One Giant Leap | An Alternate History of Space Exploration

[track]

Into New Waters

     1992 is the most important year for NASA since 1969. After 8 long years, every single component for Magellan 1 has been designed, built, and delivered. The launch window to Mars occupies a space between the beginning of August and the end of September. Magellan 1, although an all-up test of the Mars mission profile, is different from future missions. Since there is only one MMETV for it, the ascent vehicle and descent vehicle will be tandem launched aboard a Jupiter SDLS rocket. The descent vehicle will then perform orbit insertion at Mars following the 9-month trip. They will then go their separate ways. For Magellan 2, both will be carried by a second MMETV dedicated to carrying cargo. Despite this “simpler” approach, the amount of infrastructure usage so late in the year means that Orpheus 7 will not happen until next year. This is just another episode in a long-standing rivalry between the two programs. Not only for public attention but for Capitol Hill to give them the funding they need. Magellan has, since around 1989 when Virgil Base was finally set up, begun to win both of those battles. No matter what each program says though, they need each other. Just as Magellan needs the Aris program, which rather non-ceremoniously closed down on December 20th, 1991. Orpheus was the beginning of implementing many of Aris's developments, and this chain passed on to Magellan. The programs are both vital to deep space exploration and NASA’s continued success in the public eye. The Orpheus program managers continue to maintain that the “one-a-year” path is necessary for a steady infrastructure buildup at the Moon, however.  Nevertheless, NASA wants to focus solely on Magellan 1 with no chaos of two deep space missions in such a small timespan. Though the buildup is just beginning, with the assembly of the MMETV to begin in August, with Trans-Mars Injection at the end of the month. With many months to come, NASA has other priorities. Most notably, what in the world is going on with the Space Shuttle?

     It’s been 4 years now since the Enterprise incident, and the Space Shuttle has been slowly trudging its way back to a smooth flight pace. The return-to-flight (RTF) costs for the program ballooned far beyond the agency’s expectations and caused a minor funding crisis on Capitol Hill for both 1989 and 1990. The Space Shuttle, even as it takes a back seat in the public’s view to Orpheus and Magellan, is still essential to each of those programs. ACOV is being used as the crew launch and return vehicle for both, and still solely launches on the Space Shuttle. The Shuttle’s pacing issues have also put the West Coast operations on a hiatus until further notice. The Air Force has its CELV Titan IV and Delta II rockets fully operational at this point, and no longer needs those Shuttle flights it fought NASA tooth and nail for over the past decade and a half. But it is going to fly one (1) mission for the Air Force this year out of Cape Canaveral. The Shuttle will also debut a hot new feature that will hopefully get it back on track. On the West Coast, as you may know, the Shuttle utilized a different version of the SRBs that had composite casings instead of the traditional steel ones. In their unpainted form, they presented a striking black-and-white look to these secret California Shuttle missions. After taking a year to modify the MLPs for the changes in loads and weight distributions, they will finally debut from the Shuttle’s primary launch site. There was some debate about painting them white, but ultimately they decided there was no reason to. So the Shuttle from now on will fly with the black and white SRBs.

     This debut mission is set to be flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis, carrying a series of commercial satellites. A mission like this used to be normal for the Shuttle, but it is seeming less and less likely that there will be any more “Shuttle Rideshare” missions as the new Ariane 4 rocket is dominating the foreign satellite market while Titan IV and Delta II take up the US market. Regardless of all of this, the Shuttle is still generally viewed admirably by the public, after all, it is what re-sparked the public interest in spaceflight in the first place. Yet as NASA thinks more and more about the future, and starts to confer with aerospace contractors about a next-generation crew vehicle, the Space Shuttle takes to the skies on June 18th, 1992.

     The mission is another flawless performance by Atlantis, and it has now flown 20 times itself.

     Over in the former Soviet Union, the fresh-on-the-block “Federal Space Agency” or FNKA has taken the place of the decentralized and loosely bound Soviet space program in the Soviet Federative Republic. It has been a rocky few months as the new nation is trying to find its footing in a post-Soviet and generally post-Communism world. However many within the new government hope getting back to normal operations in space will be an easy public victory. The economy remains under severe strain, as a lot of Soviet debts are still being carried. However, with a freer market, there is hope for Russia and its sister states in the SFR.

     NASA and FNKA aren’t the only ones beginning a new, or first, chapter though. Japan’s space agency, NASDA, has finally completed the development of Japan’s very first fully domestic launch vehicle. Dubbed “H-II” it borrows heavily from knowledge Japan has gained in working with the Space Shuttle program. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t do heavy lifting internally no, no, no. They developed their own hydrolox engines, their own large SRBs (the first country to develop an SRB of that size besides the US) as well as their own avionics and well, everything! With the help of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NASDA developed a vehicle capable of delivering 15 metric tons to LEO, as well as 5 metric tons to trans-lunar injection (at least) which is a very impressive feat. The first flight, with a dummy mass simulator payload, takes place on the afternoon of July 11th, and it is a success despite a late ignition of the second stage. It wasn’t all perfect the first time around, but Japan has a vehicle capable of finally lifting its ambitious goals in space exploration.

     For NASA, as July begins, they are in controlled chaos mode at Cape Canaveral. Magellan 1 will require 3 Jupiter rockets. Harkening back to the complicated days of Advanced Apollo; they are working around the clock to meet the tight deadlines for launch. Because of these tight deadlines, the Shuttle has had to give up one of its high bays, the one that is dual use, for the third Jupiter rocket. The first two Jupiters are intended to launch the two halves of the MMETV. The first carrying the propulsion module and the first Liquid Hydrogen tank alongside communications arrays and the solar arrays. The second carries the second Liquid Hydrogen tank which sits underneath the large crew habitat. The third and final Jupiter rocket, the first ever Heavy variant with four SRBs, is launching the Ascent and Descent Vehicle stack straight to Mars. It was decided previously that it wasn’t necessary to launch ACOV aboard the Shuttle for this test flight, so Magellan 1 will simply consist of these components launched aboard Jupiter.

