What are the chances?

[Xavven]

I sent a pack of 3 relay satellites (on a single parent ship) to Duna on Career Hard with fairly early to mid-game technology, and with partial control for probes disabled (must have active relay connection to do anything). My signal strength at the time was such that I there was about a 100-200 day communication window and then you have to wait for Kerbin and Duna's orbits to align again.

I'm sure you can already see where this is going...

When I detach a relay from the parent ship, I have this 5 second period of vulnerability, in that the relay doesn't have its solar panels deployed. I just need 5 seconds to get to a safe distance of about 20 feet and deploy them.

So I detached it, and 2 seconds later lost signal to Kerbin. Not to occlusion from Duna or Ike, but from Kerbin moving out of signal range. I couldn't believe it... of the literally tens of thousands of seconds in my transmission window, I picked the 5 second period that would let me detach from the parent ship but not have enough time to deploy solar panels. The battery would go on to die over the next 2 years of orbit required to get another transmission window. A probe with a dead battery cannot unfurl its solar panels to charge its battery, so it's a catch-22. I will have to send a new relay satellite, or send a manned mission to manually unfold the panels.

I realize that if I had switched to another craft immediately and time warped, KSP would not calculate battery drain on the relay, but I decided this felt unrealistic to me, so I'm choosing not use use this game mechanic to save me.

Ugh... what are the chances?

Edited February 11, 2019 by Xavven

[SuperMiiBrother]

On 2/11/2019 at 1:50 AM, Xavven said:

So I detached it, and 2 seconds later lost signal to Kerbin. Not to occlusion from Duna or Ike, but from Kerbin moving out of signal range. I couldn't believe it... of the literally tens of thousands of seconds in my transmission window, I picked the 5 second period that would let me detach from the parent ship but not have enough time to deploy solar panels.

RIP!

That must have confused you.