Forgotten Space Program

[RocketSquid]

Glad to see you've finally moved up from Vostok to Soyuz. I use the HGR Vostok and Soyuz myself, but the Tantares parts seem quite capable.

[KAL 9000]

Can't wait for Ununoctium 1!  LOL

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, RocketSquid said:

Glad to see you've finally moved up from Vostok to Soyuz. I use the HGR Vostok and Soyuz myself, but the Tantares parts seem quite capable.

I expect to be rockin' Soyuz for about as long as the Russians, at least as a crew taxi.

I used to use HGR, and liked it, but OrionKerman has been gone so long that I have my doubts it'll ever get updated again... at least not soon. And I'm not sure all of his parts will work in 1.1/Unity 5. They weren't all that happy with 1.0.5 as it is.

 

48 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Can't wait for Ununoctium 1!  LOL

By the time I get there it may not be the end of the table! (It might already have been passed.....)

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

By the time I get there it may not be the end of the table! (It might already have been passed.....)

Well, there are always Dilithium, Unobtainium, Explodium, and such, to fill the gap until you finally get to Neutronium, which no doubt exists in an infinite number of isotopes because I'm sure there's at least a thin scum of protons on the surfaces of neutron stars of various sizes  

Edited January 6, 2016 by Geschosskopf
typos due to 1-hand typing

[Cydonian Monk]

Nitrogen T-7

Speaking of the first science team.... Rozor and Agake were chosen as the first research team for Kelgee Station. They wouldn't have much research to do until the upcoming Minmus mission returned its juicy science samples, but the delay would give them plenty of time to get their bearings and make sure they had everything they needed. It was hard to say what exactly they'd need to do to get such an old science lab working again.

They had been suited up for almost two hours as the interns fidgeted with the new launch equipment. When they finally worked out the problem the Nitrogen T-7 had missed its launch window by 30 seconds. Gene advanced the clock to T minus 15 seconds and let it fly. 45 seconds was only 100km off target, give or take, something they could adjust for in a couple orbits. 

"We have a visual on the station now."

"Say again Nitrogen?"

"We have a visual on the station. Looks to be about 15km away."

Gene glanced up from his desk at the radar operator, who was already looking his way. Two deeply questioning looks as  CapCom continued to talk with the crew on the main channel. 

"Ahh negative, Nitrogen. You're presently over 100kms from Kelgee, and Baile Speir is on the other side of Kerbin. Can you describe the visual?"

Gene got up and walked down to the next trench, making his way to the radar operator's desk. This was a conversation best had in kerbal, not over the headset link. 

"Well, it looks like a large construction with an obvious set of large solar arrays. If it's not Kelgee, then it's a mirage."

The radar operator had an answer ready before Gene got to his station. "It's one of the things from Macfred's Stuff list. Look." The junior radar officer pointed at the mapview. Wernher had arrived station shortly after Gene, and pushed his glasses up slightly to take a look.

"Stuff?"

"Ja, stuff. Ve always knew there would be more Things, and as ve tracked all the new objects, well, they became Stuff."

"Specifically Stuff 38, sir."

"Ok, so can we move 38 from Stuff to Thing?"

"I'll have to clear it by Macfred, but I don't see why not. That'll make Stuff 38 Thing D."

"Mmmhmm." Gene thought about his next sentence for a few seconds before he plugged his headset into one of the radar operator's jacks. "Nitrogen, Flight."

"Go ahead flight."

"Congratulations, Nitrogen, you've just elevated some Stuff to some Thing. And that means you get to check it out. We're adjusting your flight plan to intercept Stuff 38, scratch, Thing D. See what you can find, and if you can get its communications online. We'll take it from there."

Thing D turned out to be yet another station. Similar in construction to Kelgee it was speculated by the ground teams to have been built around the same time. After their rendezvous burn was finished, Agake EVA'd over to it and wrestled a few antennas open. The airlocks showed zero pressure inside the station, much like Kelgee, so she skipped the internal tour. 

The station's computer appeared to still be running, but no downlink or data transmission was forthcoming. The crew noted the presence of two docked vessels, one without any crew capacity and another that appeared to be a space taxi of some sort. (Wernher was already making plans for it.) 

Nothing more to do at this Thing, and as such the crew moved on to their actual target, Kelgee. (And since they were in a lower orbit, spending a bit of time at Thing D was helpful for catching up to Kelgee.)

--

Meanwhile Mardi was making her final preparations for leaving the station. If they were going to use Kelgee as a primary facility they'd need to launch several more docking adapters, with the one she delivered being only the second on site. She undocked and backed away, moving into a lower orbit to prepare for reentry. 

The original plan was to splash down just East of the space center, and the trajectory plotter indicated as much. Unfortunately something changed between the burn and the capsule separation, and suddenly she was going to land somewhere well to the East. 

The magic recovery teams high-tailed it across the ocean, and were there to greet Mardi after her successful first flight. 

--

Back at Kelgee, the crew of the Nitrogen T-7 was just arriving. After a quick docking, Agake went on her second EVA of the mission and retrieved some science data from the [ahem, *new-ish*] Science Pod. 

All told that gave the two scientists enough data to churn out 1.2217 science points per day. Yay? Considering they have almost a year's worth of food, these two new space science slaves will be turning the beat around and making some scientific percussion for quite some time. 

Which will be ample time for the program to get back to its true goal: Exploration! And whatever else The Boss has assigned them. Such as replacing their communications network....

Chores, I tell ya.

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[DMSP]

Great chapter!

I liked it a lot.

The more reports you make, the happier I am. 

[Angelo Kerman]

I see what you did there.. your sky is full of Stuff and Things.

[RocketSquid]

Oh no! I fear this thread and the wonderful story within are being forgotten! We're doomed! Possibly!

[Cydonian Monk]

Heh heh. No worries. Just a bit busy at the moment. I've actually launched seven or eights things this week, one a night or so, but they were all the same so I was waiting until I'd finished the batch before posting the update. 

Edited February 2, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[monophonic]

On 02/01/2016 at 0:18 AM, Cydonian Monk said:

In other news, whatever it is that gets upset when a vessel has more than 255 parts is still throwing a small fit, as seen above. This was much more serious of an issue two years ago when I was first building Kelgee, as one of the plugins (Remote Tech 2) would stop when it got to 255 parts, possibly because the core game was throwing an error, leading to a universe-rending cascade. This led me to install KAS and send a kerbal around to remove a bunch of detail parts from the station, such as Aviation Light beacons, flags, etc., and eventually to uninstall Remote Tech 2 (which hadn't been updated for some months by that point, and was only later turned over to new devs).

Now, two years later, the 255-limit is just a casual warning in the log file and otherwise business as usual.]

I don't think this error actually has anything to do with the part count of the vessel. I have done some graphics programming on my free time, and this error message immediately reads as some singular parts that have a bigger collision mesh than the engine is willing to handle. Or just a single part that you had three copies of on the vessel, possibly. Given the amount of parts mods you are using and how little damage this seems to be causing I don't think anyone would want to go through the trouble to figure out the offending part.

The worst that can result is that there is one part somewhere on the ship that allows other parts to sail right through itself rather than causing pretty explosions when it should.

[Cydonian Monk]

2 hours ago, monophonic said:

I don't think this error actually has anything to do with the part count of the vessel....

Valid point. Given when this occurred and what parts were loaded at the time, I have a good idea what part(s) it might be. (If not then it's a stock part, as the majority of that station is stock. Might be an "old" stock part though as there are at least 2 legacy parts docked up.)

it's also much different than the errors I was seeing in the distant past. 

[Cydonian Monk]

The Bright, Bright Neon Lights

The antique communications network used by the program was bound to fail at some point, and that point was Minmus. Or, more specifically, at a point between the Mün and Minmus. And, with a large number of contracts pending for the tiny green moon, something needed to be done to increase the range of the network. With many of the older satellites behaving oddly, something, anything, was needed to improve network reliability. 

