Apollo and Beyond - Apollo Applications Program Challenge

[benjee10]

It is the early years of a new decade. Spurred on by major technological advances in recent years, especially in the frontier of manned spaceflight, the Kerbals have turned their attention to their nearest celestial neighbour. They choose to go to the Mun not because it is easy, but because it is hard; because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of their energies and skills; because that challenge is one they are willing to accept, one they are unwilling to postpone, and one they intend to win.

This is

APOLLO AND BEYOND

Following on from the successes of the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Kerbals are now ready to set forth into the next great frontier. The ambitious Apollo program aims to place Kerbals on the surface of the Mun and return them safely to Kerbin, and even before it has begun plans are being drawn up as to how the program can be expanded ever further.

The early, baseline missions of the Apollo program will rely on two next-generation launch vehicles; the Saturn IB, and the mighty Saturn V.

APOLLO IV - FIRST TEST OF SATURN V ROCKET

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The Apollo IV Saturn V sits on the pad with boilerplate CM and LEM installed. At T-8, the engines activate as they throttle up to a TWR above one. Then - at T-0 - the launch clamps retract and the rocket roars into the sky. As the massive first stage runs out of fuel, eight ullage motors fire to send the S-IC first stage clear. The five J-2 engines ignite to propel the Saturn V just short of orbital velocity. At this point of the launch there was a failure in the Boost Protective Cover, which failed to detach properly and remained stuck to the front of the rocket until orbit. The S-IVC stage is used to push the craft into a parking orbit. This is then reignited, sending the apoapsis up to 1.5 million km to simulate a lunar reentry profile. The CSM separates and, several hours later, the command module detaches and reenters the atmosphere safely.

OUTCOME: Success! The Saturn V performed flawlessly with the exception of the BPC failing to decouple properly. This will be fixed in future missions by staging the abort motor at the same time, hopefully pulling it clear.

APOLLO VII - FIRST MANNED FLIGHT OF THE APOLLO PROGRAM

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Before crew can launch on the Saturn V, a demonstration must be made that the LES works effectively.

CREW TRAINING - LEM

Here, potential candidates for Apollo XI, the planned first landing, are put through their paces test-flying a LEM simulator.

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CREW TRAINING - ALSEP

Potential Apollo crews must practice construction and deployment techniques for ALSEP on Kerbin before it can be attempted on the Mun. An engineer will be brought to the surface on every single one of the Apollo surface exploration missions.

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LES DEMONSTRATION

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OUTCOME: Success! The LES works effectively.

APOLLO VIII - FIRST TO THE MUN

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The first mission beyond LKO!

I did use a free return trajectory but I managed to screenshot it in between the transition from flight to map view, so all you can see is the skybox

APOLLO IX & X - LEM TESTING

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(These two missions have been grouped together because they are largely the same. The screenshots come from both missions as I experienced a crash and lost some of the ones from IX)

APOLLO IX OUTCOME: Partial failure. CSM failed to decouple from S-IVB stage due to faulty attachment node setup. S-IVB used to deorbit safely.

APOLLO X OUTCOME: Partial failure. CSM decoupled successfully, but LEM remain trapped in petal fairing. Stray fuel line had drained LEM fuel into S-IVB. This was salvaged by manually pumping fuel into the LEM and firing its engine, which overheated the S-IVB tank and freed the LEM as a result. LEM testing was very successful.

[it seems that the KW petal adapter has an annoying duplicate node at the top which prevents decoupling. I removed it in the config file and it worked fine. It's the bottom one out of the four node_stack definitions.

The problem with Apollo X was that I had turned part clipping on and accidentally attached my LEM subassembly to the tank beneath the adapter instead of the adapter itself, so it failed to decouple. Some symetry bug had also sent a fuel line from the LEM into the adapter as well, draining it down the stack]

APOLLO XI - ONE SMALL STEP

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APOLLO XI OUTCOME: Success! Everything behaved as expected.

