Jump to content

Kron series (Kron 6 end of mission) - temporary halt of program


lajoswinkler

Recommended Posts

Wow, I had no idea this was four years old. Time flies so fast. Thanks, folks. :)

 

Kron 6 has fired its engine. The crew decided it's best to leave the Plockian system with barely enough speed, to avoid making large changes of the final orbit around Kerbol. 45 m/s was used and a bit more than hundred days later, the ship emerged from Plock's SOI.

CF9AD28E76A923453D42892D6687DE23CD28680D

 

Crew had a nice view of the system before they went to cryosleep and Gerty took over. Beros, Kyx, Karen and Plock in an isosceles triangle.

7EA9EA396826399E6CB35F22CD47EEF2FBACCA91

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

52 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

Wow, I had no idea this was four years old. Time flies so fast. Thanks, folks. :)

Thank you for 4 years of inspiring me far above my own imagination's capabilities.  You never use many words or even pictures, yet you still speak volumes.  I just wish you'd post a bit more often :) 

 

53 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

Crew had a nice view of the system before they went to cryosleep and Gerty took over. Beros, Kyx, Karen and Plock in an isosceles triangle.

To cryosleep, perchance to dream.  And in that sleep of frozen near-death, what dreams may come?  Good night, sweet Kron crew, and flights of angels sing thee back to Kerbin!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Falling from Plock takes more than a decade and the onboard supply of uranium is dwindling so Gerty plotted a course that would take little over seven years to reach Kerbin, although at a cost - considerably higher speed of impact.

2474EFE3F8A49AEEC6CA1437683D9FB035018863

 

Increased speed also shows as higher aphelion.

After the main burn, all but the very tiniest reactor output has been shut down. Again, the ship is a plummeting missile, but this time thrown instead of dropped.

82A65243BBB8DA11F1963484F5DCA044DF4D32DE

 

Almost six years have been spent to get from Neidon's to Urlum's orbital distance. Trajectory correction will be done once the ship passes Jool's orbit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/28/2017 at 1:50 PM, roboslacker said:

Is there going to be a Kron 7?

I don't know yet. Possible targets include Ablate, Ascension and Inaccessable. I don't really care for other places because they're mostly either boring, offering nothing, or artistically unrealistic and goofy beyond anything. But as I say, I don't know. I've got other things to do and this is time consuming. In order for such deep space missions in KSP to work out without major problems, planning is tedious, not to mention the eyecandy screenshots and story, something I tend to keep short as possible because, let's be serious, seldom anyone has the time and the will to read walls of text.

 

Kron 6 has reached the periapsis which dipped very close to the orbit of Eve.

9854CEE5767B7E25A30E5CDFD29977F81691F832

 

Orbital speed was 14.7756 km/s at that point which is enormous.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I totally forgot about this, sorry. :sealed:

I finished the mission in last December, but I rarely visit the forum anymore, so I forgot to put the screenshots.

 

Last amounts of fuel was spent on slowing down as much as possible, which is not something I haven't done before. If there's fuel, I'll try to brake.

C2B4953DCA02F52F05B5B1A9784C50FD0B06F242

 

At one moment, the main engine failed which is not surprising, given that the ship was in space after more than a decade. It could operate at lowest thrust for a short while before it would overheat. Failing radiators did not help.

D72F4F1887684547B7DEE3A48425F64F9DAD2F25

 

As Kerbalism's color code shows, the ship really isn't in a great condition, despite having high quality parts.

71C77A51E788C789FED727050E52E37F1EF0208A

 

Kron 6 impacted the atmosphere at 5831.6 m/s which makes @roboslacker the winner of the competition.

85128C8A47035D9E4404508EB0C08D322DBAFEA5

 

Almost immediately, the jettisoned ship started to disintegrate in a spectacular set of explosions and shower of sparks larger than any previous Kron mission, spreading two fission reactors worth of fission products into the atmosphere. Also, life support gobbled up all electricity, so the crew was basically dying on the way down.

622884FAEB1CB523EC1A7DFBEF2607CAD11A11A9

B2C3504797407AE0A9D21BD28FC4A34278962C27

Those are the engine radiators evaporating above the capsule.

06A1C553D4D607A17F434D9592D1FE9377876806

581C789297D0AF03CB8517382CFA8C4AA3DD88CD

 

Ablative shield was very damaged, but it kept the capsule intact. Kerty deployed the parachutes and the crew splashed down.

F53CF8EFD046CC78BEF0390DF8236EA3F848E6ED

500051CCDD040E2637771A76A616179C91D0415F

703463BD8401D4E8EBFC3F6A6BB6A263AA2DF382

 

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the crew, probably because they landed in the sea. They all survived. :)

 

It took 1.5 years to finish Kron 6, and little over 2 years to officially end it. It started in early summer of 2016 and could've/should've ended by its end, but you know, life gets in the way.

End of this mission marks the end of the Kron ships exploring the Outer Planets Mod in its current form, and a halt of the Kron missions.

There are no active, working plans for the next mission, but Ascension and Ablate were always being considered, even though I honestly don't see how could my computer pull out the latter one. It's probably impossible to even achieve using a Kron-type ship (3.75 m infrastructure pushed by LV-NB engines) as the Δv requirements just to get there are around 25 km/s. Ascension is a much easier target, even though its extremely eccentric orbit poses serious logistic problems.

 

Thank you all for being a nice audience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 8/3/2018 at 7:56 AM, lajoswinkler said:

t's probably impossible to even achieve using a Kron-type ship (3.75 m infrastructure pushed by LV-NB engines) as the Δv requirements just to get there are around 25 km/s.

What if you used a smaller ship, and ion engines?  Plenty of solar power.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, DAL59 said:

What if you used a smaller ship, and ion engines?  Plenty of solar power.

I am considering it, but there isn't much hope because this deep in Kerbol's gravity well, both Δv and TWR need to be high, otherwise it's an unbearably long cat and mice chase.

I will do some experiments, first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...