     With all three Jupiter rockets fully stacked by August 3rd, the first two roll out to LC-39C and D respectively, to begin their pre-flight preparations. The third, the 544H carrying the AV/DV stack is relocated to High Bay 4 for final processing work. The first, a 524-A, successfully gets through its pre-launch campaign by August 18th and is primed for launch on the 21st. The new era truly begins.

“All systems are go for launch this afternoon.”

“T-12, 11, 10, 9, 8, GO for core engine start…”

“6, 5, 4, 3, we have engine start..”

“1.. ZERO.”

“LIFTOFF! LIFTOFF! THE NEXT CHAPTER OF EXPLORATION BEGINS WITH MAGELLAN 1!”

     The launch, in all its glory, is a total success. The MMETV Propulsion Module is deployed just off the coast of Africa into orbital sunset; its solar arrays unfurling as it goes behind the planet and into darkness.

     A few days later, on the 24th, the second module (the Hab Module) is boosted into orbit by an identical 524-A. The launch is yet again flawless. Because the Hab Module only has lateral and rotational thrusters and no other propulsion, it is up to the Propulsion Module itself to perform rendezvous and docking. This is a different approach than normal, but it is nevertheless a successful one. Over the west coast of Africa, the two modules become one, and the first-ever Martian spaceship is fully assembled.

     The focus then shifts to the big boy, the 544H rolls out to LC-39C on August 12th and is ready for launch on the 28th. Although it is not radically different, the core stage is slightly stretched on the H variant, alongside the four SRBs instead of two. The two payloads combined are roughly fifty metric tons. Thus necessitating the upgrade of the ride to orbit. There are concerns about the structural loads on the core stage with the four boosters, but it was designed with that maximum load in mind. The general structure at this length and longer is designed to handle four five-segment boosters. Nevertheless, the true test comes on launch day. As the five main engines roar to life, and the boosters ignite, NASA’s Mars ambitions soar into the morning sky.

     Despite a tenuous ascent, the second stage enters orbit with just enough fuel to boost both vehicles to Mars. A few hours later, both the MMETV and the AV/DV stack begin their 9-month trips to Mars.

     The Magellan program has finally begun...

[TwoCalories]

This is a really great report, but there's a lot to read. Are there any major happenings that led up to the Magellan program?

[Klipermaks]

Loving this! Although i've got 3 Questions
1: Will one of China's Proposed Shuttle designs be featured? i'd love to see Changcheng 1 in something aside from low-res concept art
2: Will Buran keep flying? Since the Soviet union croaked, i wonder if it'll get ditched like the real one
3: If Buran is abandoned, will it be replaced  by something like Kliper or MAKS (or will they appear alongside it if it's not canned?)

[track]

On 10/13/2023 at 4:44 PM, TwoCalories said:

This is a really great report, but there's a lot to read. Are there any major happenings that led up to the Magellan program?

 

On 10/13/2023 at 9:40 PM, Klipermaks said:

Loving this! Although i've got 3 Questions
1: Will one of China's Proposed Shuttle designs be featured? i'd love to see Changcheng 1 in something aside from low-res concept art
2: Will Buran keep flying? Since the Soviet union croaked, i wonder if it'll get ditched like the real one
3: If Buran is abandoned, will it be replaced  by something like Kliper or MAKS (or will they appear alongside it if it's not canned?)

Thank you to both of you for the kind words!  To answer your questions:

1: It is quite a bit, the events are quite spread out but if you just want an idea of where it began you can read the parts from 1977 (The Last Dance and But How? on page 3) and 1984 (Orwellian Year and My Collection, at the end of page 4 and the start of page 5)

2: I do have some ideas for what to do with China and of course a plan for the SFR, so keep an eye out.

[track]

Prelude

     1993 is set to be an action-packed year for the world of spaceflight. Magellan 1 will arrive at Mars, and Orpheus 7 will take flight. NASA plans to finally unveil its Skylab successor to the public, and NASDA plans to send the first lunar mission by an Asian country. America kicks off the year with a presidential inauguration. George H.W. Bush, in light of the recovering economy and total victory in the Gulf War, managed to hold off Bill Clinton in the general election last November. It is a rather mundane time for American politics, but some mention is given to NASA and Magellan in Bush’s inauguration speech. Overall, America heads into the new year with a positive outlook. For the Soviet Federative Republic, though, it is an exceptionally difficult time. Economic woes continue to batter the young Soviet successor state, which has directly affected the space program. FNKA still has, somehow, managed to kick themselves into gear, as they finished up work on the second VKK orbiter, named Sarma, after the river and wind that flow through Lake Baikal in Russia. This new orbiter is heavily improved from Buran. Where Buran had a lot of odd switch and control positions Sarma has a cockpit more similar to the US Space Shuttles. Where Buran had many issues that inhibited pre-flight preparations Sarma has had hundreds of systems reworked or removed entirely. Although FNKA has an abysmal amount of funding at the moment, they are determined, and Sarma's completion and first flight are at the center of it. So on January 29th, 1993, OK-2K1 takes flight.

     It is, by most metrics, a successful mission. Uncrewed, just like Buran’s first flight, but with a series of scientific payloads being carried to bring some external value to the flight. Some issues with the… rushed completion of the orbiter pop-up. For example, there are hydraulic leaks before launch and after landing. As well as several onboard systems shutting down and rebooting themselves in orbit over random errors. Despite these hiccups, the main objectives are still completed and Sarma lands on the runway of Baikonur in the early morning hours of February 2nd, the first-ever night landing for a Buran shuttle.

     Moving to the east, Japan is on the rise as a spaceflight power. The new H-II rocket has greatly enhanced their capabilities and given them independence from America, who they previously licensed rocket designs from. Taking advantage of this new ability, Japan has been working on a mission to the asteroid Vesta since 1989. Dubbed “Besuta” which means Vesta in Japanese, it weighs just under a ton. It was designed and built entirely in Japan, although it is using a purchased US Star 48 kick motor that will insert it into orbit of Vesta. The ascent trajectory is unique in that it will be a continuous burn, with no parking orbit. The core stage will utilize all of its fuel to get Besuta on this fast 2-and-a-half-year cruise.

