You Spin Me Round, Right Round-Mesbin Space Program

[Kerminator K-100]

11 hours ago, aspacecephalopod said:

Stock DLC Breaking Ground!

Is it just different colors? *Realizing that I use that all the time* 

[aspacecephalopod]

1 hour ago, Kerminator1000 said:

Is it just different colors? *Realizing that I use that all the time* 

Haha yep-1.8.1 so just different light colors, no custom suits or suit textures. I do have Texture Replacer for their hair/faces but not suits

[Kerminator K-100]

On 8/19/2020 at 11:33 PM, aspacecephalopod said:

Magic Boulder moonlet!

Good thing its not red! (Saga of Emiko station)

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 21: The Magna Carta

Spoiler

With Valyr and Tyepolbyenar crew mission successes, it was time to think about the next target. A Reander mission was proposed, but the kerbs wanted to think bigger. And farther away. Much farther away.

Enter the Magna Carta. A truly massive capital ship at nearly 570 tons without LMO insertion boosters, it autonomously made orbit.

This grand ship will carry a crew of eight to Gememma, and with it will be quite the array of payloads. The workhorses of the mission will be two Lowell Landers, named after the largest body they are rated to land at. A fairly simple LFO/Quad Terrier affair, two were docked to the main ports of the Magna Carta.

Next up was a very important piece of hardware: the first, and only, propellor driven plane built on Mesbin. It’ll be useful on this mission though! Tedzer and Rosbo flew it and docked to the Carta. The large wing area is for the thin atmosphere of the target planet.

Last but certainly not least was a little module to fill in the assorted miscellaneous details for a mission of this caliber. It contained a KAS container, some monopropellant storage and thrusters, command seats, probe core, a relay antenna/reflactor, and a claw. Just a little service robot to help with various tasks, and it has the benefit of being able to serve as a high orbit relay, or to rescue kerbs with the command seats if it should ever be needed. It massed around 12T, mostly to counterbalance the airplane. Docking was nominal.

And with that final hard dock, the GS (Gemmemma Ship) Magna Carta was completed! Massing in at 630 tons and 399 parts, it’s quite the flagship. The crew of rookie engineers will not be heading off to parts unknown though-they’ll transfer to Dermin City and some of our previous interplanetary pilots will embark on this interstellar adventure. This will also be a chance to test the Magna Carta’s “secret weapon” of sorts that should improve mission functionality…

Back at my favorite part of KSP: building absoutely absurd motherships!

[Kerminator K-100]

18 hours ago, aspacecephalopod said:

building absoutely absurd motherships!

YESSS!

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 22: Way hey, roll and go!

Spoiler

The initial crew of the Magna Carta, composed of Archibald, Tedzer, Rosbo, and Pavan began the journey to Derbin and Derminmus, where the ship would fuel up and pick up the main crew. This took many many burns at periapsis to eventually kick the ship all the way out to Derminmus.

Arrival at Derbin was a fairly mild manner two weeks later, with a gentle capture a series of burns to get the ship back on course for Derminmus.

And now… it’s time. Tedzer and Rosbo boarded the back module of the Carta. But what for?

Because all this time, the “secret weapon” of the Magna Carta has been ready to go! The rear drive module undocks, fires away from the ship… and goes for a landing on Derminmus! It’s useful to be able to refuel one’s mothership on the fly, after all, so it carries lots of Ore storage and the ability to refuel the Li supplies needed to fire the two big engines. Descent goes well, and it’s not long before the crew touches down at Dermin City.

Mauki comes out to meet the crew, followed by Geroly, Milmal, Brandon, Gia, and Melrim. They part ways and thank the crew, then takeoff again to head back to the rest of the MC!

Return with the rest of the MC. It’s a very slow docking with the electric thrusters, but eventually the crew gets the ship back together and a party is thrown!

With all hatches battened down, sails hoisted, nuclear reactors happily humming away, it’s time to go! A quick burn at Derminmus orbit ejects the ship to interplanetary space, and a few weeks later a massive 4400 m/s burn (of an hour and a half!) sets the Magna Carta on course for Gememma. A second massive burn in 60d will throw the ship into a much faster course, reaching Mandrake/Rutherford periapsis in 5 years.

 

 

 

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 23: Camp Derbin

Spoiler

Whilst the Magna Carta was winging its way towards Gememma, the Mesbinians were putting together a system for exploring the mostly-un-explored surface of Derbin. They had developed some new nuclear engines to burn liquid hydrogen, and an air breathing nuclear turbojet that required no fuel at all. These systems would be very useful on Derbin where transport of fuel in/out of the thick atmosphere is dangerous or worse. Up first for the Derbin mission was the Derbin flyer, the nuclear jet. It launched uncrewed and made its way to low Derbin orbit, expending all fuel. But that won’t be an issue with the next vehicle on hand…

Next up was the OrbDerbin, a massive tug designed to ferry LH2 around the Derbin system. In fact, the entire mission save for some RCS will run on LH2. This tug will run from Dermin city (fueling station) to LDO and back to refuel all the various LH2/nuclear stages needed for a Derbin mission.

A week later, the Orb tug reached the Derbin Flyer in its slightly eccentric orbit, and was able to easily refuel it. Since the Flyer needed to put itself into a 65km super low orbit and have full tanks for landing, once it made its way down to that orbit the Orb rendezvoused and docked again to top off the tanks.