That something was Neon. 

Mortimer Kerman, having mostly recovered from his temporary insanity, even managed to find a contract for launching a satellite into KeoStationary Orbit. 

"And why do they want an accelerometer on this?"

"Well, Gene, as you know we don't usually ask the details of what our clients intend to use the satellites for."

"Except we're the client, Mort. Steadler may want to sponsor us for some bizarre reason, but we're using this thing as a communications relay, not some wild science experiment. Wait, is this accelerometer clause written in your handwriting?"

"No, why would you, uh... huh... Important accounting work! Gotta go!"

The requirements were passed down to the interns. They returned with a somewhat over-engineered mess called Neon. Featuring two sets of antenna arrays for uplinks, two directional dishes for network crosstalk, and 4 dishes for direct links to the ground and vessels in low-Kerbin orbit, it perhaps had more communications capacity than it needed.

Perhaps.

The launch was conducted by a new version of the kOS control software, tweaked to allow for (mostly) reliable automatic separation of the boosters. [Though it still doesn't auto-jettison the fairings, and won't be able to do so until I can either name things for kOS in the VAB, which currently doesn't work on my install, or when I just combine the fairing stage with Stage 2 Sep / Stage 3 Ignition.]

A day later and the Neon KSO-1 was on station, parked over the desert continent, happily beeping along. 

And then night fell. 

One of the interns, in his gleeful application of copious amounts of communications accessories, failed to include enough batteries to keep the craft awake during its dwell time behind Kerbin. It was only short by 1,000 units of the magic electric, but 1,000 too short is still 1,000 too short. The lack of capacity was confirmed over the next few days as rate of expenditure was measured again. Ground controllers put the satellite into a low-power mode and took its flight computer and most of its communication equipment offline, just enough to stay in contact but not enough to perform its primary duties.

Time for a redesign.

--

 

Neon Sizzle

After a long discussion and even longer design time, the interns finally returned a new concept. A simple change. A blindingly obvious change. The redesigned Neon trunksat saw the very simple addition of four battery stacks. Researching higher capacity batteries was out of the question for the agency (and it would cut too deeply into the snack budget to upgrade the R&D facility), so the battery stacks were the only real alternative. 

The first of these new generation CommSats, Neon KSO-2, was to be placed into keostationary orbit a bit retrograde of the space center, providing coverage to much of the same territory that would've been served by Neon 1. 

When arriving at KSO, the Neon KSO-2 flew through a cloud of other junk satellites. Contact was briefly made with the "KSO-Comm 5", "Herald G2-12 KSO-F", and "CS-KSO-G2 D" satellites. Other pieces of debris were reported by the onboard collision avoidance system, but none of them responded to pings. 

The Neon KSO-2 was also responsible for completing Mortimer's satellite contract, being the first craft to reach KSO with an accelerometer onboard. 

With its dishes unfurled and reaction wheels spun up, the Neon KSO-2 took over responsibility as the first communications node in Kerbin orbit. 

--

Neon Clones

Two more trunksats were needed before the old communications networks could be retired. Otherwise identical to Neon KSO-2, Neon KSO-3 and Neon KSO-4 were placed into orbits 120 degrees out of phase with their earlier counterpart. 

And yes, they continued to include accelerometers. Mortimer was happy to see his insidious plan to measure the acceleration of an orbiting satellite coming together. He'd show those scientists!

With all three Neons in orbit and working, the crosstalk network was connected and permanent connections to Kelgee and Baile Speir were set up. No kerbal in an equatorial orbit would be out of communication with the ground ever again. 

--

Under the Heavy Neon Glow

With the main network complete, work moved to the true purpose for Neon: Interplanetary Communications. The first three Neons were designed to talk to each other and with craft in Low Kerbin orbit. The Neon Heavies were designed to talk to Jool and with craft anywhere in the Kerbol System, and would see their first use with the upcoming Minmus missions. 

Once again launched atop an LV-04 Sonata, the Neon Heavies really weren't any more massive than their KSO trunksat equivalents. And in truth, the heavies were themselves going to serve as trunksats, dropping in between the earlier KSOs offset by 60 degrees. Instead of pointing directly at Kerbin all day and night they would instead aim their large dish at Jool while their smaller, more articulate dishes tracked their targets. 

And despite complaints by the Efficiency Controls Officer, the R&D team installed glamour lighting on each of the three Neon Heavies. Neon Heavy 5 was inundated with the natural orange-red glow of excited Neon. 

Neon Heavy 6, otherwise identical, featured a soft green-blue glow that was claimed by the sign experts to be Argonial and Mercurial in origin, with a dash of phosphoric magic. 

Finally, Neon Heavy 7 saw the 18th and final launch of the LV-04 Sonata launch vehicle. A slightly upgraded (and slightly more expensive) variation would make appearance soon, more of an evolution of the craft than anything revolutionary. The change was neccesary to handle large payloads without completely rebuilding the launch facility. 

The color experts were at a loss to explain how they formed the vivid violet glow of the Neon Heavy 7, claiming it was a protected trade accident-turned-secret. 

And with that, the network was ready for Minmus. 

And Jool.

 

Navigation: Next Post

Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Mysteriousness at Jool.....

 

 

SPOOKY BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Geschosskopf]

@Cydonian Monk:  Oooo, purdy colors

Question:  with the long-range satellites in KSO, how do you deal with intervening planets and moons in more or less the same orbital plane? 

 

[Cydonian Monk]

9 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

@Cydonian Monk:  Oooo, purdy colors

Question:  with the long-range satellites in KSO, how do you deal with intervening planets and moons in more or less the same orbital plane? 

 

With three of them, the local moons (or Mün) are mostly irrelevant. Same with planets - odds of occlusion of all three plus the ground station are slim. The biggest issue is the Sun, which even attempting to transmit or listen through the neighborhood of can be problematic. (At least in real life.)

The long-term plan is to have a set of relay satellites in solar orbit to bypass said giant star, which would also further negate any local occlusions. Probably above Kerbin orbit by a bit, maybe halfway to Duna. If LaGrange were a thing they'd be in L4 and L5.

I could also launch a couple satellites into a highly-eccentric Tundra-ish orbit, and might do so. 

[Cydonian Monk]

9 hours ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

Mysteriousness at Jool.....

 

 

SPOOKY BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

You Won't Believe the Top 10 Most Mysterious and Spooky Things At Jool. (Your video will start following this ad....)

[Cydonian Monk]

Delayed Return

After some unknown and previously unheard of length of time in space, Verly and the Nitrogen A-3 were cleared to return to Kerbin. Ground controllers had wanted to keep her at Baile Speir until such time as the Neon Network was up and running and, with that done, she jumped and bounced and floated and whatnot into her ship and quickly undocked from its Orbital module. 

The reentry was targeted to land at the space center, which meant the usual burning reentry over the desert continent. This would be the last time one of these older, Carbon-series ballistic capsules would reenter. Sieta's earlier experience with burn-throughs and overheating had convinced management to move to using the more robust two-kerbal capsule instead.  

Some distance around the planet and Verly sailed over K2, still burning through ablator and still very much hypersonic. Shortly afterwards the plasmatic air abated, the ball went subsonic, and her parachutes carried her safely to the surface. 

Somewhat short of the space center as it turned out, but what can you do? Estimates are called estimates for a reason. The recovery team was happy for once to be able to jump in a jeep and drive out to meet their recoveree instead of needing to use their "magic transport vehicle that probably hasn't been invented yet."

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Geschosskopf]

3 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

 The recovery team was happy for once to be able to jump in a jeep and drive out to meet their recoveree instead of needing to use their "magic transport vehicle that probably hasn't been invented yet."

Nah, there's a vast subway system under all of Kerbin.  Just walk to the nearest station and catch the train home .