     In the afternoon of April 3rd, H-II’s engines ignite, and it takes flight for the second time from Tanegashima.

     It is a beautiful launch and a flawless ascent from H-II. Besuta is safely sent on its way to Vesta, set for arrival in late 1995.

     For NASA then, as winter gives way to a blooming spring. There is much focus on Magellan 1 getting closer and closer to Mars, but also on a major announcement set for April 10th. It is finally time for NASA to announce the successor station to Skylab. It has been in development since 1988 and has finally reached a mature design that is expected to be the final one. The name has also been decided, a focal point of the announcement. So on the 10th, a group of NASA representatives take the stage at Johnson Space Center to unveil the next great laboratory in space.

Harmony

      Comprising twin modules from ESA, a UK Lab, and a full Japanese module package along with several US modules derived from those aboard Skylab, Harmony is a beast of a station. Its backbone is the massive first module, the US HabLab as it is currently called. It will be the primary propulsion and power module for the station until the massive Skylab-derived truss begins assembly. The truss will have a set of "boost" modules that can be attached and detached for return to Earth for refueling every year or so. The truss will also have a rail system for the robotic arm to allow it to move all around the station.

     One interesting thing of note is that the rumors of Russian cooperation have turned out to be untrue. Although NASA did admit they submitted a concept to the Soviets in 1991 just a few months before the nation collapsed; it included a Russian segment that sat underneath the US HabLab. But, the Soviets rejected it to focus on Mir and because being a junior partner on a "Western" space project didn't sound like too much fun. The US then tried to approach FNKA in June 1992, to which they were rejected, simply because the only way they could afford it would be to essentially dock Mir to Harmony, which would not work (or look) all too good. Regardless though, the station has plenty of international cooperation and will be assembled pretty much entirely by the Space Shuttle, minus the launch of the HabLab which will fall to a Jupiter rocket. This program, Harmony, is a massive win for the Shuttle program, which has still continued to struggle to get to pre-1988 flight rates. Harmony will need every Shuttle for at least 5 years of work, which is set to begin in 1998. The start date for assembly has continued to be pushed back as Harmony is just another challenger in the war for funds between Magellan, Orpheus, and the exploration programs.

     With that aside now, NASA's focus can shift to the biggest matter at hand.

     Magellan 1 is approaching Mars...

Edited November 13, 2023 by track

[Pipcard]

On 10/12/2023 at 3:09 PM, track said:

Japan’s space agency, NASDA, has finally completed the development of Japan’s very first fully domestic launch vehicle. Dubbed “H-II” it borrows heavily from knowledge Japan has gained in working with the Space Shuttle program. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t do heavy lifting internally no, no, no. They developed their own hydrolox engines, their own large SRBs (the first country to develop an SRB of that size besides the US) as well as their own avionics and well, everything!

On 11/11/2023 at 6:50 PM, track said:

Taking advantage of this new ability, Japan has been working on a mission to the asteroid Vesta since 1989. Dubbed “Besuta” which means Vesta in Japanese, it weighs just under a ton. It was designed and built entirely in Japan, although it is using a purchased US Star 48 kick motor that will insert it into orbit of Vesta.

I like it when alternate space timelines acknowledge the accomplishments of a Japanese space program.

[Jfjsharkattack]

Great Job!

[track]

Hello everyone, it's been quite a while. I've taken a few months' hiatus as completing this AH hasn't been my biggest priority since the end of last year. But I'm starting to get more motivated and hope to get back to a regular schedule of new chapters sooner rather than later.

Thank you for all of the support. 

[track]

Starman

    When you look up into the sky at night, there are hundreds upon hundreds of little points of light glittering above you. Each one is a star fusing elements, supporting planets, and maybe other forms of life. But some of those points of light are a bit bigger, and they aren’t just stars that might as well be forever away. They are the planets of our solar system. Mars, glowing just enough to see it, with an orange-ish hue, sits above the horizon. It's sat there for billions of years. We’ve looked at it first with our own eyes, and then through telescopes. Now, we can look at Mars through the camera lenses of our spacecraft. None of these spacecraft more extraordinary, than the ones heading toward the Red Planet right now. Magellan 1 is just hours from entering the orbit of Mars, and there is controlled chaos back on Earth at JSC in lieu of this moment.

    You would be forgiven for thinking that they had just discovered alien life with how many people flooded in and out of each building. Press vans zip through the parking lots, reporters rushing to affix the right lenses to their cameras as they are hurriedly ushered inside. For them they had waited months for this opportunity, it took almost a herculean effort to get press access to Johnson Space Center on this day, the 2nd of May, 1993. Some had waited outside since before sunrise to get a front-row seat at the coming press conference.

    The press weren’t the only ones being eroded away by the stress and monumental nature of the day. The controllers at JSC had nearly pulled an all-nighter as a series of errors with the MMETV’s star trackers nearly made it forget its own location in space. The primary star tracker had been improperly targeted onto the star Canopus, which nearly resulted in several errors during an attitude control adjustment. On top of this, one of the computer units in the MMETV had experienced an integer overflow as it was trying to assume the spacecraft’s rotational velocity. This took some time to resolve, and the other 5 Redundant Computing Units (RCUs) had to take over during that period. With all of the drama and stress, the press and those working in the control room at JSC were awaiting some good news as the Orbital Insertion Maneuver began at 1:23 PM. It would last a total of 11 minutes, as the series of nuclear thermal rockets on the MMETV slowed the behemoth craft down enough for it to be captured into an orbit around Mars. This orbit is different from the intended future ones, as future missions aim to have flybys of Phobos and Deimos, which are not objectives for Magellan 1.