With the Flyer fueled and ready to go, remote control from Dermin city began its descent. The giant nuclear thermal aerospace engine lit once more, aggressively bringing the craft down to just over 1km/s on atmospheric entry, leading to some entry fire but not enough for any damage. The tank and engine were then discarded (the tank is designed to soft-land so as not to irradiate the planet) and the Flyer lined up and landed on Derbin surface!

Next up: the Derbin Crawler! Providing the all-important ISRU for the return ship and additionally more crew space, it is the final ship going only one-way to Derbin. It launched with a very big sky crane, met the Orb in derbin orbit as with the Flyer, and refueled.

Landing went well… another fully propulsive landing with slow speeds to limit heating.

And soon the Crawler was in place on Derbin! Tune in next time for the crew’s mission.

 

 

[aspacecephalopod]

Chapter 24: The Big Landing

Spoiler

It was time. Four specially trained uniquely prepped kerbonauts had launched on the DRSII Derbin SSTO, fueled up in Derbin orbit, and prepped for landing. They undocked from the Orb fueling tug and began descent.

The Derbin descent profile was simple: Burn fuel until the craft slows down enough for a gentle atmospheric descent. Some flames occurred, but everything was kept slow and pilot Jessy soon had the craft touching down, tanks at 1/3rd fuel, for a drogue chute assisted landing.

And so the crew had arrived at Derbin! Eventually, a new Crawler craft same to meet them and fueling could begin, and they’ll get to fly the airplane landed there soon as well.

Been a minute... lots of fun stuff in the works though. I also installed Beyond Home and have been having some fun with career there too.

Chapter 25: A short (long) detour to Reander

Spoiler

While the Derbin crew began to set up shop, another expedition was brewing.

The Reander Expedition will pay homage to the farthest Kaywellian gas giant. Up first was the Reander Lander System, a large shuttle that will be used as an SSTO on the larger moons and is able to fly in the atmospheres of Lito and Totooa. This shuttle launches uncrewed atop a very large collection of boosters and a large LH2 powered nuclear drive module that will push it from planet to planet and moon to moon.

Next up is the main crew ship for the mission. It launches with a crew of four, captained by Mike Kerman. It is composed of a similar LH2 nuclear tug (the mesbinians got a good deal on liquid hydrogen for this mission) and a large crew module with twin centrifuges and lots of radiation shielding.

The crew heads over to Larklight, the magic asteroid outpost high over Mesbin. Stationkeeping about 250m away went well, but as Fransby left the outpost it began to spin violently! Luckily she was quick on her feet and jet packed back over to the Reander ship.

This is when things went from odd to dangerous. As the other member of larklight, Jerdun, left the astroid base, the entire station shredded into many many pieces and the rock itself exploded violently right in front of him and the Reander ship. What a strange fate. Luckily Jerdun was alright and so was the Reander ship, which the kerbs promptly named…

Soon it was time for the fleet of three to depart. Yes, three! Bringing up the rear (but first to leave actually) were Duster and Sanfel of Dermin City, flying the good ship IES Sisko. Originally designed without the large water/fuel radiation shields that may help at Reander, the crew of two added some new hardware and reconfigured life support for their trip. The Sisko will be flying the outer moon missions as well as meeting up/providing backup support for the main crew of six as needed.

Soon after, the RS Krakenbait and RLS both left Mesbin as well. It’s a long journey ahead for these eight kerbs but lots to see! While none of the Reander moons seem like ideal colony targets, there will be much exploration ahead.

Catching up on some mission planning :-)

[aspacecephalopod]

Hi all,

With some things going on IRL, I'm gonna pause the WW adventures for a bit. (basically, I spilled a water bottle onto my computer that day before online classes started. Kraken sent good luck for backups fortunately!). Hopefully I can pick back up in a month or two.

In the meantime, here's a quick recap of what's what in the Kaywell system:

-Kerbmun has quite the fleet with three bases and 15+ kerbonauts on the surface, with intermittent crew rotations. The mesbinians have began to slowly move non-kerbonaut citizens there as well-all the infrastructure is in place to do so. And it's easy enough to build new houses in the (mostly) breathable air there. I haven't fully expanded any of the colonies in game due to lag/time, but the hardware is there :)

-Dermin City, the outpost on Derminmus, has 20 kerbonauts. The crew there has expanded their large crew buildings by building underground into the minty rock, and will provide another home for more Mesbinians. While the main shipyards are still on Mesbin, most larger crew ships stop by here to refuel and pick up crew.

-A few more kerbals are scattered around Mesbin SOI: two on Statmun, twelve on Nearpoint Station in LMO.

-The four crew on Derbin are doing well and exploring using the Flyer for now.

-The three explorers/colonists on Valyr are doing well, and a return mission is being prepared for them! It uses a modified version of the Derbin SSTO with ISRU added, to get the crew back to orbit. Also, a crew ship based on the Reander LH2 NTR tugs, but with ISRU and low-gee landing capabilities added. There will be a crew of five going to pick up the three on Valyr and explore the surrounding moons (possibly with another version of the Reander system spaceplane). Valyr could still be a potential colony target later on, but the kerbs have been happy with the local options of Kerbmun (for the air) and Derminmus (for the resources and dV advantages for mission prep).

-The Reander crew ship and SSTO spaceplane are both on the way to that giant planet, and should arrive in 2 kerbin years. Who knows what the crew will find there...

-Finally, the Magna Carta, the giant lithium-engined Gememma system ship, is one year out from Gememma. The crew will have to make calls about where to go first-Lowell has some very interesting atmospheric signatures, and the Mandrake/Rutherford gas giant system is quite appealing. They have a plane for Lowell and landers to tackle most of the planets in the system.

Until next time, fly safe all!