This flight, designed to test the CSM in orbit with crew, launched carrying crewmembers Jessie, Tanemy and Obemy Kerman. The Apollo spacecraft performed flawlessly in orbit, reentering safely.

OUTCOME: Success, although the mission did highlight the need for more life support aboard the CSM. It is decided that the BPC will be detached when already in orbit to prevent any possible collisions.

APOLLO XII - BACK TO THE MUN

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This mission landed in the highlands area of the Mun's surface.

OUTCOME: Success! This flight demonstrates the reliability of the Apollo system.

APOLLO XIII - HOUSTON, WE'VE HAD A PROBLEM

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NASA's finest hour.

OUTCOME: Failure, landing aborted though crew returned safely.

APOLLO XIV-XVIII - ROUTINE MISSIONS

(these missions grouped together due to similarity - only Apollo XIV performed yet, album will be updated later)

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APOLLO XIV OUTCOME: Success, landing went well and Lunar Subsatellite deployed successfully.

APOLLO XV OUTCOME: Success! LRV deployed successfully and used to explore crater system near to LEM landing site.

APOLLO XVI OUTCOME: Failure! The petal interstage adapted burned up shortly after first stage separation, triggering the abort sequence. The crew survived but the entire Saturn V stack reentered and was destroyed.

APOLLO XVII OUTCOME: Success!

APOLLO XVIII OUTCOME: Success!

Part mods: KW Rocketry, Ven's Stock Parts Revamp, FASA Launch Towers, KIS, Realchute

Other Mods: Planet Shine, Kerbal Engineer, Final Frontier, TAC Life Support, Kerbal Alarm Clock

Edited May 20, 2015 by benjee10

[xxhansonmaxx]

Wow, looks good flight!

I don't remember any females in the Apollo program....:D:D:D

[Speeding Mullet]

Nice report! Just starting my own mission report to this challenge so will be certainly coming here for inspiration and ideas. Nice use of mods also!

[loch.ness]

Nice, I'll be watching this as I continue working on my own Mission reports. Could I bother your for the secret voodoo of embedding those albums into forum posts? I plan to do those for Apollo IV and on in addition to what I've been doing so far.

I also really liked your training craft. I might have to borrow those ideas for my own Nessa thread.

[benjee10]

Wow, looks good flight!

I don't remember any females in the Apollo program....:D:D:D

Might as well throw a dash of equality in there I daresay!

Nice report! Just starting my own mission report to this challenge so will be certainly coming here for inspiration and ideas. Nice use of mods also!

Thanks!

Nice, I'll be watching this as I continue working on my own Mission reports. Could I bother your for the secret voodoo of embedding those albums into forum posts? I plan to do those for Apollo IV and on in addition to what I've been doing so far.

I also really liked your training craft. I might have to borrow those ideas for my own Nessa thread.

To embed albums you put (imgur)album reference(/imgur) (replace brackets with [])

The album reference is from the URL of your album, after imgur.com/a/

APOLLO XV

Updated the Apollo XIV-XVIII album to include Apollo 15, first (and probably last due to assembly time) deployment of the Lunar Roving Vehicle.

Mission highlights:

Haring and Wilula commence surface EVA operations.

Haring assembles the LRV chassis.

Haring and Wilula in the LRV. Deployment time was around 15 or so minutes, with actual roving going on for another 5. The EVA had to be cut short as it became apparent that the intended 2 day stay on the surface would result in the orbiting CSM being misaligned with the landing site for ascent due to the inclined trajectory used to reach the interesting crater formation. Therefore the surface time was only about an hour compared to the 1 day, 1 hour stays the previous missions have followed.

