Incident report for near miss between mining ship and space station

[TanDeeJay]

Report into near miss between ACMII and Duna Porta  docked with the 1kk/K Space Station

Date: Y31 D285 3:10

Kerbinauts:

    Hervey Kerman
    Shelcal Kerman
    Began Kerman

Incident description:

Hervey, Shelcal and Began were piloting the ACMII mining craft on a mission to return to Asteroid ZFC-464 to continue the mining operation there in order to supply fuel to the Duna Mission scheduled to launch within the next 3 years when during their trans-asteroid burn, the ACMII passed within 10m of the Duna Fuela which is currently docked to Docking port DR-DPSR-2 on the 1kk/K Space Station.

Timeline:

Y31 D285
1:20 - Shelcal receives clearance to undock from the 1kk/K Space Station from docking port FD-DPSR-1
1:22 - Began initiates undocking procedure
1:23 Shelcal receives all clear notification from 1kk/K Space Station
     Hervey begins calculations for transfer burn to ZFX-464 and finds suitable slingshot around the Mun with a 6m burn starting in 1h 45m

2:53 Began observes that in the 1 1/2 hours since undocking, the orbital drift of their ship and the 1kk/K Space station looks like it might bring the 1kk/K station directly in their planned flight path.

2:54 Hervey aligns ACMII in preparation for the maneouver
2:55 Hervey, Shelcal and Began all observe the 1kk/K Space station as it drifts closer and closer to their line of flight  
3:06 Shelcal advises they abort the flight as he thinks it will be cutting it too close.

3:07 Hervey overrules Shelcal with less than 60 seconds to the start time for their burn and reckons they will make it ok

3:08 - Hervey initiats 6 minute burn to begin transfer to Mun slingshot
3:09 Began retracts the #2 and #3 solar panels

3:10 ACMII passes within meters of the Duna Porta docked at DR-DPSR-2

Burn continues for another 4 minutes

Mitigating factors:

Maneuver was calculated without taking into account the orbital variances of nearby craft
Reckless decision taken by pilot to overrule navigator 
Naming convention of spacecraft accidentally names the craft with a name very similar to a company often associated with a cartoon based on a very fast land bird and his canine adversary.  I mean who's idea was it to remove the "Mk" from the ACM Mk II and just call it the ACMII???

    

Edit: sorry, I thought I hit the screen cap button just at the closest point, but the screenshot directory only contained the above 2 images

Edited February 21, 2020 by TanDeeJay
fixed name of Duna bound craft docked to space station

[RocketMan-Explorer]

This is pretty cool. I love the incident report format. Will you post some more?

[TanDeeJay]

I should. Ill keep an eye out for more "incidents"

I posted a series a while back called "Saving Jebediah" when early on in my KSP life I accidentally sent Jebediah into a solar orbit when he was supposed to be going into a mun orbit. Then the whole space program diverted all their efforts to saving Jebediah, and after some 12 years Kerbal time, when I finally figured out Jebs orbit brought him close enough to kerbin that he could use RCS thrusters to get a kerbin encounter close enough to enter the atmosphere, he saved himself