NHunter

The crew of KSS Venture returns to KSC. The science lander returns separately since I've an outstanding mission to return a craft that landed on Talon to Rhode. Which is the lander. Huh? Only 11k science after all those experiments I've conducted in Kerbol system and brought home? I feel cheated a little, to be honest. As for the rest of the KSS Venture's crew, I decided that they should receive a very special transport to bring them home. So I made this shuttle-craft powered by dark magic Kerbal Flying Saucer technologies for the final flight of this save: Gotta simulate all those technological advances made since the departure of the interstellar exploration mission, somehow. And with this, the BH save is completed. I can finally put this 1.8 install to rest and move on to the current version of the game.

Over these two weekends I've flown KSS Venture back to Rhode from Verna. Even with FFT engines, such interstellar journey takes time. Burning for home: Interstellar space is dark. I wonder how the game calculates when it needs to cut off lighting from the star(s) to simulate this since you have a pretty good lighting even at the furthermost planet in a system. Let there be light! Home, sweet Rhode All that is left now if the final circularisation burn at low Rhode orbit and getting the crew back to the KSC. And then I can declare this campaign to be comleted

Finally did Verna landing Then I recalled that there are some interesting terrain objects on Verna, so I went looking for them. The first location of search being the Main Gorge. Didn't find the objects of my interest on the first landing, but I did end up next to the Verna sea. Well, some more science later, I headed back to orbit with hopes that the next landing (tentatively picked closer to poles rather than near the equator) would be luckier. Turns out, I was already pretty lucky and missed the spot by only 20 or so kilometers: Turns out, these structures have rendering range of only about 14 km... After a quick ascent abort and some mid-air maneuvering, I managed to land my craft on that big ring around the central tower. Let's hope I haven't caused too much disturbance for whichever kerbals that still live sealed forever within this tower... ----- And with this I've finished visiting every (landable) celestial body in Kerbol system. I guess, it's time to go home, to Rhode. P.S. "I love refrigerators"

Completed the transfer of the kerbal'ed exploration ship from Janus/Lond to Verna. Since I still have a lot of dV to burn on that FFT engine, I didn't bother with efficiency and instead just burned for Verna for a near brachistochrone transfer. Thus, the transit took only 130 days instead of what might've been years. And I've once again miscalculated the arrival times of the relays and the mapping satellite, so they got to Verna whole two days after the crewed ship. And I'll need to wait a little bit longer still before I have a good enough map of the planet for a nice safe landing.

Did Lond landing. And with this, the only place left for my kerbals to visit is Verna.

Couldn't post this earlier since the forum has been having issues... Anyway, landed on Talon. The moon's surface seems to be bugged on my install as the lander sank into the terrain by about half a meter for no good reason (as you can see on one of the pictures). Thankfully it didn't explode because of that, not while landed nor during the take off. The flag wasn't as lucky and I got a notification that it got destroyed in collision with the moon during ascent. Also, I think I've managed my most precise rendezvous yet while returning to the mothership. I was scared I would actually crash into it for a moment. NB: never actually do 0.0km closest approach rendezvous. Anyway, now that I've visited Talon, Lond is the next stop. Then I'll be finally done with Janus' system.

Not much really happened in my game; merely moved the crewed exploration ship from Eterna's orbit to that of Talon. Will commence landing sometime later. Preferably after I make sure in sandbox mode that my lander can actually land safely on this future-Tylo and then get back into space. At least, I have a surface base on Drozhe with EL, so sending a new lander will not require an interstellar mission...

Did an Eterna landing. This moon looks so cool (pun intended) Ended up picking a landing spot on the shores. Ended up touching down in a rather inclined spot with 5.1 deg slope, but it's fine. Did the usual round of collecting science and kerbal selfies. And as I was returning to orbit, I got treated with a cool sight of Janus rising:

Continuing my exploration of Janus system... On the way to rendezvous with the crewed mothership in Tau's orbit, the lander crew flew over one of the massive storms that still form in the moon's rather tenuous atmosphere. It looked bad enough from space that the brave trio was happy that their landing took place far away from it. Home Mothership sweet home mothership. Once docked, a course for Eterna was plotted and the ship was set to execute those maneuvers. And a few days later, it arrived at Eterna and got parked in a nice 75km orbit above the icy moon's surface. The next step is to land and to, well, step on Eterna's surface.

