Joe explores Minmus

[Wabbit]

Today, PSE had its first launch to Minmus (in .90 restart) and it was a complete success. There were a few quirky moments, but the mission was a big step in the space program. The launch was a 2-Kerbal lander in a rather unique design. As you will see, Joe uses a first stage of monopropellant engines, but it has a second stage comprised of small radial motors that use an LFO mix. Below, just after liftoff. The crew for this mission are Karla Kerman and Rodwig Kerman.

Ascent went without a hitch, and the crew reached Kerbin orbit safely, which is good, since I didn't add any type of LES, so if things go RUD they just have to hope for the best.

The trans-minmal burn is shown below. It won't get me an encounter yet due to Minmus being very inclined in its orbit. The ship still has about 1/3 fuel in its transfer stage, powered by a single Poodle.

Coming into Minmus' SOI, the circularization burn took the rest of the transfer stage and a little monopropellant from Joe. Karla and Rodwig seem content.

The first landing spot was chosen to be on the Great Flats area, mostly because a certain player is out of practice doing Minmus landings... But, the landing went well. The engines (which were as of yet untested during a landing scenario) performed great, and look really cool when they fire. I suppose that's a bonus.

So, after landing the high-gain antenna was unfolded, the ladder lowered, and the straws drawn between Karla and Rodwig... and, unfortunately for Karla, Rodwig gets to be the first Kerbal on Minmus. He celebrates by planting a flag, the plaque of which was just a message citing something about how Minmus was going to taste like minty ice cream... As you can see, the snacks on these boring, long trips are not very tasty, and certain crew members have been near-mutinous half way here, so those certain crew members cannot resist the idea of a tasty destination.

Now it was time to do a sub-orbital hop to a new location to see more sights and bring in more Science! But, unfortunately, I guess the Kraken had other ideas for the poor Kerbonauts... Joe started twitching, and then flipped over, knocking off a solar panel and two engines!

Fortunately, Joe had backup RTGs, and another fold-out solar panel. Also fortunately, the engine damage was symmetrical, which meant I could decouple the two damaged engine units and use the other two normally. The crew would still have more than enough to get around, especially because this is Minmus... And the lander may be just a tad OP... But never mind that. Below is the second engine unit being jettisoned after Joe is righted. This will allow us to contine the mission normally. You can see the first engine and Rodwig's flag in the background.

After that, we're off! We were going back to orbit, and then from there it could be decided whether to land again or to return to Kerbin.

The decision was made to attempt another landing, so (having proven myself landing-capable to the world) decided to let Mechjeb land me in a specific spot. Apparently,though, MJ cannot do Minmus. He had to keep doing course corrections on the trajectorym because even the spacecraft's torgue was enough to shift the landing zone several kilometers! So I decided to do it myself again.

Karla got to get out this time. She jetpacked around for a quick bit, then got back inside. It was decided that they would return now because of time (1 am) constraints. I forgot to take any screenshots of the return (1 am), so I am sorry if the last bit feels a bit empty. We were back at Kerbin, with just enough fuel for a roughly ~300km inclined orbit. Tomorrow the craft to retrieve the crew goes up, but now comes sleep. And so ends the story of Joe...

For now...

[Bigbootie]

Nice!!!

[Wabbit]

Nice!!!

Thanks

[Wabbit]

I think the next step is either an orbital Minmus station, several orbital "houses" (coming up), or a surface base. I might combine the "houses" with a surface base... Which will be interesting.