested the LM.

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New RS-68B engines from Bluedog Design Bureau to help alleviate the problems with having ablative nozzles alongside SRB's
Also sporting new 5 segment SRB's from @DylanSemrau's Photon Corp

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Orion meets up with the Altair in low orbit

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Docking successful

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Relight of the J-2X while pushing the Altair and Orion like how it will on a trip beyond low orbit

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Now testing free flight of both craft where crew will enter the lander and test its capabilities. 

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Freeflight of the lander

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After its freeflight test, Altair's ascent stage meets back up with the Orion

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The Altair is subsequently discarded to prevent build up of space debris

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Orion returns home and preparations begin for a flight to the Mun.

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I'm glad to get this going again and next mission will be for landing on the Mun.
Thanks to @Zorg for the new RS-68B model thats in the BDB.

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Orion 13, and Altair 2, 2020 - Crewed Landing on the Mun

With all preparations that have taken place, it's finally time to land on the Mun

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The Altair does most of the legwork for the injection burn followed by Orion finishing it off

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The crew departs for the surface

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For the first time in decades crew have finally touched down on the surface of their nearest celestial neighbor 

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The crew take a step out on the surface for the first time and probably say something poetic

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The rest of the crew join him to put up the flag

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After spending a couple days on the surface the crew return home

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On the way home, a deep space EVA is conducted

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It feels good to finally reach this place in the timeline, thank you to everyone who has stuck with this several month long project. Stay tuned there's a lot more to come!

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So I mentioned in one of my previous posts that there would be surprises, without further ado I would like to give a little sneak peak at some of what is to come.

Orbital MMSEV
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2028 NTR Asteroid Survey Mission 
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Lunar MMSEV
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Lunar Outpost (final version may look slightly different from this)
Inspired by NASA's Constellation Architecture Team Lunar Scenario 12.0 detailed here; (https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20100003415)
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All of this has been thanks to @benjee10's amazing new part mod which allows for easy surface base construction and provides the MMSEV rover.

The next decade will be dedicated to lunar surface missions and surface base construction leading up to an eventual Mars/Duna mission. Stay tuned and check out Benjee's new mod!

Edited by Jay The Amazing Toaster
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