The Orbits of CLOUD-ONE Space Station

[cubinator]

Back in Action 

With the return of Naleon 1 from Moho, the space program again has enough funds to launch another vessel! We may be sending some simple auxiliary ships to certain worlds to build up money reserves so that we can really make CLOUD-ONE ready for a full exploration of Jool. Then again, going to Jool will net us a lot of funds in the first place...How about we do both, then?  I have lots of ideas of what to do next, but I also have to go to school soon...

Edited August 18, 2020 by cubinator

[Kerminator K-100]

I really like the station design! I've never tried building a station around anywhere except Kerbin so I'll have to look for some tips.

You should check out this mod: 

It has a lot of cool parts that would work well with your station. 

[cubinator]

7 hours ago, Kerminator1000 said:

 

Thanks for the recommendation! I don't think I'll use it for this station, but maybe in the future I could use it for something else.

[cubinator]

Reusability!

Another refueling mission with the Mega Stage was conducted to CLOUD-ONE, and most interestingly an aeronautical museum on the opposite side of Kerbin from KSC mysteriously announced a large new exhibit about one hour after launch, providing substantial evidence that the booster may have survived reentry mostly intact.

Due to this discovery regarding the booster, our engineers are now hard at work on the next flight article, outfitting it with parachutes and painting the lower parts of the rocket with a bitter material to deter bystanders from approaching the landed rocket and licking it.

https://imgur.com/a/2I1EvvF

[Kerminator K-100]

33 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Due to this discovery regarding the booster, our engineers are now hard at work on the next flight article, outfitting it with parachutes and painting the lower parts of the rocket with a bitter material to deter bystanders from approaching the landed rocket and licking it.

Does this happen a lot on Kerbin?

[cubinator]

1 minute ago, Kerminator1000 said:

Does this happen a lot on Kerbin?

It's...not unheard of.

[cubinator]

Booster Recovery(?)

The booster for the latest refueling mission conducted a perfect descent but because it impacted on water it was destroyed. The same landing a few kilometers to the west likely would have resulted in a recovery. Next time we'll get it!

https://imgur.com/a/uUHcpks

Meanwhile in orbit, the tanker filled up another of CLOUD-ONE's fuel tanks, and returned to Kerbin, landing within walking distance of the Kerbal Space Center.

 

[Kerminator K-100]

20 hours ago, cubinator said:

Meanwhile in orbit, the tanker filled up another of CLOUD-ONE's fuel tanks, and returned to Kerbin, landing within walking distance of the Kerbal Space Center.

 

You should keep an eye on Jeb, I'm sure he will lick this one.

[cubinator]

32 minutes ago, Kerminator1000 said:

You should keep an eye on Jeb, I'm sure he will lick this one.

Don't worry, Jeb is in orbit aboard CLOUD-ONE.

[Kerminator K-100]

Just now, cubinator said:

Don't worry, Jeb is in orbit aboard CLOUD-ONE

I'm sure he will find a way

[cubinator]

A Full Tank!

The final refueling spaceship pulls away from CLOUD-ONE.

The Jool transfer window is approaching, and the spaceship's ten NTR engines are ready.

One more rocket launch is required to add a new docking adapter below the communications truss, to which the spaceplane Phoenix can dock. The Phoenix will lift four tourists to the space station, who will brave the long journey through the dark just to watch Jool, Tylo, and Laythe through their windows. 

[RealKerbal3x]

Yay, it's back!

[cubinator]

The Three Moons Of Jool

Jool has been observed by Kerbals for thousands of years, representing a suite of mythical characters having powers over such things as destiny, Snacks, and lightning. More recently, observations made with an optical instrument called the Television have revealed three moons orbiting Jool: Laythe, Tylo, and Pol. These were named after three of Jool's children in ancient Kerbal mythology: Laythe, the goddess of life, Tylo, the stoic god of justice, and Pol, the god of allergens. When CLOUD-ONE arrives there, Kerbals will be able to judge how closely their names match their true character.

[cubinator]

Moar Docking Ports!

One more rocket launch put the new docking tube in orbit, as well as two scientific probes which will prove useful in the Jool system. The tube was attached via a series of fairly complicated maneuvers which temporarily split CLOUD-ONE in two. The pilots accomplished the installation expertly.

As the transfer window to Jool arrives, the time has come to launch our four passengers and additional pilot in a spaceplane to join the station for the trip.

[cubinator]

Ready for Departure

The last of the inhabitants of CLOUD-ONE have launched from the runway at KSC in their ultra-high power rocket jet to join the space station in orbit. The Phoenix gets its name from...well, this:

The effect soon fades as the plane becomes a rocket and cuts free of the air.

