DAWN Mission Recreation - In the spirit of NASA!

[-ctn-]

Hey everyone! As the Dawn spacecraft approaches Ceres orbit later this week, I wanted to recreate the mission in KSP for my own enjoyment.

I took some photos and thought I would share them! The modded parts used are:

AIES

-Mini RCS thruster block

-Gravimeter

-Thermometer

-Antenna Dish

NEAR-FUTURE

-AFTER Ion Engine

-1x5 Solar Panels

DMAGIC SCIENCE

-Multi-Spectral Imager

My own - UNRELEASED

-Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND)

-GENSYS Probe Core (basically the Dawn spacecraft body)

Without further ado, here's the photos/story -

Right before launch... everything looks good!

Annnnd we're off! MET+10 seconds...

Starting the gravity turn... The boosters have been dropped.

Second stage separation... Everything is going perfectly well!

Third stage ignition... Circularizing a 400km orbit.

Finally after getting a stability orbit around Kerbin, everything comes off and the Dawn craft wakes up! Turns out the rocket stages had JUST enough delta-V to get this orbit.

Then came a lot of frustration as I tried desperately to get a transfer orbit to Dres. Ended up slow-thrusting with the Ion engine to raise my orbit (can't remember the altitude) and then literally used like three different orbit calculators, my own calculations, and fidgeting with the maneuver nodes until I got a reasonable transfer going on. Estimated delta-V usage was around 1,500 m/s. The burn took 23 minutes.

Halfway through the orbit, I did a 900 m/s burn for inclination correction, which took 11 minutes. At this point I was using the thrust limiter so that the energy produced by the solar panels would match the consumption of the engine.

Then, once captured by Dres' gravity, it took another ~2,000 m/s to circularize the orbit to around 600km. I don't recall exactly how long this burn took, as I did the dishes while it executed it.

Some images from the two top-mounted cameras:

Successful mission! The most challenging part was the orbital maneuvers and waiting through the long burn times.

Mission/Craft Stats:

DAWN KSP Craft

1.7 Tons (Total)

1.6m Tall

Carries 240kg of Xenon fuel and 80kg of Monopropellant

Fuel used for mission: 116kg

Total capable delta-V: 9,560 m/s

Instruments on board:

(x2) Framing Cameras - Used for taking photographs - "top" mounted cameras.

GRaND - Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector - used for determining elemental composition of surfaces and detection of water through Hydrogen levels.

Gravimeter -Used to detect gravitational pull

Thermometer -Used to detect temperature around craft

Multi-Spectral Imager - Used to detect different chemicals and visual cues of the surface.

High Gain Antenna - Dish used for communication

Mission Elapsed Time - ~227 Days

Mission Duration - Indefinitely

Thanks for looking!

[lajoswinkler]

Very nice. I like these real life missions done in KSP.

[Drakoflame]

So cool~ I can't wait until we can use your P.E.S.T Mod!