[Cydonian Monk]

Salty Minmus

The first launch of the new LV-05 Cantata was to handle the dual Sodium 1 and Sodium 2 probes for Minmus. An evolved version of the LV-04, the LV-05 could heft a bit more payload mass to orbit, often with the core section of the lower stage itself completing the orbital insertion, leaving the "third" stage for use with the trans-münar or trans-minmusian injection. 

That was definitely the case with the Sodium 1/2 (combining both 1 and 2 gets one half of the original....?), which saw both probes launched in a stack. The Sodium 1 was at the top of the stack, followed by a small interstage, then the Sodium 2. All wrapped in a tight fairing and bolted down with plenty of space tape and bug fixes.

Once again launched using the fully-automated "launchsonata" script (no need to update it for the Cantata yet), the Sodium 1/2 was placed into a 150km parking orbit. Fairing jettison unfortunately destroyed one of the solar panels on the Sodium 2, but otherwise the launch was without issue. The integration team in the VAB took notes on the damage and promised to not repeat the mistake on future launches.... Whatever the mistake was.

The two satellites remained moored to the upper stage until the trans-Minmus burn was complete. The plan was simple: crash the spent uper stage and any other debris into the surface of Minmus. Meanwhile the two Sodiums would burn slightly to miss the small moon and enter into one low and one high orbit.

Sodium 1, thankfully still at the front of the stack, decoupled first and spread its wings.

Once free it dropped the small interstage and entered into its cruise towards the ice cream moon. Sodium 2 followed suit in detaching from the transstage and deployed its one undamaged solar array. The reduced charging capacity would only be a minor problem. Of more concern was the destroyed kOS flight computer, but the backup (RT2) flight computer was expected to be more than capable for what was needed.

Eight days to go on this slow boat to Minmus.

--

As expected the Sodium 1 arrived at Minmus first. The small boost gained by decoupling from the Sodium 2 translated to a 45-minute lead on the other probe. A quick course correction placed the Na-1 into a polar, low-Minmus intercept. Na-1 still had both of its solar arrays, and was the logical choice for an orbit where a high percentage of its time would be spent in darkness. A similar correction burn was made for the Na-2, placing it into a 300km polar intercept. 

Soon the Sodium 1 was close enough to start sending back pictures of the small minty moon.

And for the first time in many münths the World's Firsters showed up with a new plaque. And the requisite stack of snack money. Can't forget the snack money.

The Sodium 2 got the distinction of being the first satellite to send back science data from Minmus, which resulted in another World Firsts society member with a plaque and more money. Money for yet another party. A party that would need to wait until after both probes were safely parked in their operating orbits.

Curiously absent was the award for "First Orbit of Minmus."

The primary goal of both satellites was to begin rudimentary mapping of the surface. As such it would take some time to harvest all of the science data. The one-shot experiments were fired off first, followed by several measurements taken by the magnetometer and the Multi-Spectral Analyzer. Some of which were a bit... insulting. 

(The R&D guys insisted it was the instruments themselves that had turned sarcastic, and not the disgruntled engineer who had been forced to install instruments that would tell them absolutely nothing about the environment they were operating in... such as a barometer to measure the air pressure of a vacuum.)

At least the mapping operation was proceeding without snark.

In all the two probes harvested almost 500 science points from the little green ball of ice cream. A good day for the tech tree! (And a bad day for the pocketbook.... Quickly running out of nodes that can be unlocked without an upgrade.)

The day wasn't over though, and soon the World's Firsters showed up with yet another plaque: First Escape from Minmus. There was some confusion in the tracking center as flight controllers promptly and repeatedly requested the status of the two probes, making sure neither had somehow fired their engines and escaped. Ultimately it was discovered that one of the pieces of debris from the upper stage had survived and missed its impact with Minmus. Weird, but how can you refuse to accept an award for being the World's First? 

(Even when you're not....)

Next up... Well, The Boss is a bit undecided. The program is at a bit of a crossroads. They can afford to continue launching small probes, but can't afford to upgrade facilities at the space center. There's some talk about repurposing the derelicts that are in orbit for various tasks, and there's always the Mün.  

