Project Magellan: To circumavigate Duna

[FlyingPete]

I had a few contracts come up based around Duna, and it made sense to combine them into a single mission. Two were to carry out science near the poles (one pole for each contract) and another was to establish a surface base on wheels. The plan, therefore, would be to land a mobile base that would circumnavigate the planet and gather all the science on the way.

Here we see the Magellan base- named after Magellan Kerman, who historically first sailed around Kerbin a long time ago. Bill tested this rover/base extensively around the R&D facilities.

After Wernher Von Kerman came outside and yelled at Bill's enthusiastic driving, he fled the area and went to the beach.

Several other modules will be needed to support the mission, which will explore both Duna and Ike. The first is the Duna Space Station, which will act as a central hub for Duna system operations. It will be left in orbit for future missions.

For the side-trip to Ike, and also for transporting the crew to and from the Dunan surface, these landers (in an economical twin-pack) will be used. They have been named after Amundsen Kerman and Scott Kerman- the famous explorers of Kerbin's poles. They will also be retained in orbit of Duna when the mission is complete. Between the lander stack and the launch vehicle is a docking port adapter, which will no doubt come in handy at the space station.

Lastly, this crew capsule will serve as additional accomodation during the mission, and will also be the crew's return vehicle. Extra fuel and a science pod were also brought to orbit with the ship.

The upper stages of the launchers are intended to be reusable, and are equipped with parachutes and landing legs for safe recovery. Here we see one of the stages returning to Kerbin.

A little short of KSC, but not too bad. It is designed to land upside-down to protect the engine from lithobraking damage.

The next stage will be to launch and dock the four standardised nuclear tractors which will haul the payloads to the Duna system. All these ships have been launched unmanned as the launch window for Duna is still some time away, so the crew will be brought up nearer the time by SSTO aicraft.

Edited March 22, 2015 by FlyingPete

[Randazzo]

Looks promising! What kind of engine do you have on those landers?

[FlyingPete]

Looks promising! What kind of engine do you have on those landers?

There's a single LV-T45 engine on each lander. It's a bit overpowered really for use at Duna, but the tradeoff in cost and mass works in its favour. Plus I always prefer landers to be somewhat overpowered rather than underpowered.

[FlyingPete]

Project Magellan continues.

To haul the four payloads to the Duna system, a set of nuclear tugs would be used. These are designed to be multipurpose- docking with and moving just about anything. They were launched atop a 2-stage booster to remain in space.

The first docking to be made was with Tug02, which made its rendezvous with the stacked Amundsen and Scott landers. The aft 'tuna can' fuel tank was still full, so the upper stage of the booster will be carried along as a drop tank when leaving for Duna.

Next, Tug01 made its rendezvous. It brought with it another science module along with another docking adapter.

I tend to bring these adapters along whenever it fits into the launch (such as here) since they're always useful when dealing with ships with two different docking port types. The tug itself has a large docking port at the front, plus a medium-sized one at the rear (currently hiding under the tank.) The first task was to drop off the extras on the front of the crew return/tanker modules.

Next, the payload's own booster stage was dispatched on its way back to Kerba firma.

The tug was then undocked from the payload, leaving the science and adapter behind. This left the modules temporarily uncontrolled, so care was needed to avoid bumping them into a tumble. The tug then spun round to dock to the rear of the fuel tank.

The reason for this maneuver was so that the engines' thrust would be directed through the much stronger large docking port connections, rather than the medium ports on the science stack.

The next job will be to assign and gather the crew for the mission. There will need to be at least one scientist to allow the experiments to be reset in the lab modules, and at least one engineer to repack the landers' parachutes. Dedicated pilots aren't technically required since the landers and tugs all have the advanced probe cores. However, I think it's always good to have pilots available. Most of my experienced crews are currently busy at either Minmus or the Mun, so will need retrieving and returning to Kerbin before they can be sent to Duna.

Edited April 3, 2015 by FlyingPete