Unplanned delivery of two Kerbonauts to the Mun's orbiter - test turned rendezvous

[wildkittyv1]

Well, the mission originally started out simply as a final field test for Charon. It was named after the shepherd of the newly dead to the underworld in Greek mythology, and this my vessel to transfer Kerbonauts between bases and orbiting stations.

I knew this vehicle was going to be something I wanted to keep in space for some time, so I went pretty heavy on the mods with this one in order to suit my purposes. Used in this vehicle is mostly Nova Punch (adapters and rockets/boosters), Kosmos (ASAS module, LH2 tanks/engine, struts, and the radial/linear decoupler), and KW Rockets (the large fairing), along with a personal .cfg edit I did of DYJ's crew tank so it would fit beneath the 1M command pod and carry 2 Kerbonauts - I edited the stats of it to reflect its smaller size. I used the LH2 engine and tanks knowing that they had a lot of staying power and I'd be able to reuse the vessel like 4 or 5 times before running out of fuel. I'd only used it once before on a trip to Minmus and realized how OP it was, but I felt it suited my needs here. I'm considering redoing the ship with electrical power and an ion engine or something that has to be recharged by solar energy or something. I'm not entirely sure, but it seems like the Kosmos LH2 engine replenishes itself over time. If anyone can confirm or let me know what the deal is, please let me know.

Onto the mission:

Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/WXHAB#7 10 photos (1 accidental at the end)

Most of the images are in the post, but there's a few more in the album since there's a limit on photos on the new board.

As I said, it started out as a test run. I wanted the Charon vehicle to be able to get into Munar orbit before being deployed from its fairing capsule. That meant I had to build a pretty big ship.

Anyway, I managed to establish a 10km Munar orbit before ejecting the Charon vehicle and attempting my first descent. The LH2 engines only provide 175 units of thrust, the vehicle is tall and narrow, the landing gear is attached to some structural pieces because the LH2 engine is so long, and a slew of other weird issues were of concern. This thing is carrying the crew tank and all of its fuel (unusable with the LH2 engine - pure dead weight) and I had no idea if this thing could slow down in time or even land without breaking stuff off. Well, apparently it can.

((Pardon the terrible cropping...))

Anyway, during liftoff I noticed that I could pretty much intercept Nebo in orbit (55km orbit - sent as an ISA Sat mapper and Munolith detector) and get the two guys with Bob off his crew so I could get him back on board with Bill and Jeb. I decided to try out Charon's purpose and do my first rendezvous and EVA crew transfer in .16. I had done a rendezvous in .15.2, but didn't have EVA to crew transfer.

Here, I got to about 50m within Nebo and realized I forgot something - I didn't put any RCS on Charon. I'm not sure if I will or not, as not having RCS presents an additional challenge, and as long as you're within a few hundred meters of the target vehicle you can EVA pretty easily anyway. You could probably be like 5km away and still do it fairly easily. I couldn't get much closer and set out to get Anvey off Charon and onto Nebo.

I was successful, and Anvey is clinging onto Nebo's centrifuge (Deep Space Mission part) as he looks back at the craft he just flew 100m through space on a jetpack from to get here. In the second image, you see Bob standing on Kerbin, looking up at the Mun beside a wrecked vehicle.

Why?

Well, I decided to try and bring the ship home and get Bob ready for another mission up to KLOSS (Kerbin Low-Orbit Space Station at 80km orbit) to join up with Jeb and Bill. however, Charon was never meant to land on Kerbin. I already mentioned the thrust and weight issues above, but decided I was going to try it anyway. I didn't begin slowing until 50km, and was going 3k m/s at that time. I managed to slow to about 20 m/s before hitting the turf and giving Bob a concussion. He awoke in a daze, clambered out of his command pod and tried to get a grip of the situation. He survived and the KSC rescue team managed to pick him up and bring him back home. He's on leave for the time being, but will be back in a ship after he's regained his health and join Bill and Jeb in the space station (8 capacity).

I'm considering adding some radial boosters or thrusters from Captain Slug's Assorted Hardware to help with powered descent on Kerbin. I believe it's possible without them if I begin slowing earlier, but I might as well make some use of the 500 or so L of otherwise useless fuel I have on board the crew tank and the adapter from the LH2 tanks to the lateral tri-coupler.

If you want the .craft files of any of the craft used in this mission, feel free to ask and I will attach them. If you want info on the .cfg edit I did to the crew tank to make it a 1m part to fit beneath the 1m pod then I can tell you that information too. The Orbiter has a 1 man command pod and a 2 man crew tank (can be changed to what you want, but it's pretty ridiculous to hold even 2 considering the size of the crew tank), Charon can hold 8, and KLOSS can hold 8.

For reading the whole post you get a bonus imgur album of my first attempt at a Drop Pod style vehicle: http://imgur.com/a/9DnAc#0

This was another experiment with no landing gear and using the radial thrusters/boosters from Captain Slug's Assorted Hardware. I wanted to do some tests and get some information from this because I'm working on a ship capable of landing on the Mun and returning to Kerbin using nothing but SRB's.

Thanks for reading, cheers.

Edited August 4, 2012 by wildkittyv1