Space Race Season 2 - RP-1

[LittleBitMore]

  On 1/23/2020 at 5:21 AM, Norcalplanner said:

When you grow tired of KSRSS, please consider giving RP-1 a shot.  I think you may like it.

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I'm trying it, and I'm not doing very good  

I can't get half the SRBs to work, and the liquid fuel engines are a pain. All of my rockets are taking a lot more time than yours did to make (my first was in March, my second in August, and my third some time in 1952).

I could use some tips.

EDIT: My computer really doesn't like RP-1. I might have too many optional mods, or my computer might not be suited for such a task, but in either case, it crashes about 1 in 5 times you load anything (entering VAB, launching a rocket, leaving the VAB, vessel crashing, recovering a vessel, loading a save, etc.) and it's crashed a grand total of 4 times (and one time where I accidentally closed it), which equates to about 3 total hours of starting up KSP.

I don't think I can do it, my computer is just not doing well with it.

Edited January 24, 2020 by LittleBitMore
Added "edit"

[Norcalplanner]

Sorry to hear it's not working. Did you follow the installation guide in the wiki? The process is a bit involved...

I used to have that problem as well, fwiw. It's been reduced greatly since I upgraded to 32GB and started playing in windowed mode.

[LittleBitMore]

  On 1/24/2020 at 7:52 PM, Norcalplanner said:

Sorry to hear it's not working. Did you follow the installation guide in the wiki? The process is a bit involved...

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I did all the installations right. I think where I went wrong was installing all of the recommended mods, not just some of them like it wanted. But I think I've found my place in JNSQ, somewhere int he middle.

[Norcalplanner]

JNSQ is a good place to be. If I'm not in RP-1, I'm over in JNSQ or GPP/GEP.

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1969

Starlight, Starbright, First Manned Orbiter I See Tonight...

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January 30, 1969.

Egg 4 launches on board the Fortissimo launch vehicle, in an attempt to become the first ever NSP funded Venus orbiter.

However, during the departure burn, one of the (RD-105?) engines shut down early, leaving the craft unable to go to Venus.

The mission was, instead, sent to lunar orbit to try and recoup some of the losses, but the mission was deemed a failure.

And now, the big day.

March 21, 1969.

3/21, AKA countdown day.

Starbright 2.

Sergei Larov, engineer.

Fortissimo.

Ignition.

And, liftoff! Sergei will attempt to become the first ever NSP funded astronaut in orbit!

The launch vehicle pierces the clouds and the boosters separate as the central engine air starts.

Beauty shot.

Core stage and LES separation.

All of a sudden, the engines shut down. There is a thump as the second stage detaches. Sergei is suddenly weightless.

"Ground control, this is Sergei. Starbright 2 is in orbit!"

His stay in orbit did not last very long, however. Crew reports were done above the available biomes, and a few hours later, the capsule was de-orbited.

Starbright 2 was a complete success!

On July 11, the Statnik 10 lunar lander was launched.

Why the long hiatus? We have been building bigger rockets (nothing you haven't really seen, though, still Fortissimo class) and we have also been building rockets in advance for upcoming transfer windows.

Anyways, this mission included a few minor technological improvements. They were minor, but made a huge difference on the lander, especially considering we had a whopping 1m/s left in the previous one.

TLI burn.

LOI burn.

Descent, the profile was much more efficient than usual. Also we are using RCS as landing legs now.

And, success! We even have a few hundred m/s of Delta-V left! Less than 300 though.

After gathering science, we tried to biome hop, but we didn't have enough fuel.

The mission was a success, though!

Next up, on July 19, Halo 6 was launched. Its goal was to be a rendezvous target for Starbright 3.

Forte launches are always interesting. The G meter pegs out at the end of the first stage burn and control gets extremely twitchy.

Halo 6 is in orbit, success!

Notice we skipped Halo 5. The game ate it and cheated it back in, reimbursing the cost. Build time had to be redone though, so there was a delay.

Next up on August 7, Starbright 3, with pilot Elaine Martinez, launched. Its mission was to perform the first rendezvous, the first EVA, and stay in space for 2 days. However, with such a heavy payload, the rocket has a TWR of pretty much exactly 1. I wondered if it was still stuck to the launch clamps so I wiggled the controls to make sure I wasn't. However, this sent the craft rocking back and forth between the launch clamps. I couldn't correct it. It ran into one.

And.

*BANG*

The parachutes almost didn't have enough time to fully open, as the capsule had ejected at a very low angle. Another fraction of a second and Elaine wouldn't have survived.

A bit shaken up, her first words after she stopped swearing were "Launch escape guys, drinks on me tonight."

The launch pad had been destroyed, along with the entire rocket, but Elaine was alive. In the future, modifications would hopefully be done to fix the abysmal takeoff TWR.

The contracts, however, had deadlines. In order to meet them, Starbright 4 was rushed through the build process.

Before that, however, on July 24, Halo 5 was launched into a polar orbit. This tumbling was not normal but the upper stage could recover.

The satellite was supposed to take pictures. However, unfortunately, without recovery, they are only worth 0.9 science points each. Very frustrating. I decided it wasn't worth the time it would take to gather the science and just left it after a few easy to reach biomes.

On November 31, Elaine Martinez once again blasted off on board a Fortissimo, this time in Starbright 4.

This mission was originally intended to go into a polar orbit and use EVA/the film camera to get lots of science. However, it was reassigned to the equatorial rendezvous mission.

Unfortunately, the "first EVA" contract couldn't be completed because apparently the capsule's hatch couldn't be opened above 20km. I had no idea. In previous versions of RO you could, but it makes sense why you can't. At this point, failure would have doomed the program, so I cheated and completed the first EVA contract. I'm a bit ashamed, but then again I'm not really competing against anyone anymore.

This also meant that science couldn't be gotten from the film camera. So now we've launched two to orbit for a miniscule return.

The rendezvous, however, went very well!

Elaine stayed in orbit for two days, then de-orbited. This completed a manned orbit contract and a 2 day record contract. This plus the rendezvous and "EVA" contracts meant that the mission completed 4 contracts (technically 3 but grr).

Re-entry was successful, with Elaine being the second NSP astronaut in orbit! The overall mission was deemed a partial success as due to the lack of a proper hatch, the telescope was almost useless, and technically I shouldn't have gotten the first EVA contract completed. However, RP-1's penalties are IMO way too harsh. One missed deadline and your program is over unless its a tiny contract.

Summary:

A failed Venus orbiter, a successful lunar landing, two minor satellites, and three manned Starbright flights! One of them was a failure, but still, three attempts! First rendezvous, FIRST KERBAL IN ORBIT!

Launches: 7! 4 successes, 1 partial failure, and 2 failures. This flight rate is pretty impressive by our standards, especially considering that all 7 of those missions were orbital launch attempts! The success rate, however, was definitely less than stellar.

Starbright 5, scheduled for early next year, will launch into a polar orbit to gather science from crew reports and astronaut reports. It will also attempt to break duration and altitude records. Eventually, next year, we intend to do a week long manned orbital flight. We also have another Venus window next year, and we are going to send two orbiters in case one fails, because we really need that contract completed! Development of the next generation suborbital training vehicle has been suspended as we cannot come up with a suitable design. When it does happen it will likely be a more modern version of Legend M, with RCS thrusters and more wing surface area. The concept of a fully runway capable vehicle has been pretty much abandoned.

In addition, we are looking into the development of a larger, as of yet unnamed launch vehicle in the 15 ton to LEO class. The first flight is tentatively scheduled for 1971. We need the 700t pad to launch it, however, and it will take some time to build. The first flight would be next year, but you can't simulate without a large enough pad so I won't be able to simulate it until late 1970.

This vehicle will allow for more demanding missions, such as heavier lunar landers, two or maybe even three man capsules (although research on those is years off), heavier space probes, potentially Venus and Mars landers, missions to the outer planets, and *potentially* a lunar flyby using a kick stage and a Starbright capsule.

Technology goals for next year: Upgrade launch pad two levels to 700t class. Continue working through the research backlog. No major tech advancements expected, but improvements on existing tech definitely expected. Block 3 of Fortissimo expected with improved engines and potentially avionics.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1970

Why is Venus so hard to orbit???

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On January 31, Brian Ryan climbed into Starbright 5 in an attempt to break the NSP's spaceflight duration record, enter polar orbit to maximize science, and potentially break the manned altitude record.

However, a short time after liftoff, one of the outboard engines experienced a failure.

Fortunately, Brian was safely pulled away by the launch abort system.

Sorry, Brian, but I guess you will not go to space today.

Starbright 6 was launched next, on June 19, again with Brian Ryan on board, and was the first Starbright to use the Fortissimo configuration with SRBs.

Fortunately, this time, Brian reached orbit without issues.

This is a picture from the highest point Brian reached.

A few days later, Brian returned safely to Earth.

Next up, the Venus transfer window, and another attempt at a Venus orbiter!

On July 25, Egg 6 was launched. However, the blue fairings have failed us. The rocket experienced an outboard engine failure similar to that of Starbright 5, and disintegrated at around mach 1.

However, another, more modern probe was also ready to go, Egg 7. It launched on August 7.

