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hi hi I would like to share with you what has been, for me, quite the learning experience. Not to mention a mission filled with plotting, thrills, and all the normal kinds of things that happen when you mess with things beyond mortal ken. It all started out as most of these crazy schemes do, with an over ambitious plan. My plan to land a mining platform on Ike and put refueling stations in Ike and Duna orbit was going along swimmingly, with a vast fleet of ships in Low Kerbin Orbit, when suddenly... without warning, the orbital trajectory planners down in the labs realized that the next window to launch a mission to Dres was going to happen before the next window for Duna, not afterwards. Our engineers immediately scrambled to start assembling a space craft, including some never before tested rover designs. (The winning design was the one that didn't explode, so I figured we were good.) Pictured above, the "Rocket Car," rover design passes it's final pre-flight test. Moments after cutting the main engine, about to safely land on Minmus. Pictured below, you can see the behemoth craft in orbit, ready to slooooowly boost the entire mining operation into Dres orbit. I thought docking all those modules together was a pretty impressive feat in its own right, considering the time pressure we were on to get everything out the door on time. Yes, we knew wobble would be an issue, but we planned to take it nice and slow. After all, why launch six ships once, when you can launch one ship in six orbits? Unfortunately, I apparently managed to find a magical resonant frequency, and the entire thing wobbled apart while mission planners looked on helplessly. After about 5 minutes of thrust, we noticed the first signs of wobbling, so we cut engines and planned to pick up again on the next orbit, but the wobbling didn't stop. So then we cut SAS and RCS too, thinking that might allow it to settle down, but the wobbling only got worse. After several more minutes, with no control inputs or thrusting of any kind, several of the modules on the extremities converted themselves from space ships into fireworks. Luckily, I was able to rescue the crew. And thanks to the good work by our legal department, their contracts still required them to go on the mission. Above, you can see the shotgun style approach used to send the hastily rebuilt fleet toward the mid-course plane change points. (I learned a very important skill during this mission: making very precise adjustments to my encounter trajectory with RCS thrusters while at the ascending/descending node, rather than during the initial burn. Also, estimating orbital angles by eyeball is hard.) Pictured below, you can see one of the surface-to-orbit fuel tankers making its capture burn into orbit around Dres. Of course, before the entirety of my Dres fleet had arrived at their destination, it was time to start launching my Duna/Ike mission. With my experience launching the Dres fleet, I was able to launch the eight vessel Duna/Ike fleet in less than two days. Pictured above is the surface refinery module for Ike, with detachable landing boosters, about to be launched with a big interplanetary nuclear booster. Once the second fleet was out the door though, I had to switch back and make sure the first fleet made it into orbit alright. Lucky for me, I had at the very least, two hours between intercept maneuvers. Most of them were a few days apart though, so it all worked out. You can see the Dres orbital refueling station here, just after it finished parking itself in a roughly circular orbit around 99,000 meters above Dres's equator. Still needs to have the refueling rig land before it can fill those tanks though. While Gralyn Kerman was conducting a low altitude (23,000 meter) survey scan of the equatorial region, in hopes of finding an ideal flat spot for the refinery, I noticed a little flag icon appear on the scanner. With curiosity at maximum, Gralyn (the tire repair expert) set the rocket car down to take a closer look. Driving approximately 3 kilometers from the touchdown spot to the point of interest, she managed to avoid flipping the rover even once. She might have made a good pilot as well as an engineer. (I still need to work on precision landing without the aid of targeting beacons from already landed craft.) Turns out, we had stumbled across the landing site of the very first mission to Dres I had made, all those years ago. The mood at mission control was celebratory, little did we know what waited in store for us. Instead, with this historic landing accomplished, the Ike crew wanted their shot at the spotlight. Also, we really needed to get some rocket fuel up to the orbiting tanker, because somewhere along the line, the Duna survey probes' engines turned on and they drained all their propellant. And since we had to drain some propellant out of the Duna lander's tanks to get the probes on their way, nobody in mission control was willing to send Jebediah and company down to the surface until the refueling mission was complete. Believe you me, Jeb was none too happy about having to wait. I think. It is really hard to tell, he always seems happy. Above, you can see the tanker trucks on final approach to the flattest spot I could find near Ike's equator. We all had a bit of a scare when one of the techs pointed out, "Hey, did anyone realize that one of the docking nodes never latched down properly? That's probably why it's dancing about so much." But we were able to set them down after only a couple false starts. Unfortunately, this is when disaster struck. When I focused back on the Dres mission, Grelyn's lander craft was nowhere to be seen! It had just vanished, possibly a victim of the once notorious Space Kraken. She was a brave Kerbal, and she will be missed. Now, it is up to me to see if I can find funding to continue the mission, or if the entire Dres Base will need a rescue craft to come and bring home the surviving crew.