Mission report: interplanetary travel to Kerbin 2

[ForumHelper]

Below you'll find a complete mission report of the first interplanetary mission ever done by(my) Kerbals.

Meet the crew & the objective:

The objective was to travel into interplanetary space and from there enter a new planet's SOI that's been discovered just two days ago. These three brave kerbals were chosen(against their will) to do science(mostly swim in the ocean) on "Kerbin 2" - a planet so simillar to Kerbin that -in fact - it could've been Kerbin itself.

Captain Camton in charge was a well-trained kerbonaut who had successfuly crashed many rockets. Therefore the mission was considered a success even before it started. At worst every kerbal in the 1000km radius would admire beautiful fireworks.

Meet the ship:

Ship name: DST 3(Deep space traveller, 3 marking the vessel type - capable of landing on water)

The ship used was an experimental design found by one of the KSC members on the road on his way to the launchpad.

It seemed to be kerbal enough, so engineers decided to build it at once.

DST 3 - for this particular mission some of the engines were left out.

Early tests showed no potential at all - instead the rocket would explode and it's onboard CPU(i5 2430m 2.4 GHz) would die almost instantly. It was, however, kerbal enough so the tests continued.

The Mission:

Below you can find a bunch of images sent back by Camton during his mission lasting 460+ days.

Onboard computer crashed moments after.

It is now known this photo has been edited. The captain did not begin the landing burn, that was supposed to reduce the vessel's speed to ~3m/s, in time. All five lower engines were torn off during what looked like a crash landing. Camton was so ashamed of himself that he decided to edit the picture.

However, KSC was able to provide a photo from a simillar lander test(which happened a day earlier):

It wasn't clear if the vessel would lift again nor was it known if - in case it did lift - there was enough power and delta-V to achieve orbit...

There are no other ships. For all we know it's just an error in the ship's software.

This the KSC could not identify. The photo was made by a satelite around Kerbin. It was categorized as UFO.

It is not clear how Camton and his crew managed to return to Kerbin - one day they simply landed in the sea next to KSC. Some believe they never left Kerbin. Official story is as follows: Edan and Wilsel pushed the capsule all the way back using their space suits as their vessel was not meant to return. Instead a rescue mission would've been launched later on.

Official mission status: Success!

Direct link to craft file(Lander only, this model contains enginees that allow the vessel to travel while landed in water): http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/19888-0-16-MechJeb-Lander-capable-of-swimming-and-achieving-orbit

More pictures in the link above!

Hope you enjoyed my little story:)

Edited September 10, 2012 by ForumHelper

[Vanamonde]

There is no Kerbin 2 on the map view. Unless it has a planetary cloaking device, I suspect parts of this account to be fabrications.

[swiftgates24]

Very funny indeed...Great job on the rocket though are those empty fuselages used for pontoons? If you typed it somewhere I didn't see it, I just like looking at pictures.

[ForumHelper]

Very funny indeed...Great job on the rocket though are those empty fuselages used for pontoons? If you typed it somewhere I didn't see it, I just like looking at pictures.

These are empty fuselages indeed. This was something I made after I've learned that Jool's going to have an ocean moon. I already had a 170 tons rocket(check my signature) but it couldn't land everywhere. This one can but because it's heavy it doesn't have a lot of extra delta-V.

There is no Kerbin 2 on the map view. Unless it has a planetary cloaking device, I suspect parts of this account to be fabrications.

Kerbin 2 was only recently discovered. It is more than certain that not every map is up to date:)

Edited September 9, 2012 by ForumHelper