    The seconds slowly ticked by at JSC, everyone sitting in utter silence as they watched the expected velocity change graph be followed by the real time telemetry line. Closer, and closer to a nominal insertion. 11 minutes felt like 110, if it had been any shorter amount of time some in the room may have tried to hold their breath all the way through. But alas, they wouldn’t need to. At 1:33:24 PM, the MMETV sent back a telemetry packet that perfectly correlated to the expected orbital velocity. Everyone in JSC erupted into cheers and applause. Those in the control room who had been working for hours and hours felt victorious and liberated from the seats they had been glued to since yesterday afternoon. 

    3,388 days had passed since Ronald Reagan and John Young announced the Magellan Program on the steps of the National Air & Space Museum. In those 3,388 days, NASA had achieved insurmountable progress and put themselves a lot more than one small step closer to landing humans on Mars before 2000. This was simply the beginning.
    But the mission was far from over, a herculean effort to demonstrate the critical components of a successful crewed Mars landing lay ahead. A few weeks would be given for a dust storm on the surface to clear, and then the automated landing demonstrations of the Ascent and Descent Vehicles would begin.

    Those few weeks would prove to be rather uneventful, and as the dust storm cleared, the Ascent and Descent Vehicles had arrived in their joint pairing just a few days before the MMETV (they were launched on a higher velocity trajectory) and had stayed linked together until the dust storm cleared. The Ascent Vehicle undocked and made its way to the surface without issue, and the Descent Vehicle performed a rendezvous with the MMETV as it would on crewed missions to retrieve the crew for the landing on the surface. The components that were not to be demonstrated on this mission, the rover and the habitat, would also be landed beforehand on future missions.

Once the Descent Vehicle docked to the MMETV, a “simulated” crew transfer would take place. Essentially just waiting an amount of time that was predicted based on crew training would be needed for a full crew and equipment transfer. Once this was complete. The Descent Vehicle undocked, waited another orbit, and performed a de-orbit burn to land on the rocky plains of the Martian equator.

    "2,000 feet, nominal descent rate."

  "1,000."

  "800."

  "500."

  "200."

  "50."

  "25."

  "10."

  "CONTACT!"

  "CONFIRMED LANDING ON THE MARTIAN SURFACE."

    On this descent, there would be some issues that had been seen during the landing of the Ascent Vehicle that were also seen on the Descent Vehicle. Most notably, the landing legs. They had to be deployed individually by an emergency command from the guidance system (with a 20+ minute delay to Earth, the guidance system has to be as redundant and self-regulating as possible, as any commands from Earth will be practically pointless) after the altitude trigger did not work. Then, upon a thankfully successful landing, the landing pads did not level out to the terrain and stayed at a rather uncomfortable upward angle. The cause of this was unknown, but it may lead to a new landing leg design for Magellan 2.

    Despite these landing leg issues, it was still a successful landing, and NASA could breathe easy that the guidance system performed beautifully and handled issues quickly and effectively. The successful landing was met with thunderous applause and cheers in Houston, and the pictures of the surface from the landing cameras covered the front page of TIME the next day. NASA had at last, reinvigorated itself, with a new bold spirit that was determined to put people on Mars and to push beyond what it had already achieved. NASA was finally, truly, ready to go beyond Earth with humans.

    Even further beyond, NASA’s deep space robotics program finally had some funding freed up with the completion of the Mars collection, and they were ready to make some headlines. On October 3rd, 1993, at a JPL press conference, the Pluto Fast Flyby mission was announced. The mission would be targeting a 2000 launch window, with a backup in 2001. It would be a quite small and light spacecraft so the launch vehicle required would not be the same one required by components of the MMETV. The spacecraft was intended to carry two cameras, a high-resolution black-and-white alongside a lower-resolution color camera. On top of a suite of spectrometers, a magnetometer, and a small mapping camera. The instruments would actually be a significant portion of the weight of the spacecraft. Pluto Fast Flyby was truly intended to be a bang for the buck mission, and NASA’s new leadership wanted bang for the buck in many areas to preserve funding for human exploration.

     With NASA under the new leadership of Administrator Ken Mattingly, who had retired from the Astronaut Corps in the late 80s, and was selected by President Bush upon his inauguration to replace John Young, who had finally taken his long overdue retirement from NASA. Young had steered NASA through one of its most tumultuous, controversial, and successful eras. He had preserved the integrity of the organization as contractors and internal feuds threatened to pull it apart. Mattingly would be facing similar challenges, alongside balancing and preserving the international partnerships Young had built. But Mattingly was more than up to the task, he had garnered the same respect from astronauts, the higher-ups, and the public alike. He would be the man who would bring NASA to Mars at last.

    On top of Pluto Fast Flyby, NASA’s flagship Iapyx mission received a 5-year mission extension at the same press conference. It has uncovered dozens upon dozens of details about Saturn and its moons and was still operating in good health with plenty of propellant, so the extension was given. 

    With all of these developments centered around beyond-Earth exploration, 1993 caps off as a truly exciting year. 1994 will see a return to normal operations for Orpheus, the return of Magellan 1’s MMETV to Earth, and perhaps…

    The beginnings of America’s next manned spacecraft.

Edited March 16 by track

[AdrianDogmeat]

19 hours ago, track said:

Starman

    When you look up into the sky at night, there are hundreds upon hundreds of little points of light glittering above you. Each one is a star fusing elements, supporting planets, and maybe other forms of life. But some of those points of light are a bit bigger, and they aren’t just stars that might as well be forever away. They are the planets of our solar system. Mars, glowing just enough to see it, with an orange-ish hue, sits above the horizon. It's sat there for billions of years. We’ve looked at it first with our own eyes, and then through telescopes. Now, we can look at Mars through the camera lenses of our spacecraft. None of these spacecraft more extraordinary, than the ones heading toward the Red Planet right now. Magellan 1 is just hours from entering the orbit of Mars, and there is controlled chaos back on Earth at JSC in lieu of this moment.

