My First Asteroid

[Brotoro]

To capture my first asteroid, I used my standard Nuclear Tug (now with The Claw!) launched on my standard Reusable Rocket (now with many fewer struts, plus extra nose cones!). I goofed up a little and didn't catch the asteroid until a little after its periapsis, but I got it into a huge orbit and then shifted its plane to equatorial (it had about 60 degrees of inclination to start). The asteroid was a Class 2.

Once I got it in the equatorial plane, I used about a dozen aerobraking passes to drop it into a 130 km x 100 km orbit over Kerbin. The multiple aerobrakings were tedious, but saved fuel.

Then I had fun deorbiting it. The two nukes could slow it down into a nice vertical descent, but they didn't have the oomph to soft land the beastie, so it crashed at about 100 m/s. This destroyed most of the Tug (which was unmanned), but the asteroid survived.

I wanted to drop it on the SCIENCE buildings (because those guys always ignore me), but instead it ended up as a decoration outside the Astronaut Complex.

Must sleep. I can post more details later.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Brotoro

[Commander Zoom]

Now that's a sample return mission.

[-RanZ-]

nice job. A guy should have 1 of each class asteroid around the launch complex for decorations

[randomness5555]

Well that's one way to redecorate XD

(Along with the other redecoration, IE bits of radioactive fuel now lying around the space centre)

[Brotoro]

That's true…not only do the nuclear engines not have enough thrust, and are therefore unsuitable for landing the rock, I did spread radioactive debris all over the courtyard of the building.

Oh well: Fission Chips for supper in the astronaut cafeteria tonight, folks!

I still have a quick save with the asteroid in low Kerbin orbit…so I'll try building a proper asteroid lander (and leave the nuclear tug up in space where it can be refueled/re-used chasing other asteroids).

(Although with an impact speed of a little over 100 m/s, the fuel rods may be mostly intact after that impact, so the cleanup might not be horrendous. And I do have emergency parachutes on those nuke nacelles for emergencies…I should see what happens if I deploy them on the way down.)

Edited April 2, 2014 by Brotoro

[mellojoe]

nice job. A guy should have 1 of each class asteroid around the launch complex for decorations

challenge ....... Accepted

[Scotius]

But thanks to this grass has a pretty, soft glow now And asteroid makes for an incredible monument - all visitors will be awed

[Daddy Cecil]

Brotoro has leet amount of points now!

OT: This mission was epic. Enough nuclear accidents occur at the space centre anyway.

[Cydonian Monk]

A wee tiny little rock that is. Right out of the gate I've got a giant class-E planet abuser that's supposed to bounce off Kerbin and then hit Eve... from an orbit out near Duna. I'm doubtful I'll have enough parts unlocked to catch it when it gets to Kerbin, but I might have enough to swat it away.

Or maybe I'll just latch on and ride it to the ground, Slim Pickens style....

Without knowing what's inside these rocks, it's possible they're more hazardous to the environment than the hardened cases of the nukes you just destroyed. The Magic Boulder would probably poison the air or water with its green-glowing-ness. Then again, even if that tiny rock you nabbed hit the ground at 100+m/s, the results wouldn't be pretty.

[Brotoro]

I dropped the rock in at a few different places to see what it did. On one of the videos I saw, an asteroid crashed into the ocean and apparently disintegrated. With my Tug slowing this guy down to (I think in that case) 130 m/s, the asteroid survived splashdown and sunk to the bottom (but I could still see it through the water). The ship was obliterated, of course.

[Cydonian Monk]

Submersibles using an asteroid as ballast? Yes please!

I wonder what the crush depth of a Kerbal ship is. Assuming you can get the thing slowed down enough to where an attached craft survived splashdown, that is....

[Brotoro]

Brotoro has leet amount of points now!

OT: This mission was epic. Enough nuclear accidents occur at the space centre anyway.

Ah! I did not notice that that was my leet post. A picture to remember it:

And I'm just 2 points away from hitting 500 reputation.

EDIT: And I just passed 500 reputation. A good day for Brotoro.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Brotoro

[Brotoro]

So I've been playing from the quick save I had of the Tug and Asteroid in low Kerbin orbit. I decided to see what I could do using the four parachutes on the nuke nacelles for landing the asteroid. Those parachutes are only meant to safely land the nuke nacelles that can be separated in case of an emergency (such as a launch failure), so I didn't really expect them to return the whole ship and rock.

I used the engines to slow the ship/rock down (there's still more fuel left in the Tug than the engines can use up, even if firing all the way down from orbit), and at 5000 meters I cut the engines and deployed the chutes. The full-deployment altitudes of the chutes were tweaked in opposing pairs to fully open at 600 and 500 meters. The main deployment was somewhat violent, but everything held together.

Below, the ship and rock descended into the ocean at about 16 meters per second. Strangely, the green illuminators I have on the Tug (one high intensity, one low intensity) appeared to be able to shine right through the asteroid to light up the water below. When the rock hit the water, it slowed the Tug enough that by the time the Tug dipped into the water, none of its parts broke. The rock did indeed sink…but the strangely buoyant metal of the ship acted as a floatation device to keep the rock from falling to the bottom of the sea.

Cool! Now send out the Navy to tow it over to the KSC.

Landing the asteroid on land with this makeshift system was less successful. Below, I set it down a little west of KSC on four good chutes. Again, the lights were able to shine through the rock and illuminate the ground. (I wonder if they would illuminate a ship on the other side of the asteroid, or if it's just the surface of Kerbin that does this?)

The jarring impact rattled the Tug, but it stayed together… at least until the asteroid slowly and inexorably rolled over and smashed the Tug onto the ground (exploding one of the nuke engines). But surely the environmental impact from such a destruction of the nuke would have contained all the fuel elements.

So a proper asteroid lander ship would appear to be in order. Perhaps the part that docks to the asteroid can have multiple chutes that stay with the asteroid, and the rest of the ship can separate earlier (after all chutes are deployed, and when the ship is low enough that they will stay within 2 km during the rest of the descent) and land by itself (using its RCS to move a little off to the side before landing).

Edited April 2, 2014 by Brotoro