APOLLO XVI - A SECOND DISASTER

Mission control can report that shortly after first stage separation, the Apollo 16 mission encountered a catastrophic failure. Telemetry indicates that a slight error in the guidance system caused the rocket to pitch over too soon, exposing the petal interstage adapter to high aerodynamic and thermal stress in the upper atmosphere. This caused it to overheat at around T+00:04:32, detaching the Apollo CSM from the stack. This resulted in the Saturn V stack impacting the SM engine and crushing most of it, which in turn triggered Abort Mode I (AM1), activating the LES engines and successfully pulling the CM away from the rapidly accelerating stack. Crew reentered successfully at T+00:17:45 and have been recovered.

Meanwhile, Range Safety were unable to trigger the destruction of the Saturn V stack, which continued to burn until depletion. This put the rocket on a suborbital trajectory with an apoapsis at 255km. The rocket reentered engine first, protecting it from much of the reentry heating, although data indicates that several ullage motors, guidance systems and parts of the LEM did burn up. As the rocket passed over land once again, mission control was able to re-establish contact with the probe core in the S-IVB stage and used it to decouple and attempt a soft landing burn to preserve hardware and reduce the force of the impact. This attempt was unsuccessful and the debris impacted at 550m/s less than an hour after launch. Only the S-IVB stage's 'Rhino' engine could be recovered.

IMPACT ON THE PROGRAM

Mission control have yet to assess the full impact of this incident. It is believed that the cause of the fault is known and steps will be taken to ensure it cannot happen again.

Currently, Apollo 17 is set to fly as planned. This crew have been tentatively assigned to Apollo 20, scheduled to happen after the launch of the Skylab program. The 20-series of Apollo missions are intended to test equipment required to live and work on the surface of other celestial bodies for long periods of time in preparation for a manned Duna mission.

Current launch manifest:

(I also have more flights beyond Skylab planned, including Skylab missions and the Apollo 20 2-part mission which will deliver MOLAB)

Edited May 18, 2015 by benjee10

[benjee10]

Well, with these final two flights, the core Apollo program has come to an end. Now the kerbals begin preparations for the Beyond Apollo program, commencing with a flight to Minmus which will test the Apollo architecture to its limit in terms of distance and life support time.

APOLLO XVII

APOLLO XVIII

[benjee10]

APOLLO XIX - MISSION TO MINMUS

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Jennand, Franliana and Irphie blasted off on a special Apollo mission - this one to go to Minmus. The mission profile was slightly different to the usual, with the S-IVB stage being retained longer in order to save CSM fuel for the return journey. The S-IVB stage was used to slow down when approaching Minmus and left in a high Minmus orbit. The CSM & LEM continued down to 13km before LEM separation. The LEM landed in the flats before blasting off a few hours later. Hardly any fuel was used in the descent but in order to have a correct CoM for docking it had to be discarded and was left on the surface. Upon docking with the CSM it became clear that there would not be enough life support to survive the return journey if the standard mission profile was used. Taking a gamble, the crew burned the CSM to depletion towards Kerbin, resulting in a very rapid return which left only 15 units of ablator following reentry.

SKYLAB

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Skylab, the first Apollo space station, is a modified S-IVB stage (a dry workshop). Since I couldn't find any 3.75m crew cabins in mods which fit my specifications, I made one myself. It works pretty well.

Everything went fine until fairing separation, which in eerie similarity to real world events (though it was completely unplanned) caused the solar panels to rip off. The LEM-derived telescope mount deployed its panels and moved into the correct position to expose the CSM docking port.

Skylab I launched with crew Jessie, Debda and Jeddas on board a Saturn IB which brought them just short of orbit. Jessie made an EVA to retrieve replacement solar panels stowed in a container in the S-IVB stage prior to circularisation with the CSM engine. Rendezvous went very smoothly, reaching the station's 300km orbit in less than one orbit and docking soon after. Jessie immediately embarked on a second EVA, replacing the damaged solar panels in order to power up the station for crew to enter it. The crew will stay on board for 300 days in order to perform experiments regarding Kerbal survival for long periods of time in deep space ready for upcoming Duna and Eve flyby missions.

[benjee10]

Something I'm working on:

[xxhansonmaxx]

i think the TLI stage should be a little longer