To The Stars! (In a roundabout way), or the story of the Sentinel Design Bureau

[TRAPPIST-1E]

Well, Well, Well. Another nation had the bold idea to start up a space program. Funds were allotted, engineers hired, and a suitable space center built. It was time for the great nation of United East Kerbonia to create the SENTINEL DESIGN BUREAU!

(flag below):

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Chapters:

Chapter 1 | Everyone has to Start Somewhere, Right?

Chapter 2 | Higher and Higher!

Chapter 3 | I'm BAAAAAACK

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This mission report is intended to be semi-serious, with a big dollop of realism and a big pinch of good o'l fashioned kerbal silliness. This is intended to last quite a bit longer than my last mission report, and my eventual goal is, as stated in the name, to go to the stars. You know, launch an interstellar ship the proper way, which I really haven't seen anyone really do yet. I'm also going to use a ton of mods, including Snacks-LS and 2.5X rescale. Anyways, lets go!

 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by TRAPPIST-1E

[TRAPPIST-1E]

CHAPTER 1: Everyone has to Start Somewhere, Right?

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Well, as suggested in the title, everyone has to start somewhere, and we start out with basic sounding rockets. Unpaid grad students Engineers slaved for like 4 hours and 38 cups of coffee over this rocket. So, lets launch the Rangefinder MK1!

Ignore the bad camera quality, Dundlorf Kerman was fiddling around with the focus.

And so it takes off! Riding on a plume of fire and smoke.

What comes up must come down, I guess. Science was got and transmitted, and kerbalkind's first foray into the stars is complete. Unfortunately,  the PR team forgot to post the launch schedule right and noone showed up (I forgot to accept the "leave the launchpad" contract), and a second launch had to be conducted. It ended up looking the same as the first, until later in flight.

It began to tilt, and the crowds around the KSC began to scatter as the Rangefinder MK1 soared above.

It crashed onto the beach, probably ending some unfortunate kerbal's beach day.

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And so Kerbalkind's first venture into rocket technology is complete. See you soon for the next chapter!

[Maria Sirona]

Hmmm looks good, followed! Question: what is the "proper way" as you call it to launch an interstellar spaceship?

[AtomicTech]

Nice to see another new story being told!

[TRAPPIST-1E]

9 hours ago, Maria Sirona said:

Hmmm looks good, followed! Question: what is the "proper way" as you call it to launch an interstellar spaceship?

Orbital assembly and off-Kerbin fuel production, with proper infrastructure. I may not get to the interstellar part though as KSP2 might come out before that

[TRAPPIST-1E]

CHAPTER 2: Higher and Higher

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The push to go higher has been taking over the Sentinel Design Bureau, leading to the construction of a better rocket. It has it all: Moar Science, Moar fins, and Moar BOOOOOOOOOSTEEEER!! It's name: The Rangefinder MK2.

Photo taken from the onboard camera.

Coming down (rotated)

I don't even . . . HOW

After the successful high altitude flight of the Rangefinder MK2, a new sounding rocket had to be made. It's goal, space. It's name: Rangefinder MK2.5! (yes it's just a Rangefinder MK2 X 2)

The largest and most powerful rocket ever (for now. . .)

Accelerating at almost 2 gees

On-board camera footage, recovered from a film drop pod.

Stage sep and acceleration at 5 gees. Telemetry indicates anomalous heating.

Last film image before canister auto-eject. It shows the fins and booster/avionics sphere casing desintegrating. "Okay, uhhhh, we've just lost contact with the rocket. final telemetry indicates uhhhhhhh, lets see, uhh 13 gees? I don't think that's good? We also seemed to be getting waaay too much heating before telemetry loss" -Mission control telemetry operator Delpha Kerman.

After 2 minutes of silence after contact with the rocket was lost, the workers at mission control were able to reestablish telemetry with the rocket. It was revealed that the insane acceleration and speeds of ascent low in the atmosphere had caused a new phenomenon called Compression Heating. It seems that any rocket that will need to reenter that atmosphere will need protection, especially ones traveling at orbital velocity.

Funnily enough, on descent the rocket approached at the perfect angle to act as a lifting body, swooping up and stalling midair. Perhaps lifting-body designs may be employed in the future for other things . . .

WHOOOOOOOOOSH!!

Anyway, that concludes chapter 2 of the story of the Sentinel Design Bureau. I do have a question though, would anyone like for me to upload my crafts used to KerbalX so anyone can use? I do have a ton of mods, with one custom part, though it's just a config file.

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by TRAPPIST-1E

[TRAPPIST-1E]

CHAPTER 3: I'm BAAACK

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After a short hiatus ( I discovered stellaris) the space program has been sending out flights one after the other. The following photos and images have been well upgraded due to the purchase of a color camera from Vinnie's corner store. The first bunch of launches consisted of a strange rocket design called the Rangefiner Sample Return System. Thanks to a shipping error causing the parachutes to be shipped to Kiberia, a rocket had to be designed that would return upper-atmospheric samples without parachutes. The result is this (btw, sorry about the background on the side of the images.):

Yeah. If you haven't guessed the purpose of the upper rocket engine, let me explain. due to a distinct lack of parachutes, a method to slow down before crashing had to be implemented. The upper rocket fires about 1.5 kilometers up and is destroyed upon ground impact, while the Crumpli-SafeTM SampleCageTM protects the precious samples. Why we couldn't just use a plane, I don't know. I'm just a media writer.

It's . . . going I guess?

Pitchover sucessful

Main engine fule depletion, secondary engine ignition

Safely landed? (I didn't use cheats I promise)

 

Additional flights below:

Spoiler

All of these go basicially the same as the first one.

See you tomorrow for Chapter 3: Part 2!

https://imgur.com/undefinedhttps://imgur.com/undefinhttps://imgur.com/imfjCtv

 

 

 

 

[TRAPPIST-1E]

BTW:

On 12/5/2021 at 8:46 PM, TRAPPIST-1E said:

See you tomorrow

and by that I mean tomorrow on Venus.

Sorry for lack of chapters but i've been a bit busy

Edited December 9, 2021 by TRAPPIST-1E

[Maria Sirona]

Content when?

[TRAPPIST-1E]

I accidentally logged into the save on a different modset and almost everything was deleted, also I didn't have backups. There is hope, I still have the modset for this mission report and I could recreate the like 2 satellites in orbit.

Edited December 28, 2021 by TRAPPIST-1E

[TRAPPIST-1E]

Soon, the story of the Sentinel Design Bureau will return.

Edited April 9, 2022 by TRAPPIST-1E
it has retured