    You would be forgiven for thinking that they had just discovered alien life with how many people flooded in and out of each building. Press vans zip through the parking lots, reporters rushing to affix the right lenses to their cameras as they are hurriedly ushered inside. For them they had waited months for this opportunity, it took almost a herculean effort to get press access to Johnson Space Center on this day, the 2nd of May, 1993. Some had waited outside since before sunrise to get a front-row seat at the coming press conference.

    The press weren’t the only ones being eroded away by the stress and monumental nature of the day. The controllers at JSC had nearly pulled an all-nighter as a series of errors with the MMETV’s star trackers nearly made it forget its own location in space. The primary star tracker had been improperly targeted onto the star Canopus, which nearly resulted in several errors during an attitude control adjustment. On top of this, one of the computer units in the MMETV had experienced an integer overflow as it was trying to assume the spacecraft’s rotational velocity. This took some time to resolve, and the other 5 Redundant Computing Units (RCUs) had to take over during that period. With all of the drama and stress, the press and those working in the control room at JSC were awaiting some good news as the Orbital Insertion Maneuver began at 1:23 PM. It would last a total of 11 minutes, as the series of nuclear thermal rockets on the MMETV slowed the behemoth craft down enough for it to be captured into an orbit around Mars. This orbit is different from the intended future ones, as future missions aim to have flybys of Phobos and Deimos, which are not objectives for Magellan 1.

    The seconds slowly ticked by at JSC, everyone sitting in utter silence as they watched the expected velocity change graph be followed by the real time telemetry line. Closer, and closer to a nominal insertion. 11 minutes felt like 110, if it had been any shorter amount of time some in the room may have tried to hold their breath all the way through. But alas, they wouldn’t need to. At 1:33:24 PM, the MMETV sent back a telemetry packet that perfectly correlated to the expected orbital velocity. Everyone in JSC erupted into cheers and applause. Those in the control room who had been working for hours and hours felt victorious and liberated from the seats they had been glued to since yesterday afternoon. 

    3,388 days had passed since Ronald Reagan and John Young announced the Magellan Program on the steps of the National Air & Space Museum. In those 3,388 days, NASA had achieved insurmountable progress and put themselves a lot more than one small step closer to landing humans on Mars before 2000. This was simply the beginning.
    But the mission was far from over, a herculean effort to demonstrate the critical components of a successful crewed Mars landing lay ahead. A few weeks would be given for a dust storm on the surface to clear, and then the automated landing demonstrations of the Ascent and Descent Vehicles would begin.

    Those few weeks would prove to be rather uneventful, and as the dust storm cleared, the Ascent and Descent Vehicles had arrived in their joint pairing just a few days before the MMETV (they were launched on a higher velocity trajectory) and had stayed linked together until the dust storm cleared. The Ascent Vehicle undocked and made its way to the surface without issue, and the Descent Vehicle performed a rendezvous with the MMETV as it would on crewed missions to retrieve the crew for the landing on the surface. The components that were not to be demonstrated on this mission, the rover and the habitat, would also be landed beforehand on future missions.

Once the Descent Vehicle docked to the MMETV, a “simulated” crew transfer would take place. Essentially just waiting an amount of time that was predicted based on crew training would be needed for a full crew and equipment transfer. Once this was complete. The Descent Vehicle undocked, waited another orbit, and performed a de-orbit burn to land on the rocky plains of the Martian equator.

    "2,000 feet, nominal descent rate."

  "1,000."

  "800."

  "500."

  "200."

  "50."

  "25."

  "10."

  "CONTACT!"

  "CONFIRMED LANDING ON THE MARTIAN SURFACE."

    On this descent, there would be some issues that had been seen during the landing of the Ascent Vehicle that were also seen on the Descent Vehicle. Most notably, the landing legs. They had to be deployed individually by an emergency command from the guidance system (with a 20+ minute delay to Earth, the guidance system has to be as redundant and self-regulating as possible, as any commands from Earth will be practically pointless) after the altitude trigger did not work. Then, upon a thankfully successful landing, the landing pads did not level out to the terrain and stayed at a rather uncomfortable upward angle. The cause of this was unknown, but it may lead to a new landing leg design for Magellan 2.

    Despite these landing leg issues, it was still a successful landing, and NASA could breathe easy that the guidance system performed beautifully and handled issues quickly and effectively. The successful landing was met with thunderous applause and cheers in Houston, and the pictures of the surface from the landing cameras covered the front page of TIME the next day. NASA had at last, reinvigorated itself, with a new bold spirit that was determined to put people on Mars and to push beyond what it had already achieved. NASA was finally, truly, ready to go beyond Earth with humans.

    Even further beyond, NASA’s deep space robotics program finally had some funding freed up with the completion of the Mars collection, and they were ready to make some headlines. On October 3rd, 1993, at a JPL press conference, the Pluto Fast Flyby mission was announced. The mission would be targeting a 2000 launch window, with a backup in 2001. It would be a quite small and light spacecraft so the launch vehicle required would not be the same one required by components of the MMETV. The spacecraft was intended to carry two cameras, a high-resolution black-and-white alongside a lower-resolution color camera. On top of a suite of spectrometers, a magnetometer, and a small mapping camera. The instruments would actually be a significant portion of the weight of the spacecraft. Pluto Fast Flyby was truly intended to be a bang for the buck mission, and NASA’s new leadership wanted bang for the buck in many areas to preserve funding for human exploration.

     With NASA under the new leadership of Administrator Ken Mattingly, who had retired from the Astronaut Corps in the late 80s, and was selected by President Bush upon his inauguration to replace John Young, who had finally taken his long overdue retirement from NASA. Young had steered NASA through one of its most tumultuous, controversial, and successful eras. He had preserved the integrity of the organization as contractors and internal feuds threatened to pull it apart. Mattingly would be facing similar challenges, alongside balancing and preserving the international partnerships Young had built. But Mattingly was more than up to the task, he had garnered the same respect from astronauts, the higher-ups, and the public alike. He would be the man who would bring NASA to Mars at last.

    On top of Pluto Fast Flyby, NASA’s flagship Iapyx mission received a 5-year mission extension at the same press conference. It has uncovered dozens upon dozens of details about Saturn and its moons and was still operating in good health with plenty of propellant, so the extension was given. 

