Voyage to the red planet (Duna on Kerbalism)

[Geschosskopf]

12 hours ago, MacLuky said:

“Look at them, they were harsh but exotic hosts.”

All good things must have an end.  Great and exciting mission!  Congrats on finishing all tasks on-site and getting away.  Wishing your a happy voyage home!

 

12 hours ago, MacLuky said:

“But what if,” he thought, and so he boarded the spacecraft, decoupled it, backed away for a few meters and to his astonishment the samples re-emerged for a cabinet.

Wow, that's weird.  Glad you found it, though.

[MacLuky]

Chapter 22 : The return

“Solar panels are back to nominal efficiency,” said Tomoly. “We can tune down the reactor a bit.” Naul nodded, it was good to have an alternative power source. There were backup fuel cells and a spare reactor, but she loved solar power for its simplicity. Having the panels in their normal output range also meant that they were getting pretty close to Kerbins orbit. That was something they guys at KSC were also thinking about.

“Can you see them yet?” said Gene, since he had no idea why Wernher was pushing all those keys on the remote telemetry station. “Shouldn’t it work like a TV remote? I mean it is basically the same thing?” Wernher sighed, “Zysez, only your TV zis not orbiting Minmus right?” Using some crafty code, they had re-assigned the optical experiment aboard the Salyut 2 to become a deep, but not so deep space telescope. “There they are, right where we expected them to be.”

“Ain’t that a beautiful sight,” said Harrick to Valentina as they finally entered the Kerbin SOI. They were swinging in from below and the Mun was just in the process of creating a beautiful eclipse. Tomoly was snapping a picture with his phone. “The ability to drive a screw in the wall with a hammer, may not be the most efficient use of the tool.” Naul said, leaving Tomoly with a puzzled face as she floated towards the command cabin. It was time to do the re-entry calculations.

As the Odyssey approached Kerbin the team looked at their options. By now they had learned of the failed Eve mission and how that re-entry profile had shaved off the exposure to the radiation belt. Blessed with a better TWR rate and far less critical levels of radiation in the crew the team decided a more shallow approach which would not put too much stress on the engines.

It would still take a lot of tweaking to get the encounter properly. It was a gentle balance between fuel reserves and lowering the orbit so that they would not end up as permanent residents of the radiation belts, which would be very, very bad.

“Course laid in and all manoeuvre nodes set up, we are looking at an 8 minute burn.” radioed Valentina. “Roger that Odyssey, good to hear you guys without half an hour delay.” was the the reply.

The engines of the Odyssey roared as bled of the excess speed, “3200 m/s and dropping fast,” said Valentina, strapped in her command seat. They had almost forgotten to set ‘control from here’ to the forward docking port, which would have been disastrous, but KSC corrected them in time. “Capture complete!” Valentina sounded relieved. “Lowering periapsis.” It would take a small burn at periapsis to bring the Odyssey in a stable 212x215 km orbit, with only 1.2 degrees inclination. 

The engines of the Odyssey fell silent, would this be the last time they roared? The team started shutting down auxiliary systems in the hope that it would increase the lifespan of the vessel that had been their safe haven for so long. “Home at last,” Tomoly sighed. “I miss Duna already,” said Naul who was stashing soil samples in containment boxes.

Meanwhile on Kerbin Jeb, Bill and Lolo Kerman prepped the Falcon 7 on the runway. “This is the weirdest plane we’ve flown so far.” said Jeb to Bill. “Well, the scramjet is experimental, meaning we have never flown this, so I took the liberty of adding 18 Merlin-B engines to the fuel tanks.” was the reply. The three of them got jammed in their seats when the plane took off like a rocket.

It proved difficult to raise the nose and actually get the craft to go up, but after some fuel was consumed it became easier. “shouldn’t you have added parachutes to the boosters?” Lolo asked Bill, “You know, reusability and so?” Bill muttered something. Apparently, his team forgot, Gene would be mad if he saw the Bill. This reusable space plane case was getting harder and harder to sell.

“Nose is up,” said Jeb. “Trajectory is looking good, though we may not get a direct intercept.” “KSC here, go for a 72x72 km orbit and transfer from there.” The number crunchers at flight control had come up with a plan.

“This never gets old,” said bill while looking at the sunset.

“Cargo is still in one place, thrust is good. Orbit in 45 seconds.” Jeb was pleased with the result of this experimental plane.

“Booster separation complete,” Jeb was giving regular updates and the flight team was going over the design specs, adding notes to indicate how the flight profile had affected the actual performance.

While the Falcon was calculating its intercept and opened its cargo base door, the Odyssey completed its checklist. “There’s 500 m/s delta-v left, we will need fuel, water, and food resupply. A better communication array, additional batteries, especially in Kerbin orbit.” Tomoly was chatting with the design team. “Oh, and an SSTO lander would be cool too.” “I can see the Falcon,” shouted Valentina totally ignoring Tomoly’s report and the whole team was soon looking out the window at the Falcon that approached slowly.

It took a bit of wiggling, but after a few attempts, Jeb managed to dock the SSTU supplied minilab to the docking port. “This is so great,” said Lolo, who was looking very much forward to analysing the samples from Duna and Ike.

“Locking into place, and…. we have a dock!” Jeb sounded anxious! I had been more than a year since he had seen his friends and now they were only an airlock away. The lab that they brought had also a broader docking connector, allowing multiple supply ships to arrive and be docked.

They laughed and they cheered, they drank and played their games. All of them enjoyed the view of Kerbin and how the cities illuminated the sky, and every orbit they would point their little telescope at that red planet which was now far, far away.

After a few orbits, Bill and Lolo took residence in the Odyssey to evaluate the materials and think about potential upgrades or reuse. The original plan had been to turn the Odyssey into a Minmus space station. KSC had even accepted a lucrative contract for that, but Bill thought that she could probably make another trip if properly tended to. “Goodbye Odyssey,” Valentina said when she closed the hatch and detached the Falcon from her berth. 

“Here we go,” said Jeb as he fired up the main engines and started the de-orbit burn. They had never returned a space plane from this altitude, so the KSC crew was anxiously watching the return trajectory. “Lets not make it too shallow or too steep,” was the less than helpful comment from the guys in the Nav department.

Slowly the Falcon coasted back to the Kerbin atmosphere, it would take almost a complete orbit before the spacecraft hit the edge of the planet and fired up its engines once more to slow down the speed. “Need to watch the fuel here,” said Jeb, we may need it to get to the runway.

“Falcon, this is KSC, you are coming in fast, please adjust your trajectory.” the sound of the comm system was a little disturbing to the passengers who where for the first time in many days merely tagging along.

The plasma effect cut off communications pretty soon after that and all temperature indicators were jumping way in the red. “Uh uh,” said Naul, who was in the seat next to Jeb, “We are heating up really, really fast.” It seemed this mission had not seen the last bit of action.

“Firing RCS thrusters to maintain angle of attack,” Jeb was improvising as usual. “You need to bleed of more speed, the nose is heating up way too fast.” Naul said. “Think of something!” Harrick sounded a little frightened, but he had all reason to since one of the solar panels and an RCS thruster on his side of the plane had just exploded. “If we only had airbrakes,” said Tomoly. “Perhaps we have,” said Jeb while pulling the lever to open the cargo bay doors.

“It works!” Naul exclaimed, “speed is dropping fast, temperatures are starting to drop!” The Falcon recovered about 20 km north of KSC, after switching the engines to air-breathing mode the nose was lifted and Jeb set a course for KSC. 

“Lining up for final approach,” Jeb was relieved. Despite being a test pilot, it is always an adrenaline event to descent a new type of spacecraft. There was a bit of side wind, but he managed to line up the craft pretty well.

“T+14:23 in the flight and we have touchdown,” KSC tower control sounded relieved, Gene grabbed the mike. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Falcon has landed. Welcoming the crew of the Odyssey will happen in 2 hours from now in the spaceplane hanger

A bit wobbly from the long journey in low-g the crew of the Odyssey returned to the surface of Kerbin. With great joy and honour they set foot on the concrete of the runway to be the first Kerbals to return from such a great distance. Their achievement showed that traveling to Duna is not only possible, but also a tale worthy of telling.

“We should do this more often,” Naul smiled to the team.

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, MacLuky said:

“We should do this more often,” Naul smiled to the team.

Yes, you should!  I really enjoyed the story.

Congratulations for completing this epic mission and overcoming all the challenges along the way!

[Angelo Kerman]

Yay, they made it back! Congratulations on a successful mission to Duna! Are you going to another planet in this save?

[DAL59]

Time for Eve!

[MacLuky]

Eve is out of my comfort zone, I don't like building a unrealistic ascent vehicle, though balloons may work. I may send a second crew to Duna if I can save the Odyssey or go to Jool. Frankly I want to finally move to 1.3.1 first ;-)

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, MacLuky said:

Frankly I want to finally move to 1.3.1 first ;-)

Well, best hurry.  1.4 will be here before you know it  

[NCommander]

2 hours ago, MacLuky said:

Eve is out of my comfort zone, I don't like building a unrealistic ascent vehicle, though balloons may work. I may send a second crew to Duna if I can save the Odyssey or go to Jool. Frankly I want to finally move to 1.3.1 first ;-)

Eve generally isn't quite as bad as most people make it out, but Jool is fraking murder in Kerbalism. The radiation levels are ridiculously high.

Ironically, Moho in some ways is the easiest in Kerbalism because the fast transfer times (you could potentially even take a NERV for the roundtrip as you can do a Moho to/from in less than an in-game year).

Biggest problem with Kerbalism and Eve is you're dealing with the fact that you're flirting with engine failure for most ascent vehicles or you're going with low engine count spaceplane. Assuming you're staying on Eve's surface until the departure window, thats generally 1-2 years. Plenty of time for a Kerbalism strike.

[DAL59]

2 hours ago, MacLuky said:

though balloons may work

Yes!  Project HAVOC!

Don't forget to use AirPark so your vessel doesn't delete when you unfocus from it.  

[MacLuky]

I've built Eve craft in the past, but they all felt too big to be near-real-future. I think the shields of the Odyssey could hold out to Jool, but not sure if the other parts will. It will take quite a while to get there and back. The design of such a mission is quite complex and I may not have the time. First I want to release the mod I was making for 1.3.x since indeed 1.4 is around the corner ;-)

[MacLuky]

Chapter 23 Epilogue

“T-90 minutes. Gene verifies go for the propellant load.” The familiar sound crackled over the speakers. “Liquid fuel loading is underway.” called out a new operator who was managing ground operations.

“T-45 minutes, liquid oxygen loading is underway.” With half a million funds on the launchpad, people were a little bit more stressed than for your average Progress launch. “T-7 minutes Saturn 4B begins engine chill prior to launch.” The excitement was buzzing in the navigation room, many were eyeballing the orbital trajectory of the Odyssey which was approaching the optimal point in the orbit to rendezvous.
“T-1 minute Flight computer commanded to begin final pre-launch checks, propellant tank pressurization to flight pressure begins.” When the countdown almost reached 0 the engine controller sends the command to the center core engine to start the ignition sequence, followed by booster ignition exactly on the mark.

Bills assessment of the Odyssey had been a positive one and the craft was cleared for another journey. The supply mission carried a sizeable but not that expensive payload to orbit. Its job was to bring 16318 units of Oxidizer, 13358 units of Liquid Fuel, 296 units of monopropellant, 1255 units food and 297 units of water. That and a new array of 1.25m batteries would bring the Odyssey back on the planning board, and I hear that mission control was already looking at new launch windows, but that is a story for another thread.

--

The end.

 

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, MacLuky said:

The end.

Bravo!  Thanks for the story! 

BTW, don't forget to refill the spare parts lockers

[MacLuky]

Thanks to your kind comments and likes I've decided to continue this install, in favor of 1.4. I've ran a couple of missions already and it's going to be exciting stuff. Think explosions, and some launches that are trivial in 1.4 but not that easy in 1.3.

You can follow their continued endeavours in