JNSQ: To the Mun!: Epilogue

[Angelo Kerman]

I don't really have much of a plot for this new series as it's largely preamble for my next story. This is also the first time for me trying JNSQ, and using KSP 1.7.3. I am still setting things up so I expect the visual to change. The goal is for the Kerbal Space Program to reach the Mun and Minmus, something never done before. I currently don't have a space center for the vonKermas to fly from, largely because I don't know if the Kosmodrome works in JNSQ. So I'll just be focusing on KSP's efforts to reach Kerbin's natural satellites.

Mods:

Spoiler

Chapters

Chapter 1 (this post)

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

---

Bill & Jeb pose for a publicity photo as they simulate a space mission on KSC grounds. I mistakenly have EVE installed It's a bit dark and rainy at KSC today.

Bill is about to enter the Drill Hab Simulator as part of the Kerbal Academy's Engineering Boot Camp training.

As a result of the science gathering around KSC- practicing making EVA and crew reports, testing new science experiments, and the like- KSC saved up enough Funds to purchase an old trainer airplane. Jeb took the trainer on an endurance flight to the Island Airfield as part of his pilot training. Along the way, Jeb flew over Welcome Back Island (WBI), headquarters of Wild Blue Industries.

The trainer barely made the full 550km in about 3 hours of flying time- and crashed onto the airfield. But the science was saved!

A few days later, the trainer was rebuilt . Valentina took it out for a spin.

The new engine and retractable landing gear made it nearly three times faster than before. And unlike Jeb, Valentina didn't crash it. She landed at Welcome Back Island before heading home.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Angel-125

[RealKerbal3x]

Nice @Angel-125! Looking forward to the story!

What mods are you using in this game? Sorry, didn't see the 'mods' section

Edited January 4, 2020 by RealKerbal3x

[KerballingSmasher]

Looks good!

[Angelo Kerman]

11 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Nice @Angel-125! Looking forward to the story!

What mods are you using in this game? Sorry, didn't see the 'mods' section

 

3 hours ago, Kerballing (Got Dunked On) said:

Looks good!

Thanks guys, after a false start I am working on getting science to build rockets. I am about to move so it may be a bit before the next update. This won’t be as involved as my previous stories as it is just laying the groundwork for the next story .

[Quoniam Kerman]

I know that it is more convenient to install the training camp near KSC but it would be more realistic to install it at one of the poles. looks more aiien.

[Angelo Kerman]

22 minutes ago, Quoniam Kerman said:

I know that it is more convenient to install the training camp near KSC but it would be more realistic to install it at one of the poles. looks more aiien.

Tell that to Contract Configurator/ Field Research...

Edited January 4, 2020 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

Finally done with all my moving tasks for the day. In a couple of days I'll be setting up shop in the new place. Meanwhile, I got some playtime in! Special thanks to @JadeOfMaar for providing consultation on JNSQ's alternatives to the old Kosmodrome!

Chapter 2

Field research is an important aspect of the space program, as it helps advance kerbalkin's understanding of the cosmos. Right now, that field research is pretty boring. But testing out new experiments, even if it's just around the Kerbal Space Center, is vital for future research. Here, Bob and Valentina Kerman, the world's first- and thus far only- husband and wife team (boy was Jeb embarrassed when he found out), are showcasing the Materials science bay experiment. This experiment is designed to expose various materials to the local environment to see how they react. Bob is particularly fond of the ham sandwich... Anyway, the team is trying out various delivery mechanisms to see what works. Stacking two on top of each other is not ideal, but it gets the job done.

Fun fact: When the Kerbal Space Program recruited Bob Kerman, he insisted that he'd only accept the job if they also hired his wife. When KSP recruited Valentina- an immigrant from the vonKerman Republic, she insisted that she'd only accept the job if they also hired her husband. Neither one knew of the dealings of the other- until they both got the offer letters!

Speaking of the vonKerman Republic, it seems that there are some Very Important Kerbals driving around and touring bases. Exactly what for is anyone's not very hard guess. Here, a group of vonKermans are checking out the Darude Missile Test Range to see if it will suit their needs. Before the Nuclear Disarmament Treaty (NDT) declared atomic weapons hazardous to kerbalkin's health and banned testing and possession of any sort, Darude was the place in the VKR to design, build, and test new missiles. Now though, the VIKs believe that Darude might be suited for munar flights.

"What can we say," Oskar vonKerman said when interviewed by the press. "The Kerman States' president's 'We choose to go to the Mun because it's there' speech was quite inspiring. Not just to the Kermans, who need a national goal to break out of their funk, but to us as well. Before her speech, we hadn't even considered it. But then we thought, hey, that's a good idea! We used to have rockets, maybe we can go to the Mun too! But since all missiles and even their plans were destroyed per treaty over twenty years ago, we have to start from scratch if we want to reach the Mun. Our counterparts over at the Kerbal Space Center will have to do the same."

Edited January 5, 2020 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 3

While the vonKermans continued scouting bases, reviewing financial options, and considering rocket and spacecraft designs, it was Aviation Day at the Kerbal Space Center. For those not familiar, Aviation Day is the day on which kerbals took their very first powered flight in a heavier than air vehicle. Today, sixty years later, Jeb tried to redeem himself for his fiasco with the trainer aircraft crash at the Santa Katalina Island Airfield. KSC engineers once again modified the trainer, replacing the motor with a new Bumblebee engine from an old scrapped Korsair and replacing the existing landing gear with pontoons to enable water landings.

Why pontoons? At some point, astronauts will need to be fished out of the water. Plus, at the request of the Kerman Oceanic Atmospheric Agency (KOAA), KSC was contracted to conduct temperature studies at various locations around the globe. With the modifications, Jeb’s job was to land the trainer in the water and take some readings. There were other locations, but they’d have to wait for aircraft capable of reaching them. The study was important; KOAA is concerned that kerbalkin’s burning of hydrokerbons is heating up the planet.

Jeb successfully took off and buzzed KSC harbor before splashing down just offshore, and then took some temperature readings. For good measure, he took some atmospheric measurements and tested out the magnetometer. Finally, he tested a new bathymetry experiment.

But when he tried to take off again, the engine started but plane just wouldn’t cooperate. As hard as he tried, the plane just wouldn’t lift out of the water. Not wanting to push it, Jeb carefully angled towards the shore, “motored” over to the beach, hauled the trainer out of the water.

Satisfied that he could exit the water, he carefully backed the plane into the water again, performed the material science experiment that he forgot, and then taxied off the beach. A short flight later, he was back at the KSC- and landed properly on the runway. KSC's mechanics would have their hands full drying out the plane!

A bit later, KSC rolled out a mockup of what could be the first spacecraft- the K-20 Kerbal Soar! The Fabulous Four all posed for a publicity shot that’s sure to inspire young kerbals to join the Kerbal Space Program. The debate among KSC's engineers over winged craft versus capsules was fierce. Wings were useless in space, but helpful for gliding back to the space center. Capsules were smaller, but a harsher ride for the occupants. Capsules made it easier to bring along other payloads, but winged craft could have cargo bays. And so on... Ultimately, Jeb and Valentina provided the deciding vote; they wanted something that they could fly!

Wernher vonKerman, chief engineer at KSC, was delighted. His original plans for the Lindor mun rocket included a winged orbiter, and it was great to see something like his vision coming true.

----

That's all the time I have for now, for the next few days I'll be moving. But To the Mun will return!

Edited January 6, 2020 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

I'm back at it There's a lot more for me to do but I'm mostly moved into my new place.

Chapter 4

With the kermanned spacecraft design settled, the next task was to build and test it. To that end, KSC built a prototype, the Pathfinder, to conduct approach and landing tests. Unlike the mockup, Pathfinder was painted black and white for better visibility. If all went well, the prototype might be modified for spaceflight.

The space center needed an aircraft to carry Pathfinder up to its launch altitude, but the aircraft engineers were busy designing a long-range science plane for the climate study. After considerable debate, Gene Kerman, Flight Director and acting head of KSC, got fed up and directed the team to design the plane for both missions. It was an ungainly design with long inverted gull wings, twin tail booms that doubled as pontoons, and a pair of salvaged Bumblebee motors. It could carry either the Pathfinder prototype or a combined science and fuel pod. The engineers called it the Sea Goat, a compromise between Seagull and Mountain Goat. Both names reflected its nature.

A few days later, Valentina taxied the Sea Goat onto the newly paved runway at KSC. She gunned the engines and the plane took off, easily climbing into the air before rolling down half the runway. Valentina had no trouble landing in the ocean near KSC Harbor or taking off from the water. A few minutes later, she landed back at KSC.

With the test flight complete, KSC cleared the range to test another craft- their first multi-stage rocket! Previous efforts focused on working out issues with solid fuel boosters, but today’s mission was to send a simple temperature sensor into space, take measurements, and hopefully return it safely. Nobody was sure that it would work.

The Explorer 1 spacecraft lit its 6 side boosters and leaped off the new launchpad. It quickly burned through its solid fuel and shed stages along the way. Just after it breached the atmosphere, Explorer 1 jettisoned its protective nose cone to reveal the QBE probe core, small heat shield, recovery chute, and temperature sensor. Sadly, not much later, Explorer 1 lost power, but not before arming its recovery chute.

The dead probe reached 606km in altitude- still “low” in space, and then promptly plunged through the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the recovery chute burned away, leaving the rest of the craft to slam into the ground. KSC declared it a successful failure; they gained a few bits of science and were rewarded for breaking several records. While the scientists were unhappy about not getting any temperature data, the engineers gleefully went back to their drawing boards. They wanted a rematch.

A few days after the rocket launch, the Sea Goat was ready for its next mission: carrying the Pathfinder. Once again, Valentina took the controls, but this time Jeb hopped into the Pathfinder.

The original plan was to perform a captive carry test of the Sea Goat/ Pathfinder combo, but a desire to try out FRMS misfire of the decoupler changed their plans.

Jeb quickly grabbed the controls as the glider nosed down sharply and managed to coax the plane to circle around to the runway. As he rapidly ran out of altitude, Jeb banked over the runway, setting down nearly at the halfway point. Fortunately, it was enough, and Pathfinder skidded to a stop. It was Valentina’s turn next.

She banked the Sea Goat around and set down at the edge of the runway. Thanks to is flaps and slats, she brought the plane down with a scant 25 meters per second and easily stopped well before any possibility of hitting the glider. Val carefully taxied the Sea Goat over to the glider, and ground crews recovered both planes.

Finally, as engineers poured over the flight data, the ground team showed off the Sea Goat’s rapid turnaround capability. Soon after, Valentina once more took the airplane into the sky, this time with her husband Bob to gather more science data. They had a few days of flying ahead of them to reach all the waypoints. Hopefully the scientists would be satisfied with the climate data.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 5

Valentina and Bob have been flying all over the place taking various atmospheric, oceanic, and temperature readings, and after a long 4-hour stretch, they finally reached the Arctic Sea just after dark. The new Tempest engines were doing their job. Mostly. The Bumblebees just didn’t have enough power to carry all the extra fuel they needed and still lift out of the water. As it was, the Tempests weren’t the best either. KSC hoped to convert the Sea Goat to employ turboprops or jet engines soon.

Tired and hungry, Bob stepped out of the cockpit and onto the frigid shore of an iceberg to take more readings. He was glad he had his environmental suit. He’d be quite cold without it. Bob remarked that it was unusual to see icebergs; this part of the Arctic Sea should be locked in ice this time of the year.

Once they were done, Valentina backed the Sea Goat away from the shore for a brief trip to the Ice Caps to take atmospheric, temperature, and mystery goo readings. While there, Bob did some surveys for a potential astronaut training habitat. After that, the pair headed to Air Base N46A for some much-needed rest. All in all, they made 30 scientific observations and reports, which should keep KSC’s science staff busy for a while. Several hops later, they were back at KSC.

The next day, Explorer 2 roared off the launch pad with a determination to reach space- and return safely. Its new Explorer liquid fuel core state lit up after the launcher dropped its solid strapon boosters. Flight disengaged the booster after the probe’s apoapsis reached nearly 925 kilometers. At its apoapsis, Explorer 2 took its temperature reading. Now it just had to survive its trip back through the atmosphere.

The launcher had some fuel left, so KSC decided to try a novel approach: relight the engine to slow descent. It worked, but the booster suffered catastrophic failure as its parts overheated and exploded. Flight frantically tried to get the probe’s decoupler to fire. Finally, Explorer 2 broke free of its launcher and deployed its chutes for a soft landing. At last, KSC launched and safely returned their first space probe! The next step was even more challenging…

Several days later, the engineering team rolled out their latest creation: Explorer 3! Using a modified Explorer rocket, with 4 stages plus the strapon solid rocket boosters, KSC hoped to put Explorer 3 into orbit. The rocket roared off the pad and quickly burned through it solids. Dropping them off, Explorer 3 continued its ascent. Soon it dropped its lower core stage, burned through its upper stage, and finally ignited the kick stage. There it ran into problems; Explorer 3 couldn’t control its spin!

Mission Control had to patiently wait for Explorer 3 to spin around to prograde before igniting the kick stage, but it worked. Before long, the little probe entered an 85km by 224km orbit around Kerbin, the first artificial satellite to do so!

A short while later, Explorer 3 deployed its communications antennae and magnetometer boom, taking measurements and transmitting the results before the probe lost its data link with KSC.

The Sea Goat ventured out again, flying east-southeast until they came upon Musgrave Air Force Station, an old missile complex. Val and Bob set the airplane down and refueled the Sea Goat before proceeding east. They needed to take additional temperature readings in the Eastern Sea as well as in Kerbin’s Arid Lowlands. They came across the Great Lake and took some readings before continuing onward.

The Sea Goat even found some ancient pyramids thought to belong to the Kermantians, a civilization that spread out through the globe before mysteriously vanishing. Several hours later, the team finished their surveys and headed to Woomera, refueling where they could along the way. They landed at night and rested before their long flight back to KSC.

Edited January 21, 2020 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 6

After Valentina and Bob flew around Kerbin and collected their data, the climate scientists got to work analyzing the results. Meanwhile, the engineers readied the Sea Goat to recover the K-20 by adding a fuselage extension with power generation and mounted a pair of winches. They rolled out the plane along with the Pathfinder- it was undergoing thermal painting- for recovery practice. Bill had no trouble attaching the winch cables and hauling Pathfinder against the Sea Goat.

Once that was completed, they brought the planes back into the hangar. For the next training, the engineers attached the K-20 mockup- they didn’t want to risk Pathfinder- and Bill and Jeb landed the Sea Goat in KSC Harbor. Bill hit the disconnect lever, dropping the mockup into the ocean, before stepping outside for a swim. He connected the winch cables, got back inside, and carefully retracted them. As before, the glider fit snugly.

Unfortunately, the Sea Goat couldn’t lift out of the water, but being so close to shore, Jeb just taxied over to the beach and head back to KSC. A week later, the engineering team equipped the seaplane with a pair of brand-new Titan turboprops and lengthened the pontoons. Once again, Bill and Jeb buzzed KSC Harbor and set the plane back into the ocean to try and take off again under load. This time, with the modifications and new procedures, the Sea Goat lifted out of the ocean. Ideally, the K-20 would land back at KSC, but with the latest success they could handle both ground and water landings. Regardless, the Kerbal Space Program finally had all the pieces in place, so it was time for a suborbital test flight…

With its modifications completed, the Pathfinder perched atop its Explorer II launch vehicle and pointed at the sky. The Explorer II had a trio of Swivel engines for increased thrust, a pair of solid rocket boosters to help with the initial kick, and larger fins needed for stability. It was suited for small orbital satellite launches, or in this case, a suborbital hop for for the K-20.

The goal was simple: escape the atmosphere, run a couple of experiments, test reentry heating for comparison against predicted models, and land at Welcome Back Island. If the glider flew too far, then it would divert to Katalina Island Airfield as its alternate landing site. If necessary, Pathfinder would ditch in the ocean for recovery.

With so many unknowns and firsts, Pathfinder carried no pilot. Instead its cargo bay held a QBE probe core along with science instruments and emergency batteries. If all went well, then KSC would recover the Pathfinder and refurbish it for another flight. If not, then the space center would move ahead with the Pioneer, the next K-20. They had three more K-20s in various stages of construction: Mariner, Ranger, and Viking. Like Pathfinder and Pioneer, Mariner was another Block 1 with a payload bay while Ranger and Viking were Block 2 variants that eschewed the cargo bay for a crew cabin.

Pathfinder’s fuel cell started, and the crew tower rolled back in preparation for launch. Once the tower locked in place, the vehicle launched. It quickly shed its solid rocket booster and continued onward with the core booster. After it ran out of fuel, Pathfinder decoupled from the Explorer II launch vehicle and continued to coast.

As it exited the atmosphere, Pathfinder opened its cargo bay and ran its experiments and tested its RCS thrusters. KSC engineers were quite pleased that the craft continued to perform well. The glider coasted up to 113km before heading back down and closing its payload doors to reach its designated landing site.

But it was clear that the glider completely missed Welcome Back Island.

KSC hoped that it would make the Katalina Island Airfield. Naturally, that didn’t happen. Instead, Pathfinder re-entered about midway, but near enough to try and land at an atoll. Unfortunately, the glider couldn’t reach the atoll either and instead ditched in the ocean nearby. Fortunately, Bill and Jeb were already prepped and ready in the Sea Goat.

A short flight later, the Sea Goat landed in the ocean and taxied up to the Pathfinder. Just as they had practiced, Bill hopped out, attached the winch cables, and hauled the glider up next to the seaplane. Jeb then gunned the engines and headed back to the space center, landing before sunset. Pathfinder would need refurbishment, but at first glance it appeared intact and capable of flying again.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Angel-125

[Gordon Fecyk]

This is looking hard-core, right up to manual recovery of landed craft.

[Angelo Kerman]

4 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

This is looking hard-core, right up to manual recovery of landed craft.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm trying something different for this save. It's the first time for me playing KSP 1.7.3 (my previous game was on KSP 1.3.1!) and first JNSQ game. I've wanted to do a shuttles-themed game for awhile, so I get to do that as well. It's been fun trying to figure out how to recover the K-20!

[KerballingSmasher]

This is cool so far!

[Angelo Kerman]

One more, then taking a small break to do some modding.

Chapter 7

Before they’d let anyone fly the K-20, KSC had one more test to perform. They had to ensure that a K-20 could break away from its launch vehicle in the event of an in-flight abort. To that end, they refurbished the Pathfinder and prepared it for another launch. This time, its K-20 launch vehicle adapter sported a pair of Bolt abort motors. Once activated, they could not be shut down. And as before, Pathfinder carried no crew.

This time around, the Explorer II swapped its solid rocket boosters for a pair of liquid boosters. The test flight gave KSC engineers an opportunity to gather flight data on them and make any improvements needed for the next suborbital flight. The launch began without a hitch, but then the rocket began to spin out of control! The maneuver was not part of the plan. The rocket was partially controllable, so Flight directed it away from the space center before triggering the abort sequence.

Pathfinder rocketed away from its booster and then ditched its interstage adapter. After righting itself and lining up with the runway, the glider set down and skidded to a stop. The unexpected operational test of the launch abort system worked like a charm. A thorough accident investigation revealed that somebody forgot to turn on Aircraft Autopilot a software glitch in the flight control software caused instability in the launch vehicle and caused it to lose control. The glitch was corrected, and KSC prepared Pathfinder for another flight.

The Astrovan rolled out to the launchpad, and Valentina stepped out. She won the coin toss to make the first piloted suborbital flight, much to Jeb’s consternation. He remained in the van while Bill got out and wished her well.

Valentina took the elevator and boarded Pathfinder while Bill and Jeb drove back to the astronaut complex. Jeb hopped into the Sea Goat, ready for spacecraft recovery.

The launch went off without a hitch. Pathfinder roared off the pad and rolled to the right and began to pitch over. Once the LRBs ran out of fuel, Valentina jettisoned them, and continued ascending and arcing over.

Once the booster ran out of fuel, Valentina decoupled Pathfinder and coasted up to 109km. She remembered to open the payload doors and run the experiments before buttoning up the glider and hitting the atmosphere. As before, Pathfinder overshot Welcome Back Island and fell short of the Katalina Island Airfield. Valentina carefully guided the glider to a safe landing in the ocean. All she had to do was wait for recovery.

Jeb arrived about an hour later, connected the winch cables, and hauled in Pathfinder as Valentina got out and hopped into the Sea Goat. The duo took a brief flight to the Island Airfield for recovery.

“Congrats on being the first kerbal in space,” Jeb said coldly. “Now I get to be first into orbit.” Jeb could be such a jerk sometimes…

[RealKerbal3x]

@Angel-125 I was wondering, since you are using Restock in this game, what your general opinion is on SQUAD's part revamps. Personally I like them, partly because of the art style, partly because they're simply an improvement over the old parts.

I'm really enjoying this so far, keep it up!

Edited January 25, 2020 by RealKerbal3x

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

@Angel-125 I was wondering, since you are using Restock in this game, what your general opinion is on SQUAD's part revamps. Personally I like them, partly because of the art style, partly because they're simply an improvement over the old parts.

I'm really enjoying this so far, keep it up!

I applaud Squad's efforts to revamp their parts to at last remove placeholders and improve their appearance. From what I've seen, its an improvement, and those who don't use mods will probably like them. The revamped parts don't seem to have a consistent style between them, and the detailing varies between parts. By contrast, Porkjet's revamp of the airplane and spaceplane parts remain consistent and hold up well after several years.

By contrast, Restock built upon Porkjet's rocket parts revamp and met and exceeded its art quality. all the parts are consistently detailed and textured. As one example, here are  the Restock Skipper and Mainsail:

Everything from the detailing to the texturing is consistent, and it really looks like these two engines belong to the same company.

And here are engines from Porkjet's revamp:

Restock is consistent with these engines as well.

What this shows me is that different artists can indeed make a consistent art quality that matches each other's work. I would be very happy if I could improve my art skills to the level of Restock, and my next project will I hope give me that opportunity.

I'd say that Squad has their vision of their game, and I respect that. Many people like their art direction. For me, I prefer the Restock style; it looks great and it looks consistent with other aspects of the game.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

Bonus chapter! This was a lot of fun. I was able to pull off some maneuvers without the aid of maneuver nodes!

Chapter 8

Jeb walked across the crew access arm and boarded the Pioneer, KSC’s newest K-20 Kerbal Soar. Pathfinder was undergoing refurbishment and refit to bring it up to the Pioneer’s Block 1A standard, so it was unavailable. Jeb could feel the craft just begging to leap off the pad, and he was the one that would take it all the way to orbit.

To get there, KSC engineers designed and built the Edna launch vehicle- KSC realized that the tradition of naming its new launch vehicles after the first payloads that they carried would cause confusion, so they adopted Wernher's idea of naming them after planets. The Edna rocket was enormous, with twin Reliant engines in the first stage, a Swivel in the second, and a new Terrier engine in the kick stage. A pair of new Sledgehammer solid rocket motors provided the extra boost. KSP didn't like using solid rocket motors on kermanned flights but their engineers hadn't figured out how to make bigger liquid fuel engines. It was their top priority.

Launch Control retracted the umbilical arms and the crew arm. If anything went wrong, Jeb would either need to wait for the arms to return or hit the abort motors. But Jeb wasn’t going to let that happen. He was going to space today. Pioneer lifted off and performed its roll program right after clearing the tower. The booster wobbled violently as it clawed for altitude- something that KSC engineers would have to resolve. But Jeb just kept going. Things got better after the SRBs burned out and were jettisoned.

Pioneer reached an apoapsis of 500 km and tried desperately to achieve orbit but could only get a periapsis of 52 km before hitting the atmosphere. Jeb was worried; he didn’t want another suborbital flight!

He pulled up hoping that somehow, he’d skip upwards again, and it worked. Pioneer’s apoapsis dropped down to 203.1 kilometers, but he’d made it. Now he just needed to circularize his orbit. Fifteen minutes later, Pioneer entered a 205 km by 125 km orbit, and Jebediah Kerman became the first kerbal to orbit Kerbin.

Mission Control was ecstatic to say the least, and Wernher took note of how the K-20 lost altitude as it plunged through the atmosphere. He thought such a procedure could be refined into a form of… aerobraking… to conserve fuel as spacecraft returned from the moons or another planet. Flight also realized that they needed to refine their ascent profile…

With just over 1600 m/sec delta-v remaining, Jeb decided to try maneuvering in orbit. There was one target he had in mind: Explorer 3. Since the tracking station could only provide basic orbital data, Jeb had to eyeball it. He waited until the orbit lines intersected and burned until they were parallel. Then it was a matter of increasing his orbit and waiting to see if the two spacecraft would catch up.

Jeb waited for hours, much to the frustration of Mission Control when he suddenly developed "radio trouble." He was not going to be outdone by Valentina, Flight could go straight to Moho! A day later, Pioneer and Explorer 3 were parallel to each other, and Jeb tried slowing down to make their orbits intersect. It worked, and they got to within 30 km of each other.

