Unmanned Data return from Mimnus

[Daveroski]

I tend to play vanilla mostly.

My current game has no Mods. It does have the two expansion packs and I decided to test the Hinges on this mission too. I used them as landing struts and as extenders to push out parts in an unnecessary manner.

The plan is to land a craft on Mimnus Get my data and complete the Explore Mimnus contract.
At the same time I will leave a relay station on the surface.

My target will be one of the poles of Mimnus with the idea that it will be in constant communication with Kerbin.

This is the craft that will make the trip.

 

 

Now to get it ready for the trip.

 

 

 

This ship uses asparagus staging It will first drop the top and bottom tanks and then the two side tanks.

 

 

 

First the top and bottom tanks are emptied and dropped They also kept the central tank full of fuel.

 

 

 

Then the two side tanks are dropped when empty. They also kept the central tank full.

 

 

Finally the central tank is dropped and we are left with the craft that will actually make the trip to Mimnus.

 

 

 

Here I tested the hinges by pushing out the Coms and Solar Panels. It has to make the trip with them fully extended and make the landing too.

 

 

 

 

Course plotted. Yes I'm really going to fly all the way there and not use the magic to instantly get me there. Some of us like to do things the old fashioned way.

 

 

 

I may not hit it on the nail but sometimes if the ball lands in the garden it can make him just as angry as it would if it hit the window. Close enough I hoped and it seemd to work out alright.

 

 

 

Setting the obit after arrival.

 

 

 

Here I have marked a couple of waypoints somewhere between the two should be good.

 

 

Get rid of the engine and tank that brought us here.
Now we are ready to attempt a landing.

 

 

Got to keep an eye out for the slopes. Some of them can make landing problematic.

 

 

Looking around before final descent.

 

 

 

A bit of a slope but manageable. The Hinges seem to make better landing struts than Landing Struts. Which is nice.

 

 

 

Gather my data.

 

 

Save the data for the return trip and turn off the engine on the landing craft. Then I can raise the throttle a few notches and when I hit staging the return pod should launch.

 

 

On our way home. Now it gets interesting.

 

 

I have set the target to be inside Kerbins atmosphere. The idea is I burn this node and then drop the remaining fuel and engines before hitting the atmosphere.
No slowing down. No getting into orbit first.

 

 

Firing the node and letting you have a closer look at the return stage. It carries the fuel engines coms and solar panels.

 

 

 

Preparing to drop the fuel and engines. I will then have only the remaining power in the pod section so that it's gyros can keep the pod pointing in the right direction.
We Hope.

 

 

Not going so fast right now but I suspect we will speed up considerably as we get further in the gravity well.
The chutes are set to auto-pop so now we just wait and see.

 

 

 

Picking up some heat and our speed is most certainly increasing.

 

 

Getting some air resistance starting to slow us down but it's also getting hotter.

 

 

It seems the heat shield did its thing and we are cooling and slowing.

 

 

Of course it's on the dark side so visabilty is poor. The glow just faded and the chutes will pop any time now.

 

 

 

Even in the dark, That is a lovely sight.

 

 

Here I am concerned that it may not float and end up being crushed by preassure.

 

 

She's a bit keel heavy but retrievable.

 

 

Looks like we might get something nice for crimbo eh?

 

Contract complete! Jolly good!

 

I hope you found this report interesting and possibly inspirational.

 

D.

 

 

[Vagrant203]

I never thought of establishing polar ground station relays on other bodies, that's a pretty good idea I'll be sure to borrow.

[Caerfinon]

On 1/31/2021 at 10:13 AM, Daveroski said:

Contract complete! Jolly good!

Huzzah! Well done you!

[paul_c]

Well done, nice trip!

If you want a polar orbit, there is a little trick you can do. On about 1/3 theway there:

1. Burn either normal or antinormal to make the Pe around 15,000m (its not too important what it is yet)
2. Burn either retrograde or prograde to minimise the Pe, in fact it might disappear ie put you on a collision course.
3. Burn normal/antinormal until you once again have a Pe, make it (say) 15000m
----Repeat 2 - 3 until the burn for retro or prograde in 2 is at a minimum value, at that point any burn in either pro/retro makes it more ----
4. Burn normal/antinormal to'set' the Pe to say 10,000m

What this does, basically, is puts your approach at the 'top' (or bottom if you antinormal in steps 1&3) of the body you're aiming for.