ALIEN SKIES: A 6.4-scale playthrough of GPP/Rald

[IncongruousGoat]

This was probably already asked somewhere else in the thread, but are the dates you give in Kerbin time or Earth time?

[CatastrophicFailure]

6 hours ago, roboslacker said:

And here I thought you were going to nuke it from orbit. Well, I guess harpoons work okay too. Does Thalia have any blubber?

We shall soon see. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

This was probably already asked somewhere else in the thread, but are the dates you give in Kerbin time or Earth time?

They’re in Gael time. 

Which isn’t as snarky as it sounds. Near as I can figure, there’s no less than three four different clocks in play at any given time. There’s the mission clock, which doesn’t seem to be quite Kerbin time as it’s on Year 12 or so, there’s the KAC clock which looks to be a 24 hour day and is the one I actually pay attention to. There’s the in-game clock for maneuver nodes and such which is just kinda off in the corner doing its own thing, and then there’s the Kerbal Construction Time clock. It always gives an absolutely silly time to build any rocket that doesn’t take nearly as long, but I suppose that’s how the engineers get reputations as miracle workers. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Tonight's planned update has experienced a delay.

Meanwhile, here's a sneak peek of one of our long-term projects.

Show the people, Jencine. 

 

We're working on something....

 

Spoiler

TOP SECRET STATIC FIRE TEST FOOTAGE

Wait, did something go BOOM?!?
we... we moved Jencine first, right? Right??

 

[roboslacker]

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

We're working on something....

What are the fleas for? On a side note, I think you could go even bigger.

[1101]

On 2/27/2018 at 12:27 PM, roboslacker said:

What are the fleas for?

Probably to ensure an explosion, in the event of unplanned nominal behaviour.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 8, day 343...

After a long, dark, cold cruise in deep space, NOVA Otho finally approaches its destination...

Spoiler

 

 

One of the two lander antennas has failed, but otherwise the probe remains in good health. It plunges close in to gas giant, returning the first of what will surely be a bumper of science, and executes a 650m/s braking burn...

And promptly swings back away from the massive planet. It'll be 43 days until the next maneuver at apoOth, then another few weeks before anything interesting happens, so we're going to switch back to the activity at Thalia and chronicle that first.

 

While the NOVA probe is busy going in long circles, ION-2 is hurtling at Thalia in what can only be described as a perfectly straight line.

Trust me, there's a planet in there, somewhere.

 

After its fast-track trajectory, it will require nearly every measure of the probe's 16km/s delta-V budget just to brake into an elongated orbit over the enigmatic world, but we finally have our first close-up data from Thalia!

Which is very... strange.

Also, it seems that solar panel we lugged along is all but useless at this orientation, the five engines can only run at around 80% thrust.

 

Finally coming to a virtual halt, ION-2 dispatches a sub-probe to get up and personal with our fixation of the moment.

 

This sub-probe will impact the planet to fulfill a contact, mere hours before its deadline.

Since what better way to introduce ourselves than with a hypervelocity suckerpunch? I'm sure this can't possibly go wrong...

 

There's no senors on the probe, it won't be around long enough to transmit anything.

Wait, is it getting... hot in here? Vlad, do not make me get the hose again!

 

Poof.

That's... it? The probe impacts at several kilometers per second and all we get is a little poof?!

 

Well anyways, as ION-2 maneuvers into a high scanning orbit, ThEta enters the system.

 

Coming in at a far more sedate pace, ThEta's capture maneuver is "only" around 6km/s.

And the solar panel actually works. Why are the radiators red?

 

As ThEta enters a low parking orbit, returning all sorts of conflicting data, ION-1 joins the party!

Because it has to. We are Ussaris, after all. Mostly. Sort of. Maybe we should think about that...

 

ION-1 will put its own somewhat more limited scanners to work to hopefully survey the sun-baked planet in record time.

 

The radiator is really working hard, you guys... While orbital surveying continues, ThEta begins its own primary mission. In a bid to conserve as much lander fuel as possible, the ion buss drops the apoThal to just above the surface before decoupling the lander...

 

...then flips around and buzzes back up to a safe orbit.

Have you guys calibrated the thermometers? These readings are very strange...

 

After a short coast, the lander fires up its chemical engine and begins its braking burn why is it getting so dang hot?!?

 

It seems the dip from ThEta's transfer buss was a bit aggressive, the lander is coming in hot, skimming across the surface and needing to burn a bit radial to keep from dropping to fast.

It's 30 degrees below freezing there, why are the radiators pegged??

 

The corrections work, however. Just as planned, the braking stage runs out of fuel and automatically decouples.

 

It smashes into the surface while the lander continues the descent on its own trio of chemical thrusters.

Now the batteries are glowing?!

 

Almost there.... aaaaallllmoooosttheeeereeee.....

 

Touchdown! We have successfully landed on the surface of Thalia!

And right away the lander begins to melt.

 

What's going on here, guys? It's not that hot, there's no unusual radiation-- ah, now the sampler's glowing hot!

The lander is equipped with its own high-gain antenna for a direct link back to Gael, there's no direct need to relay the signal through any of the orbiting units. Which is good, too, because it might not be around that long...

 

Maybe it landed on an active lava tube or something. There's some fuel left on board and another biome a little to the north, so the lander lifts off again and burns with everything it has.

In more ways than one.

 

We're about to land for the second time on Thalia...

 

...which doesn't quite go as planned.

The lander manages to right itself, but it looks like the mission is about to go off with a bang in all the wrong ways, before any useful data can be transmitted!

It looks like all will be lost... until a clever technician realizes that as long as no one actually pays attention to the probe, it stops heating up!

Everyone quickly busies themselves doing anything but watching the lander, checking up on the other orbiters and such, until the entire data set has been successfully transferred home.

So, of course, with its usefulness run out, morbid curiosity kicks in and everyone starts watching the lander very intently. 

 

The radiators just can't keep up. First, it glows red...

 

Then it glows orange...

 

Then it glows yellow almost makes a nice shade of plaid...

 

Then it starts going in several directions at once at significant speed.

 

For some reason, these last bits stubbornly remain, having reached some bizarre sort of equilibrium.

Note to the engineering team, the next lander will need to be made entirely out of these parts.

 

And include sunscreen. Lots and lots of sunscreen.

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 2/27/2018 at 4:27 AM, roboslacker said:

What are the fleas for?

Sparklers. 

 

No, really. They’re there for ambience, the hydrolox M1 engine just doesn’t put off the billowing clouds of launch smoke I wanted. 

On 2/27/2018 at 4:27 AM, roboslacker said:

I think you could go even bigger

That’s (I think) the biggest engine in my save on a 10 meter booster. Finding a payload even worthy of that will be a challenge (although it does show some promise as a moderately useful SSTO...).

[1101]

9 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

That’s (I think) the biggest engine in my save on a 10 meter booster. Finding a payload even worthy of that will be a challenge (although it does show some promise as a moderately useful SSTO...).

Add more mods!  Like Ol' Boom Boom.  Or Sea Dragon!

And congrats on landing somewhere as evil as Venus.  Did you spot any runaway greenhouses?

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 9, day 63...

Another year clicks over in this strange place. Everyone was too busy juggling missions to notice. Except Vlad, who nicked our entire remaining supply of outdated rocket fuel and is now, for all intents and purposes, in orbit.

Spoiler

 

Meanwhile, things are happening with NOVA Otho...

But we're still ignoring that to focus on the reports from Thalia, which seems to be telling us rather subtly to bugger the flarp off.

 

To that end. ION-1, still with a silly amount of fuel left, takes up position to begin mapping Eta.

 

Something must still be wrong with the sensors. That looks like a lot of ore...

 

Free of the Thalia lander, ThEta now leaves the antisocial world behind, too.

 

It still has an absolutely stupid amount of remaining delta-V, so without much regard as to where, it goes right into the landing sequence...

 

On this tiny moon, even a cluster of ion engines is more than sufficient to touch down softly.

 

And, we have successfully landed on Eta!

 

And, we have successfully taken off from Eta!

 

Now we're gonna touch down here...

 

...and over there...

 

...and over in this shadow...

 

...and YOU get a boop, and YOU get a boop, EVERY biome gets a boop!

 

In record time, ThEta has surveyed every single biome on the small world, leaving no stone interned...

But wait... we're detecting more anomalous signals, not far from this valley. For once, there's enough fuel left to investigate.

 

It appears to be another monolith, like the one that was found on Rald!

 

So of course, the most logical course of action is to plunk right down on top of it.

What's a squid?

That says Squad.

No, it clearly says squid.

That's an A...

Looks more like a stylized I...

Besides, you know what a squid is!

Surely an ancient artifact of unknown origin couldn't be referring to a common Kerbinian mollusk!

Now I'm craving calamari.

Oooh, squid!

 

Ahem, yes, well *urp*

Attempts to communicate with the strange object by ramming into it at high speed were...

...unsuccessful. One of these days we really need to stop listening to Vlad...

 

And so concludes our initial survey of the Thalia system, overall, despite the difficulties encountered the program has been a stunning success, leading to gigabytes upon gigabytes of returned science and putting our root ledger firmly back into the black. Now, perhaps, it's finally time to start paying attention to NOVA Otho and lock Vlad out of the root cellar again.

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[IncongruousGoat]

That's... a lot of ore. Also, outdated rocket fuel... so, ethyl alcohol? Not even Vlad would be nuts enough to try and drink high-test peroxide... right?

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Not even Vlad would be nuts enough to try and drink high-test peroxide... right?

Think about that statement for a minute... 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Heh, I didn't even realize this. This long, strange trip celebrated its one-year anniversary almost a month ago, on Valentines day. 
'spose I had other priorities at the time... 

And now, back to monotonous part snipping...

[qzgy]

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Heh, I didn't even realize this. This long, strange trip celebrated its one-year anniversary almost a month ago, on Valentines day. 
'spose I had other priorities at the time... 

And now, back to monotonous part snipping...

Oh hey, neat!

 

Payload idea - giant statue of glorious Kermin in orbit. And really big.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, qzgy said:

Oh hey, neat!

 

Payload idea - giant statue of glorious Kermin in orbit. And really big.

Hmm... I could use a big test mass... but where to find a suitable statue? Anything aesthetic I tried to craft would come out looking like Picasso’s been huffing hydrazine fumes. 

[qzgy]

6 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

but where to find a suitable statue? Anything aesthetic I tried to craft would come out looking like Picasso’s been huffing hydrazine fumes. 

I could...try to make one...............................................

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 3/11/2018 at 7:55 AM, qzgy said:

I could...try to make one...............................................

Feel free to.  I may have found just the perfect thing, but... I may have need for more than one, too. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Also Year 9, Day 63... more or less... I think... signal delay, and such...

While one Mission Control team was fussing over the Thalia missions, a completely different one was focused on the distant gas giant Otho.The fights over who got to use the big DSN antenna were pretty gruesome. I won tree fiddy on double or nothing.

Spoiler

So, to reiterate, at NOVA Otho's first (and only) close pass by the huge brownish world, a surprisingly mild braking maneuver captured it into a highly eccentric orbit, just within Otho's SOI.

 

Another maneuver at apoOth raised its periOth to the distance of Augustus, Otho's largest and innermost moon. A tweak here and a tweak there on the inbound course, and some 90 days after encountering Otho, the probe gets its first flyby of a moon.

 

It was only a brief, distant encounter, but gave is our first close up data, and more importantly, dropped the apoOth down to just reach the planet's farthest moon.

We're going to have to milk these gravity assists for all we can. The original mission plan had NOVA Otho dropping its atmospheric lander during an early, close pass of Augustus, which would have preserved much more fuel for later use. But more on that later.

 

A couple of orbits later, and another small correction puts the probe on an intercept course with the tiny outer moon of Jannah.

 

This diminutive world is just a hair bigger than our own Iota, yet considerably less dense. We suspect there's a fair amount of water or other volatile ices below the strange brown surface, but detailed study will have to wait.

 

NOVA Otho makes a single, very low pass over the frozen surface, scanning for all it's worth.

 

And in just a few hours, the encounter is over.

We've barely gotten a glimpse of this lonely place, but sadly it's the only look we're likely to get. Extrapolation of the probe's orbit over several years reveals no further encounters with the moonlet without a significant use of fuel, and that... we just cannot do.

 

A few weeks later, another small correction burn brings up our second encounter with Augustus.

 

There's only enough fuel on board to orbit one moon at this point, so with its large size and significant atmosphere, Augustus is the most likely target.

 

This second, distant pass begins dropping our apoOth to conserve as much fuel as possible.

 

Another correction, and the third pass will reduce the probe's inclination.

 

There's poor, distant Jannah again.

 

And here we have a wonderful shot of Augustus's shadow projected against Otho. Augustus is nearly the size of Rald, so an image like this really help give a sense of scale.

 

Pass number three brings the NOVA Otho in over August's south pole and back away to the north, matching the probe's inclination around Otho to that of the moon in a confusing bit of orbital dynamics.

 

One final correction burn, and we're now on final approach to the large moon.

Hephaestus, there, will have to wait.

 

There's a few dregs of fuel left in the braking stage, but not nearly enough for the upcoming insertion burn. Rather than try to calculate the burn time difference with the anemic on-board engine, the braking stage is dispatched on a collision course.

 

At last, NOVA Otho comes screaming in over the whispy cloud tops. But not nearly as screaming as it would have been without the numerous gravity assists. The tiny main thruster brakes just enough to settle the probe into a stable orbit just within Augustus's SOI.

 

Finally, at apoAugh, the lander is released. The main buss then adjusts back to a stable orbit.

 

Physically and functionally, the probe is a duplicate of the mission to Gratian. We learned much from our exploration there, but can only incorporate a few of those lessons to a probe that's already been launched.

Aaaaand just like the other time, it's heading right for a big clump of mountains.

 

Augustus's atmosphere is only a tenth as thick as Gael's, and tense moments come as the telemetry data flows in... then abruptly stops.

 

That much, at least, was expected, as the lander loses line-of-sight to the orbital buss. Fortunately, the automated landing sequence goes off without a hitch.

 

The lander is on the main, still a respectable distance up.

 

As it descends, it drops into a tempestuous dust storm...

 

Which due to the thin atmosphere is little more than a light breeze.

 

But once again, it's coming down on a hill... this might get rough...

 

Around and around it goes, where it stops... 

Well, hopefully it just will stop.

 

As on Gratian, the main antennas fail to deploy automatically. Also as on Gratian, we're able to remotely deploy them once NOVA Otho completes its own pass over the landing site.

One of the antennas deploys, but has electronically failed during the long journey. That's why we brought two. But here is also the main failing of the architecture. These two omnidirectional antennas must relay all the lander's data back through the orbiter, a bare trickle of a few bytes per second. And with one out of commission, it's going to be even slower. This is greatly compounded by the fact that the orbiters gets, at best, only a few hours a day, every few days, of line of sight to the lander. It may be more than a year before the lander science is completely returned.

We learned this lesson well from Gratian, giving the Thalia lander its own high-gain dish, as well as greatly upgraded relay omnis on both the lander and the orbiters.

 

But for now, all we can do is settle in and wait. With most of the missions science goals complete, NOVA Otho burns a good chunk of its backup attitude fuel to raise its periAugh to a proper mapping altitude, as well as better relay position. Without the mass of the probe, we're recovered some delta-V. Once the downlink from the lander is complete, there's still hope for at least one flyby of Hephaestus. 

 

That won't be for a long time yet, and we've still got a lot on the table.

 

Speaking of Gratian, and lander has finally returned the last of its data, and digging through it, the science team has uncovered something... very interesting. But they'll need more time to finalize the results.
Now will someone please get Vlad off the table already?! People eat there!

 

Edited March 25, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[FleshJeb]

What ApoAugh (peak Augh) may look like:

EDIT: In my haste to (attempt to) be amusing, I forgot to add that I REALLY enjoy and look forward to this series.

Edited March 23, 2018 by FleshJeb

[CatastrophicFailure]

13 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

What ApoAugh (peak Augh) may look like:

 

At least someone got it.  I heard it in my head once and there was no going back. Kraken only knows what other suffixes are lurking. 

[FleshJeb]

6 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

At least someone got it.  I heard it in my head once and there was no going back. Kraken only knows what other suffixes are lurking. 

I have a slight advantage: Charles Schulz spent most of his life in my county, and the last 30 years in my town.

Peanuts is kind of a big deal around here:

Spoiler

 

Edited March 24, 2018 by FleshJeb

[CatastrophicFailure]

I had no idea the dude had an airport named after him. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 9, Day 86...

So, with NOVA Otho now in a holding pattern and the missions at Thalia mostly wrapped up, the science and engineering teams are starting to think about rekindling the crewed space program. Only this time, just a bit less, well, crude. It was quickly decided that any extended presence beyond Gael will require the extraction and use of local resources. We queried GENE about this, and after a prolonged period of laughing uncontrollably at us, spat out a series of contacts. We now have funding to retrieve ore samples from all the other bodies in the local Gael system, after our first limited experiments on Rald proved moderately successful. To that end, the mighty Otho V launcher is once again called into service!

Spoiler

 

Prospector I will be an ambitious, automated mission to the surface of Iota with the aim of demonstrating high-yield refining of surface regolith into usable fuel, and assuming that bit actually works, returning 1000 units of it to Gael. Preferably in a controlled manner. 

 

As an expensive and high-value mission, Prospector I has been extensively simulated all the way to low Gael orbit and through its transfer burn. The re-entry system alone required numerous sleepless nights and intravenous coffee days.

 

These new dual-axis solar panels should assure a high-current uninterrupted power supply even at the high polar latitudes where the target landing sight is.

Wait, what do you mean they won't work at night? Don't the dozen hydrolox fuel tanks require constant power to keep all the fuel from boiling off??

 

As it turns out... we won't need to worry about fuel boil-off at all.

 

It seems that all during the extensive simulations, no one bothered to check the antenna. Or if there was an antenna.

 

Prospector I loses all communication with mission control just beyond the orbit of Rald, well before its first scheduled correction maneuver. It does actually reach the north pole of Iota, passing about 2000 kilometers above it.

 

But, on the upside, with no planetary shadow to contend with, we didn't lose any fuel.

Here, Prospector I finally executes its correction burn... this time dropping its return course back into Gael's atmosphere after flying by Iota and drifting around in space a while.

We've got alot of roots sunk into this thing, might as well try to recover something.

 

After some careful timing, Prospector I ignites its quartet of RL-10B engines a few minutes before atmospheric interface, with the idea of dumping as much velocity as possible before the bulk of re-entry heating kicks in.

 

Yup, that went about as well as expected.

 

Burnt water vapor, anyone?

 

Wait, it did work??

What sourcery is this??

Ahem, yes, well...

 

In the end, Prospector I is recovered almost entirely not completely intact.

 

Aaaaaand the engineering team immediately gets to work on Prospector II.

New and improved!

Now with twice* the antennas!

*Does not actually include antennas. Use at own risk. Some assembly required.

 

Edited April 2, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[JadeOfMaar]

@CatastrophicFailure Right on time.

*reads post*

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 9, Day 135...

Trying this again...

You've already seen this part. But this time we put a big blue fairing on the stack just so there's no confusion...

 

And shortly, Prospector II is on its way to Iota. This time with lots of antennas. That are actually turned on. We've checked this.

Probably.

 

Shortly after trans-Iotan injection, the upper stage is discarded. It will adjust its course for a disposal re-entry later. In the mean time, Prospector II remains in good health and full contact with the space center.

No mistakes this time. The engineering team has ditched the potentially temperamental solar panels in favor of good, reliable, mostly safe nuclear power once again.

 

Our previous ore scans of Iota thanks to ION-1 reveal it to be quite rich in the material. Here, Prospector II dumps its jerrycan during the insertion burn. We've crammed as much hydrolox as we possibly can into the rig, it should have more than enough fuel to return to Gael a full 15 tonnes heavier.

As it is, at nearly 50 tonnes empty, Prospector II is by far the most massive payload we've sent beyond Gael at this point.

 

The de-orbit burn is started once Gael is once more safely above the horizon and a full-strength signal regained.

 

Aaaaand comes in just a tad low...

 

Really low. Guys, maybe you should start that braking burn already..?

 

But, thanks to Iota's meager gravity, the approach looked far more dramatic than it actually was. Except for the part where it was coming down on the side of a mountain, everyone was screaming and running around, and no one bothered to run the imager until it had popped back up to land on a much flatter spot.

 

Yes, this is a much better landing spot...

 

Now, to actually start the mission we began months ago...

 

Prospector II digs into the surface with two massive drills that practically dwarf the tiny exploratory drills equipped on the RaldBase.

 

While there's plenty of fuel on board, we're taking no chances. The rig is also equipped with two small-scale ISRU units to begin topping off the tanks anyway.

Although it strikes everyone as just a bit odd that we're able to convert regolith minerals absolutely devoid of water or any other source of hydrogen into cryogenic hydrogen fuel, hmm...

 

It's a long, slow process. But fortunately Prospector II at least has a nice view to enjoy.

Unfortunately, it's run by a simple probe core far from capable of appreciating the daily ballet of Gael and Rald. Maybe we could send an engineer along next time to speed things up. I'm sure we could find someone to go along just for the ambiance...

 

In just less than half an Iotan day, the process is finally complete. The return begins by decoupling the harvesting module.

Once again we've left our mark on another world by petty littering.

 

Prospector II then fires up its engines once more for the return to Gael.

 

With a load of regolith ore just about fifteen tonnes more, than the Prospector II weighed empty, the good ship (no crew) was a bone to be--

What do you mean, that's a bad luck song to be singing? Oh, right...

Anyways, we're leaving Ioooota (whoah-ooooh ooooh ooh...)

 

Ahem.

OK, well, anyway, the entire facility has agreed to lift the strike as long as I promise never to sing again. Which is good, since it's just in time for Prospector II to make it's hopefully triumphant return.

 

Thanks to the ISRU topoff, we once again have a huge surplus of fuel heading into the atmosphere, so the engines are fired up one last time just before interface.

 

Tanks empty and stabilization grid fins deployed, the rig executes a perfect reverse-Korolev's-cross.

 

And turns out to be only slightly unstable during a hypervelocity entry.

 

Which once again looks far more dramatic than it actually is. Fairings deployed...

 

...followed by chutes and heat shield jettison...

 

...and someone even remembered to pack the floaties, since it turns out ore is heavy.

We now set our sights on returning an even greater quantity from Ceti, which as it turns out, is just beyond our technological capabilities at the moment.

So leave it to GENE to spit out a distraction and why is the distress signal light on the panel blinking again? I thought you guys unplugged that...

 

Edited April 2, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure