Orion 7-B (Return to HKO)

[astrokerb]

The Orion 7-B mission was intended to land on Minmus in two locations. The second location was near the severely damaged Mino-3 rover. Large amounts of it had mysteriously exploded on it's first drive, but the wheels were only damaged, and one seat remained. Orion 7-B was intended to repair the rover and drive it to a monolith, and then circumnavigate Minmus.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/0Jf2w0f.png[/IMG]
After landing at the first site, Commander Fransy Kerman got out of the command module, only to find that the ladder was too short. She decided to jetpack to the surface and back, which was incredibly easy in the low gravity. After Fransy planted a flag, Maldom and Jebbert came out. Jebbert's jetpack had a slight problem and launched him halfway to orbit. he landed a few kilometers away with half his EVA propellant gone. He ended walking back to the lander while Maldom and Fransy took EVA reports and ate surface samples(and needed to be treated for exposure to vacuum).

After 5 hours of science and 1.2 hours of walking, the crew jet packed back into the lander and took off, heading for the rover 30 kilometers away. The rover, as it turned out, had rolled down a steep hill after it's nighttime landing four months before, destroying the lights,two external control chairs, three solar panels, and breaking three wheels. The lander landed on the hill, then rolled down and knocked off an RCS thruster. Jebbert got out and jet packed to the rover, which was at the very bottom of the hill, which was beginning to seem more like a Canyon. Jebbert found the rover and repaired two of the wheels. When he repaired the third wheel, the rover shot up several hundred meters and came crashing down on poor Jebbert. :( It seemed like he had been killed, but after Fransy flipped over the remnants of the rover, Jebbert was sitting there without a scratch on him. It occurred to Maldom, who was still in the lander, that he should tell mission control that they had given up on the rover. He tried to transmit some data along with he message, but the lander's computer showed a message saying "No comms devices on this vessel. Cannot transmit data". There [I]had [/I]been an antennae on the ship, but it now seemed it had been destroyed during the second landing. Maldom got out and told Fransy and Jebbert the comms were out.
They decided to abort the mission and took off. The ship suffered a critical failure on ascent. The fuel tank had ran out of fuel. They had an emergency plan for that. But the emergency plan was to use the fuel they would have otherwise used to get back to Kerbin. Still, it was better then hitting the surface of minmus at 100 meters a second, so they did the orbital insertion burn with the monopropellant engines, but didn't jettison the landing stage. The procedure was to wait for a tanker in minmus orbit to refuel them. And so they did. And they were refueled by the tanker until the tanker had just enough fuel to de-orbit.
So now they have enough fuel to get home, except that's not their mission. Because the update is coming. And their mission is to get as much science as possible, from as many planets and moons as possible, before the update.
[I]To be continued...

And because of the ladder they can only go to low gravity planets... [/I] Edited November 23, 2015 by astrokerb

[astrokerb]

Okay, here's the first real update.

The Deep Space Lab 2 docked with Orion 7 after eleven days in space and one day on the surface of Minmus. Maldom Kerman went in and made sure everything was working. He noticed that one solar panel had fallen off and a thermometer was missing, but nothing very serious.[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/NEJevZI.png[/IMG]
After he finished the systems checks, he noticed that the lab would require another scientist. He was the only scientist on board, so he used the new comms on the lab to tell the KSC that Orion 8 would need to bring another scientist to the ship. This would delay the docking of the propulsion module and lander, but only by a few days.
Fransy did an EVA to inspect an old mapping satellite that had ran out of power because the solar panels were jammed. She used 96% of her EVA propellant matching speed and inclination with the satellite, fixing the solar panels, and getting back to Orion 7.
Jebbert was informed by mission control that the Munar Refueling Station had been destroyed in a rover accident. The crew had survived, although two of the kernels needed to be revived via PFE( Persistence File Editing). They left the base and returned to kerbin safely after that, but now Orion 7 won't be able to refuel on the surface or in orbit. Fortunately, Seanbert Kerman (the fist kerbal on the mun) came up with a plan. He radioed it to the ship, and the crew approved it. The plan was to take Orion 7 to Low Kerbin Orbit and refuel it using a Jumbo-64 with a docking port that had been randomly sent to orbit a few months earlier when I got bored and started launching random fuel tanks. The crew has a maneuver planned, but it will take all of their current fuel and 100 units of monopropellant.They have thirty-two backup plans though, so there shouldn't be any problems no matter what happens.

That's all for this update, but hopefully the story will be [I]continued soon....
And if you haven't guessed yet the mystery planet is Dres.....[/I] Edited November 23, 2015 by astrokerb

[astrokerb]

Here's a small update. Also, it feels like I'm talking to myself here. No one has commented and six people have voted on the poll. Is anyone even reading this?

Orion 7 performed a maneuver using almost all of its onboard fuel to get from Minmus to Kerbin orbit and then match inclinations with the orange tank. It doesn't have nearly enough fuel to match altitudes and velocities with the orange tank, so I'll be using one of the 32 backup plans. I intend to send Ares III (No relation to [I]The Martian([/I]Orion is for deep space[I])[/I]) to dock with it and bring an extra scientist onboard. I won't use the booster I usually use for Ares missions. I will use a Green IV to send Ares III to dock with Orion, because the Green IV will have fuel left over. It will transfer the fuel it doesn't need and then go back to kerbin. Then the propulsion module and lander will finally dock.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/t9WXwMg.png[/IMG]
After that, the crew will go to the Mun for tests of the new lander and then they'll head to whatever planet/moon has the most votes in the poll.

Jebbert did an EVA to inspect the solar panels and the radiators. He also used the Orbital Maneuvering Jetpack Mk I for what may be the last time. The OMJ Mk I is the maneuvering jetpack that kerbals have by default. Soon it will be replaced by different jetpacks with monopropellant instead of EVA propellant and much more Delta-V. The new jetpacks will also have a clamp-o-torn Jr attached to them so that they can be used on space stations, spaceplanes or anything with a clamp-o-tron Jr on it.

Maldom has begun to read the lab's sticky notes. There's one that says "Avoid Krackin". Maldom wonders why "kraken" is misspelled. Maldom also did an EVA to look at the science instruments on the lab, but found that they had been destroyed in the lab's various accidents.

Fransy has not been in the lab yet, but will probably go in eventually. It is where they keep the snacks, after all.

Meanwhile, astronauts are being selected for Ares III. An Ares mission typically has three astronauts, but it can carry as many as five in the event of an emergency rescue or as little as one for a simple satellite decommissioning mission. Ares III will have three kerbals in a Mk 1-2 capsule. Only two will be walking on kerbin again for the next year(or ever, if the save is corrupted by 1.1). So far it looks like the crew will be Anbin Kerman (Seanbert's co-pilot on the first manned Mun landing, Orion 5), Lagerya Kerman, and Phoula Kerman. It will be the agency's second all veteran mission, the first being Ares II. It will also be the first time that a kerbal who has walked on the Mun and a kerbal who has walked on Minmus will be in the same spacecraft, although Anbin is only staying for four kerbal hours. Edited November 24, 2015 by astrokerb

[astrokerb]

Due to save corruption this will not be continued. Oh well

[chicobaptista]

That's a shame, I was really diggin it. I should point out though that BB code formating is no longer supported, so you should probably use the native formating tools of the new forums.