We'll see what the weekend brings.

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Angelo Kerman]

I noticed on your sodium satellites that you and small boxes. One has an orange science beaker, another looks like a red rocket, a third is some kind of green gear, and a fourth looks like a blue rainy cloud. I was wondering what those are.

[Cydonian Monk]

On 1/16/2016 at 1:49 PM, Angel-125 said:

I noticed on your sodium satellites that you and small boxes. One has an orange science beaker, another looks like a red rocket, a third is some kind of green gear, and a fourth looks like a blue rainy cloud. I was wondering what those are.

Those are science experiments from RoverDude's Sounding Rockets mod. They're one-use, non-refillable, biome-sensitive experiments that provide a token amount of science. 

Edited October 14, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Cydonian Monk]

Taking Pictures for Fun and Profit

Funds were getting tight and upgrades to the R&D Facility were becoming more and more of a requirement, so the call was sent out for contracts. Any contracts. Want something thrown into space? Let the agency do it!

The responses? Well....

... let's just say kerbals are occasionally sarcastic. Somewhat.

That second contract gave The Boss an idea. Space telescopes were something of an unknown element, and perhaps they could be used both to map Kerbin and search for missing stuff. And things. And, it just happened there was this other contract that wanted to place a satellite into a very high polar orbit. Perfect place for a camera.

Thus was born the Magnesium Project. The first Magnesium telescopes would scan Kerbin, aiding with the mapping process. Later telescopes would search the heavens to rob them of their secrets. 

First things first. The Magnesium 1 was a small satellite, using a DMagic space telescope. This small scope would be able to image the surface of Kerbin, perhaps not to the resolution of a large building, but well enough to see the mountains and perhaps the oceans. 

Being a small satellite, the Mg-1 was launched on an equally small launch vehicle: an upgraded version of the LV-02 that Wernher was calling the LV-02M. Small, yet similar enough to the LV-05 Cantata that it could be launched using the same pad infrastructure and tower. 

The small rocket pitched to the North once it was clear of the tower. (Some questioned where the spent first stage would land with this launch going over the city across Booster Bay..... There were even rumours as to which building it would crash into. Ultimately it just disappeared a few dozen meters above the ground.)

Shortly after reaching a stable orbit, the Magnesium 1 pushed into its all-too-high orbit. 

The crews on the ground couldn't resist the urge. They just had to take a series of test photos while on ascent, and ended up with a couple grainy pictures of giant herds of polar bears in the distant North. Or maybe they were snowmen? Or icebergs? Who knew.

The images the satellite sent back from such a high orbit left a bit to be desired. Thankfully the contract provided enough extra funds that the agency was able to launch an identical satellite: Magnesium 2. 

Launched at night into a much lower orbit, the Mg-2 and its ground controllers spent the next several days working in tandem with the Mg-1 in milking all the science they could from images of the surface of Kerbin. 

In the end both of the early Magnesium telescopes helped to prove the utility of the platform. Wernher was curious if an orbiting camera would be capable of taking an image of a box of popcorn, and so the project's funding was increased as work started on an even larger telescope: The Magnesium 3.

Fitted with a larger scope and believed to be capable of taking a picture of a small vehicle from orbit, the Mg-3 was expected to do great things.

Instead it burned up during orbital ascent.

Ooops.

The mistake was later blamed on a software glitch, but the loss of the Magnesium 3 came at the perfect time, as it ushered in an era of even larger and more modular space glass. Glass that would image the farthest reaches of existence. Glass that would give them more than just pictures. Glass that might just change everything the kerbals thought they knew about the universe.

The mother of all space telescopes was about to be born.

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Dfthu]

The drama! Can't wait for the next one!

[Cydonian Monk]

Release!

"Say, what does this 'Release' lever do?" It was a warm day in the Vertical Assembly Building, and a small group of interns were busy assembling the next vessel in the Magnesium program: Magnesium 4. 