However, the engineers forgot to check this before launch for some reason... But Venus's ascending and descending nodes are in pretty much the worst possible spots right now. The spacecraft has enough fuel for an optimal transfer, but definitely not for this transfer.

The disappointed engineers marked it as a partial failure, but elected to still conduct a Venus flyby. The transfer to Venus was, fortunately successful.

Next off the pad was Statnik 11, on August 7. It suffered an ignition failure on one of its SRBs, but handled it very well.

You've seen this several times, so I'll skip the boring bits. Statnik 11 landed safely, but in a biome that had already been landed in. Grr.

The next launch, Statnik 12, happened on October 14.

It was a success, this time landing in a new biome!

*DRUMROLL*

The Notebook Space Program would like to announce the name of the next generation 15 ton launch vehicle - CRESCENDO!

Shown here is the flight test of Crescendo's second stage, powered by 4 LR-91 engines. The test occurred on November 10.

The test went very well, with no engines failing.

It reached a surprisingly high altitude.

The rest of Crescendo, however, will remain under wraps until next year.

The final launch of the year happened on November 29. It was Starbright 7, and it carried Arthur Vargas into Earth orbit. The service module included many extra batteries, enough for a bit over one week in space. That was Arthur's mission, complete the week in space contract.

The spacecraft entered orbit successfully!

On December 1, the Egg 7 spacecraft performed its closest approach with Venus. In an effort to salvage some of the science it would have gained from orbiting, the periapsis was put just inside Venus's atmosphere.

The probe survived, returning a substantial amount of atmospheric science via transmission!

A few days later, Arthur Vargas, having completed one week in space, returned to Earth.

And with that, all four astronauts in Astronaut Class 2 have been to orbit!

 

Summary:

Two more failed Venus orbiters, two mostly successful lunar landings (one without science), three attempts at launching Kerbals to orbit with one failure, manned spaceflight records in most areas, a Venus atmospheric dip, and the test of Crescendo's second stage.

Launches: 8! 4 successes, 1 partial failure, and 3 failures. As with last year, this is a very impressive cadence! We were able to launch 7 Fortissimos in one year! However, again, as with last year,  our success rate leaves much to be desired.

Block 3 of Fortissimo didn't happen this year, but we did have a block 2.5, with an upgraded upper stage engine. The first stage engine upgrades are available, but somehow they are worse in most ways than the current ones, so we will stick with the current ones. Launch pad upgrades went well.

The maiden flight of Crescendo is planned for H1 1971.

Next year's goals include launching Mars orbiters, proving Crescendo, launching probes to new destinations, debuting new science experiments, and *maybe* restarting development on the Suborbital Training Spacecraft. If development is successful this time, it may fly in 1972.

No Crescendo specific dates are certain besides the maiden flight.

 

 

...And the first stage static fire, scheduled for January 6.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1971

C R E S C E N D O

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January 6, 1971.

The first ever Crescendo stage, boasting 5 LR-87 engines, fires up for a hybrid static fire/flight test.

Half of the burn is on the ground checking for failures, and half is in the air gathering data.

Towards the end of the burn, various engines were shut off testing engine out control capability. The vehicle's limits were discovered, and we are satisfied with the performance.

Mission success!

 

 

April 12, 1971. The day our launch capacity improves by a factor of 4-5. The maiden flight of the Crescendo Launch Vehicle, designed to launch 15 tons into LEO.

And, liftoff!

Unfortunately, there was a major problem shortly into the flight, with one of the LR-87s on the first stage shutting down. This lowered the TWR to just above 1, severely crippling the vehicle.

Towards the end of the burn, another engine shut down and another engine lost performance significantly.

One of the second stage engines (LR-91) either shut down shortly after ignition or failed to ignite. The stage could barely keep prograde and lots of steering losses were racked up.

The third stage, powered by a single LR-91, had a successful burn, but the astronomical number of failures that occurred throughout the mission left the 16 ton (testing stretched capabilities) payload around 1000m/s short of orbit.

The mission was declared a failure.

Next up, on may 14, was the launch of Egg 5 (finally, we already launched 6 and 7). Its mission was to orbit Mars.

It was successfully placed on a trajectory to Mars and has enough fuel to capture into an elliptical orbit!

The very next day, May 15, 1971, Egg 8 was launched. It possesses a solid kick stage, I think upgraded avionics, and most importantly, solar panels that don't suck!

I should have to do a lot less pointing work from now on!

It has more Delta-V than previous probes, but unfortunately has to use RCS for mid-course correction burns since the first part of that delta-V is in the solid kick stage. It has more enough fuel to enter an elliptical orbit of Mars, and may attempt flybys of Mars's moons.

Success so far!

Next up, on May 26 (wow, 3 Fortissimos in May!), was the launch of the Statnik 12 lunar lander.

Unfortunately due to a steering error, it was ripped apart by aerodynamic forces on the way up. This leaves the contract for a lunar landing ticking down...

On July 7, Halo 7 SCANSAT launched. It carried 2 scanning instruments into a polar, kinda sun synchronous orbit (temporarily) on board a Forte with a stretched upper stage.

The probe made it to orbit successfully (oof that clipping though) and completed 2 scanning contracts.

Next up, perhaps the most exciting launch of the year: Crescendo Test Flight 2. It has been augmented with 4 Castor 1 strap on solid rocket boosters, to help with low liftoff TWR and potentially to help lessen the impact of early flight engine outs... At least enough to have the rocket explode in the ocean and not on the launch pad.

There were no engine failures on any of the three stages this time!

The most exciting part of this mission, however, was the brand new Earth Departure stage!

Our most advanced upper stage yet, it is designed to be launched into LEO by Crescendo along with a payload of up to 3 tons. It features RCS (which might later be doubled to allow docking if needed!), a deep space probe core, antennas, and ample solar panels! Its engines, the AJ-10 mids, are also infinitely restartable (excepting failures) and run on storable, hypergolic propellant! In effect, it is its own self contained spacecraft and mini-tug, roughly equivalent, in real life terms, to mega-Agena. There are tentative ideas to use this stage on some Fortissimo or Forte missions (although not starting in LEO, of course!). On this mission, it carried a 3 ton dummy payload.

The payload was taken out to beyond lunar orbit over a period of several days. It was de-orbited, although one unrecoverable engine failure occurred, gimbal unable to account for the loss of one engine. Precautions will be taken to prevent this in the future, likely by angling the engines inwards. The redundancy will likely be worth the cosine losses.

The engines were relit several more times until fuel ran out with no additional failures.

Next up, another notable mission:

Statnik 13 launched on November 26, 1971, on the maiden flight of the FORTISSISSIMO (FFF) lifter! The upper stages are slightly stretched to account for the more capable lander, and five Forte cores are used instead of three.

Essentially, we've built a slightly modified Soyuz now.

The reason for the larger rocket is the payload. Previously the Statnik landers didn't have much choice of landing zone and were frustrating to control because they could not be controlled until after both SRBs were fired due to avionics mass restrictions.

However, with larger and probably slightly more efficient avionics, more control was added. Better solar panels, updated scientific instruments (FINALLY!) and a non-solid LOI/early descent stage using the restartable AJ-10 mid engine.

Unfortunately, we still did not have the mass budget for proper landing gear. We also had to remove one of the scientific experiments we intended on bringing as it made the lander too heavy. RIP.

The landing was in the dark, unfortunately.

It was, however, successful!

 

Summary:

Three tests of Crescendo, two full on orbital tests, one a success, the mostly successful debut of the Earth Departure Stage (designed for heavier lunar and interplanetary payloads as well as extended Earth orbit operations), two launches to Mars, successful so far, two lunar landing attempts with one success of a next generation system, the debut of Fortississimo, and a SCANSAT launch.

Launches: 8! 4 successes, 0 partial failures, 2 failures, and 2 pending but successful so far. Again, as with last year, this is a very impressive cadence! We were able to launch 3 Fortissimos, 1 Fortississimo, 2 full up Crescendos, 1 Crescendo stage test, and a Forte.

Looking at using the EDS or a variant thereof on other rockets. Crescendo/EDS is expected to be used to launch probes to other planets next year. We are looking at at least two launches, one likely to Venus, and one unknown, possibly to Ceres, Vesta, or Jupiter.

Both of the Mars probes launched this year will encounter Mars in January of 1972.

We have unlocked more spaceplane related nodes, and the development of the Suborbital Training Vehicle was restarted! However, it has been renamed Suborbital TEsting VEhicle for one reason only, so I could use the acronym STEVE. Due to engine availability, it is less capable than the initial specifications, capable of flights only just barely past 160km and only able to carry 1 person as opposed to the 2 proposed, and without an experiment bay. The main reason for this was that our ideal engine was WAAAAAY to big for the size of craft we wanted. The next decent sea level engine down was the Vanguard 1st stage engine, and we anticipate significant reliability issues due to Vanguard being Vanguard. However, there isn't an engine in between.

STEVE has wheels to land and take off with, but due to the giant gaps in the runway, the crafts nose is very high on the runway to take off quickly, making landing very difficult. As such, a parachute will be used to land the craft on normal missions and some emergencies. STEVE also features RCS thrusters for control in space and high in the atmosphere, and a good amount of wing area for better gliding capability, and most importantly, less intense re-entries.