Jeb refined his orbit even further, and several burns later, Pioneer pulled up alongside Explorer 3 less than 5 meters away.

By the time that his radio was “restored,” Gene was furious with Jeb for ignoring Mission Control, burning through most of Pioneer’s monopropellant, consuming half his life support, and dipping into his propellant reserves. They wanted him on the ground soonest. Jeb just smiled. He’d proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the best pilot bar none. It was time to go home.

Jeb watched the tracking data and guestimated where the glider needed to go. He performed a deorbit burn and immediately followed it with a translation burn. His orbit line flew over KSC and ended at Welcome Back Island. He figured that was good enough; the recovery crew would do the rest. Just before atmospheric entry, he dropped the kick stage. Pioneer was a pure glider again.

As Pioneer careened through the atmosphere and it became clear that it would overshoot KSC, Jeb decided to bank sharply back and forth to slow down. Before long, his speed dipped below 400 meters per second and his altitude dropped through 10,000 meters. He had plenty of room to maneuver.

His altitude dropped even further, and he banked around to line up on the runway. At the last moment, he extended Pioneer’s skids and touched down, skidding to a stop.

Jeb got out and posed for a publicity photo as recovery crews raced to meet him. No matter what, he’d cemented his place in the history books.

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 9

Jeb spent several days getting lectured by Gene about disobeying Mission Control, followed by getting grilled by the scientists about how he managed to rendezvous two spacecraft in orbit by hand; the tracking station had yet to be upgraded with precision ranging equipment and computers powerful enough to handle patched conics. Plus, if they could capture his procedures and generalize them, then someday all spacecraft could be equipped with Jeb-based navigation computers.

Gene would’ve loved to ground Jeb, but he needed him. He was the only other qualified astronaut pilot besides Valentina, and that wasn’t going to change for some time. In the meantime, it was Valentina’s turn to fly. Her job was to test improvements to the Edna launch vehicle and deploy a satellite. Edna’s upgrades included replacing the Swivel and Terrier motors with the new Cheetah upperstage motor, which offered more thrust and better vacuum specific impulse. A new gyroscope assembly also helped with flight control, and additional structural bracing helped with the wobbling. Eventually engineers wanted to replace several of the smaller fuel tanks with longer ones for additional stability.

As Pioneer blasted off, Valentina rolled the spacecraft 180 degrees and pitched over, hitting 45 degrees at 20 kilometers and pitching horizontal at 50 km. That helped the spacecraft build up speed faster. Careful management of her trajectory avoided hitting the atmosphere on ascent, and she ended up in a 494 km by 178 km orbit. Not just any orbit though; Valentina became the first woman in space and the first kerbal to achieve polar orbit. And thanks to upgrades at the tracking station Val quickly had a maneuvering node to circularize her orbit.

After looping around to the dayside again, Valentina deployed SCANSat 1, the first radar mapping satellite of its kind. SCANSat 1 extended its antennae, a new solar array, and finally its mapping radar. As Pioneer backed away, SCANSat reported that it was in an ideal orbit.

Due to her limited fuel reserves, Val had to wait a day for KSC to line up with her orbit again. She burned through her entire fuel reserves and engaged the RCS thrusters in order to make the deorbit burn. She completed the maneuver with just 55 units of monopropellant remaining.

The reentry was very rough; Valentina blacked out from the high gee forces but finally regained consciousness a scant 4 km above the ocean. She immediately turned Pioneer around and headed back, ditching in the ocean within site of the space center. Jeb quickly made the 30 km trip to pick up Valentina and gave her a hard time the whole way back.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Angel-125

[Roland1999]

Are these wings really needed in an orbital configuration?

[JadeOfMaar]

4 hours ago, Roland1999 said:

Are these wings really needed in an orbital configuration?

Yes, they are. If you have built planes, the same rules apply when you create a winged orbiter and its launch vehicle. The center of lift needs to always be behind (or below, depending on how you look at it) the center of mass. Due to where the shuttle is positioned on its launcher, the launcher doesn't need wings, but the problems due to the shuttle being side mounted (center of mass and center of thrust will move a lot) will quickly make it hard to adopt and very difficult and undesirable to engineer anything else like it. If you build anything like an arrow, you must respect the principle of the arrow's design. Pointy end forward, feathers at the back. Due to this principle and the very real problem of dry mass and dead mass, no real space agency will build a winged orbiter and a launcher with sufficient wing surface anytime soon, and when you attempt this in KSP you will be shocked by how much wing you'll need to keep the whole craft aerodynamically stable.