The rest of the ride is as smooth as the liftoff is tumultuous.

Now that the spaceplane is attached and the passengers are in their cabins, CLOUD-ONE is finally ready to fire its engines for Jool, the mission it was designed for...

[cubinator]

Jool Intercept

CLOUD-ONE performed a series of several burns at Kerbin's twilight, each one raising its velocity closer to escape into solar orbit. On the final burn, it would breach Kerbin's gravitational influence and fly all the way to Jool.

With science experiments, landers, and Kerbals all ready, it was time to meet the green giant and find out just what it was that they would be exploring.

[cubinator]

I had some issues with the station being much too laggy, but I seem to have fixed it by giving KSP "real time" priority in Task Manager (but I think BetterTimeWarp can make it laggy again if I go too wild on the physics warp). So now the game is playable, the station controllable, and the story continuable!

KSP 1.11 has come at just the perfect time, as it gives our Kerbals lots to do on the moons of Jool. Once they've scouted the system, refueled their station, and charted the moons, a shipment will be sent from Kerbin consisting of as many parts and habitats as I can afford (and the science returns from early Jool exploration will certainly fill the old barrel!). The Kerbals will need to improvise, and they will use the shipments to construct whatever kinds of bases they decide would be most useful to them. Fuel refineries, science outposts, rovers...The parts will be sent from Kerbin, and the crew of CLOUD-ONE will decide what to do with them!

[cubinator]

Joolian Adventure

The crew of CLOUD-ONE celebrated their long-awaited arrival at Jool with a gravity assist from Laythe, which would put them in orbit of the green giant and treat the Kerbals to some otherworldly closeup views of the moon which had thus far been but a blue speck on television eyepieces. It had been theorized that Laythe had an atmosphere, that it might support ice or water of some kind, but this.

This is the world the Kerbals saw with their own eyes. This world was covered in water, there was no doubt. There was an atmosphere. There were islands on which they could land. Perhaps they could even live there. Obviously Laythe was the most habitable of the worlds now surrounding them, but they couldn't stop now. They had a job to do. Their mission is the exploration of the Jool system. CLOUD-ONE still had fuel in it, but not enough to go stopping at every moon willy-knilly. The gravity assist at Laythe was executed such that CLOUD-ONE would be placed into a high elliptical orbit around Jool which crossed the paths of all three moons. This would allow them to send probes out to gather some intel about their prospective destinations in order to make a constructive decision on where the station would be sent first.

As the station swung away from Laythe, the crew made preparations to send the first probe, aptly and uncreatively named Explorer 1, to Pol. Pol is the third and smallest moon of Jool, and therefore the most likely prospect for mining fuel due to its convenient low gravity, the Kerbals decided in a bustling meeting. However, there was no rush and there was no good reason not to precede the relocation of CLOUD-ONE with a probe landing on the moon. The probe would send back useful scientific and navigational data which would help our Joolian explorers to decide what would be the best course of action in travelling to Pol themselves.

Explorer 1 had a navigational glitch immediately after undocking, but the issue was resolved by rebooting the probe's computer remotely. Then the little lander carried on to Pol.

A few burns later, and the probe made it to Pol and began showing the Kerbals what to expect from the presumably rather average speck. 

The color was yellowish, rather unlike any asteroid they were familiar with.

Pol was lumpy, as was expected for an object of this size, with high mountains characterizing the surface.

The mountains were revealed to have ridges resembling folds all across the surface. What unusual geological process could have caused those to form?

Approaching the surface, Explorer 1 revealed large spikes protruding from the ground. These were irregular in shape and very large, most of them several meters tall. This certainly was an exciting discovery, as the Kerbals had never seen anything like it.

 

[cubinator]

Meanwhile, in the Dark of Space...

J24 05 55 08     RS1     CLOUD-ONE is preparing to receive the transmission...We are ready to receive.

J24 05 55 30     RS2     OK, we seem to be getting data. Telemetry rates nominal, --

J24 05 55 40     RS2     Stand by.

J24 05 58 01     RS1     Kerbin, the data transmission is in progress and seems to be going well. We should have a full report on the first set of data transmissions in a few hours. The probe landed in a region of the moon which is about to go into darkness, and we estimate that it will not have enough time in sunlight to transmit all the science data from the landing and the first hour on the ground. When the sun rises again on Pol we'll resume the transmission, but in the meantime we'll get to work on the initial batch of data.

===========

The probe, pointing its antenna at the station near the planet, began shouting the secrets of this moon after touching down and peering about at its surroundings, in its own mechanical way. Temperature was nothing unexpected from this location in the solar system, pressure was nonexistent...But the seismic scan showed that the moon had a very unusual layering. The surface was made of loose, light rocks, and the interior seemed to contain a slightly denser core. There was enough power on the probe to leave the seismic scanner on overnight, and...was that a rhythmic pulsing, or...? No, it must have been some other part of the probe settling or contracting in the cold. 

When the sun rose the probe made contact with the station again, proving that it had survived the night, and completed its data transmission. The information was relayed to Kerbin and both teams would study the results. It was decided that Pol was the first destination for CLOUD-ONE, and the station would maneuver into orbit around it and send the mining module down repeatedly to gather fuel. While that was going on, Kerbals could use the landers to drop down to multiple places on the moon to study it - there was more than enough delta-V to perform all the hops they needed on this odd little ball.

[cubinator]

Uneasy Orbit

Again, it only took a few maneuvers to bring the Station into orbit around Pol. As they were approaching the moon, each of the Kerbals got a chance to look at it out their windows. And each one had an unusual feeling at first sight. Thus far, every Kerbal who had visited another world had felt an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquility, as if even though they were far away from their home planet, they were welcome and at-home on the alien world. Not here. Here they felt that they were looking at something almost hostile or malevolent, and it gave a sense of aversion similar to the aversion one might have for poking at a bug or some strange deep-sea creature. The familiarity of Jool and Laythe were tiny and distant in the sky. Bill Kerman suddenly got the sense that something was wrong with the propulsion module, and hurriedly began checking systems until fellow engineer Mila convinced him to calm down. 

The strange feeling quickly faded, and the Kerbals shrugged and went about preparing for orbital insertion around the third moon of Jool. The maneuver went without a hitch. "I guess there was no danger at all," Bill said.

Still, though, it seemed like there was something different about this moon, something not right with it. But the Kerbals ignored this feeling because they were explorers, because it was silly to think that a moon could be evil or malevolent towards them, even if there was natural danger there. And they pressed on, packing Lander 2 with supplies, scientists, and a pilot cocky enough to land them at the very tip of the spikiest mountain in their path.

[cubinator]

 

[cubinator]

Uneasy Peaks

The ridge Lander 2 landed on was characterized by the same greenish spikes seen by the probe. It appeared that the entire surface was covered in them in a pretty much uniform distribution. 

The soil was crunchy and loose, and you had to be careful not to walk right over the edge of the cliff because the gravity was so low. The Kerbals tried planting a flag at the top of the mountain, but it fell down. It probably slid all the way to the bottom. All the while, those spikes gave a sense of uneasiness. As if something was watching them, with eyes hidden just well enough to avoid detection.

Climbing up to the top of the highest spike, Megvey could see Jool, Laythe, and Tylo, the stars, the Sun, and a great deal of curvature from Pol. She felt like she was practically still flying in space.

Spikes as far as the eye could see.

 

[cubinator]

Hungry Ship

It was decided that the mining vessel would be sent down to Pol's surface in a valley near Lander 2's location. There, it would magically convert rock into fuel to transport back to CLOUD-ONE. This process would have to occur many times, but at least it would fill the station and allow it to explore another moon.

The landing was perfect, but the Kerbals realized that the machine would wobble and topple if they tried to run the drills without standing it on landing legs. So legs had to be installed before they could proceed. Luckily, there were a few nearby on a ship that didn't need them nearly as much: Lander 2. Lander 2 was flown down to the mining probe so the installation could begin.

 

 

 

Three feet were removed from the lander and absolutely NOTHING went wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

*ahem*

 

Three legs were removed from the lander an-

 

They were just legs, right? The ship wouldn't be seized by unseen forces and destroyed the moment the screwdriver touched the bolt?

Of course not. That would be silly. The legs came off the lander, and went on the miner. The job was done, and the Kerbals could soon return to station. The mining vessel would be left there to top up its tank, which would take some time.

Walking around Pol, it was easier to use the jetpack to fly around rather than wait for gravity to weakly tug you back to the surface with each step. Still, though, somehow it felt like there was some other force pulling at the Kerbals' feet in the split second before they left the ground...Trying to pull them down, asking them to come closer...tricking their molecules into staying a little longer than they should. The surface was just loose dirt, but somehow it felt different from other airless moons. Sometimes the ground seemed to rumble, or move and shift beneath their feet. Was it just because they'd never walked someplace with such low gravity before? Or was there really something different about the regolith? 

Could it even be called that at all?

 

[Vagrant203]

Is that a microscopic view of a surface sample from Pol?

[cubinator]

7 hours ago, Vagrant203 said:

Is that a microscopic view of a surface sample from Pol?

That's what's intended, yes.