Landing a billboard on Dres!

[Kimera Industries]

This mission was part of the Dres Awareness challenge.

The goal of the challenge was to show your love for Dres, with something BIG! Unfortunately, my PC is literally a hand-me-down, so extremely big was not an option. But there are other ways to be big.

Dres Tourism Commission report:

Spoiler

Moho: "Give me Mo-hore of that Moho! Deepest tans and deepest hole in the solar system!"

Eve: "Sure it's not water, but you can still sail on it! See the finest yacht races of the Kerbol system!"

     Gilly: "Olympic high jumping made easy!"

Kerbin: "Stay close to home!"

     The Mun: "Hey, it's cheap!"

     Minmus: "So it's ice, not ice cream, but you can make ice cream out of it!"

Duna: "Everybody wants to go here. Man, we have it easy."

Jool: "You can't land on it but it looks pretty."

     Tylo: "Go spelunking in the only cave of the solar system!"

     Laythe: "The finest beaches are found only here, the Jewel of Jool!"

     Vall: "Subsurface ocean diving, with no creepy aliens like from Europa Report, probably!"

     Pol: "Spectacular volcanic eruptions!"

     Bop: "The casino, man! The casino!"

Eeloo: "Finest ski resorts. Need I say more?"

Look at us. All those other tourist commissions have it easy! Don't get me started on Bop's casino! We don't even have a catchphrase! We need to do something to bring public awareness to Dres, ASAP.

Reply to the previous report, from KSC Director Andrew Kerman:

Spoiler

We've been thinking about this for a while. Our orbiter revealed an extremely deep canyon and a ring system. These are ripe for tourist exploitation, and I have a proposition. To get us started, an advertising billboard could be placed at a suitable location, and various... erm.... touristy things could follow. Obviously, there is no one on the surface to see it, but the publicity would be a huge boost to Dres tourism. Let me know what you think.

18 months later...

The sun was shining. The birds were singing. And another huge rocket was on the launchpad.

Here's the launch:

Spoiler

The countdown seemed to slow as it reached lift-off. Slower, and slower, until we realized everything was normal and our automatic countdown machine needed new batteries. We couldn't launch without a countdown, so we put a hold on the countdown until Jim could put new batteries in. With everything ready to go, we hit the big red launch button- erm, proceeded with the countdown.

Liftoff!

Don't you just love witnessing the power of 16 engines? Engine clusters are nice. 

This is the part where we say "Max-Q" so our viewers don't get bored with the live feed. We honestly don't have a clue about "aerodynamics," whatever that is.

First stage shutdown. The thud engines are still glowing.

Stage more-or-less separation.

Fairing deploy. Since the payload was a shape that doesn't really fit well into a fairing I had the ejection force for the fairing really high so it would spend less time around the payload, meaning I didn't get a good shot of the fairing.

Insertion burn.

Nice circular orbit.

Solar panels deployed.

Trying to get a Dres encounter was pretty stressful, (small soi) so I forgot to get a picture of the transfer burn. However, as proof I didn't cheat, if you look at the D-v levels, they've gone down by 1629 m/s, which is pretty close to the 1540 my interplanetary transfer cheat sheet says. (The fuel has also gone down) However, I think I documented everything else pretty well. 

Transfer to Dres/ orbital insertion:

Spoiler

Ready for inclination change. This is the last time our billboard will see Kerbin this close.

So it's not an encounter but it's pretty close, right? (Note: you will never hear anyone at NASA ever say "pretty close" or "good enough")

Inclination change.

On our way to Dres.

Yes! An encounter! Pure luck, honestly. (Another note: a correction burn using almost 200 Dv? Perseverance had only 16 to correct its course to Mars!) (Don't quote me on that, it might have been 13)

Small correction burn at low throttle. Don't want to mess up.

Getting a low periapsis. Sometimes when I used non-physics time warp my periapsis would get higher mysteriously, so it varied.

Yay for Dres!

Manuever for our insertion burn.

Ready for separation of transfer stage.

In Dres' SOI! (Sphere of influence, for those not in the know)

Transfer stage separated. Originally I was going to crash it into the planet, but then I was like, "Hey, you put relay antenna, a probe core, and solar panels on it for a reason." So it'll fly by Dres into interplanetary space, acting as a relay for future missions. So as not to leave debris.

Yay for relays!

The billboard is all alone now. Fortunately, we disabled the loneliness circuits on the probe core.

Ready for orbital insertion burn.

Getting into orbit.

Circular Dres orbit, yay!

Dres landing:

Spoiler

Found a nice spot to land. Looks very flat.

Nice and easy.

Touchdown! Unfortunately, the landing site wasn't very flat, so I decided to head to a more level area.

This spot looks good.

Golly, it's almost as level as Minmus!

Lights on. Ignore how some of the ground isn't being lit up, not my fault.

Landed, safe and sound!

Spoiler

 

With only a 100 m/s of Dv left as well. In my book, that's cutting it pretty close. I didn't mean for the fuel requirements to be almost exact.

 

Lights on at night.

Remember that transfer stage that's also a relay? He's doing fine. Has a wife and two kids. Monitoring the stars and stuff.

I had fun doing this! I hope it's big enough for Dres! Maybe when I get a better PC I can do something bigger. (Like a hotel!)

In previous attempts, I tried storing the billboard horizontally. It made the rocket flip over sometimes and even though I would revert the flight anyway, I tried recovering it using the remaining fuel. They all failed, but it made for some interesting screenshots.
Bloopers:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Enjoy! Try a Dres mission of your own if you haven't, it's an interesting challenge.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Kimera Industries

[Vanamonde]

Nice.  

[Kimera Industries]

12 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Nice.  

Thanks! I sure worked hard on this!

[Vanamonde]

It shows.