JNSQ: Commercial Space Ventures - Epilogue

[Toasty Dyna-Soar]

This series was truly AWESOME!  I hope to see it continue on!

[Angelo Kerman]

3 hours ago, YouvebeenhitbyRUD said:

This series was truly AWESOME!  I hope to see it continue on!

Definitely continuing! I've been busy with mods of late, and it's taking awhile for the next chapter, but here's a teaser:

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 21

-- Months ago --

While their competitors focused on launching the First Laythe Fleet, Orbital Dynamics advanced their own space program. First, engineers tested a concept for the Finch Tanker Transport. Leveraging the Finch’s modularity, engineers created a design with a large central cluster of tanks. They hoped that the tank cluster could be left behind on the surface to form part of a refinery on the Mϋn or be exchanged for a full set. But to do that, the Finch needed the ability to separate from its mid-section while on the ground.

Their first attempt didn’t go well. When the Finch mockup separated from the tanks, it rolled a short distance and then promptly fell over. But the engineers went back to the drawing board and added detachable nose gear to the mockup. That did the trick. After separating from the craft, the mockup backed up and docked once again, and the propulsion section did the same.

While the Finch engineering team worked on prototypes, the company launched the remaining components of their fuel depot into orbit. Press releases showed their progress and Drax Aerospace used them to show how much more propellant their depot held. But that didn’t bother Scott in the slightest. On Skyranger’s next flight to the hotel, they brought up the final component of their depot- a prototype cryogenic propulsion module. Powered by a single CR-2 Vesuvlus cryogenic rocket engine, the propulsion module contained a dedicated probe core, an array of retractable solar panels, fuel cells, RCS thrusters, and batteries. It also had attachment points for various auxiliary modules. Orbital Dynamics hoped to put the propulsion module into production if the prototype proved successful.

Skyranger also carried eight more tourists including Dr. Munvan Kerman,[1] who held no less that six doctorates in various fields ranging from physics to psychology. KSP tried to recruit him at one point as an astronaut, but he declined, citing that his schedule was simply too busy to take the time out for astronaut training. But Orbital Dynamics’ tourism flights piqued his interest- and required minimal training- so he finally booked one to their asteroid.

Munvan and his fellow tourists made their way through the hotel and into Finch along with Jeslong while Shersey and Jofrey remotely piloted the PMV. They moved the propulsion module to its position on the depot and returned it to its docking port.

With that done, Finch undocked from the hotel for a day trip to VDP-762. An hour and a half later, after giving the tourists a good look at the asteroid and its glowing veins, Finch docked to VDP-762’s pier...

As the tourists gawked at their surroundings, Jeslong checked on Frolie’s handiwork from the previous visit. She did some quick calculations, checked them again, and then whistled. “There’s 31.77 million Funds in aurum, precious metals, and gemstones,” she said quietly to herself. Then she radioed her findings. “Flight, Finch Actual. I’ve confirmed that the resource yields are what AstroTug reported. That includes the strontium sulfate. There’s no more ore left, but there’s plenty of rock. And the tourists are having a great time.”

A couple of hours later, Finch returned to Homestead Hotel, where the guests got to witness another show: the Orbital Dynamics Fuel Depot departed from the hotel and ignited its engine forty minutes later.

The criticism from Drax Aerospace immediately stopped when they realized that ODIN’s fuel depot was headed to the Mϋn…

*

KSC chartered Phoenix Aerospace’s Firebird for a crew relief mission. Veteran astronaut Dudmon (PLT) along with Jebman (ENG), Danwig (SCI), Elke (SCI), and Maxbret (SCI, who quit Orbital Dynamics and joined KSP) reached Starlab within a few hours. After Valentina handed over command of the station, she, and her crew boarded Firebird for the trip home.

As they departed, Dudmon settled into his duty station in Starlab’s cupola and sighed. Ever since he joined KSP back in the Mϋnshot days, The Original Four had always overshadowed him, and it was about to happen once more. The press fawned over their every accomplishment, from the first to reach space (Valentina), to the first to orbit Kerbin (Jeb), to the first to land on the Mϋn (Val- and Santrey, who the press seemed to have conveniently forgotten), and on and on. On the one hand, it made sense since Jeb, Val, Bill, and Bob were the public face of KSP during the early days. On the other hand, other astronauts like himself hardly got noticed- or worse they got ridiculed. His own fame rose and faded just as quickly after riding an uncontrolled Lindor rocket during Mϋnflight 3, for instance, and quickly rose and fell once more during SLS-1. He thought that he’d made his peace with being overshadowed. He thought that he’d dealt with his frustrations, but every now and then they still come up. Dudmon had to remind himself that you don’t heal from emotional trauma, you just learn to manage it. And today was one of those days to manage it.

He shifted his focus to something positive. With Valentina and her crew going to Laythe for several years, she had to step down as Chief of the Astronaut Corps, and Dudmon- Captain-recently-promoted Dudmon, of the Kerman States Navy- immediately stepped into the role. Their absence also meant that he’d get his choice of assignments- including the new base on Minmus if the rumors were true. So, while he was overshadowed by “The Great Ones,” he took a page from the vonKerman’s book. He hadn’t commanded an expedition to Laythe, but he could very well be on the next flight. He hadn’t commanded a base on Minmus, but he could give himself the assignment if the opportunity presented itself. There was still much for him to do...

Meanwhile, for the first Kerbal to reach space, flying the K-20/K-24-derived Firebird felt like old times. Valentina expertly deorbited and landed Firebird back at Kerbal Space Center- at night- without incident. In less than 90 days, she’d be back in orbit and on her way to Laythe…

*

Bringing the eight tourists to the asteroid and back was great for Orbital Dynamics’ business. So was completing construction on their mϋnar fuel depot since that freed up the hotel for its original purpose. With the depot on its way, Ascension flew 38 tourists to the hotel for their stay and returned them home safely a few days later. The proceeds helped refill their cash reserve- which was depleted from paying taxes and creditors. But with their debts cleared, they stood to make a lot of money…

Four days after leaving Kerbin orbit, the ODIN Fuel Depot entered the Mϋn’s sphere of influence. Half a day after that, the depot aligned itself with MϋnSCAN-2’s orbital plane (their own Ikon satellite was in a retrograde orbit) and then entered a 1,085.4km by 3.190.9km polar orbit around the Mϋn. Another engine burn seven hours later lowered its orbit to just 54.7km above the south pole, and a final engine burn raised its apoapsis to 7,570.6km. The depot used up nearly half of its propellant to reach its destination, but it didn’t matter. It had enough for the company’s next phase of operations…

To avoid using the hotel again as a construction site, Orbital Dynamics launched another Homestead into orbit to replace the prototype that was used in the hotel’s construction. Known as Homestead Outpost, it served as the cornerstone for Orbital Dynamics’ future construction projects.

Skyranger dropped it off in a 199.4km by 200.1km orbit and set it up before undocking. The Mk-33 had enough delta-v to complete the next objective of its mission: rendezvous and dock with Homestead Hotel. Skyranger docked via its service port, but without the ability to enter the hotel- a large tank of liquid fuel blocked crew access- Skyranger’s crew maneuvered the hotel’s airlock into the Mk-33’s payload bay and docked it to the forward port. That gave Jofrey the ability to EVA and perform her tasks.

She took a walk outside to the Finch and modified the craft by attaching small service ports to the command module’s sides and added a larger port to the front of the cupola. Then she headed back inside Skyranger and took control of the Payload Maneuvering Vehicle once more. She moved the airlock module to the Finch’s new forward port and then parked the Finch’s orbital propulsion module to the airlock.

With their work done, Skyranger returned home as she’d done many times before. Then Orbital Dynamics turned their attention to Finch. They commanded it to leave the hotel and fly to the new Homestead. It arrived a couple of hours later, ready for the next stage of construction.

*

In the early morning hours of Montezu 6, 2000, Skyranger lifted off once more into the sky, carrying with her a new station node for Homestead Outpost. A day later, the Mk-33 docked with the outpost and her crew got to work. First, Shersey undocked Homestead Hotel’s former airlock module and flew it to the new node’s dorsal port. Then, he moved Finch’s OTV propulsion section to the node’s portside docking port. Unfortunately, stress brought on from being overworked prevented him from completing the rest of his EVA activities, so Jofrey parked the KMU on Finch and headed back inside.

Jeslong took over maneuvering the airlock module to its final port before Skyranger departed and headed to Welcome Back Island. Jofrey’s stress prompted Orbital Dynamics to revise the maximum consecutive missions that a flight crew could make before requiring mandatory rest...

A crew change and new payload later, the Mk-33 was back in orbit. Maxpond, Johnsted, and Steve picked up where the previous crew left off. After rearranging some modules to make room, Johnsted used the PMV to move a modified fuel depot core module to Finch’s aft docking port.

Skyranger brought up a cryogenic engine module and two of the cryogenic tanks with no issues.

But when she was about to launch the third tank into orbit, the number 1 KR-2200L Velociraptor motor suffered an engine failure during ignition. Orbital Dynamics had no choice but to scrub the launch, but a couple of days (and an EVA Repair Kit) later, they tried again. This time, Skyranger had no trouble achieving orbit. It only took a day for the Mk-33 to rendezvous and dock with Homestead Outpost and offload its payload.

Another flight later, Orbital Dynamics assembled Finch’s cryogenic propulsion unit. Orbital Dynamics was finally ready for their next biggest venture.

*

“I come up here sometimes for the view,” Adsii[2] said. “You can see the whole space center from here. But more importantly, we have privacy… So, that material that you found is not of this Kerbin. Literally. It’s not on our chart of the elements. It’s... extraordinary!”

“What is it,” Scott asked.

“I can tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t strontium aluminate. This stuff is… I think you might have found exotic matter.”

“Exotic what now?”

“Exotic matter,” Adsii explained, “this isn't really my area of expertise, but, uh, normal matter, is, uh… the stuff that makes up things like stars, planets, asteroids, and us. Exotic matter theoretically has properties like negative energy and pressure tension. Uh, how to put this… You ever own a waterbed?”

“No, but my parents had one,” Scott answered. “Why?”

“When you lay on a waterbed, what happens?”

“You sink into it a bit.”

“Exactly. Now imagine that space is like a waterbed. You put something on the bed, like a heavy round sphere, and it sinks in and makes a depression. Think of the depression that it makes as gravity. Normal matter makes that curved dip. Exotic matter would make a small mound instead, like, uh, something inside the waterbed poking at the surface and raising it up. Instead of falling into the depression, objects would roll away from it. If this stuff really is exotic matter, then it could revolutionize our understanding of the physical world.

“Anyway, as far as I can tell, the reason those veins on the asteroid glow is because they accumulate a static charge- probably from the asteroid crossing through Kerbin’s magnetic field as it orbits. All that metal ore plus orbiting through the magnetic fields equals-“

“A generator,” Scott finished for him.

“Exactly. The asteroid’s metal ore generates an electric charge, and this… stuff… soaks it up and glows. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s an incredible find. Scott, you need to send samples of this stuff to the National Research Laboratory. I’m good, but there’s only so much that I can do with my limited equipment.”

Scott sighed. “My concern is that as soon as we do that, the government will exercise eminent domain over our asteroid.”

Adsii nodded. “Well, I’m no legal expert, but I guess they could. Maybe you can offer up the uh, exotic matter, in exchange for keeping the asteroid.”

Scott leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “That gives me an idea. Maybe we can hand over another resource that we mined from the asteroid.”

“Oh? What else did you mine?”

Scott whispered his answer. Adsii’s eyes went wide with shock.

“Um, yeah… I, uh, wow… I definitely need to get you in touch with Gene...”

*

-- Present Day --

“Finch is departing Homestead Outpost,” Frobert Kerman, Orbital Dynamics’ Flight Director announced. Forty-five minutes later, the spacecraft, sans crew, performed her Kerbin Departure Burn and headed for the Mϋn. The vehicle experienced serious oscillations that threw off her course, but the engineering team immediately began investigating the problem. Three hours later, Mission Control commanded Finch to make a small course correction burn.

By the time that Finch reached the Mϋn’s sphere of influence on Montezu 18, 2000, the engineering team had figured out the problem; the fore and aft gyroscopes were out of sync and causing the vehicle to flex in different directions. A software patch and some reworked auto-struts corrected the issue. The other thing that they noticed was that the aft solar arrays frequently got blocked by the propellant tanks. While the propulsion module was aligned with the command module in terms of potential ground operations, it didn’t work well for Finch’s cross form tank arrangement. Once the OTV returned to Homestead Outpost, they’d correct that issue as well.

Eight hours later, Finch reached mϋnar periapsis at 44.1km above the surface. Sadly, the event happened on the farside, so the pictures ended up rather dark. Another ten hours later, Finch exited the Mϋn's SOI and made a “hard left turn” maneuver burn to place the vehicle back on course for low Kerbin orbit. Then on Montezu 19, 2000, the OTV circularized its orbit around Kerbin once more, ending up in a 278.7km by 321.7km orbit. Finally, Finch attempted to match planes with Homestead Outpost, but she came up short.

Though out of propellant and unable to return to Homestead Outpost, Orbital Dynamics still considered the test flight a partial success since Finch was able to fly by the Mϋn and return to Kerbin orbit. It was just a matter of refining the orbit for an optimal return- or docking with the fuel depot to gas up for the return trip. In the meantime, Orbital Dynamics had exactly what they needed to refuel the Finch…

+

Dauntless, Orbital Dynamics’ third Mk33, launched into orbit for the first time on Montezu 20, 2000. Designed and built as a tanker, Dauntless replaced its cargo bay with a series of extended propellant tanks. Additionally, the third Mk33 carried an experimental refueling probe. Finally, the tanker sacrificed passenger space for access to the ship’s service port in the nose; she could only carry up to six kerbals, but unlike Skyranger and Ascension, the crew could use the service port to enter and exit the vehicle.

A few hours later, Dauntless rendezvoused with and approached Finch and extended its refueling probe. It took a few tries to link up with Finch, and once they did, the two vehicles began to wobble. Shersey immediately commanded all the gyros to shut down on both spacecraft. That helped, but it was clear that the refueling probe was too flexible and needed a redesign. Nonetheless, Dauntless filled a good portion of Finch’s tanks before the Mk33 departed and headed home. Not long after, Finch returned to Homestead Outpost.

*

Orbital Dynamics launched Skyranger once again, this time carrying a brand new “space smelter” in her cargo bay. Orbital Dynamics contracted with Dinkelstein's Construction Emporium and Metallbearbeitung ("Metal Works"), a vonKerman company, to build their new "space smelter." The smelter worked in both gravity and microgravity environments. In either environment, the smelter could turn metal ore into metal and remelt scrap metal back into metal. After successfully docking the device to the outpost’s airlock, Frolie spent some time modifying their Arrow 5 Upper Stage’s nose tank to hold metal ore before ODIN Mission Control sent it on its way.

It took a few hours, but the AUS flew over to VDP-762, grabbed a sample of metal ore, and returned to Homestead Outpost. Skyranger’s crew spent the next couple of days testing the furnace; to their delight, they turned 800 units of metal ore- and some liquid fuel- into 373 units of metal.  As Skyranger flew home, the crew celebrated the fact that they'd just taken the first step of Project Sandcastle.

*

“Now that the First Laythe Fleet is assembled, we’re looking at applying the technology to a permanent outpost on Minmus- if we can convince Kongress to fund it,” Brigadier General (Retired) Gene Kerman, Kerman States Air Force, said to Mabo and Frolie. He liked catching up with the former KSC astronauts, it felt like old times. And sneaking aboard the Mk33 to avoid being accused of playing favorites reminded him of his Academy days…

“Once the Fleet sets sail in a few weeks, I’ll become Chief Flight Director Emeritus. Bobak is more than ready to fill the vacancy, he handled quite a few of the assembly flights. I’ll miss being directly involved with the day-to-day flight operations of course, but I’m excited about becoming the new Administrator of Kerbal Space Program. I’ll have more sway in KSP’s direction. Unfortunately, it does mean that I’ll be in front of the press more often, but I kind of did that anyway when our previous Administrator kept pushing me into the spotlight…

“Anyway, enough about work. Scott- Skyranger is amazing. I remember when the Mk33 was first proposed during the Shuttle Launch System development. It was ahead of its time. I’m glad to see that Orbital Dynamics was able to make her work- and profitable. You guys truly made spaceflight routine.”

“I appreciate your kind words, Gene,” Scott said over his shoulder.

“Hey, I appreciate the ride into orbit! I had fun on Skybase 4- except for the microgravity- but I thought that it would be my only spaceflight. I'm glad to be proven wrong... Anyway, how many do you have in your fleet now?”

“Three,” Scott answered. “Skyranger, Ascension, and Dauntless. Dauntless just made her maiden flight. And we have a fourth, the Resolute, under construction.”

“Three? With another on the way? That’s fantastic. I also saw that you guys sent the Finch around the Mϋn recently. Does that mean tourists will soon follow?”

“Absolutely. We have four ready to go, and three more who want to visit the surface. We’re not at that point yet, but we’re getting close.”

“Amazing. You know, if it was up to me, I would’ve recommended you guys for KOTS. I was sad when Phoenix Aerospace and Drax Aerospace won out, but you’ve done very well for yourselves. Orbital Dynamics single-handedly created the space tourism business, built the first commercial space station, and became the first kerbals to visit an asteroid. The other companies are jealous of you, Drax especially. I'd watch out for them... I’m thrilled to see the commercial space sector thriving- and expanding- thanks to your company.”

Gene paused a moment before continuing. He was momentarily mesmerized by the spacecraft hovering outside the cockpit windows as Mabo maneuvered it to its docking port. His tone becoming more serious. “Adsii says you guys found something interesting on VDP-762? He didn’t say what, except that it was important.”

“Yes, Gene,” Scott said. “Only a few kerbals know about this- my flight crew included- and we’re all under a strict non-disclosure agreement. There’s no other way to say this, but among other things, as we separated out the various resources, we discovered that VDP-762 has a lode of blutonium.”

Gene looked shocked. “You- you have what!?”

“Blutonium,” Scott repeated.

“Exactly how much are we talking about?”

Scott told him.

Gene did some mental math before his shocked expression got worse. “You have tonnes of blutonium,” he said. “Tonnes. If word got out, it would cause a panic…”

“Yeah,” Scott answered quietly. “That’s why we need your help handing over the blutonium to the proper authorities. Discretly.”

Gene nodded, agreeing. “Now I know why Adsii said that this was important... We could… just buy the asteroid from you, but that would raise a lot of questions. Ok. Um, I’m going to make some calls and get back to you on this. Do you have any other surprises from that ‘Magic Boulder’ of yours?”

“Actually, yes,” Scott admitted sheepishly. “We may have discovered a form of exotic matter, but we need help from the National Research Laboratory to analyze the substance. We’d like to provide you with some samples.”

“That sounds like a good reason to buy your asteroid. Then again, if the government suddenly seized your goldmine, we’d kill the space mining business before it really got started… Ok, Scott, do me a favor and just sit on this for now. We’ll figure out a way to get that stuff into the right hands.”

The conversation in the cockpit stopped as Mabo guided Homestead Outpost's new power module to its berth.

___

[1] The RNG once again came up with Munvan! He was first encountered in Kerbal Elcano Exploration Program.
[2] named after @adsii1970

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 22

“Your psych eval came back nominal,” Gene said, “In fact, your emotional stability has steadily improved since you first joined KSP. Now your stability rivals Valentina’s. But I should pull you from the flight. Your conversation with Jeb was disturbing, to say the least.”

“Has my performance been affected,” Bill asked.

“Admittedly, no…”

“So, what’s the problem?”

Gene sighed. “It’s your… claim… You’re seeing a… where are my notes… Ah, here- a ‘Superimposed Alternate Variant Existence’[1] that nobody else does? Sometimes you can see past the ‘fourth wall,’ whatever that is? I find that highly suspicious, Bill. How… how can someone, whose ‘badS’ emotional stability is second only to Valentina’s, have such a- an… unusual… view of the universe? The doctors say that if you had a neurological condition, it would show up in your psych eval. But that’s clearly not the case. So whatever it is that you think you see, keep it to yourself!”

Gene sighed before continuing. “Like I said, I should pull you from the flight... You have ten minutes to get to the press conference, so you’d better run. I’ll tell Gerrim the bad news…”

Bill’s eyes lit up. “Does- does that mean… I’m still going?”

“SQUAD help me, yes,” Gene answered. “But one mistake and I’ll have Valentina lock you into your cryobed for the rest of the trip!”

“I won’t let you down,” Bill beamed. Then his inner ear made the room spin for a moment. It passed as quickly as it appeared. “I… I sense a disturbance in The Persistence, as if millions of bytes cried out to fix robotics and docking port drift…”

”Get out,” Gene thundered…

*

Valentina breathed a sigh of relief. The press conference dragged on for what felt like hours, but it was finally over. She looked down the row at her crew. They were a good crew. She’d known Jeb, Bill, and of course her husband, Bob, since the first days of Kerbal Space Program, and they’d shared many adventures together. But during their training, she’d also gotten to know the “Science Twins” Glesby mcKerman and Seanner mcKerman, as well as Diltrey mcKerman- Bill’s assistant engineer- and they’d earned her respect. So had Sara vonKerman, the sole vonKerman on the mission and the crew’s cryo-specialist. Valentina was confident that whatever was out there, they were ready for it- except for the question that Sara just asked.

“What?”

“I know Bob is your husband, but are you related to Bill and Jeb,” Sara repeated.

“Uh, no… Why do you ask,” Valentina said.

“You all have the same last name.”

“Huh? No we don’t…”

Sara pointed to Bill. “He’s Bill Kerman,” she said, and then pointed to Jeb. “And he’s Jeb Kerman.”

“Actually, it’s pronounced ‘Kerman,’” Jeb pointed out. “Bill’s last name is pronounced ‘Kerman,’ Kerrrrmann, see?”

“Um, they sound the same to me, lad,” Diltrey noted.

“Well, your last names sound the same to me,” Jeb retorted. “mcKerman, mcKerman, and mcKerman,” Jeb said, pointing to Glesby, Seanner, and Diltrey.

“That’s because you’re saying it wrong. My last name is pronounced ‘mcKerman,’ Jeb,” Diltrey corrected.

“And mine is ‘mcKerman,’” Seanner said.

“I don’t hear the difference,” Jeb responded.

“Neither do I, Diltrey,” Sara agreed. “Maybe it’s because of your accent?”

“I do not have an accent!”

If this keeps up, it’ll be a long month in quarantine, Valentina thought to herself.

*

Though Orbital Dynamics were ready to execute their plan for the tourist fly-by of the Mϋn, Sarah decided to postpone the flight until after the First Laythe Fleet left Kerbin orbit. If they left before the Fleet, their feat would be overshadowed, but postponing it meant they could ride on their coattails while spaceflight was on everybody’s minds. Since they had at a month-long wait, the company focused on completing Dauntless’ qualification trials and furthering Project Sandcastle.

Fresh out of the shop, Dauntless rotated vertical in preparation for launch. Mk33-03 sported a redesigned refueling probe- hopefully one that wouldn’t wobble so much. Not long after, Maxpond (CDR), Johnsted (PLT), and Steve (ENG) headed uphill on Dauntless’ second spaceflight. “Flight, we’re noticing some oscillations on the boom,” Johnsted radioed as Dauntless climbed past 17,000 meters.

“Copy that, Dauntless,” Frobert Kerman, Orbital Dynamics’ Flight Director called back. “We’ll note that for later. Be advised, your flight trajectory is shallow.”

Maxpond cursed. Distracted with the refueling probe issue, she wasn’t paying as much attention to their trajectory as she should’ve been. But despite the shallow trajectory and shock heating, they were still on track to reach Homestead Outpost. In fact, they had a transfer window three minutes after their alignment burn.

A half-hour later, they arrived at the outpost.

“Probe extended and locked,” Steve reported. “Probe head armed.”

A few minutes later, Dauntless latched onto Finch’s portside utility port.

“Solid contact, no wobbling,” Johnsted said. “Going to free drift mode…”

Steve took over from there and wrangled the refueling hose into place over the utility port’s connectors. It took several tries to accomplish- which meant another redesign of the refueling probe- but eventually the connectors lined up. Several minutes later, Dauntless topped off the OTV’s tanks using the cryo fuel modules fitted where the Mk33’s payload bay would be. With that completed, Dauntless returned home- and back into maintenance…

A day later, Skyranger was poised to take a power-module-derived component into orbit when her number 3 KR-2200L Velociraptor engine suffered an engine controller failure during pre-launch startup. The ground team lowered Skyranger back down and detached her from the strongback, and a repair crew took care of the problem. But once they fixed the engine, they backed the aging Mk33 onto the strongback once more and rotated the craft vertical for launch. Skyranger creaked and groaned in protest.

Mk33-01 climbed into the sky- and wobbled around a bit in the process. Nonetheless, Skyranger achieved a 122.2km by 127.0km orbit. A day after making her alignment burn, she docked with Homestead Outpost. The crew immediately got to work unpacking the payload bay and moving all the components into position including Finch’s new solar arrays. Then they repositioned Finch on the new docking pier, checked their work, and returned home to pick up their next payload…

Skyranger’s next launch carried the company’s new Sandcastle 3D print shop into orbit. Based on the experimental 3D printer that the Ministry of Space tested in Starlab’s Newton science module, Sandcastle was a licensed and upscaled commercial version that could print objects as large as some of the fuel tank segments that comprised the Edna 1E. The print shop was a vital component of Project Sandcastle, Orbital Dynamics’ attempt to diversify their product offerings and breakaway from their reputation as the space tourism company.

As the Mk33 launched into orbit, her number 2 KR-2200L linear aerospike registered a turbopump fault and suddenly shut down. Luckily, they were high enough in their launch profile to abort to orbit.

After circularizing, Maxpond and her crew waited a day for their orbit to line up with Homestead Outpost. Mission Control determined that the two good Velociraptors were sufficient to proceed with the mission, so Skyranger made her orbital transfer burn right on time. But not long after, her fuel cell stopped working. Fortunately, the last time this happened, Orbital Dynamics engineers had installed a backup solar array. Maxpond quickly deployed the array and waited for the orbiter to swing back to the dayside of Kerbin, shutting down all but emergency systems.

Orbital sunrise enabled the solar array to recharge Skyranger’s batteries, and the vehicle matched velocities with Homestead Outpost a few minutes later. But without its airlock module, Mk33-01 had to use the utility port in its nose. Worse, the crew couldn’t simply move the outpost’s airlock into Skyranger’s bay to effect repairs. Maxpond had no choice but to depressurize the cabin so that Steve could head outside and repair the fuel cell. The flight engineer grabbed a repair kit and the emergency jetpack and stepped out. A short jaunt later, Skyranger’s fuel cell was working again.

Out of immediate danger, the crew got back to work on their primary mission. Johnsted piloted the Payload Maneuvering Vehicle, bringing it over to the Sandcastle module and then flying it over to the aft port on Node 1. Soon afterward, Johnsted returned the PMV to its berth. With their work completed, Mission Control wanted to bring Skyranger home as soon as possible but they decided to wait until sunrise at Welcome Back Island to ensure maximum visibility and to give the Mk33’s solar array the maximum possible time in the sun.

While the SSTO had no trouble with reentry and descent, the landing proved problematic. Skyranger’s nose wheel failed to fully extend and lock! Luckily, it extended far enough for the emergency locking mechanisms to engage, and the Mk33 set down safely and taxied to her hangar.

Repair crews immediately got to work fixing the nose gear and the number 2 Velociraptor, but it was apparent that part drift causing gaps too large to ignore having an airframe over a decade old, combined with repeatedly flying, were taking a toll on the SSTO. But she had one last flight in her…

It was only appropriate that on Montezu 27, 2000, the crew that flew her the first time also flew her for her last flight. Skyranger lifted off the pad one last time with Scott (CDR), Mabo (PLT), and Frolie (ENG) as her crew.

A few hours later, the aging Mk33 docked to Homestead Outpost, where Frolie unloaded the second half of the Sandcastle facility and docked it into place. There was more work to do, but it would have to wait until Orbital Dynamics’ continuing plans unfolded.

Meanwhile, Skyranger undocked from Homestead Outpost and headed home just after sunrise. Her airframe creaked and groaned during reentry, but she still flew gracefully to Welcome Back Island.

As they approached the runway, Scott saw that the ground team had rolled out Ascension, Dauntless, and even Resolute, the fourth Mk33 that was fresh out of the factory. Scott thought that it was nice to see the ground team continuing KSC’s tradition of rolling out active spacecraft in salute of a retiring spacecraft. Despite being bittersweet, Scott appreciated the gesture.

Skyranger landed and taxied past the fleet of Mk33s. For the last time, she rolled into Hangar One for her post-mission processing. The Mk33 began as a partially completed, rejected proposal for the Shuttle Launch System that languished for a decade before being resurrected and finished by Orbital Dynamics. Despite being an outcast, Skyranger proved repeatedly that single-stage-to-orbit was not only possible, but it also could become routine. Towards the end of her career, the first Mk33 flew almost daily- a feat that no other launch system could match.

So, after 52 flights, Orbital Dynamics reluctantly retired Skyranger. It was the end of Mk33-01’s story, but not the end of the story of the Mk33.

___

[1] First coined by @Parkaboy for Plan Kappa.

Author's note: Ever since her second flight (the one to Skybase), I haven't recovered Skyranger. From the Skybase mission to this final one, it's been the same craft that's flown all the missions. I specifically designed the Mk33 mod's launchpad and payload crane for the purpose of flying one craft without recovering it, and I'm proud to say that I've accomplished that goal. I had a feeling that over time, the craft would wear out, and the part gaps are proof of that hunch. I know that in reality, the Orbiter Maintenance Down Period that the shuttle orbiters went through helped improve them, and I could use that as an excuse to recover the craft and relaunch it, but I like the idea that the Mk33 can and will eventually wear out.

Does this mean that we've seen the last of Skyranger? Only time will tell. But one thing's for certain: this mission report will continue!

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 23

Drax Kerman was not happy. Despite their best efforts, his engineers at OPT still hadn’t been able to crack the barrier on the advanced aerospace technology needed for Sunkraker’s engines. As a result, instead of standing in the hangar where Sunraker resided, he stood on Pad B’s service tower where Mϋnraker 1, the first-and only- Commercial Shuttle Launch System orbiter stood ready to launch. Tomorrow, the crew of Nautilus would fly in the shuttle’s new tourist module, but today he used the setting to work on his business relationship with the newly appointed Administrator of Kerbal Space Program, Gene Kerman.

He had such high hopes for the Mϋnraker program and at one point he wanted six of them. He had visions of his six shuttles docked to a large commercial space station- a Drax space station- that he himself ran as head of the Drax-owned space infrastructure that reached to the mϋns of Kerbin and beyond. But then Orbital Dynamics happened.

With their huge success in the space tourism industry and their advanced SSTO, the media once again questioned why KSP’s best and brightest had to ride an outdated rocket with twin “death sticks” instead of flying in a modern Mk33. Had his engineers done their job and acquired enough Science, Nautilus’ crew would’ve flown to DSEV-01 aboard the most advanced SSTO in existence- his SSTO. But at least his company had locked in all the crewed flights for Project Laythe no matter what vehicle they chose.

“It’s great to see a shuttle on the pad again,” Gene Kerman said. “It’s a magnificent flying machine.”

“Indeed,” Drax responded. “The shuttle pioneered reusability and paved the way for future generations of technology to follow. Tomorrow, Mϋnraker will help us take the first step towards our species’ salvation, but soon, instead of embarking on a vehicle that needs days or weeks of preparation to launch and needs a dedicated launchpad, astronauts will board transatmospheric vehicles and fly to space as easily as boarding an airliner to fly across the world. Speaking of which, have you seen our new Sunraker?”

“I uh, can’t, uh, say that I have,” Gene admitted, trying not to look surprised.

Drax smiled. “Then allow me to give you a tour…”

Gene nodded and they headed towards the elevator. Fortunately, Drax didn’t see his shocked and puzzled expression. The fate of the world was the best kept secret in history that only a scant few knew about. Gene fell silent, lost in thought. How does Drax know?

*

On Huitzil 17, 2001, the crew of the Nautilus (DSEV-01) lifted off Kerbin aboard Mϋnraker 1 to begin their space odyssey. Eight minutes later, the shuttle attained a 298.7 km by 302.3 km orbit before discarding her external tank. The tank was equipped with cryogenic RCS thrusters intended to help the orbiter maneuver in space while still attached to the tank. Unfortunately, the batteries in the tank’s deorbit kit failed and prevented it from deorbiting. It became a new member of the growing space debris.

Meanwhile, the orbiter’s crew reconfigured Mϋnraker 1 for orbital operations and plotted their next maneuvers. Nearly 40 minutes later, the orbiter performed her alignment burn, and then waited another 7 hours for her transfer burn. Nine hours after launch, Mϋnraker 1 docked with DSEV-01. The event was televised around the globe. After confirming a hard seal, Bill, Jeb, and Valentina transferred over to Nautilus’s command module to turn on the lights and perform their boarding procedures.

Bill deployed the airlock module’s “porch” and started up the number 2 SAFER reactor. SAFER 1 had failed a few days ago, but the ship had 4 others plus the Emancipator’s reactor. Bill noted it in the ship’s log and continued. Next, the ship’s chief engineer deployed the radiators and checked their statuses. Satisfied, he powered up the main engine for a diagnostics check. After running through several diagnostics routines, the engine registered a fault and automatically shut down. Once again, Bill noted the issue in the log and continued. Finally, he initiated the deployment sequence for the centrifuge, and it started up without incident.

With their startup procedures completed, the rest of the Nautilus’ crew boarded their ship, While Diltrey unpacked the airlock and suited up, and Sammal and Seanner began setting up the centrifuge’s facilities. Sara and Bob went to the cryo modules to check them out. With his work done, Diltrey stepped outside for a brief spacewalk and fixed both the SAFER and the main engine. As Diltrey headed back in, Bill verified the fixes and cleared the systems for flight. Nautilus (DSEV-01) was ready for Kerbin departure…

Satisfied that everything was in working order, Valentina thanked Mϋnraker’s crew for the lift and the shuttle headed back home. In the pre-dawn hours, the orbiter returned to KSC…

One by one, each vessel in the First Laythe Fleet shed their support craft and finalized their calculations. Like Nautilus, they were ready to begin their journey.

*

As the media frenzy surrounding the First Laythe Fleet took a pause, they focused on one of the Ministry of Space’s missions to Duna. At last, the Duna RelaySat entered Duna’s sphere of influence! The spacecraft made a course correction burn three hours later to change its inclination. Mission planners hoped that the inclined orbit would maximize their network coverage.

When the mcKerman Mission Control plotted the craft’s circularization burn, the vehicle reported that it had insufficient delta-v to perform the maneuver. In response, mission planners commanded a daring maneuver: undock the propulsion section, ditch the forward tank, and dock the propulsion section once more to the relay satellites. It was the first time performing a docking in Duna orbit, and thankfully, it worked. The discarded tank would fly by Duna in about a day and then head out into interplanetary space, but the Duna RelaySat would hopefully attain orbit around the rusty planet. Unfortunately, while the spacecraft noted the improved delta-v, its flight computers still reported that the craft came up short. In about a day and a half, they’d find out by how much.

*

One by one, the First Lathe Fleet unfurled their radiators and ignited their atomic rockets. Each vessel took their turn burning for Jool, and the media celebrated each one as it completed its burn and verified its course. Only one, the Laythe Mapper, missed its window and had to be rescheduled. Each vessel took a mere day exit Kerbin’s sphere of influence.

Finally, it was Nautilus’ turn. Valentina activated the ship-wide comm and patched it into the external communications array. She knew that the whole world would be watching this moment. “Flight, this is Nautilus actual. On behalf of the crew, we thank everyone who made Project Laythe possible. To all the leaders of the Kerman States, the mcKerman Kingdom, and the vonKerman Republic, to the engineers and designers of each vessel in the First Laythe Fleet, to all the tireless workers who assembled the components and the vehicles that carried them into orbit, we thank you. Today, on behalf of all kerbalkin, we embark on the furthest journey that kerbals have ever attempted. Our space odyssey has begun, and we have our eyes turned skyward towards our destination.”

She paused, not just for dramatic effect, but for timing as well.

“Let’s go!”

A moment later, right on time, Nautilus’ nuclear engine ignited and sent DSEV-01 on its way…

A day later, on Huitzil 24, 2001, Nautilus approached the edge of Kerbin’s sphere of influence. “With every passing second,” Valentina continued for the camera, “we travel further than any Kerbal has gone before. And that’s just near Kerbin! In a few moments though, we’ll cross over a point where Kerbin’s gravity no longer has hold of us, and we’ll be in interplanetary space. That border is called the Sphere of Influence, and every planet and mϋn has one. Even our sun, Kerbol, has a sphere of influence, and it’s very large. Maybe someday, we’ll sail past the sun’s sphere of influence too."

Valentina began wracking for things to say to occupy airtime. “Uh, We have less than a minute now… Thanks to all the hard work and cooperation, Nautilus is the most advanced spacecraft built by Kerbals. Uh, She will run on automatic once we enter hibernation- though if something bad happens, we’ll be woken up. We’ll be going to sleep soon after crossing over into interplanetary space... Oh! And 3… 2… 1… And there we go! Welcome to interplanetary space! So, uh, Jeb, what do you think?”

Jeb looked up from his console. Whenever he was in front of the camera, he was cheerful. He smiled as he delivered the first crew report from interplanetary space. “Kerbin is just a pale blue dot now… When we left Kerbin, we did not see ourselves as giants. We were humbled upon seeing our world so small…”

Not long after concluding their broadcast and verifying their course, the crew turned off the lights, stopped the centrifuge, and settled into the cryo modules. She divided up the crew so that each module had a pilot, engineer, and at least one scientist- just in case something happened to one of the modules. Sara vonKerman handled all the hibernation procedures and froze the crew in Cryomodule B first. Then it was their turn.

“Wake me when we get there,” Bob said. Bill had already said goodnight. Valentina choked back tears as his chamber sealed and frosted over. He'll be ok, she thought to herself. Then it was Sara’s turn. She activated her own controls, and her chamber sealed itself moments later.

Valentina was the last. She looked around the module and noted that all the vitals of her crew were green. She hesitated to activate her pod, afraid of what might happen. Would they reach Jool? Would the ship be intact when they got there? Would she wake up? Will Cryomodule A become her tomb?

They should arrive in Jool’s SOI in 2 years and 268 days. What if she ended up like Buck Kerman in the 25^th century? Valentina sighed, knowing that she couldn’t put it off any longer. She tapped the comm link. “Flight, Nautilus actual. See you on the other side…”

A few seconds later, Nautilus fell silent.

*

As the First Laythe Fleet completed their departure burns and headed for the edge of Kerbin’s sphere of Influence, the saga of the Duna RelaySat continued to unfold. Right on time, the spacecraft’s Poseidon atomic rocket ignited once more and tried to slow the craft down. But it soon became apparent that it still lacked the delta-v needed to circularize the RelaySat’s orbit. When it ran out of propellant, the spacecraft executed its contingency program and ignited the bottom-most kick-stage motors on the RelaySat while simultaneously discarding the now useless atomic propulsion section.

The small holding tanks quickly ran out of propellant as well, and Mission Control felt disheartened- until they remembered that the core tank was still locked. After unlocking the tank, the team cheered- Duna RelaySat had enough to circularize its orbit. Four days later, as the discarded atomic stage sailed into interplanetary space, Duna RelaySat circularized its orbit. After a brief celebration, mission planners commanded Duna RelaySat to raise its apoapsis to 60,960.5 km. With a periapsis of 42,664.1 km, combined with their 54-degree inclination, the trio of satellites should provide sufficient coverage of both Duna’s and Ike’s surface. Every 38 days, one satellite in the network would separate and circularize its orbit…

Fourteen days later, Estonian 1, the Ministry of Space’s experimental Duna lander, coasted into the Rusty Planet’s sphere of influence. Two days later, the unkermanned lander attempted to achieve orbit. Its transfer stage placed it in a 3867.5 km by -8.8 km suborbital trajectory. The vehicle’s flight computer noted the issue, quickly jettisoned the transfer stage, and burned its deorbit motor. Estonian 1 ended up in a 1,523.8 km by 74.6 km orbit and low on descent fuel. With only a monopropellant power unit to provide electricity, the Ministry of Space’s Mission Control had to decide their next course of action- and fast.

Estonian 1 initiated its deorbit burn two hours after attaining orbit, exhausting its deorbit motor in the process. Minutes before atmospheric entry, the lander took a couple of science readings before retracting its high-gain antenna and switching links over to the Duna RelaySat network. The final command to Estonian 1 armed its chutes and directed it to take atmospheric readings. Shortly after, Mission Control lost contact with the lander as hot plasma blocked radio transmissions.

Unbeknownst to the mcKermans, Estonian 1 began to spin uncontrollably as it shot through Duna’s thin atmosphere. Luckily, the plasma fire subsided 8km above the surface and the lander re-established its data link. Estonian 1 quickly relayed the various rotation and thermal readings that it took during entry. Six kilometers above the surface, the chutes automatically deployed, which also told the flight computer to deploy its airbrakes. At 2 kilometers altitude, the computer extended the legs and unblocked the landing engine. Most of the legs failed to deploy, however, so the computer executed a contingency plan and retracted them as best as it could.

By 1,000 meters above the surface, the lander knew that it was doomed. Its main chutes failed to deploy in the thin atmosphere, and its ascent/descent motor failed to fire. Estonian 1 slammed into the desert floor at over 80 meters per second and suffered catastrophic failures, breaking up in the process.

The Ministry of Space was disappointed with the result; had kerbals been aboard, they’d have no way of returning to orbit. But while Estonian 1’s mission ended in failure, they did manage to crash in the desired target area, and they managed to gather a bit of science on the way down. Despite the failure, the crash still provided a learning experience for the mcKerman Kingdom’s space program.

*

“Estonian 1’s crash was an absolute failure,” Karbal Kerman, one of the reporters said. “Didn’t you guys make the Laythe lander as well?”

Charles mcKerman, head of the Ministry of Space, gritted his teeth. Gene Kerman warned him about Karbal and his abrasive questions, but it’s one of those things that you had to experience to truly understand. “Correct,” Charles said icily, “but unlike Estonian 1, since Kerbin has a similar atmosphere to Laythe, we had numerous opportunities to test the Galileo. We went through several iterations of the Laythe Ascent/Descent Vehicle to make it as safe and reliable as possible before sending it on her way. Simply put, we didn’t have that opportunity with Estonian 1. The Duna lander was experimental, and it was designed to help us gather data about Duna’s atmosphere as much as it was created to test landing technologies for Duna. And it did its job. So, while it ended with a crash, Estonian 1 provided us with invaluable data to help better design the next iteration.”

“Do you expect more failures with Duna Basecamp and Duna Science Relay?”

Charles really hated Karbal. It’s going to be a long press conference, he thought to himself.

*

Twelve days after Estonian 1’s crash, the Duna Basecamp entered Duna’s sphere of Influence. Then two days later, on Itzcoatl 1, 2001, the prototype space station settled into a 157.1 km by 233.2 km orbit around the rusty planet. With delta-v to spare, Duna Basecamp’s Arrow Extended Upper Stage aligned the station’s orbit with Ike and circularized it at 233 km altitude. mcKerman Mission Control set aside the next several weeks evaluating the station’s status before discarding the AEUS and deorbiting it…

15 days later, DRS-A separated from the Duna RelaySat stack and circularized its orbit. In another 38 days, DRS-B would depart and take its place in Duna orbit…

Four and a half hours after DRS-A departed, the Duna Science Relay entered Duna’s SOI. Soon, the Ministry of Space would get to test its LV-N410 Cherenkov nuclear engine after its long slumber in space. They had to wait another 5 hours to evaluate the engine, but right on time, the engine burned and altered Duna Science Relay’s course. Then on Itzcoatl 19, 2001, the vessel entered polar orbit around Duna. As the spacecraft performed its circularization burn, it took a spectacular picture of the Duna Northern Lights as Kerbol’s radiation struck the Rusty Planet’s thin atmosphere.

mcKerman Mission Control celebrated their victory and then promptly got to work deploying DSR’s sensor package. As the spacecraft orbited the planet, it took imaging and gravimetric readings of each biome that it encountered from high orbit. DSR then transferred each reading into its Experiment Storage Unit. DSR’s more advanced sensors- SCAN-R2 Advanced Resource Mapper, the VS-3 Advanced High-Resolution Imager, and its SAR-X Antenna- all needed high orbit to take resource readings, visual images, and altitude measurements, respectively. That would take several weeks to complete, but once they created a detailed map of Duna, the spacecraft would head to low orbit to repeat its imaging and gravimetric readings before moving to the next phase of operations.

Finally, DRS-B separated from the Duna RelaySat stack and circularized its orbit. In another 38 days, the final satellite, DRS-C would do the same.

*

Post-mission analysis looked at several aspects of the Ministry of Space’s first Duna campaign. Analysts focused on Estonian 1 first. They traced Estonian 1’s engine failure to a manufacturing defect: the engine expected propellium and oxidizer, while the lander was specifically designed for liquid fuel and oxidizer. The Arrow Space Corporation vowed to put better quality control measures into place. Next, the lander’s upper atmospheric pressure readings helped analysts determine that the main chute failures were due to assuming a higher atmospheric density than what Duna had. That meant that the landing engine needed to burn sooner and longer to ensure a soft landing. Third, the capsule tumbled during entry due to its higher center of mass, but that could’ve been corrected by the airbrakes. But the tumbling gave thermal sensors a better look at the craft’s heating during entry, descent, and landing (EDL). Duna’s thin atmosphere made it hard to aerobrake, but it also meant less heating. That meant that the heat shield didn’t need as much ablative material. All these lessons and more would help improve the next Estonian lander.

Next, analysts looked at the performance of Duna Basecamp. The station had more than enough delta-v to enter orbit and align itself with Ike. Technically, it could reach Ike as well, but the Ministry of Space elected to detach the AEUS from Duna Basecamp and deorbit it during Phase 2. Also during Phase 2 of the mission, engineers would have a chance to test out one of its new technologies.

The Duna Science Relay performed well during the initial phase of its mission, but analysts had to wait until it completed Phase 2 to evaluate the rest. In the meantime, engineers examined the NV-500 Poseidon and the LV-N410 Cherenkov nuclear engines. Both engines had their merits, especially since they didn't have the same restrictions that the Emancipator's open cycle nuclear motor had. Each engine had similar performances, but engineers were leaning towards the NV-500 for its dual-mode performance.

Finally, the Duna RelaySat functioned exceptionally well. Over-engineering the design proved to be a boon- especially when its nuclear propulsion section lacked the delta-v to fully deliver the satellite constellation into Duna orbit.

They looked forward to seeing how the RelaySat system worked around Eve...

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 24

Hastily assembled from spare parts, the Gilly Mapper launched into orbit atop Drax Aerospace’s low-cost Moho rocket from Pad A. Little more than a docking port with science instruments welded and bolted to it, the Gilly Mapper had several instruments for radar mapping, image mapping, and resource mapping. But it needed a lot of help to reach Gilly.

When the Mϋnshot missions returned to Kerbin orbit, they left their Sarnus Upper Stages in Low Kerbin Orbit for future use. Shuttle orbiters subsequently used them to send space probes to the outer planets. Eight hours after launch, Moho 3 delivered Gilly Mapper to the Drax Fuel Depot, where several Kerbin Departure Stages (KDS) Left over from the First Laythe Fleet launch campaign awaited a similar use. The spacecraft parked a few meters away from the depot, dropped off the probe, and performed its deorbit burn. Then one of the KDS detached from the depot and docked to the mapper. Like the Sarnus Upper Stages before it, the KDS would sacrifice itself for Science!

A second KDS departed the depot, but for a different reason. This one shuttled over to the Eve RelaySat, a virtual twin to the Duna RelaySat. Applying the lessons learned over Duna, the KDS refueled the one still attached to the RelaySat. The Ministry of Space hoped that the refueled KDS would provide enough delta-v to not repeat their mistake over Duna.

Fifteen days later, the First Eve Fleet moved out. The joint KSP/MoS fleet’s three vessels each took their turns igniting their engines and burning for the Purple Planet. Though not as exciting as when the First Laythe Fleet launched, the media still covered the event. Critics called it the Junk Fleet since its components were all built out of leftovers and spares from the First Jool Fleet. Nonetheless, space enthusiasts looked forward to seeing the First Eve Fleet arrive at the Purple Planet in a few months.

*

Meanwhile, back at Duna, the Duna Science Relay made a burn to lower its orbit. But when it tried to circularize it, the craft ran out of electricity! The Ministry of Space could do little but wait for the DSR to recharge in the sunlight and assess the situation. Once they regained control, they realized that the science instruments ate through the batteries, so for their next attempt, they switched them off. That was all well and good since they couldn’t be used from low orbit anyway. The ship lost a bit of its propellium too, but there was nothing that they could do about it. The next attempt also failed. This time, they deactivated the radiators and hoped that the engine wouldn’t overheat. Once again, the craft ran out of electricity.

Looking at every possibility, engineers reluctantly shut down the cooling systems on the propellium tanks, figuring that they’d lose propellium regardless of the cooling systems. That worked; Duna Science Relay successfully circularized its orbit. Once the spacecraft recovered, engineers poured over the data to find out what went wrong. They finally figured out that DSR’s lower orbit meant more time in the shade; something that they didn’t account for. Then they looked at every system that used electric charge. The biggest consumers were the three large propellium tanks, so engineers transferred the remaining propellium into the outer tanks' H375-36 tanks and shut down the larger H375-144 outer tanks’ cooling systems. Then they topped off the core tanks. Finally, they realized that DSR’s various probe cores (two on the outer tanks, two in the science packages, and one in the core) drained lots of electric charge, so they uploaded a software patch to hibernate the probe cores during the night-side of the orbit. That was almost enough, but the spacecraft still ran out of electricity for a few minutes during each orbit. Thus, it was only a matter of time before the spacecraft ran out of propellium.

Given their current situation, the Ministry of Space abandoned the possibility of bringing the DSR back to Kerbin after completing its mission or sending it to Ike. Instead, they went with their backup plan. First, they commanded DSR to discard its science package to lighten the load- but left the twin landers intact. Next, they burned off most off the propellium by making a huge plane change from polar to equitorial orbit to match Duna Basecamp, and then deactivated the cooling systems on the outer tanks once they ran dry.

With both tasks completed, the MoS science team selected two landing sites of interest along the equator. They selected a notable crater and named the landing site Sector LLX-4 and an alternate site near a data glitch called Sector FRN-3G. FRN-3G also happened to be at the tip of the notable plains. If the first lander made it to LLX-4, then the second one would head to FRN-3G. With luck, both sites could become potential sites for a base on Duna.

Once Sector LLX-4 entered daylight, the Duna Science Relay dropped its first lander. Several minutes later, Lander 1 adjusted its orbit and deorbited. As it entered the thin atmosphere, it barely generated any plasma fire. When it entered the target area, it attempted to deploy its chute. But like the Estonian, its chute needed more atmospheric pressure to deploy. In a desperate move, the lander tried running its experimental electric propellers.

Sadly, it didn’t work…

The Ministry of Space had one more lander, but the scientists had little hope of succeeding. Nonetheless, Lander 2 detached from the Duna Science Relay and began its descent. With nothing to lose, Lander 2 ditched its descent stage right after atmospheric entry. While the probe survived atmospheric entry, its chute also failed to open, and it too smashed into the desert floor…

With their Duna campaign not going well, the Ministry of Space decided to salvage the science by storing it in Duna Basecamp. To do that they had to clear the Basecamp’s docking port. They commanded its Arrow Extended Upper Stage to detach and deorbit. But rather than just let it crash into the surface, they decided to reprogram it and see if it could land in Sector LLX-4.

To their surprise, it worked!

Bolstered by their success, the Ministry of Space directed the Duna Science Relay to head to the Basecamp. It rendezvoused and docked with the station a couple of hours later. While they couldn’t transfer the science data into the lab, the Basecamp’s extra batteries were enough to preserve the DSR’s remaining propellium.

Post-analysis of Phase 2 showed that the Landers’ main chutes suffered the same issues as Estonian 1. But due to its lightness, drogue chutes might serve as a suitable replacement. It was unclear if the electric propellers were effective on Duna or not and they warranted further experimentation. It’s possible that the landers needed to be lighter weight to handle the thin air. On the plus side, Duna’s thin atmosphere also meant that the probes didn’t need traditional heat shields for atmospheric entry. The next attempt could just use an array of airbrakes to help slow the craft down.

Propulsive landing proved the best option as demonstrated by the unorthodox landing of the AEUS. Future landing craft could spend more mass on airbrakes and landing rockets and less on heat shields and chutes. So, while all but one landing attempt failed, the experiences taught the Ministry of Space’s engineers a lot about what works and what doesn’t, and they were eager to apply the lessons learned to their next attempt. They had a year to design and build their improved designs.

[Watermel00n]

We're getting this so often now!

[jimmymcgoochie]

Quote

 The fate of the world was the best kept secret in history that only a scant few knew about.

Wait, what?

[Spaceman.Spiff]

4 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Wait, what?

Spoiler

Perhaps it’s related to why project Laythe is of such great importance

 

[Angelo Kerman]

7 hours ago, Watermel00n said:

We're getting this so often now!

Temporarily, yeah. I've been burned out with excessive work of late and haven't had the mental energy to work on Buffalo 2, so I've been playing a bit more.

7 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Wait, what?

Spoiler

Chapter 4 talks about that.

 

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 25

While the First Laythe Fleet and the First Eve Fleet departed Kerbin orbit and the exploration of Duna got all the media attention for the past few months, Orbital Dynamics capitalized on the events. The space company launched another batch of tourists to Homestead Hotel and returned them to Kerbin.

Then, right after the First Duna Fleet concluded its mission, Resolute made her maiden flight, taking another set of tourists along with some engineers and a flight crew to Homestead Outpost.

*

“I understand your desire to leverage Project Laythe technology on Minmus, Gene,” Senator Filmore Kerman responded, “I really do. But the cost to the taxpayer was simply enormous. How can we justify the cost to our constituents when we’re just going to our own backyard, so to speak?”

He doesn’t know, Gene reminded himself. He had to try a different tactic. “We still have much to gain from Minmus,” he began. “We’ve barely begun to scratch the surface- literally and figuratively. We haven't been back in years. There’s much more science to be discovered. Plus, building a base on Minmus will help us gain experience with living off the land in non-Kerbin-like environments. We’ll need that experience to live in places like Duna- should we decide to go there. Further, the technologies that we create can help us here on Kerbin too, like how recycling systems and fuel cells developed for Starlab are beginning to appear in the average car and home. Finally, during the launch campaign for Project Laythe, we spent most of our launch capacity on propellant. We know from Orbital Dynamics’ resource data that the Mϋn’s poles have water, and Drax Aerospace’s technology demonstrator proved that it could be extracted. We suspect that Minmus has a similar cache, and if so, it would reduce our need to launch propellant from Kerbin by several orders of magnitude…”

“Why not get what we need from the Mϋn,” Senator Stamund asked.

“While the Mϋn does have a significant concentration of water, its higher gravity means that more propellant must be expended to deliver it into orbit. If Minmus has water- and we’re pretty sure it does- then its lower gravity means that less propellant must be expended to deliver it into orbit. That translates into fewer fueling trips- and less cost to fuel vessels headed to interplanetary space.”

“I see,” Senator Stamund said. “We’ll, take your Minmus Base proposal under consideration. But at nearly 20 million Funds for Project Laythe, I don’t see how we can sell that to the taxpayers- especially since the vonKerman Space Agency is practically broke, and the Ministry of Space is focusing their efforts on Duna. Maybe we can fund another resource satellite to confirm your suspicions about Minmus’s water content. In the meantime, tell me about this, uh, O’Derp of yours.”

Gene sighed, and then displayed an image screen for the senators to view. It depicted many satellites, all in similar orbital tracks. He took a moment to gather his thoughts and check his notes before continuing. “Ever since kerbals have been launching rockets into orbit, we’ve been discarding our trash in orbit- spent stages, obsolete satellites, and the like. As you can see, years of doing that has cluttered low Kerbin orbit. More recently, the Mϋnraker flight to Nautilus left its external tank in orbit- something that happened a few times during the Shuttle era as well. Pretty soon we’ll have a situation where all that trash will become a collision hazard. In fact, not long ago, a piece of space trash flew by the Kerbin Orbital Station- er, Starlab. Had it gotten any closer, it would’ve caused a disaster.

“ODERP stands for Orbital Debris Removal Experimental Program. It is an initiative to remove the discarded stages, obsolete satellites, and other space junk that is cluttering our skies. The experimental part of the program is represented by the new ion engine technology that we’ve developed. For those not familiar, ion engines use electric charge to ionize propellant and accelerate it using powerful magnets. The thrust is very low compared to chemical rockets, but the engines have great fuel economy. We have two designs- one that uses xenon, and another that uses hexagen.”

Gene changed the slide to show a small satellite. “This is the DerpStar, our prototype satellite that’s designed to test the hexagen-fueled GW7202 Gyro-2 Lensed Hall Thruster. The spacecraft is based on the OKTO Bus commercial satellite form factor, and masses about a tonne. In addition to its ion engine, the spacecraft has conventional monopropellant reaction control thrusters to help intercept the target as well as a small grabbing unit to latch on. Once attached to the space junk, DerpStar activates its ion engine to deorbit it. If there’s propellant left over, then the craft circularizes its orbit, rendezvous with more space trash and deorbits it as well. Otherwise, it simply deorbits along with the trash.”

Gene changed the slide again to show a cluster of DerpStar satellites standing on a platform. A grabbing unit was nestled between the satellites. “This is our DerpStar Deployment Platform, or DDP. It holds up to four DerpStars and has a grabbing unit of its own. The DDP is designed to interface with commercial rockets like Edna 1F, Moho, and Mk33. The DDP’s grabbing unit enables it to deorbit space junk that’s too large for the DerpStar to handle.

“To avoid causing an international incident, we’ll focus on deorbiting our decommissioned Comm Sat and Pulsar satellites that have long been rendered obsolete by the MIDAS constellation. We can also try for one of the Shuttle external tanks that are becoming a navigational hazard. Once we prove the concept, we can negotiate with our international partners to deorbit their outmoded ArrowStar network, discarded ATV stages, and other items of interest. Finally, if the vonKermans are willing, we can deorbit some of their defunct satellites as well...”

*

While Gene gave his deposition, Orbital Dynamics prepared Finch for departure. Richdin, Crissder, Wilster, and Wildos, the four tourists on the flight, were excited. Two and a half years after signing their contracts, the tourists were headed for the Mϋn! Scott and Frolie were excited too. Scott’s insurers weren’t thrilled, of course, but they’d gotten used to the CEO of Orbital Dynamics personally putting his faith in the products that his company produced.

After Scott thanked Shersea and his crew for the ride into orbit and Frolie and the tourists buckled in, Finch undocked from Homestead Outpost. Thirty-eight minutes later, the OTV ignited its engine and burned for the Mϋn. As Finch orbited around to the dayside, Scott swung the ship around so the solar arrays could charge the batteries. Conveniently though, he got a good look at Kerbin. “With each passing second, Kerbin gets smaller and smaller…”

Four and a half days later, the media outlets reported that Finch and her crew became the first commercial astronauts to enter the Mϋn’s SOI. While some in the media reported the event as a triumph of the Kerbin Orbital Transportation Services (KOTS) program, others quickly pointed out that that Orbital Dynamics wasn’t selected for KOTS and that they had to pave their own way by singlehandedly creating the space tourism business. In any event, they all agreed that government space programs made it possible for commercial companies to reach the mϋns of Kerbin with less effort. Perhaps someday, commercial enterprises would reach planets like Duna and Laythe.

Eight hours and fifteen minutes later, on Jool 11, 2001, Finch reached the lowest point in its munar flyby as it rounded the farside of the Mϋn. Thanks to orbital mechanics, the farside was brilliantly lit by Kerbol. “And if you look out the windows on the left side of the spacecraft, you’ll see the Mϋn,” Scott said triumphantly. He could hear the ooos an ahhhs from the tourists- and Frolie too! He knew that it was only a matter of time before he set foot on the gray surface.

Another eight hours later, Finch exited the Mϋn’s SOI. Then 90 minutes after that, Scott made their course correction burn to prevent them from sailing into interplanetary space. Then they had a two-day wait before circularizing back in Kerbin orbit on Jool 14, 2001. Their efficient course enabled Finch to realign with Homestead Outpost, but they lacked the delta-v return to the station. So, Scott put the OTV in a 475.6 km by 692.2 km orbit and radioed Dauntless. Then he addressed his charges.

“Not to worry, folks, we planned for this. Dauntless is already in orbit.”

They only had a three hour wait for Dauntless to rendezvous with them, dock via its portside service port, and refuel the OTV. As briefly as she arrived, she undocked and backed away. Three hours later, Finch headed back to Homestead Outpost while Dauntless deorbited and landed at Welcome Back Island- or tried to. A navigation error resulted in Dauntless greatly overshooting the island. She turned around over Area 15, a relic of the Last War where secret aircraft were tested. It had long since been abandoned. A long and embarrassing flight later, Dauntless returned to Welcome Back Island. But at least her refueling probe worked perfectly…

Meanwhile, Finch returned to Homestead Outpost. As the tourists shuffled back into Resolute, Scott and Frolie went through their closeout checklist to deactivate Finch’s systems. By the time that they finished and boarded Mk33-04, Shersey and his crew were already aboard.

“How did it go,” Scott asked.

“Great! The engineers set up Sandcastle and built a bunch of rocket parts- well, the machines did, they just supervised. They said we can leave them on automatic. It’ll take longer to make parts that way, but they’ll still get done. The engineers modified the AUS to hold rocket parts as well, and programmed the runnerbots to stuff them into the AUS. So, we’re all set. It’s just a matter of time until we have what we need to build out the station.”

As Resolute made her first deorbit burn, Scott got an urgent call from Sara.

“Hey, Sara, what’s up? You usually don’t call when I’m in the field.”

“I know,” Sara radioed, “but this can’t wait. Check your data feed for the image I just sent.”

Scott looked it over. His eyes widened. “Well… mulch,” he said simply.

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 26

“According to the KSP press release,” Sara continued, “Drax Aerospace detached their Axis Commercial Orbital Segment from Starlab and used it to form the basis of their hotel. We know that one set of tourists went to Axis in Chapter 19 from the press that Drax put out some time ago, but we hadn’t heard anything since. That leads me to believe that Axis was a commercial flop. If that’s the case, then it would make sense for them to detach the module and repurpose it. As for the rest, Drax clearly licensed the Nautilus centrifuge for his hotel- and already had experience launching one on their Jool Heavy. That power module looks new though, and it was light enough to go up on their Moho.”

“They put up their hotel in, what- five launches? It took us ten,” Lyta Kerman, the company’s Vice President, sitting to Sara's left, said . “It pays to have heavy lift.”

“And now we have Sandcastle,” Frolie pointed out. He was rather proud of his project.

“Lyta, how badly will the Drax Space Hotel cut into our profits,” Sara asked.

Lyta already had her notes ready. “It’s not good. They’re undercutting us- er, the Homestead Hotel Group- by 20 percent, and since consumers like things that are shiny and new, our bookings have sharply declined. I expect that trend to continue through next quarter until the newness dies down. In the near term, we can match their price by offering discounts and we can step up our marketing campaign to increase awareness. But I also expect our profit margins to fluctuate based on whatever current price war is going on at the time.

“On the plus side, we’re getting more requests to visit the magic boulder- five wealthy tourists, in fact- so I suggest we shift some of our bandwidth over to do that. Since we own it, Drax won’t be able to send their tourists to visit it- unless we want to charge a fee.”

“Not going to happen,” Scott blurted out, forgetting for a moment that Sara handled the business side of the company.

“Scott’s right,” Sara confirmed. “If Drax wants to send tourists to an asteroid, they’ll have to get one of their own. Do we have any other fly-by requests? We need to capture that market before Drax does…”

“Actually, yes,” Lyta answered. “Meldorf Kerman, whom we booked to visit Unity Station in Chapter 11, got excited about our mϋnar fly-by, and referred us to his friends. Now we have a group of three who want to go to Minmus. Apparently, they spoke to their friends, and we have another group of three who want to land on Minmus- and they asked us not to tell the first group of three…”

“Frolie, can Finch handle a trip to Minmus?”

“The life support systems can handle the duration of the flight, and the entertainment centers will keep everyone busy,” Frolie responded, “but the problem is delta-v…”

“We have to fix our propellant shortfall,” Scott interrupted and said angrily. “The new trajectory we used just didn’t cut it, and Mϋnar Depot was out of range. Finch needs enough propellant to get to the Mϋn and back to Homestead Outpost. What do we need to do to make that happen?”

“It comes down to adding more tankage,” Frolie answered calmly. “We need more space to store propellant. Finch is modular, so we can add another core tank…”

“So that’s, what, another five flights to build out another tank cluster,” Scott interrupted and asked.

“No,” Frolie responded, “we just need another core tank. We only need enough for the transfer burn back to Homestead Outpost. But I have a better idea, one that’ll both increase our tankage and help us conserve delta-v on the way back.” Frolie outlined his plan.

Scott smiled. “I like that idea,” he said.

Sara gave the go-ahead to book the tourists.

*

ODERP 1 lifted off KSC’s Pad A on Jool 28, 2001, with little fanfare. Between the two KOTS providers, Drax Aerospace’s Moho offered the cheapest price for the cost-conscious mission, so crowds were treated to the roar of a single Space Launch System solid rocket booster- the same type used on the Jool Heavy and Shuttle Block 2. The launch went smoothly, with the SRB first stage and CE-2X Ulysses- powered second stage dropping off right on time. The kick stage sported a KJ-10 Viking- used on Shuttle and various Payload Assist Modules- in place of the venerable LV-909 Terrier motor. The switch gave Moho’s third stage a bit more delta-v. All subsequent Moho launch vehicles were slated to use the Viking as well.

ODERP 1 attained a 97.6 km by 186.3 km orbit. After its systems integrity check passed, the spacecraft deployed DerpStar 1, which promptly deployed its solar arrays and plotted an intercept course with its target. It tested its hall-effect thruster by performing an alignment burn. Satisfied with the results, Mission Control gave the go-ahead to rendezvous with its target. Two burns later, DerpStar 1 parked next to its quarry.

Back in the Mϋnshot days, Mariner- the original one- made her first and only flight. Jeb piloted the K-20 up to 1,000 km altitude before deploying Comm Sat 1, the world’s first telecommunications satellite. Unfortunately, Mariner broke up upon reentry when it suffered excessive g-forces, but luckily, Jeb bailed out and parachuted to safety.

Long-since obsoleted by the MIDAS array and defunct for years, Comm Sat 1 was little more than space junk. DerpStar 1 took several images of the old satellite before successfully capturing it just before orbital sunset. After looping back around to the dayside of Kerbin, DerpStar 1 initiated its deorbit burn, and then immediately released Comm Sat 1. While the probe was supposed to re-circularize its orbit a minute after releasing the space junk, a navigational error set the maneuver node at periapsis instead. DerpStar 1 plunged into the atmosphere and burned up upon reentry. Such is the life of a test program…

DerpStar 2 deployed soon after, and targeted Comm Sat 2, delivered by Pathfinder. A couple of hours later, DerpStar 2 rendezvoused with… well… not Comm Sat 2. Instead, it latched onto a spent Arrow 4 upper stage that sent a Mϋn-bound Automated Transfer Vehicle on its journey. Its age suggested that it probably supported the Mϋnshot program. Though designed and built by the Ministry of Space, those vehicles were purchased by KSP. So, when the upper stage reached its 4,603.8 km apoapsis, DerpStar 2 deorbited it. A few minutes later, DerpStar 2 circularized its orbit before searching for its next target…

The satellite made a large plane-change maneuver (over 1,000 m/sec!) to reach Comm Sat 2 and then rendezvoused with it 4 hours later- for real this time. Nearly out of hexagen, DerpStar 2 made its last engine burn to deorbit both spacecraft. Its supply of hexagen ran out, so it completed deorbiting by running its RCS propellant dry. Mission Control logged its mission as a success; despite rendezvousing with the wrong target at first, DerpStar 2 managed to demonstrate the ability to deorbit two pieces of space trash, each in widely different orbits.

DerpStar 3 Couldn’t reach CommSat 3 in its polar orbit, so it went after another relic from the Mϋnshot days: Mϋnshot 1. The probe was the first spacecraft to take scientific readings from mϋnar space and return them to Kerbin orbit. A Block 2 K-20 named Ranger brought Jeb and Bob into orbit on its maiden flight in (To the Mϋn, Chapter 14) where a hastily modified Docking Target gave the spacecraft enough delta-v to reach Mϋnshot 1 and retrieve the science. The probe remained a derelict ever since, but DerpStar 3 easily deorbited it.

Next, the satellite rendezvoused with the Kerbal Maneuvering Unit that failed on SLS-1, the first Shuttle flight. It too proved no match for DerpStar 3.

Finally, the spacecraft met up with Pulsar 3, one of the second-generation telecommunications satellites that was launched via D1B. Back then, it barely had enough communications range to reach the Mϋn. The DerpStar burned its remaining hexagen to deorbit itself and the Pulsar.

The last DerpStar, that someone nicknamed “Galactica,” took on a big challenge- literally. Galactica met up with Mϋnraker’s external tank and powered up its deprbit kit long enough for it to deorbit. In gratitude, the deorbit kit torched two of Galactica’s solar panels.

A day later, Galactica went after a piece of trash discarded by SLS-5: the external tank from Space Shuttle Mariner’s fifth flight. Mission Control decided to gamble and see how much lower Galactica could push the enormous tank. It pushed it far enough into the atmosphere for drag to do the rest. As its electric charge dwindled, Galactica let go of the tank and scurried back to orbit, leaving the tank to its fate.

Galactica found a third ET whose battery ran out before it could deorbit. Fortunately, its apoapsis was on the dayside; all it had to do was recharge the deorbit kit’s batteries using its induction coils and send it on its way. In retrospect, that’s what DerpStar 4 should’ve done with the Mϋnraker tank.

A day later, the satellite found a fourth tank to deorbit. Researchers couldn’t pinpoint which mission it originated from, but they thought it might’ve been flown by Space Shuttle Opportunity. The tank ran out of monopropellant, so Galactica had to push it into the atmosphere.

DerpStar 4 latched onto its fifth and final target, an external tank that Space Shuttle Mariner launched into orbit sometime during its early career, on Tizoc 4, 2001. The tank’s deorbit kit was an early design that lacked sufficient monopropellant to deorbit. Low on hexagen propellant, Galactica lowered the tank’s orbit as much as it could before exhausting its propellant. When it switched to its monopropellant reserves, the tanks’ engines lit up and melted Galactica’s grabbing unit. It spun off into space and became space debris.

Despite the mishaps, the DerpStars successfully demonstrated the use of hall-effect thruster technology, and KSP was quite pleased with the results. But they had one more trick up their sleeve: the DerpStar Deployment Platform (DDP) itself. First, ODERP 1 rendezvoused with the external tank and completed its deorbiting maneuver. Next, it rescued DerpStar 4- if “rescue” meant capturing and deorbiting it.

A day later, ODERP 1 rendezvoused with the remains of the D1B Mϋn Tanker that supported Project Mϋnshot. Back in To the Mϋn Chapter 28 the days when space communications and navigation systems were new, Mission Control lost connection with the Docking Target vehicle that was sent to refuel the tanker. It collided with the D1B and sent fragments everywhere. Since the remains still had usable monopropellant, the spacecraft used it to deorbit the wreckage. Finally, the DDP grabbed a piece of space junk left over from launching the MIDAS satellite constellation. Running on fumes, the satellite deorbited itself along with the debris.

The ODERP 1 technology demonstration mission proved the concept of orbital debris removal beyond a shadow of doubt. With four DerpStar satellites, they managed to deorbit 10 pieces of space junk, and the DDP/launch bus itself removed another 4 pieces. KSP management was thrilled with the results and congratulated the entire team. After the celebrations died down, Gene began negotiating with the Ministry of Space and the vonKerman Space Agency in hopes of obtaining permission to deorbit their space junk as well.

*

While ODERP 1 conducted its technology demonstrations, the Ministry of Space did some testing of its own: a pad abort test of their new Galileo-class Arrow Space Plane. It worked perfectly, so the MoS decided to conduct an orbital flight test on Tizoc 10, 2001.

Designed to transport up to 6 kerbals to Starlab and back, Galileo was a delta-winged space plane that launched atop an Arrow 4 launch vehicle. Galileo could seat up to 6 kerbals but it could fly fully automated. Built by the Arrow Space Corporation, the ASP combined new technology with old. It had a service module derived from an older version of the Arrow Transfer Vehicle’s service module which had a clamp-o-tron junior port that was originally designed for the K-20 back in the Mϋnshot era. Four 48-78 Spark motors surrounded the port, and a tunnel in the module enabled kerbals to transfer from a space station or other craft into the ASP. Galileo also had a newer clamp-o-tron compatible port in its fuselage to support the international standard pioneered by the vonKermans on their Drakken spacecraft and used by KSP since the Shuttle Launch System first debuted.

About an hour after launch, Galileo docked with Starlab on the MoS side of the station via its aft port. After verifying the atmospheric integrity of the spacecraft, Starlab’s crew took a tour of Galileo- and graciously accepted the stash of snacks that the launch crew packed away. A day later, the ASP departed Starlab and headed back to KSC. The space plane performed beautifully, gliding all the way back to the space center and landing without the aid of its jets.

The Ministry of Space congratulated its team of engineers for their successful test flight. At last, the mcKerman Kingdom’s space program had a reusable winged spacecraft of its own.

*

The successful test of the Arrow Space Plane spelled the end of MoS’ use of the Arrow Crew Vehicle that first flew towards the end of the Shuttle Launch System program. The original design only seated three kerbals, but a later extension added room for a fourth. Though newly obsolete, the design still served a useful purpose.

Since Phoenix Aerospace bought the rights and tooling to the K-24 Kerbal Return Vehicle, Orbital Dynamics couldn’t use it for what they had in mind. Instead, they contracted with the Arrow Space Corporation to build them a modified ACV that had a shortened service module with fixed solar panels and no high-gain relay antenna. Officially named the Arrow Crew Return Vehicle, Orbital Dynamics nicknamed it the Warthog due to its appearance.

On Tizoc 11, 2001, Resolute made her second flight with the Warthog in her payload bay. Mk33-04 docked with Homestead Outpost on Tizoc 12. Not long after, Mitson and Steve entered the Sandcastle module to check on its progress. As hoped, it produced enough rocket parts for the station’s expansion.

Meanwhile Jesong took remote control of the ACRV and deployed it. A short flight later, the Warthog latched onto one of the docking pier’s smaller ports. Then, after a day in orbit, Jofrey took up residence in the station’s Homestead module, leaving Shersey and Jeslong to pilot Resolute back home without their flight engineer.

“The company needs to hire more engineers,” Shersey quipped.

*

ODERP 2 lifted off a few days later, carring another set of DerpStar satellites into orbit. The four DerpStar sats combined deorbited a total of 10 pieces of space junk including Pulsar 1, Pulsar 2, several Arrow 4 upper stages, a leftover Arrow 4 Tanker, and DemoSat 1 (launched into orbit on Skyranger’s first orbital flight).

Not long after, the vonKerman Space Agency launched a Fleigenross with a special payload called the Anti-Umlaufbahn (Anti-orbit)- their own version of the DerpStar. Unlike the Kerman States’ version, the Anti-Umlaufbahn was powered by a xenon-fueled ion engine. Moreover, its RCS thrusters used xenon as well. Exactly how did the vonKermans get ahold of such new technology when there was no sharing agreement for it? They won’t say…

The vonKermans politely declined KSP’s offer to deorbit their space junk and quickly created their own version of DerpStar. A day after attaining orbit, one of the “anti-orbit” satellites latched onto an old Fleigenross upper stage and deorbited it- but not without considerable effort. As it turned out, the IX-8219 After ion thruster needed a lot more electricity than anticipated, which resulted in frequent flameouts. So, while the satellite had a large reserve of xenon gas, Kontrol elected to deorbit each satellite along with the trash. At least the ion RCS thrusters proved effective…

ODERP 3 took care of four more satellites, and the Ministry of Space deorbited nearly all of their outdated ArrowStar communications satellites before the vonKermans redesigned their Anti-Orbit satellite and launched another batch into orbit. This time, they equipped the satellite with a large fuel cell and a tank of liquid fuel and oxidizer to power it. That worked well; Kontrol managed to deorbit several of their spent stages and transfer vehicles.

By the time that all three major space agencies cleaned up their trash, the media dubbed it the Space Trash Race. KSP won the race with the most garbage deorbited. But ultimately, their efforts cleaned up Low Kerbin Orbit and greatly reduced the chance for collisions from debris.

*

Not long after, KSC launched two spacecraft to Starlab. First, Mϋnraker 1 delivered a large supply of snacks and fresh air to the orbiting laboratory and then immediately returned to the space center and making a night landing.

Then, the next day, Phoenix Aerospace debuted their new Firebird-C, an unkermanned cargo variant of their Firebird space plane. Firebird-C dropped off a small supply of snacks along with several repair kits and a pair of fresh EVA jetpacks. It too didn’t stay long; it undocked and deorbited as soon as the station crew unloaded it. Unlike the commercial space shuttle, Firebird-C undershot its approach to KSC and ended up in the water about 35km away. Unfortunately, the space cargo plane flipped over when it splashed down, which meant that the venerable K-21 Sea Goat couldn’t recover it. Luckily, KSC had been experimenting with the KH-1 Louie.

They modified it to include a new 5-bladed main rotor, pontoons, pontoon-mounted jet engines, and an underslung winch. Phoenix Aerospace’s recovery crew borrowed the chopper and flew out to the Firebird-C, where a diver hopped out and hooked up the cable. The KH-1S Sea Louie had no trouble taking off from the water and flying back to KSC with the space cargo plane in tow.

*

A Few days later, Resolute launched into orbit carrying another load of rocket parts. When they arrived at Homestead Outpost, the crew was treated to a major upgrade: the station sported a large construction frame! Thanks to the Sandcastle modules, the station’s crew were able to print and assemble the frame- too large to be brought up by a Mk33. No longer called Homestead Outpost, the station was renamed the Orbital Dynamics Shipyard.

After transferring a fresh load of rocket parts into the shipyard’s new holding tanks, the station crew got to work deploying the yard’s construction manipulator and locked it into place. Then they undocked the Arrow 5 Upper Stage that Orbital Dynamics purchased as an interim propulsion unit for the Finch. No longer needed, the crew guided the craft into the yard where they used manipulator to turn the vehicle into scrap metal. Next, they pulled the parts container from Resolute’s payload bay and fed it to the shipyard as well. Finally, the station crew used the Payload Maneuvering Vehicle to move Finch’s cryogenic engine module to an available docking port in preparation for the shipyard’s next project. Then, they waited…

At the Darude Launch Complex in the vonKerman Republic, Kallisto 2 lifted off from the desert floor carrying six kerbonauts into orbit. Six hours later, the vonKerman space plane docked with the Orbital Dynamics Shipyard, where the two crews exchanged greetings and shared a meal together.

After Shersey and his crew said their goodbyes, Resolute departed the shipyard and returned to Welcome Back Island as Jofrey and the combined Orbital Dynamics/vonKerman station crew settled into work. Orbital Dynamics looked forward to learning from the undisputed masters of orbital assembly and repair, while the vonKermans were excited to revitalize their ailing space program...

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 27

“Right,” Adsii continued. “According to the Long Count, the Fifth World- the era we’re currently in- ends in about 100 years, and the Sixth World begins right after that. It’s no different than when one calendar year ends and another begins.”

“How did you learn about this- uh, transition, to the Sixth World,” Gene asked.

“Oh, I read some journal articles on the Pyramid of Tut-un Jeb-anh, where researchers found a broken stone tablet” Adsii responded. “It’s in modern-day vonKerman Republic.”

“I see. Tut-un Jeb-anh… That… sounds familiar,” Gene reminisced. He thought for a few moments, as if trying to remember. “Oh, right. Years ago, when Valentina and Bob took the Sea Goat across Kerbin for climate research, they flew over some ancient pyramids as they crossed the Great Lake[*]. I recall asking Oskar about them, and that’s what he called them… It sounds like a good vacation spot.

“Uh, not really,” Adsii responded, “but I’d go visit.”

“Hm… Anyway, did any of those articles talk about the end of civilization?”

“Of the Kermantians?”

“Uh, right, of course,” Gene corrected himself. He looked over at his malfunctioning TV. Even being the new Administrator of KSP, he still had to wait for IT…

“Er, they touched upon the subject,” Adsii answered, “but there isn’t much evidence about why the Kermantian empire mysteriously vanished. The only thing that we know is that they disappeared after the Fifth World began. That article I mentioned wrote about the end of the Kermantians, but the research just confirmed what we already knew- which is not much.”

“Interesting,” Gene said. “I’m sure it would be quite the discovery to find out what happened to them… Anyway, I’d love to talk more about the Kermantians, but we’re getting off topic. How are we doing with restoring the DSN connection to the Hamek Surveyor…”

*

Out in the void, just past the orbit of Edna (the planet itself was a third of an orbit away), the Laythe Support Module woke up for a few minutes, warmed up its nuclear motor, and made a small course correction burn to intercept Jool’s Sphere of Influence. It sent a series of beeps and chirps to report its status and then went back to sleep. KSC Mission Control also took the time to check in on the First Laythe Fleet’s status and verified that they were still on course to reach Jool in a couple of years. With Nautilus’ crew’s vital signs looking nominal, KSCMC let the Fleet go about its business.

*

It took a few weeks, paused only to do some work on the station itself, but finally, Orbital Dynamics Shipyard had its first product: an enormous heat shield! Significantly larger than the vonKerman inflatable heat shield used on their Raumschlepper tanker tugs and on numerous craft in the First Laythe Fleet, the S2 Storage Shield was a rigid design with a hollow interior that could store resources. It was a design that the vonKerman Space Agency crafted years ago but couldn’t build until orbital construction technology caught up. So, when Orbital Dynamics approached them to build the shield, they were delighted to work with the space company on the shield and the technology needed to produce it. At last, Project Sandcastle, which started as a commercial in-space 3D printing project of small parts, made a huge leap forward.

The station crew carefully maneuvered the giant shield out of the yard via the Payload Maneuvering Vehicle and docked it to Finch before returning to its station berth. Next, the station crew powered up Finch and performed system checks. The mammoth heat shield’s Gigantor XL solar arrays deployed without incident, and the heat shield cap opened as expected to reveal the CR-0120 Erebus cryogenic rocket engine nestled inside. Unlike KSP’s Magellan Mϋnar Shuttle Module, which fully exposed its cryogenic engine to the rigors of aerobraking (with varying degrees of success), Finch’s Erebus would be fully protected while the vessel used the atmosphere to slow down.

With their tests completed, the station crew replaced Finch’s OX-10L 1x5 Photovoltaic Panels with retractable SP-10L versions that they printed up in the Sandcastle 3D print shop and added extra RCS thrusters to the heat shield. Finally, they installed a new fuel cell in one of the internal support racks to help keep the propellants cool.

With the refits completed, Scott (CDR), Johnsted (PLT), and Willorf (ENG, Frolie was out on vacation) headed uphill in Dauntless for several back-to-back flights to fill up Finch’s tanks. After the final refill, Scott, Johnsted, and Willorf boarded Finch for her shakedown cruise and departed the shipyard on Cuitla 11, 2001. With the increased propellant capacity, Finch had a total delta-v of 3,863 m/sec- a bit less with a full load of snacks and passengers.

Shortly after undocking from the shipyard, Finch made its mϋnar injection burn slightly late, which required a small correction burn six hours later. “I think that fuel cell is defective,” Willorf remarked. “It’s burning more propellium and oxidizer than it should. We’re slowly losing propellant, but we should have enough to return to the shipyard.” Given the news, Scott pivoted Finch so that all four of its solar arrays pointed directly at Kerbol to reduce the load on the fuel cell.

Two days later, Finch’s scrubbers failed, and Willorf had to EVA to fix them. Once she completed her work, she decided to have a little fun with a microgravity science experiment. Three days later, Finch entered the Mϋn’s SOI, and 7 hours after that, the ship coasted down to 24.7 km of the Mϋn’s surface. But instead of elation, Scott felt frustration as small bits of propellant boiled away when the fuel cell couldn’t generate enough power. He knew that the yard team could fix the problem by throwing more tanks at it, but it was just disappointing. Nine hours after the lowest approach to the Mϋn, Finch performed a course correction maneuver to bring it back to Kerbin.

Then, on Cuitla 17, 2001, Finch closed in on Kerbin. “Five minutes,” Johnsted said. Scott responded by retracting its solar arrays and closing the shield, and then pointed the ship retrograde. A few minutes later, Finch slammed into the upper atmosphere at over 5.4 km/sec. The shield worked, though the X-shaped tanks heated up much more than expected. Five hours later, Finch repeated the process. An hour after their second aerobraking, Finch circularized its orbit. Finally, on Cuitla 19, the spacecraft returned to the shipyard.

*

The yard workers disconnected Finch’s cryo-propulsion shield, returned it to the construction frame for disassembly, and reconnected Finch’s older propulsion unit. Dauntless then made another pair of refueling trips; the second brought up Mabo (CDR), Johnsted (PLT), Frolie (ENG), and the five tourists interested in visiting the Magic Boulder. After refueling Finch, Mabo, Frolie, and the tourists boarded the OTV and departed Orbital Dynamics Shipyard. An hour later, they were on their way to the asteroid.

Finch had more than enough delta-v to reach the Magic Boulder, dock at the Pier, and return to the shipyard…

A few days later, having worked overtime and around the clock and applying the lessons they learned from the prototype cryo-shield, the yard workers disconnected Finch’s old cryogenic propulsion section and hauled the rebuilt cryo propulsion shield out of the yard. They quickly docked it to Finch. The rebuilt module had a tank cluster centered around the core tank, new SPF-50 solar arrays set on retractable booms, and a pair of dedicated fuel cell arrays to keep the cryogenic fuel cool. With the increased tankage and more efficient power production, there was finally no doubt that Finch could make it to the Mϋn and back- with propellant to spare.

It took a half-dozen Dauntless flights to fill all the propellium/oxidizer tanks on Finch and its older propulsion unit. Unfortunately, during the launch campaign, the Mk-33 launchpad suffered a few breakdowns; it was starting to wear out from all the launches and might need an overhaul or replacement...

Shortly after Dauntless landed, the yard crew unveiled their latest creation: the Orbital Standard Shipping Container. Designed to haul a variety of different resources and hardware, the OSSC was the space equivalent to an intermodal shipping container. For its first test, yard workers detached Finch’s former propulsion unit and connected it to the OSSC.

Finch’s former propulsion unit took the OSSC up to the Magic Boulder, where automated systems loaded the container with as much metal ore as it could carry. A few hours later, it arrived back at the shipyard on fumes. While the yard had a sizeable amount of metal ore to refine and make rocket parts with, the player company was tired of the vessel under-performing. Its next trip would be its last.

Not long after, they built a second OSSC for testing and temporary storage purposes. By this time, the shipyard was getting pretty full with all the vehicles docked to it, so the yard workers built a new Homestead variant called the Homestead Waystation. The modified design sported four docking piers for visiting spacecraft along with the two ports on its main axis. Once completed, Finch’s former propulsion unit shuttled it to a 320.5 km by 320.1 km orbit before heading back to the yard to be decommissioned and scrapped.

Finally, after correcting robotics parts issues defects in Finch’s new propulsion module- dubbed the Orbital Cargo Transfer Vehicle, Orbital Dynamics Mission Control commanded Finch to undock from the shipyard and link up with Homestead Waystation. A second OCTV took over for the decommissioned propulsion unit and shuttled more metal ore to the yard.

As a result of Orbital Dynamics’ successes, “Made In Space” became the new soundbyte in the media for several weeks.

[*] Way back in To the Mϋn, Chapter 5

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 28

Orbital Dynamics’ new shipyard impressed KSP to the point where they began negotiating with the company for use of their facility- and for an OCTV or two of their own. Meanwhile, after months of travel, the First Eve Fleet arrived at the purple planet! Gilly Mapper arrived first, followed close behind by Bumblebee. Both spacecraft plotted a braking burn to enter high Eve orbit. The Eve RelaySat constellation entered Eve’s SOI five hours later and followed suit…

Gilly Mapper had an eight-day wait before it could perform an interception burn with Gilly, but Bumblebee lowered its orbit four and a half hours after is braking maneuver. It tried to carefully skim the upper atmosphere to slow down, caressing Eve’s atmosphere once every 8 days or so. Meanwhile, Eve RelaySat performed its inclination change maneuver, increased its orbital altitude to 136,663.1 km, and then waited to circularize it. Then, on Montezu 9, 2001, KSC Mission Control realized that the Gilly Mapper lacked the delta-v that it needed to enter Gilly orbit. They promptly made a small course correction burn to avoid crashing into the tiny mϋn and ordered it to enter high Eve orbit in seven days…

As Gilly Mapper high-tailed to high Eve orbit, Bumblebee nearly suffered a disaster as it skimmed the upper atmosphere of Eve once more. Additionally, it lacked the delta-V needed to circularize in low orbit, so KSCMC decided to raise its periapsis out of the atmosphere and reassess its situation. At least the Eve RelaySat constellation enjoyed some success. After setting up the resonant orbit, each satellite had 42 days before it had to circularize. Since they could handle that task on their own, the nuclear propulsion unit separated from the constellation and headed out on its own…

Two days later, on Montezu 16, 2001, the propulsion unit- now called the Eve Nuclear Tug- burned to intercept Bumblebee. It took another 10 days to finally catch up to the space probe, and an additional six hours before everything was in place. Neither spacecraft had the docking ports needed to link up. But what Mission Control had planned hadn’t been done since Mϋnflight 3, and even then, it was an accident. As the Lindor rocket ascended, the third stage decoupled from the rocket-while the second stage still burned! Then Lieutenant Commander Dudmon Kerman expertly balanced the third stage while the second stage depleted its propellants. His efforts saved the mission- and earned him the Medal of Heroism. Since neither spacecraft had compatible docking equipment, KSP was essentially going to try and repeat Dudmon’s feat- around a distant planet and completely autonomously…

As the two spacecraft rounded their periapsis, the Eve Nuclear Tug pointed retrograde while Bumblebee locked its engine bell from moving and gently maneuvered onto the front of the tug. Then, keeping the throttle low, Eve Nuclear Tug began gently pushing its companion craft. To their delight, it worked! The spacecraft lowered Bumblebee’s orbit from over 100,000 km to just 332.7 km. And with a quick burn later, the tug pushed Bumblebee’s periapsis to 67.1 km- just above Eve’s atmosphere. Because of the tug’s efforts, Bumblebee had the delta-v to safely deorbit. But it would have to wait until the Relay Sat constellation was in position…

With Bumblebee’s mission saved, KSPMC turned its focus back to Gilly Mapper. Trajectory analysts tried various maneuver nodes to reach Gilly Mapper but found that the tug lacked the delta-v for a rendezvous. The best that they could do is head for Gilly itself. A half-hour after completing Bumblebee’s maneuvers, Eve Nuclear Tug performed a long burn towards Eve’s only mϋn and arrived two days later, on Acama 4, 2002.

Mission planners weren’t sure if their next attempt would work, but they had to try anyway. If not- well, exploring Gilly was an afterthought for the First Eve Fleet. Eve Nuclear Tug left Gilly, matched planes with it 4 days later, but it had to wait for another 194 days for the transfer burn. At least by then, the Eve RelaySat constellation would finally be in place.

*

As the slow-motion dance of the First Eve Fleet continued, the Ministry of Space began their launch campaign to assemble the Second Duna Fleet. First, they launched the Duna Climate Observer, a satellite bus with 6 probes designed to measure Duna’s atmosphere at various locations. Next, they launched the Duna Geo Observer- a very similar satellite bus with 6 probes designed to take gravimetric and seismic readings on Duna’s surface. Then, the Ministry of Space launched Estonian 2, a redesigned Estonian Duna Lander that applied lessons learned from its predecessor. Finally, the vonKerman Space Agency launched a refurbished leftover Schafer rover that the Ministry of Space purchased for use on Duna.

The Ministry of Space had two more redesigned Duna Copter probes to launch, but they had to wait. The space agency continued its launch campaign by focusing on the propulsion elements. After evaluating the Poseidon and Neptune atomic motors and reexamining the dangerous Emancipator open-cycle engine used in the First Laythe Fleet and First Eve Fleet, the Ministry of Space settled upon a new design: the NV-GE Liberator. Though not as powerful or as fuel efficient as the Emancipator, the Liberator was significantly safer to use, and it outperformed both the Poseidon and the Neptune. And having learned from the First Duna Fleet and the challenges at Eve, the improved Interplanetary Tug was equipped with all the docking port types used in the Second Duna Fleet as well as a dedicated SAFER nuclear reactor…

Starting with the Schafer rover, each vessel in the fleet received one set of engine and fuel tank modules that comprised a MoS Interplanetary Tug. Sixteen flights later, each vessel had a dedicated nuclear-powered tug. Finally, the Schafer’s tug received the redesigned Duna Copter probes. Fully assembled, all the Second Duna Fleet had to do was wait for the launch window.

The Ministry of Space knew that building the Second Duna Fleet and launching them on a swath of semi-reusable rockets was likely the last time that anyone would use such a method. In the future, building large fleets and/or vessels would become the domain of orbiting shipyards, with ground launches providing resources, crew, and components that couldn’t be made in space. The Orbital Dynamics/vonKerman Space Agency shipyard provided a significant advantage to both the Kerman States and the vonKerman Republic, and if the Ministry of Space wanted to remain competitive, they’d have to build a shipyard of their own…

*

As the mcKermans assembled their fleet in orbit, Scott sat in the cockpit of the Finch Mϋnar Landing Research Vehicle, a research and training vehicle conceptually equivalent to the vehicle that astronauts used to practice mϋnar landings with during the Mϋnflight Program. Nicknamed Jet Finch, the FMLRV was powered by four vertically mounted Panther jet engines set in afterburner mode. The engines provided enough thrust to power the research vehicle through vertical flight. While Jet Finch’s rocket motors were inert, the vehicle’s RCS thrusters were active, and Scott used them to translate over to a nearby helipad before settling the vehicle onto the ground. With that check flight completed, he lifted into the air once again, this time to an altitude of 700 meters before descending back down again. This time, he landed on the central landing pad built during the Last War.

With the testing concluded, Scott piloted Jet Finch into the air once more, this time gunning the engines, which made the craft leap into the air. The uneven jet thrust caused it to wobble around, so Scott tried to enable the atmospheric autopilot. That made the problem worse, so he just as quickly disabled it. A few panicked seconds later though, the retired Air Force test pilot’s honed skills took over, and he brought Jet Finch back under control.

Using the RCS, Scott swung the craft round and flew over the admin building. Off in the distance he could see the new causeway that they’d built between Runway 090 and Runway 027. Soon they’d be tearing up and rebuilding Runway 090 to reinforce it and install cooling systems. They were also about to roll Dauntless back to the OPF for her Orbiter Maintenance Down Period as well. The modifications that they’d planned were significant, but the benefits outweighed the costs. In retrospect, he realized that they should’ve built the Mk33s with the mods in the first place.

Scott then rolled Jet Finch to the right and past Hangar Row, where they’d built a second set of hangars to house Dauntless and Resolute. If things went well, Resolute would receive the same modifications as Dauntless, as would Ascension. And as he made a final loop to land on Runway 027, he thought fondly about Skyranger. The first Mk33 ever built was too old and worn out to be modified, so she sat in retirement in Hangar 1. Should they send her to the Boneyard, like the K-20 Kerbal Soar and the Space Shuttle? Was there enough that they could salvage and build into a new ship? Scott had mixed feelings about either fate. Sending her to the Boneyard to take her place in history could also give their competitors a good look at her design. Taking her apart and rebuilding her might not be practical either; their engineering staff estimated that many of its composite frames were cracked and/or delaminating, for instance, and by the time that they replaced them, they’d have a new ship. For now, Skyranger would remain in the hangar.

After a quick status check, Scott lifted off once more and hopped over to the helipad that he started from. As he shut down the Jet Finch, he reflected on the meeting that he was about to attend. KAF- well, the Kerman Air Force, the Kerman Aerospace Defense Command, and the Kerbal Intelligence Agency- had a potential solution for their “Blutonium Problem...”

Over a decade ago...

In the post-Mϋnflight era, the Kerman States had two competing programs for the Shuttle Launch System: One publicly hyped by Kerbal Space Program, and a lesser known one by the Kerman Aerospace Defense Command. The KADC program favored a two-stage design, operated by the Kerman Air Force, with a piloted, Lindor 5-derived winged first stage booster that landed at an airfield downrange of the launch site. Both the booster and the orbiter would be 100% reusable.

While the orbiter had a small payload bay for hauling cargo to a space station, for cargo flights, the KADC design replaced the orbiter with an upgraded Duna 1C upper stage and attached a pair of liquid boosters to the first stage to deliver up to 43 metric tons and/or large volume payloads into orbit. In its cargo configuration, only the side boosters and winged first stage would be recovered.

Realizing that they had competition for the Shuttle Launch System, KSP’s engineers redesigned their orbiter to accommodate the large payload requirements from the KADC, which also led them down the path of using a Lindor 5-derived first stage. But as the KADC design team would later discover, engineers couldn’t solve the first stage’s reentry heating problem with the technology available, so they settled upon the familiar solid rocket boosters and external tank.

With both KSP and KADC agreeing to use KSP’s Shuttle Launch System, KADC fully expected to have their own fleet of orbiters, owned, and operated by the Kerman Air Force, but politics intervened. Instead of their own orbiters, KADC received an annual allotment of SLS flights dedicated to defense missions and had top priority when a flight had extra payload capacity. In fact, SLS-3 even tested a surveillance camera for the KADC. But when KSP cancelled OV-205, the Kerman Air Force tried unsuccessfully to acquire it, and when the civilian space agency ended the Shuttle Launch System altogether, they tried to acquire their retiring fleet, but again they were thwarted.

Present day...

The Kerman Air Force had looked at obtaining a Block 2 orbiter or two from Drax Aerospace when SLS entered the commercial realm, but when Orbital Dynamics successfully built and launched their Mk33- and demonstrated rapid turnaround capability- the Air Force saw a possibility to at last have a space fleet of their own. And when the Kerman Intelligence Agency quietly approached them about Orbital Dynamics’ “Blutonium Problem,” they saw their path forward.

The delegation from KAF, KADC, and KIA were meeting with Orbital Dynamics not just about how to get rid of their Blutonium, but to convince Scott and Sara to build them a Mk33...

*

Mϋnraker 1 lifted off from Pad C on Acama 13, 2002, carrying a record 3 crew and 33 passengers in a heavily modified passenger airplane cabin. Four hours later, the Block 2 orbiter approached and docked with the Drax Space Hotel. As the first guests to the hotel, they were treated to a welcome celebration. A few days later, the orbiter departed from the hotel and returned to KSC at sundown. Mϋnraker 1 performed flawlessly, making a textbook landing, but its days were numbered.

At long last, Sunraker was ready to fly.

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 29

Sunraker’s half-dozen OPT-E-J61 Starwasher Hybrid Ramjet engines could be heard spooling up as the spaceplane revved up for takeoff. First of her kind- and long delayed- Sunraker was the world’s first true spaceplane, able to fly from runway to space and back again. It took many long months for Kerbodyne’s OPT Propulsion Science Division to design and build the revolutionary engines, and they suffered many failures along the way. But at last, the world heard the roar of the engines as Sunraker sped down the runway and lifted off into the air. Six hours after launch, Sunraker, nearly devoid of propellant, arrived at the Drax Space Hotel with 36 eager tourists- only to find that the hotel’s third centrifuge and its power module had mysteriously vanished!

As the hotel guests settled in, Sunraker’s flight crew entered the Axis module to find out what happened. Upon checking the logs, it became clear that KSP deleted some parts for some reason that Centrifuge 3 suffered a catastrophic decompression and RUD, taking with it the solar power array. Fortunately, the Axis module shut the pressure doors before the event, and its own solar panels kept the station alive. But for some reason, Drax Space Hotel never reported the failure to Drax Control.

Since the tourists couldn’t see the hotel during Sunkraker’s approach, Drax Control elected to simply declare Centrifuge 3 “closed for maintenance” to avoid a panic amongst the passengers. Three days later, Sunraker departed the hotel and landed back at KSC using a long glide maneuver to conserve what little fuel it had left. Unfortunately, the spaceplane’s brakes didn’t work as well as expected, and the giant craft’s nose gear slid off the runway. It was an embarrassing public end to a quietly troubled flight.

*

After assessing the situation with the hotel, Drax Aerospace quickly launched a Moho rocket that they’d built for the DerpStar program as a backup. Equipped with a spare propellant tank and a Klaw, the spacecraft rendezvoused with the hotel four hours after launch. It only stayed long enough to grab onto the wreckage of the third centrifuge, undock it to free up a core docking port, and deorbit.

A few days later, the space company sent up a replacement centrifuge along with a hastily modified Jool KDS that served as an interim power support module. It docked with the hotel without incident.

*

Right on schedule, Eve Relay 1 separated from the stack and performed its circularization burn a few minutes later.

*

Meanwhile, back on Kerbin,  Drax engineers applied the lessons that they learned from Sunraker’s maiden flight and moved the aerospike OMS engine from the center position, where it tended to blast the KS-25 Rainbird engines, to the outboard fuel pods. They also equipped the tourist module with additional propellant tanks to compensate for the unacceptably low reserves. Finally, they improved the spaceplane’s brakes. Sunraker made her second voyage into space with 26 passengers and headed to the Drax Space Hotel.

Despite the upgrades, the spaceplane reached the hotel with barely any fuel left. Fortunately, the Interim Power Module had enough residual propellant to refuel the spacecraft. The problem appeared to be insufficient oxidizer for the engines, though some engineers believed that the design simply lacked enough propellant altogether. If Drax’s engineers rebalanced the propellant load- and it worked- then Sunraker would finally be competitive with Orbital Dynamics’ Mk33. If not, then the spaceplane would represent a huge failure for the company. And Drax Kerman was determined to not let his spaceplane fail- whatever the cost…

*

While Drax Space Hotel enjoyed its first tourists and drew attention to space enthusiasts, Orbital Dynamics still had several bookings to honor. After Ascension rotated vertical on the pad in preparation for launch, the flight crew and tourists boarded the Mk33, eager to experience microgravity- some even making a repeat trip. Shersey took a moment to look out the left side of the cockpit and could barely make out the new extension to Runway 090. Like the older portion of the rebuilt runway, it had a strengthened pavement and had cooling loops embedded in it as well. The extension made it easier to conduct flight operations for the company’s plans.

Mk33-02 launched into orbit and docked with Homestead Hotel without incident. A few days later, Ascension headed home. Unfortunately, Shersey overshot the island by 100km, so he lit the afterburners on the ship’s four Panther engines and dashed for home. He got to be the first to try out the new runway extension- and for the first time in several months he had to buy a round of drinks in the pilots’ lounge and endure a good-natured ribbing.

Meanwhile, at Orbital Dynamics Shipyard, workers finished the first components of their latest creation: The Oasis! First of her class of commercial space station, the Oasis would become a Mϋnar-orbiting space station capable of housing commercial tourists in Homestead Hotel Modules, grow food in greenhouse modules, serve as a platform for mϋnar research, and provide a waystation for travelers heading to and from the mϋnar surface. Its modular structure enabled the core support structure to be expanded, and additional commercial modules to be added along its spine. And since some of the desired sites could take weeks to enter sunlight, Oasis offered a place for spacefarers to hang out.

With its initial Command Core, Airlock, Docking Tube, and PMV completed and rigged for travel, yard workers focused on the remaining elements that would make the trip- a pair of Power Towers. Strictly speaking, an Oasis-class station needed only one Power Tower for most of its configurations, but the second module had an additional use.

With its initial components completed, the OCTV detached from its OSSC and scooted over to Oasis and docked with it. Not long after, the OCTV took its charge away from Orbital Dynamics Shipyard and burned for the Mϋn, arriving three days later. The craft waited another six hours to perform a plane change maneuver to put it into a 45-degree inclined orbit and finally settled into a 167 km by 10,000 km orbit on Hutzil 2, 2002…

Seven hours later, after waiting in mϋnar orbit for over a year, ODIN Fuel Depot briefly woke up and executed a plane-change maneuver to align itself with Oasis before going back to sleep again…

Not long after, ODIN Mission Control directed Oasis’ Payload Maneuvering Vehicle to undock. They remotely piloted it to set up the station’s core elements to prepare them for the next phase of construction. Once in place, the OCTV undocked and repositioned itself before docking once again with Oasis. Finally, ODMC deployed Oasis’ Power Tower and communications antenna, did one last systems check, and then commanded OCTV to depart the station…

Another three days later, the spacecraft furled its solar sails and battened down its shield cap in preparation for aerobraking. OCTV skimmed through Kerbin’s atmosphere, 50 km above its surface, and slowed its orbital velocity. A small course correction at apoapsis ensured that it didn’t crash into the planet on its next pass. Two hours later, it repeated the process, and followed up with one last trip through the atmosphere for good measure. Finally, after a nearly 10-day mission, OCTV returned to the shipyard.

*

EveRelay 2 separated from the stack and circularized its orbit, furthering the First Eve Fleet’s exploration efforts. Back on Kerbin, technology moved forward as well. When Dauntless rolled out of her hangar, she was changed. While essentially the same craft she was when she entered her Orbiter Maintenance Down Period, Dauntless sported a second pair of main landing gear, inset and slightly forward of her original gear. The overhaul also strengthened the existing landing gear and improved their brakes. Additionally, the Mk33 was equipped with Block 2 upgrades for her KR-2200L Velociraptor engines which slightly improved their fuel economy. Finally, the spacecraft had reworked action groups software upgrades as well to improve flight performance.

Instead of heading to the launchpad, Dauntless taxied over to the newly extended Runway 090, where crews began connecting fueling hoses to the spacecraft. She took on propellant, and while prior to her refit her landing gear would have collapsed under the load, Dauntless’ new landing gear shouldered the increased mass easily. And while Mk33-03 could still perform vertical launches from the Mk33 launchpad, it was getting old making a runway takeoff significantly streamlined launch operations.

Once Dauntless taxied onto the extension, the ground team raised the runway’s new jet blast deflector. Moments later, Mk33-03 lit her jet engines, ignited the afterburners, and lit the aerospike trio. She immediately rocketed down the runway, lifted off, and aimed for the sky. Within minutes, she was in orbit.

“We’ve got a 10-hour wait for our transfer burn,” Maxpond said as they rigged Dauntless for orbital flight. “That was fun!”

“We should’ve made runway takeoffs from the beginning,” Scott said.

“We were all locked into Polecat Spaceworks’ design,” Frolie pointed out, “and they were already thinking unconventionally. They had all the engineering studies completed and proven. Plus, remember, the Mk33 was originally designed over a decade ago. The landing gear technology back then couldn’t support the weight of a full propellant load. With the recent advances, now we can.”

As the crew settled in for the wait, Orbital Dynamics Mission Control radioed Dauntless to give them a status report on the new blast deflector. “It’s scorched,” Frobert Kerman, Flight Director at ODMC, said. “Fortunately, circulating liquid propellium through the cooling loops worked perfectly, and its reinforced structure withstood the blast effects from the Velociraptors. The hangars got rattled, but our reinforcements kept them together. But we’ll need to conduct regular checks to make sure they don’t collapse, and effect repairs as needed.”

Ten hours later, Dauntless arrived at Orbital Dynamics Shipyard, transferred its cargo propellant and snacks, and headed back down. Two hours after that, they repeated the process- and set a record for the fastest turnaround time for a Mk33…

After Dauntless left, the yard workers finished work on Oasis’s remaining core modules and staged them in preparation for their trip to the Mϋn. Then they maneuvered the OCTV over to the modules and sent them on their way. The vessel had a four and a half-day trip to Kerbin’s nearest mϋn.

Meanwhile, fresh out of OMDP (it went at the same time as Dauntless), Resolute taxied onto the runway for launch, fueled up, and took off for orbit. Five hours later, her flight brought fresh supplies to the orbiting construction yard before returning home…

Then, on Chimal 16, 2002, OCTV entered Mϋn’s SOI. It took another 5 days to rendezvous and dock with Oasis and complete its core. Shortly after arrival, the PMV moved Oasis’ Power Tower to its final position. But there was a problem: OCTV lacked sufficient propellant to return to Kerbin.

To solve their issue, ODMC directed OCTV to the Mϋnar Fuel Depot to take on some of its propellant. When it arrived on Chimal 26, ODMC commanded its propulsion module to separate from the vehicle and make way for the space tug. The refueling went well, but when ODMC attempted to redock the fuel depot’s propulsion module, it slowly crashed into the depot, broke its solar arrays, and spun off into space with no propellant left to recover. Orbital Dynamics had no choice except to let it go and focus on getting OCTV back home. The vessel arrived back at the shipyard on Itzcoatl 3, 2002.

*

The new jet blast deflector, runway extension, and vehicle upgrades really improved Orbital Dynamics’ flight operations; they were able to sortie a Mk33 twice a day. Case in point, Dauntless could fuel up, launch into orbit, offload its payload propellant at the shipyard, land, and repeat the process- assuming that the shipyard was in the right place in its orbit. If it wasn’t then it could take up to a day to sortie to the shipyard. Today was one of those days.

“Ugh, ten-hour rendezvous,” Frolie said.

“You know, Frolie, you’ve got more spaceflight time than even Scott does at this point,” Jeslong cajoled. “We’re in space! Why complain?”

“Space is great, but I don’t like waiting,” Frolie quipped.

“Maybe we can get you one of those cryopods from KSP,” Shersey joked.

“Too much wasted mass for such a short trip,” Frolie countered. “I suppose I can work on my ISRU infrastructure…” He began typing on his laptop.

“You sound so enthused,” Jeslong said. “Soon enough, you’ll be working on that stuff on the Mϋn.”

“I wish I was going to the Mϋn,” Shersey lamented.

“The boss says that the entire astronaut corps will make the trip,” Frolie pointed out.

“Yeah, but Scott gets to be first.”

“True, Shersey, but he does own the company.”

“You have a point, Frolie. That reminds me, with our astronaut engineers tied up at the shipyard, when will you get more engineers?”

“As soon as I get through the stack of resumes I have and we hire some more- which… I guess… means… I should be doing that instead of designing ISRU equipment…”

Shersey chuckled as he heard Frolie curse under his breath and loudly tap on his laptop to switch tasks…

Ten hours of sometimes working on reviewing resumes later, Dauntless caught up with Orbital Dynamics Shipyard. Frolie could see that the shipwrights had already stacked the next shipment to Oasis- a lab, and a Homestead module. Given the propellant margins from the previous trip, Orbital Dynamics decided to curtail expansion of its industrial elements until after the next phase of their mϋnar operations. The Mϋnar Depot had enough propellant, but they wanted to keep it in reserve.

Shersey guided Dauntless into the yard’s aft port with little fanfare. Transferring their cargo propellant over to the Orbital Cargo Transfer Vehicle didn’t take long, so Frolie requested a layover at the shipyard to watch the shipwrights finish building the new tank cluster. Since he was the company’s chief technology officer, Shersey quickly granted Frolie’s request. He took the opportunity to briefly step outside for a closer look.

It was an exciting time for Frolie; his engineering staff finally figured out how to extrude a large, single volume tank from the 3D printers, something that he’d wished they’d had when they designed the OCTV. With that problem solved, the next step was to build tank diameters larger than 2.5 meters. They’d built a larger structure before in the form of the OCTV heat shield, but that had to be built in several sections.

In the meantime, three of the “jumbo 64” class propellium tanks formed the mid-section of the first-generation Finch Transporter and its tanker variants. Fully fueled, it would hold far more propellant than they’d need to reach the mϋnar surface and back, but they weren’t taking any chances. Once the shipwrights finished staging the tank cluster, they’d immediately start working on the landing system, and then ship them to Oasis after Dauntless fueled them up.

Frolie watched as the yard workers grabbed the tank cluster with the PMV and maneuvered it to the yard’s dorsal docking pier. Then it hit him; finally, all their hard work was about to pay off- he, Scott, and three tourists were going to become the first commercial astronauts to land on the Mun!

A few days later, OCTV delivered Oasis’ lab and Homestead modules and then returned to the shipyard.

*

Eve RelaySat 3, the third and final relay satellite in the Eve relay constellation, circularized its orbit and at last completed the communications network. Unfortunately, due to orbital mechanics, the landing site would perpetually be in darkness until later in Eve’s year. The slow-motion exploration dance around the purple planet simply needed more time...

-

A mapping of months

Listed below are the names of the 12 months in my save, mapped to the Gregorian calendar months:

Acama                  January
Huitzil                    February
Chimal                  March
Itzcoatl                 April
Moctez                 May
Axaya                    June
Jool                        July
Tizoc                      August
Ahuit                     September
Cuitla                     October
Cuahoc                 November
Montezu             December

[TheSaint]

On 5/31/2022 at 9:33 PM, Angel-125 said:

KSP deleted some parts for some reason

Isn't this game grand?! You're cruising along, everything is fine. And then, out of nowhere, "Wait...what...what the...AAARRRGGGHHH...WHY???!!!"

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 30

Early in the morning of Moctez 1, 2002, Sunraker made its way to KSC’s runway, revved up its engines, and lifted off. There was a lot riding on the mission; should something go wrong, Drax would have no choice but to continue the Mϋnraker program and write off Sunraker as a financial disaster. Several thousands of jobs were on the line too.

It was bad enough that Sunraker had to swap out its T-1C Snow Dart engines and its KS-25B Ranbird motors for a pair of KR-2200L Velociraptor linear aerospikes- the same engines that their competitor used on their Mk33. It was even worse that Drax Kerman had to ask a favor from Kerbodyne to make the engines. But once convinced, he personally oversaw the redesign of Sunraker by sitting in on every design meeting, and, with his very presence, reminding the team that the company’s future was at stake.

His thinly veiled intimidation, disguised with his “this is a whole team problem, not just a propulsion problem,” attitude, didn’t go unnoticed by the team. The savvy rank and file engineers in the group knew exactly what was going on- management wasn’t asking them to work harder or longer (they even said so!) but somehow, the team had to deliver large updates to Sunraker with high quality and within a short timeframe. And a good engineer knows that of the three design pillars- quality, features, and time- you can only pick two. No amount of senior-level-anything will ever change that.

So, the Sunraker design team put in a lot of long hours to get their spaceplane ready to fly again. They made significant architectural changes to accommodate the Velociraptors and filled the void where the Rainbirds were mounted and painstakingly rerouted kilometers of control cabling and tweaked the Starwasher’s engine performance and rebalanced the fuel ratios and used hidden fuel tanks “super chill” propellants to increase propellant density- and on and on.

But their long hours and hard work paid off. Sunraker and her flight crew and tourists arrived at Drax Space Hotel a few hours after takeoff with enough propellant to return home without the need for refueling. Then they returned to Kerbin a few days later. Sunraker was a success at last- but it came at a cost. Drax’s engineering staff was exhausted, demoralized, burned out, and looking for other opportunities. And Drax’s competitors were looking for new staff…

*

Meanwhile, at Starlab, Jebman Kerman stepped outside for a short spacewalk. He jetted his way over to the station’s first-generation Kerbal Maneuvering Unit, strapped in, and powered up its systems. It had been years since it was last used, but thanks to regular checks and maintenance, the old KMU still operated. It had half a tank of monopropellant, but it was more than enough for his task.

Jebman undocked from the station and maneuvered over to the Pressurized Mating Adapter- brought up by the vonKermans when they visited in a Drakken spacecraft- latched onto it and undocked it from its berth. Jebman then flipped the PMA around and flew it over to the station’s Vista Kerbin Observation Module, where he docked it to one of its unused radial ports. With his task completed, Jebman returned the KMU to its cradle and went back inside…

After Jebman returned, Dudmon Kerman, the current station commander, Chief of the Astronaut Corps, and veteran of the Mϋnflight program, boarded the Sea Duck Mϋnar Surface Access Module- successor to the Mϋnflight-era Mϋnar Excursion Module- powered up its systems, and undocked it from the Mϋnar Shuttle Module. Dudmon didn’t have far to go; he spun the MSAM around and paused for a moment.

For the first time in a long time, he was a single occupant in a pressurized spacecraft orbiting Kerbin. Not since Bob remained in orbit around Minmus in Magellan while the mcKermans took Sea Duck to the ground had anyone flown solo. Jebman savored the moment for as long as he could, hearing nothing but the module’s electronics humming as Sea Duck coasted to its docking port. It felt like floating on a glass smooth sea, without a care in the world. Next month, his tenure as the station commander would end and he’d be back to his desk at KSC, so he wanted this moment to last as long as possible. Sadly though, his moment of serenity ended, but it would be one that he’d remember for years. Reluctantly, Jebman docked the MSAM to the PMA with practiced ease. With that task completed, he powered down its systems and returned to his command post.

Dudmon couldn’t help but wonder how Orbital Dynamics was faring with their commercial mϋnflight…

*

With its cargo secured, OCTV 1 departed Orbital Dynamics Shipyard and headed for the Mϋn. Two weeks of maneuvers and waiting later, the spacecraft arrived at Oasis, where it dropped off its shipment. Not long after, OCTV 1 disembarked from Oasis and linked up with ODIN Fuel Depot to refuel. But more than just taking on propellant, the Orbital Cargo Transfer Vehicle repositioned the Depot and temporarily docked it to Oasis before leaving the complex once again and returning to Kerbin. Finally, Orbital Dynamics had everything in place for their next great adventure.

*

As Resolute backed out of its hangar and onto Runway 090, the flight crew and passengers could barely contain the excitement- they were going to the Mϋn! It felt like a lifetime ago, but at long last, Pacal, Tedsel, and Navin- the three passengers who’d signed up to become the first tourists to land on the Mϋn- were about to get their money’s worth. So too would Scott (CEO of Orbital Dynamics) and Frolie (CTO of Orbital Dynamics), the pilot and flight engineer, respectively, for the mission. While Scott wasn’t flying Resolute uphill, he didn’t mind; his thoughts were already on the mission at hand.

Mk33-04 taxied past Welcome Back Island’s original hangars, and Mabo (Chief of the Astronaut Corps at Orbital Dynamics) could see that Ascension, away on her Orbital Maintenance Down Period, would be back very soon while Skyranger, the first Mk33, remained in retirement. She knew that Scott still didn’t know what to do with Mk33-01, so the vehicle stayed in its hangar.

Resolute rolled past the runway’s blast deflector, and Mabo could see the Mk33 launchpad out in the distance in the corner of her front window. Until very recently, Mk33s were rolled onto the pad, rotated vertically, fueled, and launched. But not anymore. With their improved technology, a Mk33 could roll down a runway and take off like a normal airplane- shortly before pitching near vertical and boosting for orbit. Within moments, Resolute did exactly that. And five and a half minutes after takeoff, Resolute reached orbit. The SSTO didn’t head directly to Homestead Waystation though. Instead, six hours later, Mk33-04 arrived at Orbital Dynamics Shipyard to drop off some much-needed supplies.

As the yard workers offloaded Resolute’s cargo, Scott, Frolie, and the three tourists made their way through the orbiting complex and boarded Seagull, the new Finch-class orbital transfer vehicle. Connected to Finch’s unused OTV propulsion module, Seagull served as a station-to-station space taxi. Scott noted its new spaceship smell as he powered up its systems, and before long, they were ready to depart.

“Have a good trip,” Mabo radioed from the yard’s command center as Seagull departed.

Seven hours later, Seagull arrived at Homestead Waystation, where the crew and passengers transferred to Finch. Half after arrival, they were on their way to the Mϋn.

*

Four days later, Finch entered mϋnar orbit, and Scott immediately plotted a course to reach Oasis. Unfortunately, it took another eight and a half days to arrive at the station due to the orbital mechanics involved. When they arrived, the tourists were eager to disembark, but Scott and Frolie had to go around and open the hatches and turn on the lights before their passengers could enter the station. But once they finished their tasks, the trio were delighted to be among the first to visit Oasis. They even didn’t mind helping by unpacking the station’s general stores.

Unfortunately, the landing site was on the dark side of the Mϋn, but Oasis was specifically designed for situations like this. The crew and tourists had plenty to keep them busy- from setting up shop to gardening to availing themselves of the Homestead module’s entertainment center. As they waited, Scott had a private- and remote- conversation on a secure line.

“The National Research Laboratory got back to me,” Adsii[1] began after the pleasantries, “what you found on VDP-762 is exotic matter. There’s no doubt about it. And it’s pretty interesting stuff! You wouldn’t happen to have more of it, would you?”

“Not a lot, no,” Scott said, stretching the truth. VDP-762 had a lot of exotic matter, but Orbital Dynamics only collected a few liters of it.

“Hm. Ok, well, the NRL would really like to get their hands on more of it because- well- it’s really weird.”

“How weird,” Scott asked.

“Ok, uh, our elemental chart is organized not just by mass, but by the number of protyles the element has, right?”

“Right,” Scott confirmed. “If I remember my schooling, element 1 is propellium, and it has one protyle. The other elements are grouped relative to it. Hexagen, for instance, is element 2, with two protyles.”

“Exactly,” Adsii said. “This stuff is- it has no protyles. It is effectively element zero- you should name it, by the way since you discovered it. Oh, ok, uh, according to the report, sometimes it does have protyles and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Sometimes? What does that mean,” Scott asked.

“Uh, when you use a modulating current,” Adsii tried to explain as he skimmed the report, “the direction of the electrion flow can affect the nucleus. A positive flow somehow increases the protyles- they appear out of nowhere- until the exotic matter mimics a stable form of element 115. A negative flow reduces the protyle count back to zero, but it still gains electrions. With no electric flow, it sheds protyles and electrions[2] until it reaches equilibrium. And in both cases, once the exotic matter has reached its uh, ‘maximum or minimum charge state,’ the stuff keeps absorbing electric charge. And the weirdest thing is that they don’t know where that energy goes.

“Anyway, as element zero, it is chemically inert. It should be a gas, like, uh, like xenon, but it’s solid at experimental equilibrium. So, like I said, that stuff is weird. When you guys acquire more, please send some our way.”

*

Several days later, the landing site finally emerged from darkness, and Frolie got to work. He used Oasis’ Payload Maneuvering Vehicle to pluck the landing system’s forward landing gear assemblies from their storage spot and attached them to Finch’s radial docking ports. Once he verified that the systems were connected, he returned the PMV to its perch and topped off Finch’s resources. With that completed, he, Scott, and the three tourists boarded Finch once more.

Scott gingerly separated Finch’s command module from the rest of the spacecraft, translated over to the landing section, and docked with the tank cluster to complete the Finch Transporter for the first time. The crew took their time checking out its systems and made sure that Finch was ready for its historic journey.

“Finch, you are clear to depart Oasis,” Frobert Kerman, the Flight Director at Orbital Dynamics Mission Control, radioed. “Just a reminder, the engine module’s solar arrays aren’t retractable.”

Scott cursed because he’d forgotten about that and had already deployed the arrays. Fortunately, Finch had fuel cells as well. “Well, I guess we’ll be scraping off the bottom arrays when we land,” he radioed back. “We have to get those designs updated.” Finch undocked from Oasis and primed its main engine for use. The spacecraft had 5.4 kilometers per second of delta-v- far more than it needed- but Orbital Dynamics wasn’t taking any chances on this trip. They especially didn’t want any mishaps since the media was watching their every move.

After circularizing at periapsis, Scott executed a plane change and deorbit maneuver to reach their landing site- just as he’d practiced in the simulator many times before. He was nervous but he reminded himself that astronauts had performed deorbiting and landing many times before. But he also knew that this was the first time that a commercial space company had made the attempt. After the deorbit burn, he only needed a small correction burn a few minutes later to ensure that he arrived on target.

“Altitude thirty thousand and dropping,” Frobert radioed. “Looking good, Finch. You are go for landing!”

“Gear down, altitude eleven thousand and falling,” Scott radioed back a few seconds later. “Braking Burn 1 completed. Stand by for Braking Burn 2… Less than 18 kilometers to Bartfen’s Obsession… velocity 499 by negative 104… Main engine is nominal… Awww mulch! Overshot, but it’s not too bad… Coming back around… Altitude 4126, speed 194 by negative 104… Okay, there we go… Stand by for Braking Burn 3… Altitude 600… Going horizontal… Billstown in site… Altitude 90... 80… 70… 60… 50… 40… 30… picking up some dust…. Touchdown!” Everyone in Finch cheered for several seconds. Over the celebrations, Scott radioed, “Mission Control, the Finch has landed!” In all the excitement, Scott stopped worrying about the underside solar panels, which flew off in all directions as they crunched into the mϋnar dirt.

On Jool 10, 2002, the first kermanned commercial spacecraft to land on the Mϋn taxied over to Billstown, the first base on Kerbin’s closest natural satellite.

KSP originally wanted to build a series of Mϋnar Ground Modules during Project Mϋnflight, but budget restrictions resulted in Bill Kerman designing a single module that was built from spare M.O.L.E. hardware. The outpost arrived on the Mϋn over a decade and a half ago, where it landed near Lowlander 2. It was first crewed by Bill and Jeb during Mϋnflight 5 but KSP later moved it to a region known as Bartfen’s Obsession.

During the Shuttle Launch System era, Kongress finally approved funding for Billstown to receive expansion via the MGM system. But KSP launched the additional modules on Shuttle instead of using the retired Lindor rockets. Billstown received several crews over the years and served as a training complex for deep space missions, but a year before Shuttle retired, KSP stopped sending astronauts to the old complex.

So, when Orbital Dynamics approached KSP about visiting Billstown, they were delighted to see how it had fared.

Scott exited Finch first, followed by Frolie, and after hooking up the umbilical, the two stood on the surface of the Mϋn in awe and silence.

“Hey, are you guys going to say something,” Frobert asked.

“Oh, uh, right,” Scott answered, snapping his mind back to reality. “Uh… We stand on the shoulders of giants. We’ve taken the first steps for commercial space, but they’re certainly not going to be the last. As for myself, this is one giant leap!” Scott leapt into the negligible mϋnar air. The low gravity enabled him to jump rather high. The whole stunt was caught on camera- including his ungraceful landing.

Afterwards, Scott planted the Orbital Dynamics flag, and gave it a quick salute.

“Let’s head inside before the tourists go crazy,” Scott said. The pair entered Billstown’s airlock, cycled through, and entered the main module. Unlike their visit to Skybase a few years ago, Billstown had no odd smells from rotting insulation. Instead, the base was in good condition. The batteries were fully charged, and the fuel cells still operated- though not at peak efficiency. None of the modules had any leaks either. The only casualties were the botany module’s plants- they had long since died off from neglect.

After making their report to KSP, the space agency cleared the three tourists to explore the base. Navin and Pacal headed to the botany module and began cleaning out the dead plants and turning the soil, while Tedsel took a nap in “Miss Piggy II.” Frolie had a look at Billstown’s science module, and Scott hopped into the rover’s driver’s seat.

“We should build a rover like this,” Scott thought aloud.

“Actually, I have some ideas on that,” Frolie responded over the intercom. Scott looked around. Apparently, someone had rewired the rover’s intercom to be always on. “When we first moved into Welcome Back Island,” Frolie continued, “I made some drawings of a boxy-looking pressurized rover called ‘Buffalo,’ but I shelved it. But the trip here got me thinking about it again… You know, these modules were derived from the old Mark One Laboratory Extension that was flown as part of the K-20 Kerbal Soar’s service module. Seeing them up close also gives me an idea… What if we made the body of the rover modular so we could use it as a base as well? That could keep our costs down. We'd essentially make our own Billstown, but modernized.”

“Hm,” Scott thought. “That’s a good idea. Once we get the water mining set up, we’ll definitely need to build that Buffalo rover and base.”

*

Three days later, after the Mϋn rotated until Billstown was under the station’s orbital path, Scott, Frolie, and the three tourists disembarked Billstown and hopped back into the Finch for their trip back to Oasis. Scott backed away from the base before lighting the horizontal rockets for takeoff. Several hundred meters above the ground, he rotated Finch vertically and lit the main engine for the boost into orbit. A day later, they arrived back at Oasis.

After Frolie returned the forward landing gear, Scott undocked the Finch command module from the landing system and connected it back to the OCTV. As soon as Oasis reached periapsis, Finch departed and boosted to escape the Mϋn’s sphere of influence. Four days later, they returned to Homestead Waystation, boarded the newly relaunched Ascension, and returned home.

The celebrations lasted for days.

-

[1] Named after @adsii1970
[2] Protyles and electrions were early proposed names for protons and electrons, respectively.

[Angelo Kerman]

Small teaser while I gather images for the next chapter:

[SkyFall2489]

That's quite a big lander. 6 crew!

19 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Small teaser while I gather images for the next chapter:

 

[Watermel00n]

On 7/1/2022 at 11:36 AM, Angel-125 said:

Small teaser while I gather images for the next chapter:

No Orbital Dynamics? 

[Angelo Kerman]

On 7/2/2022 at 7:56 AM, Watermel00n said:

No Orbital Dynamics? 

Not for Gateway Station...

One more teaser, this one of the Drax Fuel Depot:

I need to find a better way to store all the tankers and space tugs, this arrangement is beginning to look like a junkyard...

[SkyFall2489]

18 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Not for Gateway Station...

One more teaser, this one of the Drax Fuel Depot:

I need to find a better way to store all the tankers and space tugs, this arrangement is beginning to look like a junkyard...

Well, maybe a junkyard is needed! Store all those useless rocket stages, and maybe someone will come by and slap a new payload on em and fire up those engines once again.

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 31

The waiting in orbit was finally over, the window opened at last. Each vessel in the Second Duna Fleet took turns igniting their engines, performing their Trans Duna Injection burns, and entering interplanetary space over the course of a week…

As the Second Duna Fleet exited Kerbin’s SOI, the Eve Tug performed its transfer burn to intercept the Gilly Mapper in another six days...

When it finally rendezvoused with the Gilly Mapper, it docked with it, and waited another 10 days to perform an interception burn with Gilly. Then, 20 days later, the Eve Nuclear Tug entered Gilly’s SOI with the Mapper in tow. The tug carefully burned its remaining propellium attempting to slow the combined spacecraft down. It was able to cancel all but 147 m/sec of velocity before it ran out of propellium, but it did its job. Gilly Mapper cast off from the tug, ignited two of its engines, and brought itself to a relative halt above Gilly. Sixteen minutes later, Gilly Mapper entered a 243.7 km by 327.9 km polar orbit above its namesake and began its high-orbit science.

Sadly, the Eve Nuclear Tug found itself on an escape trajectory and before long it would enter high Eve orbit. But thanks to its sacrifice, the slow-motion dance around Eve picked up its tempo. Plus, Bumblebee’s landing site was finally in sunlight when the probe’s orbital track crossed over it. And with the Gilly Mapper safely in Gilly’s orbit and the Eve Relay network in place, it was time to try to land Bumblebee.

*

When KSP created the Kerbin Orbital Transportation Services, they did so to open up Kerbin orbit to commercial space companies- and to free up their budget to focus on Project Laythe by retiring their soon-to-be-obsoleted Shuttle fleet. KOTS was able to fund two independent space companies, Drax Aerospace, and Phoenix Aerospace, while leaving a third, Orbital Dynamics, out of the running. Then Orbital Dynamics single-handedly created the space tourism market, created the first commercial space station, sent the first commercial astronauts and tourists around (and onto) the Mϋn, sent the first astronauts and tourists to visit an asteroid, discovered water on the Mϋn, and created the first orbital shipyard.

The company’s shipyard proved to be disruptive technology. Why launch vessels into orbit when they could be built in orbit and avoid the costs to launch them? Launch costs originally prevented Kongress from approving KSP’s Project Minmus, but with the Shipyard, nearly all those costs could be avoided. Hence, Orbital Dynamics’ disruptive technology gave Kongress a new, approving perspective on Project Minmus, one that KSP Administrator Gene Kerman took advantage of.

Gene couldn’t simply cancel KOTS without significant penalties, but nothing stopped him from expanding it. His legal staff came up with the Kerbin Orbital/Mϋnar Exploration/Transportation Services. Essentially, while KOMETS kept the original contracts to transport kerbals and resources to Starlab intact, the new transportation services program opened the field for commercial companies to produce spacecraft and transport them to the mϋns of Kerbin. As with KOTS, instead of producing hardware for companies to launch, KSP laid out their requirements and invited companies to place bids for the contracts. And this time, Gene made sure that all three commercial space companies won contracts.

Orbital Dynamics, for instance, won the contract to refit the Magellan by modernizing its components and expanding its crew capacity. But before that could happen, Starlab need some supplies and a crew exchange. That’s where Sunraker came in.

The spaceplane began building speed, breaking the sound barrier as it climbed out of Kerbal Space Center. Several minutes later, the spaceplane achieved orbit, carrying some snacks, a module containing xenon gas, and Starlab’s next crew. Due to good timing, Sunraker didn’t have a long wait for their transfer window to open; the vehicle arrived at the old station just 2 hours after takeoff.

After exchanging pleasantries and transferring cargo and crew, Sunraker undocked from the station and headed back to KSC…

Not long after, veteran KSP astronaut Tesen Kerman said goodbye to Phildas, Starlab’s new station commander, and boarded Magellan for her trip to the Shipyard. The Mϋnar Shuttle Module had a nine-hour wait for its transfer burn, but Tesen had no trouble keeping herself busy. Upon arrival, the yard crew directed Magellan to the station’s upper docking pier, a temporary parking spot while the workers finished up Magellan’s new propulsion section. Once they moved it to its temporary spot, and the docking tube extension was deployed, Tesen brought Magellen into the yard’s construction frame where shipwrights got to work.

They began by pulling apart the ship’s modular components and docking them to temporary spots on the frame. Then, with its old propulsion section unhooked, workers moved her new, OCTV-derived propulsion section into its place abaft Magellan’s lab module.

Next, workers began stripping the MSM of its outdated service section to make room for the new additions. Then, they built an extension to Magellan via Extraplanetary Launchpads that included a new crew cabin, battery compartment, storage area, and new RCS thrusters.

After that, shipwrights rejoined the two halves of the ship. Once rejoined, workers installed struts between the two halves to improve structural integrity.

With the exterior work completed, shipwrights focused on interior remodeling. Mostly, they focused on reworking the resource stores and reprovisioning the vessel and repairing broken systems. Finally, the yard crew moved Magellan onto the station’s upper docking pier, where it waited for the final phase of its construction…

Blackstar took off from Jay Kerman Air Force Base in the early morning hours of Tizoc 27, 2002, and climbed into orbit on her maiden flight. Five hours later, Mk33-05 docked with Orbital Dynamics Shipyard- in an unusual docking orientation to avoid colliding with Magellan’s old propulsion section. But the Air Force pilots handled it like they’d done it dozens of times before. Soon, the station crew began offloading the “care package” that Blackstar brought with them, including fresh air, some equipment for reconfiguring Magellan’s systems, and even some metal ore for the station’s smelter.

But Blackstar’s crew handled a special shipment themselves: Magellan’s nuclear fuel. Unlike other Orbital Cargo Transfer Vehicles, Magellan’s OCTV had an NV-GE Liberator atomic rocket- the same design used on the Ministry of Space’s Interplanetary Tug. An improvement to the Emancipator used on the First Laythe Fleet, the Liberator was also designed as gas core atomic rocket. But unlike its predecessor, the Liberator could keep the nuclear fuel within its mixing chamber. After the station crew took care of the supplies, Tech Sergeant Chet Kerman, Blackstar’s flight engineer took a walk outside and installed the nuclear fuel into the MSM’s atomic motor.

Not long after Chet got back inside, Blackstar departed and headed home…

Finally, with Magellan’s refit complete, Tesen boarded the vessel, powered up its systems, spread its solar wings, and departed Orbital Dynamics Shipyard. Nine hours later, Magellan returned to Starlab.

*

Right on time, Bumblebee’s transfer stage lit its Wolfhound engine one last time, forever changing the course of the space probe. A few minutes later, the probe and stage separated before atmospheric entry. Quickly, the probe rotated until its heat shield faced prograde. Not long after, both spacecraft encountered Eve’s thick upper atmosphere. But while Bumblebee’s heat shield weathered the onslaught of hot plasma, its transfer stage fared far worse. The stage broke up and vaporized while Bumblebee remained cool in its protective aeroshell.

Bumblebee undershot the desired landing site by 67 kilometers when its drogue chute deployed, but given how the mission had gone so far, none in Mission Control were too surprised. The chute did its job and slowed the probe down considerably. At 4,000 meters altitude, Bumblebee cut its drogue chute, dropped its heat shield, and deployed its main chute to slow down even further. The little craft dropped- and terrified Mission Control- until its main chute finally inflated 1,600 meters above the ground and slowed the probe down to a mere 3 meters per second. That gave Bumblebee plenty of time to prepare for the next step.

At 1,500 meters altitude, the probe deployed its landing skids and ran through its diagnostics… RTG check, control point cycling check, GPS check, biome check, and so on. At 1,000 meters altitude, Bumblebee ignited the explosive bolts holding it to its aeroshell and dropped once more. But this time, its quad rotors started while its control reference point shifted forward. The flight control computer immediately put Bumblebee in a hover to arrest its fall, and then shifted the probe out of the way of the descending aeroshell.

Mission Control cheered; Bumblebee became the first vehicle to achieve flight on Eve! The probe quickly extended its high-gain antenna and pointed it at the nearest relay satellite. Finding a signal, Bumblebee tested its flight systems by locating the descending aeroshell and flying around it before settling down onto the ground. Mission Control cheered even more when Bumblebee became the first craft to soft-land on Eve! Moments later, the spent aeroshell landed nearby…

After taking stock of their situation, Mission Control commanded Bumblebee to take its contingency science- in case it couldn’t fly again or it malfunctioned, at least the probe would return some science.

“Ooo, look at that,” Adsii, the lead planetary scientist for the mission, said. “Gravity is 1.394g! Pressure is 495.38 kilopascals and temperature is 394.61 kelvin. And look at the resources! There’s 7.59% ore, 2.24% hexagen, 4.30% hydrokerbon, point 67% metal ore, 3.02% minerite, plenty of rock, and 2.42% zeonium… Ok, sensor data packets from the seismometer and surface samples have been sent off via bug-fixed Science Relay to Nautilus, Duna Basecamp, and of course KSC, and we have readings from the sensor package as well.”

“Flight, eagle,” Bilford Kerman, KSP Mission Control’s Electrical Generation and Illumination (EGIL) engineer, spoke up. “Batteries are less than 5 percent from the data dumps. Recommend waiting for the RTG to recharge them.”

Adsii sighed. There was data in the sensor package to transmit! But it was probably just as well; the sun was setting on Eve. It took a third of the night, but the probe went through several cycles of recharging and transmitting until it sent copies of all its data to Nautilus, Duna Basecamp, and KSP. Bumblebee’s engineers were delighted with the probe’s progress; the field test at Eve was providing invaluable data for the probes headed to Laythe.

Once its batteries recharged, Mission Control elected to takeoff again and fly towards the originally selected landing site. As it began flying, it took atmospheric readings from various sensors. The next time it landed, Bumblebee transmitted the results- the probe didn’t have enough power to both fly and transmit data. The probe took small hops, taking data and radioing the results until it collected all that it could in Eve’s Highlands. Then it continued towards its intended landing zone.

About 8 kilometers from the first survey site, Bumblebee reached Eve’s midlands and repeated the process of hopping, taking airborne readings, and transmitting the results. Then it landed for an extended rest and to take more readings. At sunrise, the probe flew the final leg of the journey to the first survey site. One by one, Bumblebee flew to each survey site and took seismic readings of the Faultline. After the last measurement waypoint, Bumblebee fulfilled its primary mission; to test the atmospheric probe technology by flying to a specific locating and gathering scientific data. With its mission fulfilled and the vehicle withstanding Eve’s harsh atmosphere, planners began looking for additional places to explore.

The Sea of Nessus was “only” 781.2 kilometers away, so they programmed the probe to head for it and take readings along the way. It took a few days, but Bumblebee completed the journey by flying as far as it could, landing to recharge, and making another leg of the flight. The probe couldn’t manage more than about 72 m/sec and stay in the air, but Mission Control got smart part way through the flight by retracting the landing skids to reduce drag. By the time that Bumblebee reached the Sea of Nessus, it had taking measurements in Eve’s midlands, lowlands, and shores. Unfortunately, Eve’s corrosive atmosphere and high heat- pushing past 422 degrees Kelvin- were taking their toll on the probe.

So, KSP decided to fly out over the Sea of Nessus for one last set of readings and set down into the toxic hydrokerbon. Bumblebee managed to grab temperature and pressure readings while splashed down, but sadly, the probe failed at this point. It sank below the waves, reached its crush depth, and went to the bottom of the sea.

*

Project Minmus called for a station in Minmus orbit from which to stage hardware headed to or from the surface. Unfortunately, Unity Station, originally flown on the Mϋnflight 6 mission, was well over a decade old at this point, ailing, and obsolete.

To replace it, Project Minmus budgeted for the construction of Gateway Station, a small, modern, kerman-tended space station. And in the spirit of the Minmus Basins Treaty, Gateway Station was declared an international station where all spacefaring nations were welcome.

The core station consisted of five modules: the Power/Propulsion Element (PPE), built by Phoenix Aerospace, the Refueling Module (REMO), also built by Phoenix Aerospace, the Habitat and Logistics Outpost (HALO), built by Drax Aerospace, the International Habitat Module (IHM), supplied by the Ministry of Space, and the Airlock Cupola Module (ACM), provided by the vonKerman Republic.

To reach the surface, KSP intended to use their venerable Mϋnar Surface Access Module, but that wouldn’t last long. Project Minmus allocated Funds to design and build a Universal Landing Module- Drax Aerospace won that contract- and a Landing Command Module that KSC would work on. The ULM was powered by propellium and oxidizer to simplify fueling requirements and improve fuel economy. Its side-mounted KR-1E-V Angora engines made it possible to mount payloads on the top and the bottom of the ULM. The LCM was just one of many payloads for it; engineers had designs for a Multipurpose Tank Module, a carrier for the Orbital Standard Shipping Container, and of course the Minmus base components. Work on the ULM wasn’t finalized quite yet, but it wasn’t needed for the initial return to Minmus…

To begin construction of Gateway Station, Drax Aerospace rolled out the HALO module atop their upgraded Moho launcher known as the Moheavy. For the mass and volume being lifted into orbit, Moheavy was cheaper than Sunraker’s fuel costs. Moheavy added two additional 4-segment SRBs to provide the initial kick off the pad. Once they burned out and were discarded, the 5-segment core SRB ignited and continued like a standard Moho. Moheavy had no trouble lifting HALO into orbit, and three hours later, HALO arrived at Starlab, where it docked with the station’s forward port to await the arrival of the next component…

Three days later, an Edna 1F lifted off from Pad A carrying the PPE into orbit. After waiting for another three hours, the spacecraft and its payload arrived at Starlab. The PPE disconnected from its carrier rocket and watched as the E1F Upper Stage deorbited itself.

The PPE unfurled its solar arrays and communications antennae and made its way over to HALO; its innovative ion-powered RCS thrusters puffed small amounts of xenon gas like the larger IX-8219 After Ion Thrusters mounted to its aft end would be doing shortly. Although Phoenix Aerospace could’ve used the hall thrusters, they opted for ions due to their cheaper cost. Anyway, PPE docked to HALO, the station crew checked out the vehicle, and, finding no issues, sent it on its way.

The core of Gateway Station made a slow plane-change maneuver to align it with the mint mϋn. But there was a problem: on the nightside of Kerbin, the PPE ran out of power! Phoenix Aerospace underestimated how much electric charge the spacecraft needed during nightside engine burns, so it ran out a third of the way through its plane change. Given its low thrust and extended night-time burns, Gateway Station was effectively stranded in LKO.

With their reputation on the line once again, Phoenix Aerospace sprang into action. They quickly assessed the situation, tried potential fixes, and assembled the necessary hardware. Lacking an appropriate cargo craft, they bought an unused Drakken Kargo Karrier from the vonKerman Republic, who rolled the vehicle out to their pad at Darude and launched it into orbit in record time. It arrived at Gateway Station a mere 4 hours later.

Not long after, Firebird blasted into the sky carrying the Gateway Station’s repair crew. A quick hour later, they rendezvoused with the station and docked to it. Not wasting time, the repair crew stepped outside and got to work.

The first thing they did was remove one of the Kargo Karrier’s ladders and mounted it to HALO. That gave them a convenient place to hang onto while continuing their repairs. Next, they unpacked the Karrier and began installing the components that it contained. They bolted the new fuel cells onto the PPE and followed up with a set of LFO tanks to fuel them. Finally, they stocked the station with some supplies such as extra repair kits and a set of EVA gear.

With their work completed, Phoenix Mission Control sent the Karrier on its way to a destructive reentry while Firebird returned to KSC. Successfully repaired and upgraded, Gateway Station again attempted to match orbital planes with Minmus.

This time, thanks to the new fuel cells, it had no trouble burning its engine on the planet’s nightside. But all their troubles still weren’t over. KSP soon learned that using ion engines for large orbital maneuvers had significant issues with making large delta-v changes. They had to make burns over several orbits just to get out of low Kerbin orbit. Engineers had some ideas on how to overclock the engines in the future, but for now, Gateway Station had to make orbit after orbit to crawl its way out to Minmus. Eventually it worked; the station was on its way to the mint mϋn at last.

Five days later, on Ahuit 9, 2002, Gateway Station entered Minmus’ sphere of influence and made a “left turn” engine burn a half-hour later to drastically lower its periapsis. Two and a half hours after that, the station entered a 55.5 km by 56.8 km equatorial orbit, ready for the next phase of construction…

To support the initial landings, Phoenix Aerospace launched the Resupply Module into orbit. The Edna Upper Stage had no trouble rendezvousing and docking with Starlab’s forward docking port before detaching from its payload and deorbiting. A week later, Phoenix Aerospace launched PPE 2 into orbit to replace PPE 1. While the repair operations were successful, PPE 1’s engine performance was subpar, and the company felt obligated to fix that. To that end, PPE 2 had a stretched body to incorporate a liquid fuel and oxidizer tank for the craft’s fuel cell arrays, and it had an additional microprocessor to overclock the ion engines.

This time around, the PPE had no trouble aligning planes with Minmus, though the transfer burn had to be done in two steps to avoid overheating the overclocked engines (sigh). Five and a half days later, PPE 2 and REMO docked with Gateway Station, where the replacement PPE swapped places with the original. The station was ready for its first expedition, but what to do with PPE 1? Phoenix Aerospace decided to send it back to Kerbin. Eight days later, it circularized its orbit. Rather than dispose of it, the company decided to keep it around for experimental development.

*

Over the course of a week, Drax Aerospace launched a pair of Jool Heavy Tanker spacecraft to fill Magellan with much needed propellium. The tankers made use of Block 3 Jool Upper Stages that replaced their monopropellant RCS thrusters with improved cryogenic versions, and replaced the LFO-powered fuel cells with cryogenic equivalents. Instead of deorbiting the tankers after completing their deliveries, Drax sent them over to their Fuel Depot; they planned to use them in the future.

*

A few days later, Hensen Kerman (CDR), Richny Kerman (ENG), Elke Kerman (SCI), Joeald Kerman (SCI), and Glesby mcKerman (SCI) hitched a ride uphill in Mϋnraker 1’s penultimate flight. The shuttle didn’t immediately head to Starlab after achieving orbit. Instead, the shuttle’s flight crew jettisoned the aft carrier shroud on their external tank, jettisoned the tank itself, and deployed the truss structure in the orbiter’s payload bay. Once rotated into position, Mϋnraker 1 docked to the external tank and then cut the structure lose. After the orbiter backed away, Drax Mission Control deployed the truss’s solar arrays, completing core assembly of Drax Fuel Depot 2.

With Its first mission objective completed, Mϋnraker 1 rocketed over to Starlab. Since it lacked any docking ports, the orbiter’s flight crew expertly hovered a scant 5.5m away from the station’s forward docking port while Hensen, Richny, Elke, Joeald, and Glesby cycled in and out of the orbiter’s internal airlock and through Starlab’s corresponding airlock. Though a risky maneuver, they were kerbals, and taking risks is what they did...

After dropping off the astronauts, Mϋnraker 1 deorbited and returned to Kerbin. Meanwhile, four of the five astronauts boarded Magellan and prepped her for departure. Hensen hopped into Sea Duck, undocked, and parked the MSAM on Magellan’s forward port. A short time later, Magellan shoved off from Starlab, ready to begin its journey. Within hours, the MSM ignited its atomic rocket and burned for Minmus, and the crew settled into their routine of stargazing and entertaining themselves.

Eight days later, Magellan arrived in Minmus’s sphere of influence. Their mission was twofold: first, find a suitable polar location for the water mining, and second, find a flat equatorial location for Minmus Base. The crew tackled the polar mining site first. After course correcting for a polar orbit, Magellan settled into a 50.2 km by 50.5 km orbit.

Elke, Joeald, and Glesby poured over the SCANSat data and found 3 polar sites and one equatorial site to check out. As soon as the first polar site entered sunlight, Hensen, Richny, and Glesby piled into Sea Duck, powered up its systems, and departed Magellan.

Their first stop proved fruitful; the site had good resource levels and wasn’t blocked by hills. The second side, only 26 km away, also had good resources but poor lighting. The team skipped the third site after realizing that its terrain was too hilly- and they lacked the delta-v for another trip to the surface.

After returning to Magellan, the expedition changed orbits and arrived at Gateway Station a few hours later. The REMO proved its worth, providing the resources needed to replenish Sea Duck and enabling the team to sortie to the surface once more. It took a bit of short hops to find, but the team located a flat spot in the Brown Basins that even had a good source of zeonium, a powdery substance that could be refined into xenon gas.

Their objectives completed, Magellan departed Gateway Station- leaving Sea Duck docked to its forever home- and arrived in Kerbin orbit nine days later. When they docked to Starlab, they found Galileo, the Ministry of Space’s Arrow space plane, waiting for them. The astronauts returned to KSP, satisfied that they’d helped complete Phase 1 of Project Minmus.

[TheSaint]

Am I the only one who hears this music when I see your spacedock?

Thread is awesome. Can't wait for more.

[Misguided Kerbal]

22 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Hensen, Richny, and Glesby piled into Sea Duck, powered up its systems, and departed Magellan.

Wait, how'd you fit 3 kerbals into the Mk1 lander can?