The first STEVE rolled out of the SPH earlier this year, but I forgot that you needed to train astronauts. The training for that cockpit takes 120 days... Grr. However, the first flight will still be in 1972, consistent with our previous estimates.

Minor hardware projects that are upcoming mainly involve probe buses. Upcoming launch projects, mainly for next year, include Starbright 8, a standard 1 man mission but shorter than 7, for a contract, our final Venus transfer window until we fail the Venus orbiter contract, a polar orbit experiment satellite (if not completed by Starbright 8), and a polar lunar orbiter for science and scanning.

Our next major upgrade is the 1 million fund R&D upgrade. The NSP is struggling a bit financially right now, as this year we actually failed the contract intended for Starbright 8, which was postponed repeatedly due to me forgetting I needed to build Venus stuff and the failure of Statnik 12.

Manned docking is expected to be undertaken by 1974, and Project Moonlight Sonata, which is a [CLASSIFIED], is intended for launch before the end of 1976, although dates are very fluid and it could occur much earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

[Space Nerd]

  On 3/16/2020 at 12:38 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

Project Moonlight Sonata

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Do I smell a lunar landing?

[Vagrant203]

  On 3/16/2020 at 12:38 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

The landing was in the dark, unfortunately.

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As is only right and proper.

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 3/16/2020 at 10:09 AM, Space Nerd said:

Do I smell a lunar landing?

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Nope, idk how far off that is but it is waaay more than 5 years off.

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1972

SCREW YOU, VENUS!

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In the first weekish of January (the exact dates have been lost to history) both Egg 5 and Egg 8 successfully entered elliptical Martian orbits.

While Egg 5 used up most of its fuel to do so, Egg 8 was of a more advanced design. A solid kick stage provided most of the fuel necessary to enter orbit, and the rest was done using the onboard propellant reserves. Both missions were dubbed successes, and Egg 8 had enough fuel to proceed with a mission extension with the goals of flying by Phobos and Deimos for science and presteige.

The first Phobos flyby was a bust, unfortunately. The science experiments were not triggered as (insert plausible explanation) I warped too close and signal delay was too great. A second flyby was set up.

This time, we got science!

This flyby took place on January 13.

Egg 8 also managed a flyby of Deimos on January 16!

On March 29, Elaine Martinez piloted the I-3 STEVE 01 "Nobility" to an apogee of 155 kilometers, in a successful test flight of the new Suborbital Testing Vehicle design!

The vehicle is powered by a Vanguard engine and takes off diagonally with a high AoA on the landing gear to avoid crashing due to both the ground and the runway gaps of death.

While the STEVE isn't as capable as the Legend M, it is designed to be safer and more easily reused.

Re-entry is accomplished easily without passing out, something very difficult if attempted in the Legend-M.

However, due to the high AoA of the landing gear, it is far safer to land via parachute than via the landing gear.

The flight is a success!

Unfortunately we have discovered some issues with turnaround without craft editing, but we know how to work around them now (now being many months in the future).

The very same day, Arthur Vargas piloted STEVE 02 "Compassion" on a long range glide mission.

The target was smiley face island, which presumably has a real name IRL that I'm too lazy to look up. The flight did not reach space, unfortunately, just about 55 kilometers.

The craft landed successfully!

Next up....

Our last chance at orbiting Venus before the massive 1500 reputation penalty mostly destroys our ability to accept new contracts worth anything. We have two probes to send.

The first up is Egg 10 (launching before 9 because scheduling, as is common in the Egg series). It is very similar to the highly successful Egg 8 Mars orbiter.

It launched on April 10.

Very unfortunately, due to a botched gravity turn, the Fortissimo launch vehicle disintegrated in the atmosphere.

GRR.

This left the future of space exploration to... Oh no.

Egg 9, which was an Earth Departure Stage with experiments and an antenna slapped on, launching on top of a Crescendo, a vehicle with a 50% success rate (admittedly over two launches).

On April 11, Egg 9 took flight atop the third ever Crescendo stack.

But all was not well. A few seconds after launch, an outboard engine shut down. Control confusion and a lack of an easily accessible flight termination system exacerbated the problem, sending the rocket careening westwards towards the VAB.

Fortunately, the rocket missed the VAB and instead crashed into the crawlerway with a massive explosion.

Before the flames had subsided, officials and engineers were working out how to solve the problem of the immanent 1500 point reputation hit.

The current reputation level was approximately 800 and something... It seemed unjustifiably low for some reason despite all they had done. In order to ensure a reputation above zero when all was said and done, the program needed to acquire between 700 and 800 reputation points in the next 250 days or so.

It was discovered that the Egg 8 probe just barely had enough Delta-V to land on Deimos, which, with the "new vessel" requirement waived (I'm not really competing with anyone at this point so I will bend the rules a bit if I deem it appropriate), would net a whole 540 reputation points, most of the deficit!

The maneuvers were carefully carried out, and at an unknown date, likely in late April or early May...

Egg 8 successfully touched down on Deimos with just 13m/s of Delta-V remaining!

Unfortunately, when the officials checked their reputation value, it had barely changed! Up by only a few tens of points rather than the 540 promised!

It was discovered that reputation points are not linear. At zero, adding 10 points will add more or less 10 points, but as you go up the scale, rep becomes worth less and less. As such, it is nearly impossible to prepare for failing any of RP-1s contracts at all! Venus Orbit isn't even near the most prestigious contract out there!

The program had to find out how to recoup around 7-800 points... But after the Venus contract had already failed. Failing at this would limit the space program to mostly low level contracts for quite some time - In a worst case scenario, the space program could be put out of business entirely.

In the meantime, Sergei Larov was launched into space on board Starbright 8 and a standard Fortissimo block 2.5. This happened on May 21. The goal was to complete another manned LEO contract.

However, due to miswiring, the final stage detached at the same time it was ignited. This left Sergei without a way to gimbal the engine. Switching to the lower stage and controlling it did not help as the payload had already shifted too much for the wimpy gimbal of the stage to compensate.

It was discovered that the Starbright's RCS could be fired to control the direction, but the controls were reversed. Sergei controlled it for a while, but it became more and more difficult, until finally the center of mass shifted so much that the controls were at the tipping point between reversed and normal, and had no effect. The craft began to spin out of control, and the stage was shut off.

Despite Sergei's best efforts, Starbright 8 just barely couldn't reach orbit, even using most of the service module.

After travelling about 3/4 of the way around the world, a very disappointed Sergei returned safely to Earth.

Due to weird spinning and brakes, this takeoff... Was very dangerous, although successful. On July 10, Brian Ryan took the Compassion to space on its second flight.

The control problems were made worse by the fact that Brian Ryan was not a pilot and could not use SAS. As such Brian only reached an altitude of 117 kilometers, which is past the Karman line but not past where the atmosphere ends in RO.

Brian did manage to precision land on the runway, however!

On August 5, Brian Ryan took the Nobility to space on its (and his) second flight.

Not much to note, but he reached 152 kilometers.

A while later, part of the reputation solution was ready: A flyby of Vesta. This wouldn't make up all of the reputation, but a good chunk.

Unfortunately, shortly after ignition, one engine shut down, fortunately before liftoff, which was aborted.

Unfortunately, I have to do the two month process of recovering and rolling back out.

...Cue reasonable rule bending.

Crews were wheeled out to the pad, the faulty engine was replaced, and ignitions were reset. A short time later, on September 27, the Ruiz 1 probe launched!

Due to a miswiring, the second stage ullage motors were fired at the same time as liftoff and couldn't be used. Also, there was a really weird phantom acceleration of the first stage a second or so after separation, ramming the stage into the second stage, blowing up something. The second stage spun around a bit before returning to prograde due to this.

Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, there was a second stage engine issue and the probe (which was, like the ill fated Egg 9, an EDS with experiments and an antenna strapped on) didn't reach orbit with the third stage, and had to use some fuel in the EDS to reach LEO.

However, the departure burn was successful, and Ruiz 1 was on a trajectory towards Vesta!

The very next mission was called LIMO, short for Lunar Imaging/Mapping Orbiter. Despite the fact that it should have been given the designation of Statnik 14, for some reason it wasn't. Also looking on my list there were 2 Statnik 12s for some reason... Hmm...? It launched on a Crescendo on October 27 ish.

Unfortunately, part of the way through the flight one of the outboard engines on the Crescendo launch vehicle failed.

The wiring issue with the ullage motors hadn't been fixed, so a hot start was set up.

Towards the end of the first stage burn, another engine failed and one developed a performance loss. The hot start didn't go very well at all, and the phantom acceleration of the first stage happened again I believe.

Fortunately, the third stage had no problems, although it left the probe far short of orbit. The EDS (which has, for the past few missions, been modified with slightly angled engines in case of an engine out) made up the deficiency.

LIMO, however, was a very light payload, so all of the losses didn't affect its ability to enter a polar orbit of the moon, completing two scanning contracts.

We just barely missed it, however - the contract that Starbright 8 was supposed to fulfill has expired, mere days before the launch of Starbright 9. This further exacerbates the reputation problem, with a hit of another 200 or so I think? GRRRRRR.

Nevertheless, Starbright 9 launched into LEO with Sergei Larov on board on  November 25.

This was the first ever flight of Starbright Block II, which did away with heavy batteries and added a lot of solar panels to lighten the craft while allowing for missions as long as life support (and crew sanity) would last. In addition, a detachable forward section was added, containing an RCS fuel tank, another set of RCS, and a docking port! The service module looks huge, but most of that length is not filled with fuel, it is just structural, in order to accommodate the long solar panels.

The very same day, Elaine Martinez, just one orbit later, launches on board Starbright 10 from our second launch pad.

Over the course of a few orbits, the spacecraft move closer and closer.

And just before sunset,

They successfully dock!

They stay docked for around a day I think. This completes the 2 crew contract, a crewed LEO contract, and the docking contract!

Elaine splashes down first in the ocean, relatively close to Omelek.

And a few hours later, Sergei shows off his targeting skills by landing in (checks google maps) apparently, if there wasn't that stretch of land that isn't there in real life, the world's largest manmade lake!

That closes out our year on a high note.

 

Summary:

Four flights total of two new Suborbital planes, two Mars orbiters, flybys of Phobos and Deimos, a landing on Deimos, two failed attempts at Venus orbiters, a launch towards Vesta, an advanced lunar orbiter, and three manned orbital attempts, with one that barely failed, and our first docking, which was manned!

Launches: 11! 8 successes, 0 partial failures, and 3 failures. This becomes a lot less impressive when you subtract the 4 suborbital launches, leading to 4 successes and 3 failures. We flew Crescendo 3 times this year, and although on every single launch it was pretty much gradually disintegrating on the way up, 2 of the 3 launches were successful, although none of them would have been if not for the Earth Departure Stage.

Plans for using the EDS on other rockets have been currently shelved, it just isn't useful on Fortissimo right now and Forte is doing alright as is, although we might try it on Forte later.

The Vesta probe Ruiz 1 will encounter Vesta sometime about halfway through next year.

Our earliest astronaut retirements are sneaking up on us. As of how far I've played to, retirements start in 1975. Around that time we intend to hire a new class of astronauts, potentially far more than the size of previous classes, as we want enough to crew multi person spacecraft without it being the same 4 people doing it.

No vehicle upgrade projects are underway at the moment, although Crescendo's engines certainly could use a reliability upgrade.

R&D has been upgraded. No word on what will be upgraded next.

Manned docking has been undertaken ahead of schedule.

 

The failure of the Venus contract is looming, just weeks away. We need to accept the contracts to make up that rep penalty before the failure occurs, otherwise we may not have enough rep to get the contract in the first place. The question was, what contracts should be accepted?

 

The stars had aligned.

The hardware was almost ready.

However, the test flights beforehand would have to be cancelled to increase the chance of a successful flight.

Moonlight Sonata 1 would launch years ahead of schedule.

 

Even when told there was a significant chance of death, when asked to volunteer, all four astronauts raised their hands.

Arthur Vargas was chosen.

 

Chosen to be the first NSP astronaut to fly by the Moon.

 

 

 

[nepphhh]

Because of the non-linear nature of rep gains & losses, you'd probably get a lot more mileage if you accepted those high-rep contracts before the rep hit (while they are still available) but waited until after the Venus contract failed to complete them.

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 3/20/2020 at 6:39 AM, nepphhh said:

Because of the non-linear nature of rep gains & losses, you'd probably get a lot more mileage if you accepted those high-rep contracts before the rep hit (while they are still available) but waited until after the Venus contract failed to complete them.

Expand  

Ya, particularly the Deimos contract. The docking one would have been nice too, but it won't be as impactful as Vesta and Lunar Flyby, which will hit after the Venus fail.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Ultimate Steve

[Space Nerd]

  On 3/20/2020 at 6:19 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

Moonlight Sonata 1 would launch years ahead of schedule.

 

Even when told there was a significant chance of death, when asked to volunteer, all four astronauts raised their hands.

Arthur Vargas was chosen.

 

Chosen to be the first NSP astronaut to fly by the Moon.

Expand  

I wasn't that far off!

  On 3/20/2020 at 6:19 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

SCREW YOU, VENUS!

Expand  

You probably need some help from the Soviet union XD

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1973

Fly me to the moon

And let me play among the stars

I don't have enough power to reach Jupiter

And I just crashed into Mars

Twice

  Reveal hidden contents

It is, quite possibly, the eleventh hour of the space program.

We have limited time (but still quite a bit) and limited cash (but also quite a bit) to get an astronaut around the moon and return him safely. In theory we should be able to do it, but in practice...

Geronimo!

The first launch of project Moonlight Sonata is The MS1 EDS, a slightly modified Earth Departure Stage on top of a Crescendo 1.1. It took flight on March 27.

The only substantial modification is the addition of a docking port on the front.

Surprisingly, there were either no or very few engine failures... Until the place where it may have mattered the most.

Stage three experienced a drastic performance loss, more than halving specific impulse early in the burn. This left the EDS very far from orbit.

Enough fuel was used that the EDS is no longer capable of fulfilling its intended mission. The capsule will have to be lightened to under 1.27 tons (more if it provides some of the Delta-V), which is incredibly impractical as the current capsule design hovers a bit under 3 tons. A refueling launch would add a lot of complexity to the mission, so it was just decided to launch a second EDS.

The next launch, however, was Egg 12, an attempt to land on Mars. The transfer window was a ways away, but as the EDS could loiter in LEO it was launched early due to launch pad scheduling. However, the launch was the victim of two, potentially three first stage engine failures (last one not shown).

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the probe itself, but from what the pictures show, the mission proceeded nominally from there. The launch was sometime in May, the exact date wasn't recorded sadly.

Approximately on June first, Ruiz 1 flew by Vesta netting some more science points and part of the reputation we needed to get positive again.

Also Egg 12 launched without any contract due to the fact that it wasn't available due to rep. It also has a very high chance of failure so IDK if I would have accepted it anyway.

It was observed that Vesta is gray and lumpy.

Attempts to poke it with a stick were unsuccessful.

On June 4, MS EDS 2 was launched, a replacement for the first one.

The ascent was fairly normal except for a confusing series of events during the second stage flight.

There was weird phantom acceleration of the first stage during second stage acceleration. I later found out that it was the decoupler catching on the engine bells but this won't be fixed until next year.

The stage hit the second stage during ignition.

This led to a bunch of instability in the second stage engines due to ullage.

One of them didn't ignite due to this.

I thought it was due to a normal engine failure.

I shut down the opposing engine.

The first engine suddenly lit up.

So completely unnecessary engine shutdown... The stage is just on the edge of being controllable with one engine out. In the next block upgrade they will be angled inwards slightly to help with this.

However, beyond that point, things went alright, and MS1 EDS2 was placed safely into LEO!

And now for the moment of truth...

June 5, 1973. The Starbright 11/Moonlight Sonata 1 mission, carrying Arthur Vargas in his capsule, named the Frank Sinatra, lofted by a Fortissimo launch vehicle, triumphantly takes to the skies.

The ascent was completely normal except for a few cracks in the fabric of reality which quickly vanished. This phenomenon has been noted and there will be attempts to study it if it ever happens again.

Arthur reached orbit just fine, and over the next few hours, the Frank Sinatra/Starbright 11/Moonlight Sonata 1 (pick any) moved closer and closer to the MS1EDS2.

The target was reached just before sunset, so docking was near the last possible minute.

Next up, one of the most critical maneuvers of the entire mission. The EDS needed to put the capsule on a free return trajectory around the Moon.

Fortunately, the trajectory looked good.

Arthur watched as Earth got smaller and smaller in his window.

Then, the day came when the moon was larger than Earth.

Then came the moment when Earth slipped behind the great grey celestial orb.

Arthur, where nobody could hear him, realized he had enough fuel to brake into an orbit, but if he did, he would never go home.

The Moon, in its beauty, in its majesty, beckoned him closer and closer. But closer he would not go.

If he stayed, he would be in the courts of the moon for as long as he should be alive, but no others would ever go.

If he went, he would almost certainly never get another chance, but others would.

And then Earth once again showed itself.

He could take a picture, and everyone except himself would be in it.

Except the crews of the KABOOM's probable Mars missions at the rate they were going.

The moon slipped farther away, and it was mere hours before it was too close to the sun to observe.

Around eight days after launch, Arthur began preparing for re-entry.

The forward and rear service sections separated, and as the sun set, Arthur handed over his life to the untested lunar rated heat shield.

The capsule landed in the middle of Brasil, and the nearly 8 day mission was a complete success!

Hooray, rep is in the green again!

Next up, on June 26, was Egg 11, also known as the Epic Large Mars Orbiter, or ELMO. Its mission was to enter a polar Martian orbit to provide communications capability and scan Mars with both available SCANSAT scanners.

However, due to a few engine failures on the way up, the EDS, which the probe was built around, had to be fired to reach orbit. This left it without enough fuel to enter Mars orbit, it would have to resort to partial aerocapture, a very risky maneuver. Shown above is the Earth departure burn.

No more pictures of that one for some reason.

On July 24, the Egg 12 Mars lander departed LEO for Mars. Finally, here is a good picture of it.

On July 31, Egg 11 (ELMO) made a course correction burn.

Continuing the trend of launching out of order, Egg 14 launched next, on September 30. It is intended to orbit Venus, but then again we've said that about lots of missions... We haven't even accepted the Venus orbit contract (or ANY of the Mars contracts for that matter) because we thought it would probably fail.

However, this mission, which was, like so many other probes, an EDS with instruments and a better antenna strapped to it, made it to LEO successfully without noteworthy engine failures. It will depart later.

And now...

It hasn't actually been that long since the introduction of the EDS, but it is the time to debut an even newer, more awesome upper stage which we have creatively named the EDS-H. Introducing...

Egg 13, launching on November 4, with the new upper stage powered by two RL-10 engines! its goal was, again, to orbit Venus.

The age of hydrogen is upon us!

This stage is roughly equivalent to Centaur.

However, there was an engine failure towards the beginning of the burn, possibly an ignition failure. The opposite engine was shut down to compensate, but this led to 2 engines doing the work of 4, and the extra burn time pushed their failure chances way up.

Eventually, another engine lost performance, and failed a few seconds later, sending the whole stack spinning right before separation.

The third stage did not have enough oomph to get the payload to LEO, so unfortunately the RL-10s would have to fire.

This is not good. They do have 10 ignitions each, but at their base reliability, their ignition chance is only 70 percent. The stage now had to burn twice, so the chance of all engines working for both burns was about 24%. Fortunately, for the first burn, both engines worked!

The Earth escape burn was set up, and when the time came, the stage was fired once more!

...Except both engines failed. Grrrrr.

RCS was usesd to de-orbit the probe, which burned up in the atmosphere.

On November 11, Egg 14 left LEO on its way to Venus. This is going very well! Egg 14 is now just one RCS correction and one burn away from becoming a successful Venus orbiter!

 

This is definitely a decision with a lot of weight, but the NSP has decided that there will be no more flights of either Starbright or Moonlight Sonata, much to the disappointment of Elaine Martinez who would have piloted MS2.

However, this is because of a quicker than expected technology leap.

INTRODUCING:

Nebula!

Capable of supporting a crew of 2 for a bit more than 2 weeks, docking, prolonged LEO operations when docked, and, in a later version, likely circumlunar flight, Nebula represents the next big step forward in our human spaceflight program. With Nebula we intend to, at minimum, pursue early space stations, decent EVAs, and longer stays in space. It is currently unclear if any future lunar architecture will use Nebula or another vehicle.

It also features a very important blue nose cone.

This pad abort test, which occurred on November 15, proved several systems. The in flight abort test, which will launch on a Forte early next year, will prove many more systems. In the first half of 1974 we intend to do a full unmanned orbital flight test, and in the second half of that year we anticipate flying humans.

The capsule is expected to (barely) fit within the launch capability of the Fortissimo launch vehicle for LEO missions. Looking at the reliability of Crescendo, there is no way we would stick people on that with the current reliability numbers.

On December 21, Egg 12 began its maneuvers towards a landing on Mars.

The lander's communications were supposed to rely on ELMO being in place, but it got there before ELMO, so the transfer stage was reconfigured to work as a temporary relay, set onto a trajectory that would not cross the atmosphere.

The craft was to decelerate to a reasonable speed, deploy a parachute, then use engines to slow down the rest of the way to the surface.

The first problem started just after entry began, somewhere along the lines I had sent a signal to turn SAS on and I didn't have the signal delay time to turn it off, so it burnt through a lot of my very limited supply of RCS fuel in a short period of time.

The second problem: Arming a RealChute parachute does not mean "deploy when safe" it means "deploy when the atmosphere is thick enough." So now we don't have a parachute.

Maybe we can still slow down with engines?

Nope, the engines aren't getting fuel for some reason.

We really should have simulated this beforehand.

Greeted by another crack in reality, Egg 12 crashes into the surface of Mars, eerily at a speed of 666.3m/s.

To pour salt in the wound, 10 days later, on New Year's Eve, ELMO/Egg 11 arrives, but its antenna has, for some reason, erroneously targeted Venus instead of Earth and we cannot control it.

Wheeeeeee........

 

Summary:

Saving the space program with a manned Lunar flyby, a flyby of Vesta, many new interplanetary missions, all but one of which has failed so far, a failed Mars landing, the failed debut of a new hydrolox stage, and a successful pad abort test of a two man capsule.

Launches: Just 8. 4 successes, 0 partial failures, and 4 failures. For manned spaceflight, this was a very triumphant year, but for interplanetary probes, it was a very disappointing year.

In the past year, I believe we upgraded both mission control and the tracking station up to another level.

There will be several main interplanetary events next year. If all goes well, Egg 14 will finally become out first Venus orbiter, we will launch a Ceres flyby probe, and we will launch a Jupiter flyby probe.

Both the Ceres and Jupiter probes will launch on the brand new Crescendo Block 2. The two main changes are vastly improved avionics and improved engines. We have upgraded to the hypergolic versions of the Titan engines, which are actually slightly less reliable than current kerolox reliability, but have a much higher maximum reliability (we have already hit max kerolox reliability). Due to the density of the fuel, we have had to shorten the first stage a bit so it would still weigh under 700 tons, the maximum weight that the current launch pad can hold.

Some other minor changes, we dropped the SRBs because the new engines have enough thrust to not need them, we have a slightly larger fairing to accommodate large probes with the EDS-H, and the second stage engines have been angled in slightly to reduce the impact of an engine out, and hopefully eliminate the need to shut down an opposite engine during a failure. The first-second stage decoupler has been re-positioned to avoid the odd phantom acceleration/engine bell catching we have been seeing on some flights.

These changes have upped Crescendo's LEO payload to around 20 tons, up from around 15, although the primary reason for the upgrades was increasing long run reliability.

As for the Jupiter mission... We had to research decent RTGs. If you go by one power number, it just barely won't have enough power (60 watts vs 61 required), and we will make up the deficiency with solar panels rather than another expensive RTG. If you go by the other power number it only has 1/10 of the power required. Lets hope it is the former and not the latter. The probe will likely fail before getting to Jupiter, though (first launch of Block 2 Crescendo, so in reality it probably won't matter whether it has enough power or not.

Next year we also plan to launch Nebula some more.

We will likely begin recruiting for our third astronaut class next year.

We also need to give Sergei Larov a STEVE flight, he hasn't had one yet.

We should also make a decently sized lunar lander probe with Crescendo and EDS-H, as we haven't done so yet. We could potentially deliver a rover, although this will likely not be for a while.

Communication networks around Mars and Venus are also important, but IIRC the next windows to either of those two places aren't until 1975.

The Voyager window is coming up in 1977, but we are in no position to launch a grand tour probe. Our best antennas can only reach Earth from Jupiter, and we are struggling to power that antenna with current RTG tech. Something could change between now and 1977, but I doubt it. Also, I suck at gravity assists so I'd probably mess it up anyway!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Ultimate Steve

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1974

Actually a pretty boring year

  Reveal hidden contents

January 10, 1974.

The in flight abort test of the Nebula spacecraft launches on board a Forte rocket.

Originally we were debating on whether or not to conduct this test, but we decided to do it for a few reasons. We don't have anyone left to race with, so safety comes before envelope-pushing. This is especially noteworthy given our safety record. Fortissimo was never designed to launch anything this big. Finally, it is going to be way longer than expected before a crewed launch, due to how long the training takes for this capsule. Reluctantly, we must postpone crewed missions to 1975. Due to the delays, we might as well do the test anyways.

The test was a smashing success, and if this test is anything to go by, this is one of the safest LES systems I've ever built in RO. My previous playthroughs had some pretty shoddy LESs in retrospect.

After a short correction on an unrecorded date, Egg 14 approaches Venus on April 14.

VENUS!

PREPARE TO BE DEFEATED!!!

YAAAASSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FINALLY!

At long last, we have orbited Venus!

Some science was gathered from both high and low space. We have been to both before on flyby missions, but we have better experiments now.

On June 18, we launched the Ruiz 2 probe. This launch represents a number of key advances. First and foremost, it is the first ever flight of Crescendo Block II, an upgrade aimed at increasing reliability, and to a lesser extent, performance. The launch to LEO went off without any engine failures!

This was also the second ever launch of the EDS-H, our first launch of a partially nuclear powered probe, and our first ever attempt at launching a mission to an outer planet, specifically Jupiter!

During the departure burn, which started in a spin due to reasons, one of the RL-10s failed to ignite, resulting in a significant change to the flight path.

Near the end of the burn, the other engine also failed, leaving us far short of a Jupiter encounter.

However, the probe stage had enough margin to fix the trajectory, but only barely.

Interestingly, had everything gone to plan, we would have had enough fuel to actually orbit Jupiter... In fact, after the corrections, we still did, providing we used practically nothing for corrections (very unlikely) so we, instead, set up a flyby of Europa.

Unfortunately, due to fuel levels, the corrections had to be done in such a way that the probe will arrive at Jupiter in 3 years, far more than planned. The power margins on this probe are very borderline and our communications network is shoddy, so there is a very real chance that we won't be able to contact or operate the probe when it arrives.

The next launch, on July 11, was the Ruiz 3 mission, bound for Ceres.

The Crescendo Block II performed perfectly again... Its sort of uncanny, actually. Maybe the RNG is saving up to deal me a crushing blow.

Unfortunately, we underestimated how much fuel it takes to get to Ceres, and Ruiz 3 does not have enough fuel to get there. It will, instead, hang around in LEO until the next Mercury window and attempt to fly by Mercury.

On August 4, a Nebula capsule launched on board a Fortissimo for its Orbital Flight Test.

Unfortunately, the center core of the Fortissimo failed to ignite, and after booster cutoff, the craft began to tip.

The launch escape system once again worked, but the mission was a failure. Fortunately, we have more than enough time to redo the test before crew training completes.

Later that month, on the 26th, Nebula OFT 2 was launched, with the vehicle originally intended for Nebula 1.

The craft orbited a few times, raising its orbit as high as possible to test high speed re-entry.

Re-entry was conducted successfully.

And finally, sometime late in the year, Ruiz 3 departed for Mercury.

A very slow year, but the Nebula capsules take forever to build, those RTGs also take forever to build, and we have begun stockpiling rockets for next year's transfer windows.

 

 

Summary:

Various Nebula tests, and a probe to Jupiter and Mercury. Also, we FINALLY ORBITED VENUS!!!

Launches: Just 5. 3 successes, 1 partial failure, and 1 failure.

We have recruited 9 new astronauts to the space program. They are currently being put through training. They will each complete a flight in a STEVE or STEVE derivative, and then train for Nebula missions. The first in this class will likely fly to orbit sometime in mid to late 1977. Until then, our current class will fly the early Nebula missions.

We also need to give Sergei Larov a STEVE flight, he hasn't had one yet (unchanged from last year, he spent this whole year training for Nebula pretty much). This, and the training of the next class, is very important as the retirement dates for the current class begin in 1975 (next year, wow) and extend until 1977 I think.

Last year we speculated on launching a larger lunar lander with Crescendo and EDS-H, potentially with a rover. This is tentatively planned for sometime in the next few years.

We also speculated on communications networks for Mars and Venus. We are not building huge networks yet, but the orbiters scheduled to launch next year will have additional antennas to offer partial coverage, mainly aimed at landers too small to contact Earth directly.

We anticipate the first manned Nebula flight in the first half of 1975, and the second shortly after. There is some debate on whether to attempt a docking between these two missions. These missions will likely be the last orbital missions for some of our second Astronaut class.

We have no concrete plans left, but a small space station may be attempted soon once we have unlocked proper habitation module technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Notebook Space Program - 1975

Quite a few setbacks, likely our worst year yet.

  Reveal hidden contents

On February 23, 1975, the first ever manned Nebula mission was launched on board a Fortissimo launch vehicle! It carried astronauts Elaine Martinez and Brian Ryan. This was the first of two missions, the other being Nebula 2, which would attempt to dock with each other in Low Earth Orbit.

This mission was slated to be Elaine Martinez's final flight.

Going to not do as many pictures as usual because lots of stuff happened this year.

The ascent to orbit went nominally, and the space program quickly undertook its first EVA! It was sadly discovered that EVA reports are not biome specific, which limits utility a bit, but still.

Unfortunately, the problems started here.

Due to misleading information from the manufacturer, it was assumed that the capsule had regenerative oxygen and water systems. In retrospect this seems rather foolish, but it was an obvious way to rationalize it only being able to carry 1 day's supply of each.

So, the crew only had 1 day's worth of supplies. Not good.

Also not good... The capsule had a very small battery, which wouldn't be a problem if the solar panels were enough, but apparently the capsule can't shut its avionics down while crew is inside. This means we are drawing something around 2.4 KW of power rather than the 600W that the solar panels were built for. As such, the crew could only remain in space for just under two orbits before their capsule ran out of power.

This, of course, was not caught in the flight tests because they were uncrewed, and could disable the avionics.

The crew of two sadly swiftly de-orbited, landing only a few hours after launch. A disappointing start to the manned phase of the Nebula program, and a disappointing end to Elaine Martinez's career.

Nebula 2, which is currently on the launch pad, was not immediately launched as we are still deciding what to do with it.

Well, we have some good news I guess.

On March 3, the Ruiz 3 probe, which was originally meant to fly by Ceres, flew by the planet Mercury, becoming the first NSP spacecraft to do so!

Unfortunately, it could not transmit data from low space, because we underestimated Mercury's terrain height.

That same day, Nebula 2 carrying Arthur Vargas an Sergei Lavrov (apparently I've been spelling his last name wrong this whole time, it is Lavrov and not Larov, sorry, Sergei!) launched into a polar orbit for a short flight mainly focused on Earth observation.

The launch into orbit was successful, and the crew had quite a view!

Unfortunately, for various reasons, the crew stayed in orbit for two orbits rather than the planned one orbit. Due to a looming lack of power, the crew initiated the de-orbit burn before the designated point, which would put them out in the frigid southern oceans.

Plummeting towards Earth, about to re-enter the atmosphere, the crew realized that they had to orient the craft prior to re-entry as they would not have control. They attempted to place the craft into an orientation where it would generate lift during re-entry, but then the entire craft went dead.

The craft rolled over a few times before settling in the exact opposite orientation as planned.

Arthur Vargas and Servei Lavrov passed out, experiencing sustained high G forces with a peak of 19.7.

When they finally regained consciousness, in no state to do much, they attempted to deploy the parachute.

However, as the spacecraft was dead, there was no way to do that.

Despite their injuries from the high G forces, both crewmembers managed to bail out of the spacecraft in time.

However, here they were, out in the deep south, near Antarctica, far off of their touchdown mark with no capsule radio.

And when both of them touched down, their spacesuits weighed them down so much that they began to sink.

Fortunately, they managed to dump most of their remaining supplies and activate emergency systems to return to the surface of the ocean.

Hours later, suffering the effects of the cold and their injuries, both crewmembers were pulled to safety on board a passing fishing ship.

Both astronauts experienced significant injuries, Sergei more than Arthur. Psychologically, Arthur recovered, but Sergei did not.

Sergei was long overdue for a flight in the STEVE, and the space program hoped it would make things better for him if they made it top priority once he recovered.

On April 1, Sergei took STEVE Compassion on its third flight to 141km. However, on the way down, various planning and pilot errors led to vastly higher G forces than normal.

The forces peaked at 13.6, and for the second time in  month, Sergei was exposed to dangerous levels of acceleration.

Despite this, the mission was successful, although Sergei has all but left the space program at this point, stating he never wants to fly again.

On April 28, Arthur Vargas tested out some modifications to the Compassion on its fourth flight, intended to make reuse easier. However, the engine did not ignite, but after a replacement igniter (read: revert because I don't want 5 minutes of scene changes to have another flight attempt) was added, Arthur took to the skies.

The landing was extremely bumpy and erratic, but it was just barely landable, as opposed to previous versions.

On May 5, Brian Ryan took the Compassion on its fifth flight in order to further test modifications for the incoming astronaut class.

Unfortunately, the engine, which had been through 4 flights, was definitely not up to the same level of reusability as the older Legend engines were. Several times that day, the engine did not ignite, or if it did, shut down due to issues a few seconds later. Despite this, the engineers kept trying to patch up the engine.

Over ten tries later, the engine roared to life, losing performance a few seconds later. Brian Ryan pulled up to take off as braking would be rather dangerous at these speeds.

However, right after takeoff, the engine cut off entirely. This left Brian without power, without SAS, and with an extremely heavy aircraft which was designed to be landed by parachute, which he had to land with only a few seconds of notice.

Brian survived the resulting crash, but the airframe of the Compassion sadly did not.

It was concluded that, among others, one major issue with the current STEVE design is its reliance on an engine not well suited for reusability. However, the nearest suitable engine in thrust was much larger in thrust, mass, and diameter, so a new craft would likely have to be designed.

We still had one STEVE left, though, the Nobility, which, if the Compassion is anything to go by, would be fine for at least two more flights before engine replacement was necessary.

On May 26, pilot Gary Reed became the first member of the third astronaut class to reach space, with an apogee of 142km. He also managed to land the vehicle safely!

Going back to orbital launches for a second, on June 10, Egg 15 was launched. It would be a large Venus orbiter which would provide relay services to multiple spacecraft and would scan Venus using two ScanSat sensors.

The fairing got weirdly stuck on the solar panels, but the real problems started later. If I remember correctly, the third stage did not ignite (Grr) and the EDS made up the difference and got the craft to orbit. However, the craft did not have enough fuel to reach Venus orbit at this point, and it was decided to try a flyby instead. However, due to the length of the burn required due to the low thrust stages, the impulse from the EDS sent the craft back into the atmosphere, and the craft ran out of electricity to fire its upper stage engines with.

Debug menu open because input locks do some weird things sometimes.

The mission was declared a failure.

Next, on June 22, new astronaut Viktoriya Abramova flew the Nobility on its fourth flight up to, unfortunately, just 133km (still space but not above the RO atmosphere limit of 140km).

This was also the first time a non-pilot tried to land a STEVE.

*OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD SIGH*

Well...

Since there are no STEVEs left, the other 7 astronauts of the new class will not get STEVE flights until much later and have started their Nebula training, which will take over a year.

The first STEVE II starts construction sometime soonish.

Also, salute to Elaine Martinez, the first retirement of the second astronaut class.

Her missions:

Bansai 2 M1, 1968, atmospheric

Legend 13/7A, 1968, suborbital

Legend 14B/10C, 1968, suborbital

Legend 13D/7E, 1968, suborbital

Starbright 3, 1969, failure, atmospheric

Starbright 4, 1969, partial success, Low Earth Orbit

I-3 STEVE 01 Nobility F1, 1972, suborbital

Starbright 10, 1972, docking, Low Earth Orbit

Nebula 1, 1975, partial failure, Low Earth Orbit

 

On July 7, Egg 18 (yay we skipped more numbers due to launch order!) left for Venus, it will be our first attempt at landing.

On August 29, we launched Egg 15, which was a Mars orbiter, with the same general mission as our recent Venus orbiter failure - scanning and relaying. We had an engine out on the second stage, but nothing it couldn't handle.

It stayed in LEO until the transfer date.

On October 2, Egg 16, our second attempt at a landing on Mars, was launched. Curiously, it had the exact same engine fail as Egg 15.

It had a successful departure!

After this, on October 11, Egg 15 did a departure burn. However, due to the fact that Mars's ascending/descending nodes were at non-ideal spots, our usual Lunar inclination compromise orbit was waaaay off of our ejection inclination. I wish there was a convenient way to tell our optimal inclination beforehand. Anyways, this upped ejection delta-V to stupidly high levels, dragging the burn duration over those tiny thruster stages, making our transfer very inefficient. After the transfer I realized that I could not salvage it, even for just a flyby, so I just blew the probe up.

Good news for once. We are about to attempt our first ever Venus landing, and the lander, Egg 18, has enough fuel to enter Venus orbit before landing!

This is big, as it will allow us to re-use the transfer stage as an orbital relay satellite, and communicate with the lander for longer! We do have some relay capability with our earlier orbiter, but this will definitely help.

The lander was detached from the relay near apoapsis. Both adjusted their courses.

And, we successfully made it through the high velocity phase of re-entry!

Unfortunately, which seems to be a recurring theme this year, the problems started here.

The probe core started overheating, slowly heating up to its maximum temperature. The parachute deployed too early and was too high, so it didn't deploy. Some on the fly rewiring was done, and the chute was commanded to deploy again. This deployment was successful. However, a fraction of a second after deployment, it melted away.

The probe core temperature was above 95% of the max and quickly rising, but there was some hope that the probe could hit the surface and survive long enough to transmit some data, as terminal velocity was under 30 meters per second at this point.

Nope.

Some bits survived, though. Also this happened on November 3 if I didn't mention that already.

All in all, another failure, but this one was quite a constructive failure. We learned a lot about the engineering challenges that must be overcome to land on Venus, and we did manage to position another relay in Venus orbit. We will likely try again at the next Venus window with an improved design.

It has taken two months, but the engineers have managed to redesign the Nebula spacecraft into something that should work. Instead of solar panels, it carries fuel cells, which also produce oxygen and water. The extra mass of the fuel for the fuel cells, and the fuel for the main engines to bring Delta-V back up to target levels, meant that the craft was no longer light enough to fit on a Fortissimo.

So, Fortissimo was upgraded with a hydrolox upper stage. This would use an upgraded RL-10 engine with a far better ignition chance than it had previously (70 vs like 85 or something).

Nebula 3 would launch with 2 crewmembers, to complete the "orbital flight with 2+ crew and maneuvers" contract. Shortly after that, Nebula 4 would launch with 1 crew and attempt to dock with Nebula 3, which would also provide the benefit of completing the 3 crew on one vessel contract.

Unfortunately, this particular crew arrangement meant that we had to convince Sergei Lavrov to go into space again.

It took weeks of convincing and reassurance, but he eventually caved in after being offered many extra retirement benefits.

Despite all of the reassurance from the engineers, he was wary of the hydrolox stage, which he would have preferred to be tested before the mission.

The day came. November 15, 1975. The launch of Nebula 3!

Unfortunately, aerodynamic forces tipped the rocket over, but due to quick thinking and heroic piloting skills from, well, the engineer and scientist on board, Nebula 3 was righted after a full 360 degree spin.

Due to the contract requirements, and questions surrounding Delta-V needs to complete them, the spacecraft would be directly inserted into a roughly 400 by 500 kilometer orbit. As such, the trajectory was far steeper than any previous manned mission.

The core engine cut off, the second stage ullage motors fired, and...

*ANOTHER BIG EXASPERATED SIGH*

After a quick, risky EVA to examine the engine, the crew realized that they wouldn't be getting to orbit.

The service module fuel was expended in an effort to flatten their trajectory.

Sergei knew what was coming and flew into a fit of rage and tears.

They were about to experience the most intense re-entry of any Kerbal in history.

Despite the proper orientation of the capsule (the incorrect orientation might have even killed the crew), the G forces were still unreasonably high, peaking at 25.2.

After the pair regained consciousness, one could almost hear Sergei's screams all the way from the other side of the planet.

His only consolation was that he at least had a capsule to land in this time.

Nebula 4, on the launch pad, was not launched, as it could not fulfill either of the contracts intended for this series of missions.

Shortly after this flight, Brian Ryan retired.

His missions:

Bansai 2 M2, 1968, atmospheric

Legend 14A/10B, 1968, atmospheric, failure

Legend 13B/7C, 1968, suborbital

Starbright 5, 1970, atmospheric, failure

Starbright 6, 1970, orbital

I-3 STEVE 02 Compassion F2, 1972, suborbital

Nebula 1, 1975, orbital, partial failure

I-3 STEVE 02 Compassion F5, 1975, failure

Nebula 3, 1975, failure

 

I have not done this in forever, but tech tree at the end of 1975:

 

Summary:

Failed manned orbital flights, failed interplanetary probes, and failed suborbital manned flights. Two retirements.

Launches: 12. Successes: 4. Three of those were suborbital STEVE launches. 2 partial failures. 6 failures.

If we are to continue flying Nebula soon, we will have major problems. Of our two remaining astronauts, one is so fed up with the space program's attitude toward risk that he does not want to ever fly again, and the other is a worldwide hero that would be disastrous to lose. New astronauts will not complete training until late 1976 at the earliest.

The rover we were planning on will launch next year, but it will be very tiny. If successful, we may follow up with a larger rover in the coming years.

We wanted to build a comms network around Venus and Mars, and this year's orbiters were supposed to start that. However, both of them failed. If we have the schedule time, we will launch them during the next windows.

There are non-concrete plans on the table to replicate the Voyager missions as the once in a lifetime transfer window is coming up in 1977. However, we only have the antenna technology to reach Saturn, so these probes, potentially named after Iosif Poulushin, will likely end their mission at Saturn unless new tech is unlocked before then.

In order to research much more, we need the next R&D upgrade. We anticipate having the cash to do this next year. As you can see by the picture above, we are running out of nodes to research at the current level.

We would have had many exciting plans for Nebula ahead. However, as the safety and future of the Nebula program is being called into question, we will not announce these plans until we have some success to build these plans off of.

 

All in all, this is probably the space program's worst year yet. We were hit with major failures on all fronts. All 3 manned nebula missions failed (one was a partial failure but still failed dramatically), we lost both STEVEs in accidents, we crashed into Mercury by accident, and 3 of our 4 interplanetary missions launched this year have failed or partially failed. The one remaining mission is in progress. Even if it does succeed, relay capacity is almost non-existent at Mars, so it may not be able to deliver much, if any science.

 

But - If next year is successful - Expect at least two major announcements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Ultimate Steve

[Space Nerd]

  On 3/29/2020 at 2:18 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

After this, on October 11, Egg 16 did a departure burn.

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Egg 15?

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 3/29/2020 at 5:01 AM, Space Nerd said:

Egg 15?

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Yes, sorry. It turns out that on my recording sheet the "15" really looks like a "16." Will change it now. Thank you for pointing this out.

[nepphhh]

Hahaha poor Sergei

[KerballingSmasher]

POOR SERGEI! GIVE THAT MAN SOME PAID LEAVE, @Ultimate Steve!

[Misguided Kerbal]

Wait, can we have a recap of all the missions? Did we land on the moon yet? I've read this for so long I've forgot.

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 3/30/2020 at 6:19 PM, Misguided_Kerbal said:

Wait, can we have a recap of all the missions? Did we land on the moon yet? I've read this for so long I've forgot.

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The short version is that most of the people dropped out soon after the start due to the inherent time intensiveness of RP-1, and KABOOM completely destroyed everyone, beating even Apollo to the moon by quite a bit. However I'm sticking it out to the end and trying to get there (although I may have another multi month hiatus like I do with many projects before I end up getting to the moon).

Somewhere back in the thread there was a spreadsheet of all the missions up until a certain point, but it has not been updated in forever. I think @LittleBitMore may have a more updated version somewhere, but probably not up to the present if I remember correctly.

I don't know much about the other programs, but I can give a short summary of my own program if you like.

[Misguided Kerbal]

  On 3/31/2020 at 3:06 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

The short version is that most of the people dropped out soon after the start due to the inherent time intensiveness of RP-1, and KABOOM completely destroyed everyone, beating even Apollo to the moon by quite a bit. However I'm sticking it out to the end and trying to get there (although I may have another multi month hiatus like I do with many projects before I end up getting to the moon).

Somewhere back in the thread there was a spreadsheet of all the missions up until a certain point, but it has not been updated in forever. I think @LittleBitMore may have a more updated version somewhere, but probably not up to the present if I remember correctly.

I don't know much about the other programs, but I can give a short summary of my own program if you like.

Expand  

Yeah, a summary would be nice. Sorry for your time.

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 3/31/2020 at 3:07 AM, Misguided_Kerbal said:

Yeah, a summary would be nice. Sorry for your time.

Expand  

Kinda failed at being short but here it is:

 

A Short-ish Summary of Notebook Space Program's Activities in RO Space Race, Season 2

The first half of the 1950's were focused on incremental improvements in sounding rocket technology and a few basic airplane technologies. This was accomplished with the smaller Pencil rocket series, the larger Legend rocket series, and a small plane called Bansai, a misspelling of both Bonsai and Banzai. In 1955 there was also a more experimental aircraft called Zorro, but that was pretty much a dead end. There was also the brief Legend-Pencil program and a few one-off launches like Kari 1, a test for the Opus vehicle. This era saw launches further and further into space, including altitudes above 1000 kilometers, downrange distances of more than 4000 kilometers, and more. This era, as with all eras, was not without its failures.

Towards the end of 1955, Opus 1 was launched, a test for a minimal orbital rocket. After a few more test launches, Opus 4A became our first orbital launch in 1957, narrowly beating the USSR's Sputnik. The second half of the 1950's focused mainly on the Opus program, frequently upgrading the Opus vehicle to lift heavier payloads to more challenging (but still low and mildly elliptical) orbits. I don't remember what the heaviest payload launched by Opus was, but it was very, very low. This timeframe also saw the last unmanned Legend launches, and most of the first round of the more ambitions Legend-M program, involving placing cockpits on Legend rockets. This sent our first astronauts into suborbital space, and also on atmospheric flights to high mach numbers. There were also a few one-offs like the I-2 Glory, a failed X-plane.

The first half of the 1960s were very eventful. The last flights of the first round of the Legend-M program were completed, with Legend 12a/12b becoming the NSP's first reusable spacecraft. The Opus program was finished as well, with Opus 15 being the final flight, in 1961. Shortly after the conclusion of these two programs, the first astronaut class retired. Many modern day missions are named after those astronauts. The most exciting thing to happen during this timeframe was the debut of Fortissimo, a three core vehicle capable of launching 2.5 tons (over time upgraded to around 4 tons) to LEO. It had a very rough early history, suffering from severe reliability issues. Its first flight was a test without payload in April 1962. It proceeded to launch several missions for the Statnik program, aiming to deliver payloads around the Moon. The first successful impactor was Statnik 2, impacting on June 1, 1963. The next step was lunar orbit, but planned orbiters kept failing, and the contract was dangerously close to expiring, which would have doomed the space program. An absolute minimalist orbiter, Statnik 6, was built and launched on a modified Forte vehicle, a single core version of Fortissimo. It was a success, and orbited the moon in November of 1964, with only six hours to spare! This half decade also saw the first launch of the Halo series, Earth orbiting satellites mainly for contracts. The first of these, Halo 1, launched on the first flight of Forte. In addition to some 1 off launches such as Kari 2, a test vehicle, and another Bansai flight, this year saw the launch of Egg 1, our first attempted interplanetary mission. Sadly, it was a failure.

The second half of the 1960s saw more ambitious Statnik missions including basic razor-thin margin moon landings. There were also three launches for the Amber program, which aimed to test the technologies needed to return from space, a few more halo launches, and a few other interplanetary missions, some of which didn't fail, mainly Egg 2, which became the first NSP probe to successfully fly by Mars in 1967, and Egg 3, the first successful Venus flyby, also in 1967. More Bansai flights were done with the second ever astronaut class. In addition, the Legend M program was reinstated for its second round, which combined some new hardware with old, reused hardware. The many missions of this program aimed to push the vehicles, and the concept of reusability, to their limits while at the same time training the second astronaut class, which, like the first, consisted of four astronauts. The most exciting missions happened towards the end of the decade. In 1968, an unmanned test flight of the orbital one man Starbright capsule was conducted on a Fortissimo, and in 1969, Sergei Lavrov became our first astronaut in orbit on Starbright 2! Starbright 3, also in 1969, was a failure, but the launch escape tower saved astronaut Elaine Martinez. Starbright 4, again flown by Elaine, accomplished our first rendezvous.

Due to the sheer amount of missions, I'll do year by year now.

1970 saw the launch of three more Starbright missions, 2 of which were successful. 2 Venus orbiters were launched, both of which failed. More Statnik missions were launched. Towards the end of 1970, hardware for the next generation Crescendo launch vehicle was tested, with the first stage static/flight fire happening in the first week of 1971.

In 1971, the Statnik 13 lander was launched, two Mars orbiters were launched, Halo 7 was launched, and two test flights of the Crescendo vehicle were launched, with one success.

In 1972, Egg 8 and Egg 5 successfully orbited Mars, with the more advanced Egg 8 completing flybys of both of Mars's moons, eventually landing on Deimos! Test flights of a suborbital spaceplane called STEVE began, intended for eventually training the third astronaut class. Starbright 8 was launched, but failed. The Ruiz 1 mission was launched, in an attempt to fly by Vesta. A Lunar SCANSAT was launched. Two more Venus orbiters were launched, but both failed, meaning that the failed Venus orbit contract would pretty much doom the space program. A high value contract needed to be completed post-failure in order to make up the reputation penalty. In November, Starbrights 9 and 10 were launched, block 2 versions of the spacecraft, which successfully docked. In addition, this year, the Earth Departure Stage was introduced, a hypergolic restartable long-duration stage intended for use on Crescendo. It can function as both a propulsion stage for probes, and its own probe entirely with light modifications.

In 1973, Egg 12, a Mars lander, and Egg 11, a Martian ScanSat, were launched towards Mars. Egg 12 failed to land, as expected for such an experimental mission, and Egg 11 crashed into Mars due to a communications failure. Egg 14, a Venus orbiter, was also launched towards Venus. The most important thing to happen this year, however, was the launch of the Moonlight Sonata 1 mission, which used two launches (plus a third failed one) to send astronaut Arthur Vargas on a lunar flyby trajectory using a Block 3 Starbright capsule and an Earth Departure Stage docked together in LEO. This mission, which was successful, restored the space program's reputation from the failed Venus orbit contract, saving the space program! At the very end of the year, the brand new two man Nebula capsule underwent a pad abort test, bringing forth a new era of manned space exploration.

In 1974, we FINALLY MANAGED TO ORBIT VENUS!!!! BOO-YAH! Egg 14 entered Venus orbit in April. Ruiz 2 was launched towards planet Jupiter, but due to issues with the brand new hydrogen fueled EDS-H, it will fly by a few hundred days later than intended and will not have enough fuel for the stretch goal of Jupiter orbit. Ruiz 3 was launched, with the intention of flying by Ceres, but due to an underestimation of the Delta-V required, it was sent to fly by Mercury instead. The Nebula capsule underwent a successful in flight abort test, an orbital flight test on a Fortissimo launch vehicle which suffered an engine failure (but the abort system worked again), and a second unmanned orbital flight test which was successful.

In 1975, or perhaps late 1974, the third astronaut class was hired, totaling 9 new astronauts, who began training for STEVE and Nebula missions. Nebula 1 was launched with two crew, but it was discovered that the extra electrical load brought on by having the crew on board was too much for the capsule's energy systems, among other issues, mostly with the life support system. The mission, which was supposed to dock with Nebula 2, was cut short. Nebula 2 was launched with the same faults, intending for just a short mission because we weren't going to use it for anything else, but it suffered a catastrophic power failure leading to the crew experiencing unreasonable sustained G forces and having to bail out and parachute into the frigid southern oceans, nearly sinking to the bottom. Nebula 3, an upgraded version aimed to fix the power and life support issues was launched late in the year, but relied on a new upper stage loosely based on the EDS-H to still fit on a Fortissimo launch vehicle. However, this stage failed to ignite, and the crew were sent on a steep re-entry path, subject to, again, high G forces. Training flights of the two STEVE vehicles began, but both vehicles were lost upon landing in accidents, fortunately with no fatalities. Ruiz 3 accidentally impacted Mercury instead of flying by, leading to lower science than expected. Four interplanetary missions were launched, a lander and orbiter to Venus, and a lander and orbiter to Mars. Both orbiters failed, leaving the comms needed for proper landings dicey. In November, the Venus lander failed (which was pretty much expected due to the experimental nature of the mission) but came painfully close to succeeding. In short, 1975 was a really, really bad year for the space program.