Did Tau landing. I really should've tested the spaceplane in a safe environment of sandbox mode before attempting landing out Tau: just because it can fly on Rhode or Janus doesn't mean it can do so on Tau. As it turns out, Tau's atmosphere is a bit too thin for my spaceplane to fly as it needs to move at over 400 m/s to remain airborne. No way I'm attempting a landing at such speeds... So, after a dip into atmosphere and collecting some science, I had to return the spaceplane to space and re-dock it with the cargo carrier. There, I transferred crew over to the "traditional" lander and made another attempt to put Kerbal feet on the surface of Tau. As for the landing target, a certain very interesting spiral-like mountain formation near the equator was picked. With a bit of maneuvering, I even managed to land inside the 'canyon' near the "eye" of the formation. As it turns out, Tau's atmosphere is so thin that Kerbals even refuse to remove their helmets. No wonder the spaceplane had trouble flying... Still, doesn't stop giant mushrooms from growing... Also, a look at Janus the Rhode's twin stars.

The week has been rather busy, so my progress amounts to moving the cargo ship carrying the spaceplane (and the exploration crew onboard of it) to Tau's orbit. Will do the landing next time. One more look at Janus: ...And now - time for Tau

And today yesterday I finally did Janus landing. The first step is a massive deceleration burn to get the speed down to "safe for reentry" values of ~3.3 km/s. Even notoriously-tough OPT parts can't survive hitting such thick atmosphere at orbital 5.2 km/s. Hell, even at 3.3 km/s I needed to hold prograde to avoid overheating. It was a very tense couple of minutes. Once the spaceplane is down to safe speeds, flying is actually pretty easy: with atmosphere so thick, pretty much anything with wings can fly. Now, flying *fast* is another matter (and Janus is really big, so getting anywhere interesting even at mach 1 will take ages), as aforementioned thick atmosphere also comes with enormous drag. Anyhow, I've picked a small patch of land between two lakes as a landing spot, and after successful landing taxied the spaceplane to the shore. There, I did some science and some selfies. Next, I visited one of Janus's many floating islands. With all that done, it was time to return to space. Thankfully, the ascent isn't nearly as dangerous when it comes to heat, despite those pretty visual effects turning the spaceplane into a mechanical firebird. Instead, the challenge comes from enormous dV requirements. Even with OPT SURGE engines doing the heavylifting (aka getting the spaceplane into reasonably-thin upper atmosphere where chemical engines can take over) essentially for free - just have to lug a big heavy nuclear reactor around to power them - I still needed to burn A LOT of fuel on those chemical engines to reach orbit. And stay there. Once in space, I rendezvous with the cargo ship for refueling. The next stop is Tau.

The crewed exploration vessel finally arrived at Janus and got parked in a neat 1500 km equatorial orbit. The three-Kerbal exploration team then used the usual lander to rendezvous with the interstellar cargo vessel carrying the spaceplane they'll use to land - and more importantly, return back to orbit - on Janus. Had to do some fiddling to get the plane to actually undock, guess all that cosmic radiation in interstellar space glued docking ports together... Now, the brave trio is ready to start the dangerous and tricky journey to the surface of Janus, that, as a Jool, was believed to be a real gas giant instead of a supermassive terrestrial planet it really is.

Keep working on mapping Janus's moons in preparation for the arrival of the crewed exploration vessel (ETA: 3 days at this point... well 3 days till the first of deceleration burns) Eterna: and Talon:

Did more boring orbit fiddling (apparently, I just can't nail Janus orbit that has SCANSat satellite cover entire surface in a reasonable timeframe) and more satellite dispersal over the reset of the system. Got the relay pack and the mapping satellite to Tau: And the relays to Eterna: