KRASH: My Career Continuation - Section 2

[PredawnElk1]

Kerbal Rocketry, Aeronautics, and Space Hub (KRASH)

This is the story of KRASH, and its adventures into the unknown.

I just got bored with my career save. I unlocked the whole tech tree, and to be honest, landing on other planets just wasn't fun anymore. So I downloaded Outer Planets Mod, and it really helped me get back into this very successful career savegame. This is also my first forum topic, and I got inspired by reading so many of the incredible mission reports in this section. So, we'll see how this goes!

Prologue is live!

Spoiler

 

"Sir?"

"Yes, go ahead."

"We are detecting massive energy signatures in the region past Jool, energy signatures usually associated with massive planets. Also, Eeloo seems to have disappeared."

"This cannot be true. How would such a thing occur?"

"I don't know, sir. I only can tell you what we are seeing."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Extremely sure, we have triple-checked and all of the calculations check out."

"Very well. Contact the KSC."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

 

"Flight, we have LOS on New Korizons."

"What? Telemetry, what is going on?"

"I don't know, Flight, we just lost all signal from New Korizons."

"Flight, this is Engineering. We had no indication of any trouble before LOS."

"Flight, Telemetry. I can confirm that. There is just a sudden cut in the data feed."

The doors to New Korizon's control room burst open and a young kerbal dashed in.

"Flight! I have extremely important news!"

"Go ahead."

"We've just received word from 5 different observatories, including the Kerbin Skybox Survey, that Eeloo has disappeared! Also, there is massive energy flux in the region past Jool."

"Well, that explains it. We were orbiting Eeloo. If Eeloo is gone, then the probe must be too."

"Wait, Flight, picking up something!"

"Comms, what are you doing?"

"Turning the radio dish! Where's the energy flux?"

The young kerbal rushed over to the desk, and squinting at the display, pointed at a seemingly empty patch of space.

"Rotating dish now."

"Flight, this is telemetry, we are receiving data from New Korizons!"

"Patch it through. Is that an image?"

"Holy Moho..."

 

"Is that a spacecraft?"

 

Index to the Chapters/Sections

Spoiler

Section 1: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/171560-krash-my-career-continuation-prologue/&do=findComment&comment=3309259

Section 2: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/171560-krash-my-career-continuation-prologue/&do=findComment&comment=3411829

 

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2018 by PredawnElk1

[Kerbalstar]

Very nice @PredawnElk1!

Edited March 2, 2018 by kerbalstar

[PredawnElk1]

Prologue:

Spoiler

 

"Sir?"

"Yes, go ahead."

"We are detecting massive energy signatures in the region past Jool, energy signatures usually associated with massive planets. Also, Eeloo seems to have disappeared."

"This cannot be true. How would such a thing occur?"

"I don't know, sir. I only can tell you what we are seeing."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Extremely sure, we have triple-checked and all of the calculations check out."

"Very well. Contact the KSC."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

 

"Flight, we have LOS on New Korizons."

"What? Telemetry, what is going on?"

"I don't know, Flight, we just lost all signal from New Korizons."

"Flight, this is Engineering. We had no indication of any trouble before LOS."

"Flight, Telemetry. I can confirm that. There is just a sudden cut in the data feed."

The doors to New Korizon's control room burst open and a young kerbal dashed in.

"Flight! I have extremely important news!"

"Go ahead."

"We've just received word from 5 different observatories, including the Kerbin Skybox Survey, that Eeloo has disappeared! Also, there is massive energy flux in the region past Jool."

"Well, that explains it. We were orbiting Eeloo. If Eeloo is gone, then the probe must be too."

"Wait, Flight, picking up something!"

"Comms, what are you doing?"

"Turning the radio dish! Where's the energy flux?"

The young kerbal rushed over to the desk, and squinting at the display, pointed at a seemingly empty patch of space.

"Rotating dish now."

"Flight, this is telemetry, we are receiving data from New Korizons!"

"Patch it through. Is that an image?"

"Holy Moho..."

 

"Is that a spacecraft?"

 

 

[PredawnElk1]

Section One:

Spoiler

After the discovery of Sarnus, the KSC redirected its resources to exploration of the outer planet. As a stepping stone for the new program, dubbed Project Artemis, the KSC decided to explore Jool, in order to test the new hardware needed to continue on into the system. The objectives of Jool exploration were to explore Jool's moons, land on Pol and Bop, and send a probe down to Laythe.

The first launch was a Laythe lander and relay. It made its way to a equatorial orbit and waited for the transfer window.

 

The spacecraft consisted of a ion-powered relay, a probe for landing on Laythe using parachutes, and a transfer stage to bring it all to Jool.

The next launch was the Bop and Pol lander.The extremely overkill lander packed 4,000 m/s and was designed to land on both Pol and Bop. It carried one kerbal.

 

 

The rocket was an SSTO, and was also recoverable. It was fitted with aerobrakes, parachutes, and landing legs. It was able to land within sight of the KSC, and recovering it gave a sizable chuck of cash back to the space program.

 

 

The next launch was of the mothership itself, manned by Jeb, Val, and Elon. The huge nuclear-powered craft was drained of fuel to lighten the launch weight, and was mounted to a gigantic recoverable booster.

After detaching the payload, the rocket turned itself around and de-orbited, leaving the mothership waiting in orbit. The lander docked itself to the spacecraft, and an adapter was set up to enable the refueling of the craft.

The expensive booster deployed its aerobrakes and re-entered the atmosphere.

 

[PredawnElk1]

Update:

I'm waiting for the expansion pack to come out so I can have more parts to play with. Assuming integration into the tech tree, I will also again have a reason to do SCIENCE!, so I can unlock some of these new parts.

Also, 1.4 came out and I was too busy throwing kerbals off airplanes, then using the parachute to try to land on the VAB.

[PredawnElk1]

Update 2:

Got really into Subnautica, playing through it now, but I'll try to come back to KSP in a few weeks, and hopefully I can get the expansion and continue this thread. I've had a look at the new parts and I'm very excited to get to mess around with them. 

I also have to wait for OPM to update so I can use it, as it plays a relatively major part of my story.

"Oh wait, all of the new planets disappeared again. Oh well."

"What are we supposed to do now?"

"IDK"

Edited April 5, 2018 by PredawnElk1

[VelocityPolaris]

Cool logo, cool acronym, cool rockets so I'm looking forward to it! But wow, that spacecraft New Korizons picked up is not a safe driver.

(also it's nice to see fellow subnautica fans )

[PredawnElk1]

Thanks! And no, it's very safe, it's only a nuclear powered giant tank of fuel drifting right next to you in space .

(I'm working on Subnautica's Neptune Escape Rocket in KSP, kinda difficult to get the shape right though.)

I finished, if you'd like to see it it's in the Spacecraft Exchange

 

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by PredawnElk1

[VelocityPolaris]

2 hours ago, PredawnElk1 said:

Thanks! And no, it's very safe, it's only a nuclear powered giant tank of fuel drifting right next to you in space .

(I'm working on Subnautica's Neptune Escape Rocket in KSP, kinda difficult to get the shape right though.)

 

 

The Neptune rocket? Cool! But what would you do for those ion boosters, since they seem to do FTL travel? (Grr so unrealistic grr)

[PredawnElk1]

I don't think it's possible to re-create that in stock KSP, as FTL travel they just doesn't exist (unless the Kraken wills it). The closest that you can get with stock is an ion-powered second stage, but if you used mods you could probably create a better replica.

[PredawnElk1]

It's summertime! I finally can start this story up again!

So...I can't seem to get OPM to update, I think I forgot to update Kopernicus as well... (plus I'm too lazy to do it now) but I thought, my mission is going to Jool, not Sarnus or any of those other outer planets! So I decided to go ahead and start flying the next part of the mission anyways. That's the reason my map screen doesn't show any of the other outer planets.

Enjoy this (long-overdue and boring) transfer montage!

Section 2

Spoiler

The Joolian transfer window finally arrived. The mothership, launched about a year too early, finally set a maneuver and ignited its engines for a transfer to Jool. The flight would be about 2 years, with a mid-course correction burn.

\

The Huygens probe also ejected from Kerbin and flew on a faster trajectory, arriving at Jool in about 1 and a half years.

   

The mothership doing its mid-course correction burn. The burn was so long it caused all 4 radiators to glow with heat from the single nuclear engine.

   

The Huygens probe approaching Jool. It was here that the engineers noticed a major design flaw. The nuclear stage did not have enough fuel to complete the Jool orbital insertion, and the only other engine, the ion engine, was on the probe, and it could not fire without detaching the lander. So the probe flew to a Laythe encounter.

The orbiter was detached, and the lander burned onto an aerobraking trajectory over Laythe. 

Then the lander was detached from the transfer stage.

Using its seperatrons to slow down, the lander hit Laythe's atmosphere at over 3000 m/s, but survived the brutal entry into Laythe's atmosphere (because heat shields are overpowered).

Deploying drogue chutes.

Deploying main chutes.

Splashed down in Laythe's oceans. This probe was tested by landing it on Kerbin, which is like a bigger Laythe. If the probe could make a Kerbin landing, then a Laythe landing should be easy for it. The probe performed its experiments while the orbiter flew out of Jool's SOI at 6000 m/s, ejecting from the solar system itself. The mission was a partial success.

 

The Jool mothership arrived at Jool half a year later and performed its insertion burn, jettisoning its last set of external tanks.

 

And captured into a circular Joolian orbit between Pol and Bop, with about 1700 m/s to use in the mothership and 2000 m/s to use on the lander.

Mission objectives: Land and return from Pol and Bop.

 

Edited July 7, 2018 by PredawnElk1