Winged orbiters, in general, primarily use their wings to take advantage of the atmosphere during and after descent, not during ascent. When they glide and take that advantage they can exercise much more control over where and how they land, especially at low speeds, unlike capsules. Their touchdowns can be much more gentle due to landing horizontally, granting them much less need for chutes.

Spoiler

We do not speak of SpaceX Starship. That's a subject on its own.

 

[Roland1999]

9 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Yes, they are. If you have built planes, the same rules apply when you create a winged orbiter and its launch vehicle. The center of lift needs to always be behind (or below, depending on how you look at it) the center of mass. Due to where the shuttle is positioned on its launcher, the launcher doesn't need wings, but the problems due to the shuttle being side mounted (center of mass and center of thrust will move a lot) will quickly make it hard to adopt and very difficult and undesirable to engineer anything else like it. If you build anything like an arrow, you must respect the principle of the arrow's design. Pointy end forward, feathers at the back. Due to this principle and the very real problem of dry mass and dead mass, no real space agency will build a winged orbiter and a launcher with sufficient wing surface anytime soon, and when you attempt this in KSP you will be shocked by how much wing you'll need to keep the whole craft aerodynamically stable.

Winged orbiters, in general, primarily use their wings to take advantage of the atmosphere during and after descent, not during ascent. When they glide and take that advantage they can exercise much more control over where and how they land, especially at low speeds, unlike capsules. Their touchdowns can be much more gentle due to landing horizontally, granting them much less need for chutes.

  Reveal hidden contents

We do not speak of SpaceX Starship. That's a subject on its own.

 

Thank you for such detailed answer. I just thought that side boosters should provide some stability like in the real Dyna Soar

Spoiler

 

[JadeOfMaar]

6 minutes ago, Roland1999 said:

Thank you for such detailed answer. I just thought that side boosters should provide some stability like in the real Dyna Soar

Solid boosters IRL can have very high gimbal ranges. This a bandage at best but not a true remedy. This does not actually fix the aero problem of the CoL being at the head of the craft. This just makes it more troubling and more sensitive to steer the craft. This is fighting instability (due to aero) with instability (high thrust with high gimbal). Would you give an already incredibly unstable craft even more ability to be unstable? ... Only if you really know what you're doing (and if your autopilot can handle it).

[Roland1999]

2 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Solid boosters IRL can have very high gimbal ranges. This a bandage at best but not a true remedy. This does not actually fix the aero problem of the CoL being at the head of the craft. This just makes it more troubling and more sensitive to steer the craft. This is fighting instability (due to aero) with instability (high thrust with high gimbal). Would you give an already incredibly unstable craft even more ability to be unstable? ... Only if you really know what you're doing (and if your autopilot can handle it).

I mean in terms of aerodynamics, or stock KSP still does not model aerodynamics for fuel tanks or SRBs?

[JadeOfMaar]

@Roland1999 KSP is quite accurate with its aero model most of the time so the behavior you get in-game can often be trusted when carried over to a real craft. The SRBs may help just a bit in very loosely producing a composite lift surface along with the core lifter and drag back the CoL by some amount but not far enough to matter. The problem of cylinders is that they are round and not a shape with flat sides and enough area on any side (like a triangle or cube). That means they will have no ability to change the air deflection vector, and have no ability in themselves to prevent rolling, no ability to otherwise add to aero stability.

• By very loosely I refer to the fact that stock aero does not model fluid dynamics in any way. One part producing lift and deflecting the air stream will not block the part behind it from participating in the same. You'll need to install FAR and test your design in it for an even more accurate behavior. If you build a Venture Star with Mk3 tanks and use no wing pieces then ideally you should end up with a huge lift surface but if you turn on aero overlays and force the craft to yaw just enough, you'll see just as many of the cyan effect lines along the yaw axis as you would the pitch axis. If you bank to the left, then the right side of the craft will produce just as much lift force towards the left side as if it was pitching and won't "block the air flow" from every part behind it and towards the left side. All its parts will produce that sidways aero force and that's not realistic at all.