    With all of these developments centered around beyond-Earth exploration, 1993 caps off as a truly exciting year. 1994 will see a return to normal operations for Orpheus, the return of Magellan 1’s MMETV to Earth, and perhaps…

    The beginnings of America’s next manned spacecraft.

peak...

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Future!

     On a cold, but clear, Kazakhstan afternoon; Buran, the first Soviet space shuttle, sits primed on the launchpad for its first launch since the fall of the USSR. It is carrying in its cargo bay the next component of the Mir space station. The construction of which has turned from a planned 3 or so-year affair into nearly a decade-long struggle to launch every module. But with only 2 more modules to go after this one, dubbed Nastavnik, the long road finally has an end in sight. 3 cosmonauts sit aboard Buran for this mission, and they take flight after a short delay from upper-level winds.

The flight is a resounding success, and although there is some difficulty getting Nastavnik out of Buran’s payload bay and docked to the station, it is nevertheless completed. Buran undocks from the station on February 2nd after 5 days aboard and returns to land at Baikonur the next morning. FNKA, the Soviet Federative Republic’s space agency, is starting to find its footing. Although it is unlikely Buran and its sister ship Sarma will ever be able to fly as much as NASA’s Space Shuttle, they are determined to make them fly as much as possible. As tensions between the US and the SFR continue to rise following an intervention in Georgia’s ongoing political crisis from both sides, the two Soviet shuttles could find themselves in increasingly military-based applications.

     For NASA though, 1994 is a much calmer year. Orpheus will return to normal operations at the end of the year, and the long-awaited debut of Spacelab II is set to be the first major event of the year. Spacelab II is an evolved design of the original ESA-built Spacelab module, which was destroyed on Enterprise’s final flight. The module has a flat top to allow crew traversal inside the payload bay during an emergency and is fitted with updated electronics and hardware to allow for the most advanced in-orbit experiments. This first mission will be a continuation of last year’s Cardiolab mission on the Spacelab Mini-Module, studying the effects of zero gravity exposure on the human cardiovascular system. The mission will also be going for a Shuttle endurance record, aiming for an astonishing twenty days in orbit. After a rainstorm clears the morning of March 8th, Space Shuttle Discovery launches into orbit with 7 astronauts and Spacelab II. By this point, Discovery, with 23 launches to her name, is showing signs of wear. The red NASA worm logo on the wing has faded, and scorch marks line the wings. The shuttles are continuing to age; although the SIP refits have brought several benefits to their turnaround and cost-effectiveness. They remain immensely complicated machines with a massive infrastructure network supporting them. Every mission requires months of preparation, which has made many people wonder, what if we made a vehicle that doesn’t require that?

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    Nevertheless, the first Spacelab II mission begins in earnest as the 7 astronauts exercise on adapted treadmills designed for Skylab, take vital readings, and perform other studies on their heart rate and blood pressure. While the astronauts perform all their research, the Shuttle’s OMLET power module is finally flying again with the Space Shuttle on this mission. It has sat in storage since it was used on a Spacelab mission in 1986 and had to be examined and to some extent rebuilt with a new solar panel before it could fly on this mission. With solar-generated power, the fuel cells can generate less electricity, and thus go through less of the stored hydrogen and oxygen. On March 26th, the crew celebrate breaking the 17-day endurance record set by Enterprise in 1983, they join President George H.W. Bush, now in his second term, on a video conference from orbit at NASA headquarters. Discovery spends two more days in orbit, and returns to Earth on the afternoon of March 28th, setting a record of an impressive 20 days in orbit. Upon landing, Discovery sets a new first as well, this mission is the first to use the Shuttle's new drag chute, a decently sized parachute that deploys from the base of the vertical stabilizer and helps slow the vehicle down more quickly upon landing. It helps preserve the Shuttle's brakes and allows for shorter landings. The demonstration of the drag chute is a complete success and concludes DIscovery's flight.

    As 1994 began though, NASA began to fall into the realization that the Shuttle will most likely not be viable in the 21st century. It still has not returned to pre-1988 costs or flight totals, and SIP, although certainly effective in some regards, could not fix the unsolvable issue that lies in the Shuttle’s design. The Shuttle will be a nearly 40-year-old design by 2000, and the Shuttle themselves will be 20-plus years old. But also, the Shuttles need crew for every single mission, which makes them unable to perform automated cargo missions on a more routine basis that could bring down costs immensely. Therefore, on April 2nd, NASA announces the Reusable Launch Vehicle program, which would incorporate existing studies from companies and NASA themselves into one program to develop a Shuttle successor for the 21st century. 

    RLV begins with studied designs from Lockheed, Rockwell, Boeing, and McDonnell Douglas. Martin Marietta was initially considered but they dropped out before the program was announced. Rockwell has been studying a vehicle of similar size to the overall Shuttle stack, capable of launching to orbit in a single stage, using Space Shuttle Main Engines and hydrogen fuel. Boeing proposed an enormous design that would be akin to the bimese designs of the 60s and 70s for launching large solar power satellites or Mars vehicle components (Boeing is trying to make the MMETV and LTV obsolete, as they are built by their main rival Martin Marietta.) McDonnell Douglas proposed a modest vehicle, of an interesting conical design that would be focused on cargo but could be adapted for humans. It would launch and land vertically. MD had already been working on this project with the DoD and was seeking NASA support. But Lockheed, now having fully absorbed Convair and returned to its original branding, came out of the gate swinging with a truly revolutionary design.

    The Lockheed X-33 “VentureStar”

    Of a rather foreboding triangular design, this vehicle would incorporate extremely new and unproven technologies. A massive risk for such a potentially game-changing program to secure for your company. But Lockheed had grown out of sensibility. When they merged with Convair in the 70s, it was seen as a folly, that would sink their company. But it didn’t, Lockheed absorbed Convair’s useful assets throughout the 80s and was now developing the YF-22 stealth fighter jet for the Air Force. They had silently taken over the defense aerospace industry as Martin Marietta ate up everything above Earth’s Atmosphere. Lockheed was finally ready to put its foot back in the door of spaceflight and change the game.