"Don't know, let me take a look at it." Another, equally busy intern sat down his koffee and yellow mush (absentmindedly doing so in the innards of some other spacecraft) and waddled over to his coworker (co-intern? co-volunteer?). "That's funny, can't say I've seen anything like that."

"So what do we do with it?"

"You got me. Must have something to do with the telescope thingy. Science? Sounds like science. Lick it, what does it taste like?"

"Blech. Tastes like science."

"Ok then. Wire it up to action group 8 I guess."

"AG-8, you got it."

--

It was big, it was round, and it was new. Yet it wasn't quite the "Mother of All Space Telescopes" as Wernher had promised. And honestly it left a bit to be desired. Still, the Magnesium 4 was a significant step up from the previous three (ahem, two) telescopes. Built on a modular platform known as the FungEye, the Mg-4 was intended to be upgraded and serviced over time.

And the ground crews had a nickname for it. "The Grandmother of All Space Telescopes."

The Mg-4 (GoAST) was heavy enough that it pressed back into the LV-05 Cantata launch vehicle category. As (almost) always, the launchsonata.ks script carried it safely to orbit, placing it into the planned ~200km orbit. The fairings were jettisoned while the craft was still suborbital, followed shortly after by the core stage burnout and orbital stage ignition. 

The ground controllers decided to give the craft's systems a quick test during the drift phase.

"INCO, Flight. Let's give the science instruments a stir."

"Copy Flight, activating AG-8." The Instrumentation officer pressed the big button on his console that read "8". Nothing obvious happened, but the craft responded with a cryptic message. "Flight, AG-8 negative response. Communications 5 by 5, just no response from the scope."

"Hmm. Ok, INCO, we'll get the experts on the phone and see what's what."

A few minutes later as the craft neared apoapsis, the launch script took over once more and circularized its orbit. 

"Flight, Radar."

"Go ahead Radar."

"Flight, we're tracking a piece of debris that we believe was ejected from Mg-4."

Oh, so _that's_ what the "Release" prompt does on the FungEye telescope. Ooops. Sure enough, once the Mg-4 had made it to its final orbit, attempting to activate the camera resulted in an obscure and initially confusing error message. "No processor."

Hmm.

Repair mission?

-- 

Return to Flight

Which is exactly what the Nitrogen TC-8 was. A repair mission. Repairing not just the reputation of the space agency, but also the sanity of one Sieta Kerman. After several münths of debate and consideration, the doctors had decided that Engineers were more effective when they're absolutely looney, and each one of them voted to authorize Sieta's return to flight. Gene was a bit leery of putting her on the repair mission, but The Boss insisted.

Along for the ride was Rondous Kerman, who's previous flight aboard the Nitrogen A-5 was abruptly aborted when it clipped the tower and pirouetted back into the ground. To ease Rondous' fear, they had agreed to once again launch a Cantata without the large tower structure in place. (Where it went is a state secret.)

One kerbal with a few screws loose, and another with a few missing. What could possibly go wrong?

"T minus 10."

"Heh. So, the last time you launched, the rocket blew up. The last time I launched, the spacecraft melted. This should be fun, right? RIGHT????"

"Whatever you say, ma'am. Uhh." The craft started to rumble under them as the count reached 3. The engines played with the launch clamps, teasing them, threatening to tear them out of the ground. And then, just at the last second.... Release!

"Nitrogen TC-8 has cleared the, ah, the launch clamps?"

The first of the Nitrogen TC-class of craft, the launch was once again handled perfectly by the kOS onboard computer. Sieta weathered the ascent with the glee only an insane kerbal could have, while Rondous didn't relax until the launch escape system had finally escaped from their launch.

A short time later and the somewhat-signature offset solar panels of the Nitrogen deployed, and they were officially in orbit. Rondous' first. Sieta 2.0's first. Sieta's third.

The ascent placed them into orbit slightly ahead of the Magnesium 4. Once the ground controllers had run the numbers (numbers which Sieta had already worked out, because: Engineer), they punched the new flight program into the RT2 onboard computer and set up a night time rendezvous.

Low-orbit nocturnal rendezvous seem to be this game's favorite challenge.

The doctors had warned Rondous not to leave Sieta alone in the craft for any reason, but as he was the only member of their crew qualified to do the "repair" work on the Grandmother of All Space Telescopes, he had little choice in the matter. She mocked him a bit as he was suiting up, threatening to leave him in the dark, to hide their ship behind the Mün so he couldn't find it. He just smiled, pulled his gloves on and secured his space wrench to the velcro patch on his left sleeve. 

"You run away from me, I'll haunt you to the ends of your days."

Must've worked, because Sieta turned green. Er. "Flight, I have a bad feeling about this mission."

"Please elaborate."

"It's the same feeling I had about that station back in 97."

"That is negative. Surprisingly control hasn't heard the station story, seeing as it's still the year 96. Please advise your crew mate to exit the vehicle once he's ready."

The interns weren't exactly sure which model of processor the FungEye supported, so they sent Rondous up with the oldest and the newest of the bunch. He grabbed both as he made his way out of the Nitrogen's Orbital Module Airlock.

Would he even know if Sieta pulled the ship away from him while he was doing the repair work? No, not really. Not unless she went so far that she was out of radio range. Unlikely. He swallowed down his nerves and made the mistake of looking down at Kerbin. The black, inky, empty sphere of Kerbin, clearly one of its oceans. No light, no stars, no reflections, just blackness. Nothingness. Endless terror. Whispers of madness. 

He almost jumped out of his suit when the Nitrogen's feeble lights caught the Magnesium 4.

A short blast from the old jetpack, a quick flick to turn on the spotlights, and he made his way to GrandMa. Sure enough the processor bay was open, and empty, and no telescope instruments were to be found. Odd. Not really odd, as zero is even, but still weird. He fumbled around with the two different processors. To him looked identical. Same color, same size. Time was short, so he made a decision.

"Installing processor 3." He pushed it the last of the way in with the SpaceWrench and started to close the door to the sensor cabinet when he decided it was best to test it first. "Ok Flight, have the science team give it a whirl. Let's see if it works."

"Copy N-TC-8." A few moments passed and the sun rose behind the telescope. "Negative, N-TC-8. We're reading nothing from the board. Try putting it in the other way."

Instead Rondous gave it another tap with the SpaceWrench, just the lightest of benchthumps. The processor board lit up, lights started blinking, and the ground teams started reading data.

Oh did they ever start reading data.

Oceans upon oceans of data.

"Ok, so what do we take a picture of first?" Rondous backed away from the scope as it turned to point its large, multifaceted face his way. Spider-like eyes, completely unlike any fungus Rondous knew to be among us.

Afterwards the ground controllers had a field day, taking pictures of everything in the solar system. And some things not in the solar system. And some things in the solar system but not in the solar system. And some things that might be in another solar system. Except the "pictures" were a bit.... glitched. And occasionally had something else in the way, such as this wonderful shot of Eeloo. 

[Perhaps I need to run another repair mission? Dig around in mods? More likely I just wait until KSP 1.1 happens and forget about it. Not sure what mods are fighting with each other here, and I'm not too sure I care.]

Several hundred science points later and the ground controllers had forgotten entirely about their repair crew. Rondous and Sieta were just relaxing and enjoying the free snacks while they watched the not-so-giant space telescope writhe and twist in the void. It was a sight to behold, this giant instrument that was busy beholding sights. The way it danced and spun about with the greatest of ease. Intoxicating almost.

Just as the ground controllers were regaining control of themselves, in burst the World's First representative with a rolling cart stacked to the top with plaques and snacks and funds. Lots and lots of funds. Snacks. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of snacks.

That night's party? Now that was the stuff of Legends.

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Angelo Kerman]

ROFL! First time I played with the FungEye, I did the exact same thing. The Release button comes from KIS. I think the latest KIS lets me disable that Release button.

Not sure why you're not able to see the pictures. Only thing I can think of is Tariser and CactEye might not be compatible, but I'm not sure.