    The VentureStar spacecraft is a lifting body design, just like the Shuttle. It would be fueled by Hydrogen and Oxygen propellant, but it would utilize a new linear aerospike engine design. Dubbed the XRS-2200 for the small-scale development version. Aerospikes are unique in their ability to remain efficient at all altitudes, and this linear design would be pushing the limit. VentureStar would also utilize new composite tanks which had only been demonstrated for solid rocket booster casings at this point. It is a truly revolutionary design, and despite being met with much skepticism from RLV program managers, it was certainly eye-catching, and the potential payload abilities with a bimese or cargo-focused version gave a sense of optimism for the technical challenges it presented. VentureStar could be built with no cockpit for a cargo-variant or with a spacious crew cabin capable of carrying 8-10 astronauts for 15 days in solo flight. VentureStar could also go much higher than the Shuttle thanks to its more robust heat shield and its primary engines and control thrusters for orbital maneuvering and de-orbit. VentureStar caught the eye of every single person related to the RLV program, and concept art for it was on the front pages of every science magazine over the summer. It had stolen the spotlight, but it was still uncertain if the immense technical challenge would be taken on by NASA, or if they would choose one of the more sensible designs.

    Moving on, the present was still full of optimism, as the Orpheus program returned to normal operations with the Orpheus 7. Intended to launch in 1993, but delays with the Shuttle’s SIP refits and LTV assembly kept the ALSM waiting for another year as lunar night came and went. But finally, NASA astronauts returned to the Moon in December of 1994, where Virgil Base played good host until early February 1995. It was a routine mission, and yet more delays with the base’s assembly meant Orpheus 8 will see the next base component addition. Lunar operations though, are finally becoming more and more routine, and NASA hopes that the 2000s will be full of lunar ferries and nonchalance about the whole operation.

    But the 2000s are still a ways away, and NASA must remain steadfast in its focus on the present. As Magellan 1’s MMETV departs from Mars on November 2nd, everyone knows that the next time one of those vehicles returns to the Red Planet…

    Humans will be aboard.

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Timelines

 

     RLV as a program was met with both excitement and criticism. To many, including the remaining stalwart Shuttle skeptics, it seemed like what they’d already heard before in the late 60s and early 70s. A repeated promise of a cheap spaceplane to get cargo and people to space. But to some on that side of the aisle, the promise rang a little more true, with another two decades of experience and technological advancement, many believed that the Reusable Launch Vehicle program could deliver where the Shuttle had not. But RLV is going to take time, quite a bit of it. Magellan still accounts for a large portion of NASA’s budget and will be a heavy expense until Magellan 3 and beyond when the MMETV can be reused. Space Station Harmony has now superseded Orpheus in terms of annual expense, but it still takes money every year. RLV will only need more money as well. This means the remaining 5 years of the decade (and century) are going to be spent on development and subscale testing.

    On February 16th, 1995, Boeing drops out of RLV, and NASA selects Rockwell, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas to develop subscale versions of their designs for atmospheric and orbital testing to begin by 1999. Lockheed’s version will be a 40% smaller version of VentureStar with 2 engines instead of 4. Rockwell’s version will be a 50% smaller version of their design, with a single Space Shuttle Main Engine for propulsion. McDonnell Douglas will be reusing their DC-X prototypes but modified for NASA’s needs. All three vehicles are dubbed “X-33” prototypes and receive funding for design and assembly. The goal is for the subscale prototypes to eventually determine the RLV winner, but it is unknown if all three prototypes will make it that far. For each of the companies though, there is much at stake.

    For Lockheed, after rebuilding their company’s image throughout the 80s and early 90s, they are staking their return to spaceflight on VentureStar. An incredibly advanced vehicle with multiple development failure points, Lockheed’s stock even dipped slightly following its announcement. They are determined, however, to make the most of this opportunity. Martin Marietta and Rockwell have dominated the aerospace sector for 15+ years, and Lockheed is hellbent on changing that.

    Rockwell is an established leader in the aerospace industry and a trusted contractor for NASA. They are responsible for Apollo, ACOV, and the Space Shuttle. But Rockwell may be biting off more than they can chew. It’s partially why Martin Marietta dropped out, they simply have too much on their hands. To top it off, their full-scale vehicle requires the performance of a tri-propellant engine, of which the only usable one is a Soviet engine, the RD-704. Rockwell contacted FNKA officials to create an export version, to a surprising success. But NASA and Congress are wary of this, and Rockwell has staked a lot on a simple engine choice.

    For McDonnell Douglas, this contract is a must-win. Poor financial management and internal issues have brought a titan to its knees. Their reputation in the civilian sector is poor, and although the Delta II rocket has kept their favor with the DoD, NASA largely does not work with them anymore, spare their collaborative work on the Magellan Ascent/Descent Vehicles with Boeing. The company desperately needs a victory, and DC-X may be their only remaining shot at one.

     But NASA stands the most to gain and to lose from RLV. The Shuttle remains popular in the eyes of the public, and if replacing it goes wrong, it could be a disaster. But if they succeed, they will have the spacecraft to define a new generation, and thus they must choose very, very wisely.

     Circling back to Space Station Harmony, it has now been 4 years since Skylab plunged through the atmosphere, ending a record of continuous human presence in space (slightly extended by the presence of a Soviet crew aboard Mir for a couple more weeks after de-orbit). The first truly international home for humans in orbit is coming closer and closer to fruition, and on June 30th, at a joint press conference between ESA, the UKSA, NASA, and NASDA, the assembly timeline for Space Station Harmony is officially announced. The first module, the US Habitation and Service Module, is set to be launched aboard a Jupiter rocket in 1998, followed by a Space Shuttle launch to deliver the International Core module as well as the Shuttle docking adapter. The assembly of the massive truss is then set to begin in late 1999/early 2000. The entire station is anticipated to be completed by 2004.

On top of this, a new docking system called the International Harmony Docking System (IHDS) is intended to be used on the station. This docking system is the only completed contribution of FNKA and the Soviets to the program. FNKA provided APAS-89 docking systems (used by Buran to dock to Mir) to NASA for adaptation to the Shuttle and other spacecraft as well as the station. Despite FNKA leaving the project, the IHDS was already designed as well as its passive station version by that point, leaving it as the only sign of their early work on the station. Despite the Soviet absence, Harmony will be a truly international station, with modules built and launched by all members of the program. It has created a strong Western (and Eastern) coalition of space-faring nations for the 21st century.

     Speaking of space-faring, Magellan 1’s MTV finally arrives back at Earth on August 29th, 1995. The MMETV has spent 3 years in space and is the first spacecraft to return from another planet. The vehicle is intended to be examined by a Space Shuttle mission next year before Magellan 2 begins., followed by a controlled de-orbit into the Pacific Ocean. 

     Next up, Orpheus is truly back in business to wrap up the year. On November 19th, the 3rd module of Virgil Base is launched to the Moon. It is a close copy of the second module, with a solar tower atop it, but with an additional radiator on the roof and some re-arranged external and internal components. The module is successfully landed right beside the base and is connected through the hydraulic docking ports. 

     On December 7th, Orpheus 8 launches to orbit aboard Columbia with much fanfare. This will be the first time an ACOV capsule flies three times, and the first time an LTV is reused. The LTV from Orpheus 7 was refueled by an autonomous tanker a few days prior, and the ALSM was launched on December 6th, squeezing back into its launch position and being latched in. The ACOV undocks from Columbia and docks with the LTV 5 hours after launch, and the crew begins a 40-day mission to the Moon.

     The mission is an all-around success. They spend much of their time setting up Base Module 3, but they also embark on the longest rover trek in the EERM yet and collect samples that they analyze with new lab equipment placed in Module 3. The base components still have yet to be individually named, but it is being taken more and more into consideration.

     On January 16th, ACOV departs the Moon and lands back on Earth the afternoon of January 19th, 1996. The landing on the flats of Edwards concludes Orpheus 8 and rings in the new year for NASA.

     This new year though, is far from any normal year. Because this winter…

     Humans are going to Mars.

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Restructuring and Redesign: A Short Story of Budgetary Chaos

     Congratulations! You are the Administrator of NASA in the year 1996. It’s a pretty cool job, but it comes with a lot of responsibility, and maybe a bit of headache. Regardless, every year your agency comes under the scrutiny of Congress as you politely ask for funding. The President has already asked for them to give you a lot of money so you can continue to send people to the Moon, and Mars, and start building that brand new space station with your friends from Europe and Japan. But Congress has a lot of priorities, ones that aren’t always aligned with yours. While they recognize that you’re knee-deep in exploring the Moon and Mars and trying your best to do it cost-effectively; this new space station is quite complicated and very expensive. So Congress would like you and your friends to work together and redesign the station to be cheaper and simpler, even though you’ve already designed it.

    That is the situation NASA finds themselves in at the start of 1996. While the agency was preparing and looking forward to the launch of Magellan 2, the first human mission to Mars, at the end of the year; Congress sideswipes the agency with a denial of the budget plan for Harmony Space Station. It was discovered during a Congressional budget hearing last fall that NASA’s original cost assessment for the station was extremely inaccurate, and the station would be nearly two times more expensive. Although a PR disaster is mostly avoided, it is a bad look in a crucial year for the agency. This comes at a time when the federal government is fighting the Bush administration in its final year over tax cuts and budget overspending. Therefore, during the process of planning the 1996 budget, Congress requested NASA present a revamped design for Space Station Harmony alongside a new cost assessment.

    Somewhat fortunately, ESA also wants to revamp its part of the station. ESA has been facing a slow series of budget cuts over the decade, and their large twin modules will be too expensive if they wish to maintain their existing programs. Therefore, they now plan to make smaller modules more in line with the design of the US modules, still in a pair of twin modules, but smaller and easier to build and launch.
    For Britain’s part, the UK Lab is their major project at the moment, so they are willing to fork out the expense to keep it as designed. Japan would also decide to not alter its module. Therefore, NASA, ESA, NASDA, and the UKSA come together to redesign the station over the spring and summer months of 1996.

    The design team has their work cut out for them. NASA plans to stretch out the Habitation and Service Module into a much larger module, without any propulsion. This would be the new core of the station where the truss section would be mounted, similar to Skylab. One of the US segment modules would also be removed, as it would be redundant with the remaining modules and the massive space of the new Supermodule as it is called.

    By August, the team has completed the redesign, and it is presented before Congress alongside the new cost assessment which was done extremely carefully. The Supermodule can be finished by late 1999 for a launch at the start of 2000 aboard a Jupiter rocket, costing about 1.5 billion dollars. This means the station’s assembly is pushed into the new century, which many already expected. The new cost assessment also plans for the station to be completed by 2006 at around 50 billion dollars. This plan is accepted, and it is brought in as part of the final amendment for NASA’s FY1997 budget. NASA appropriates the rest of its FY1996 funds to then begin work on the Supermodule. 

    On top of this, a name we haven’t heard in a while is roped into all of this. Tranquility Station, now sitting abandoned around the Moon, was brought up as an example of overspending and optimistic timelines to push NASA into revising Space Station Harmony. Tranquility’s failure is the primary reason why the ALSM is still expendable, and the LTV is just now being reused; and with such massive importance placed upon science in Low Earth Orbit, NASA and its international partners must get it right with Harmony.

    The new station is much more straightforward, clean-looking, and cost-effective (on an annual scale, it will still be the most expensive thing ever put in space). With RLV continuing as well, it may very well be the case that a new spaceplane will be the vehicle to complete the station.

     But that’s far in the future, and with a multi-month-long crisis for NASA finally over, they can focus on what they’ve been anticipating for 20+ years.

     Sending humans to Mars.