JNSQ: Flight of The Endeavour - Epilogue

[Angelo Kerman]

And behind the scenes, the Newton becomes a DSEV training vessel:

[Angelo Kerman]

Chapter 15

Tomorrow was the big day, the day that they’d either soar or crash and burn. Dudmon could feel the tension in the crew- and himself- but they were making the best of it by making last minute adjustments here and there, last minute experiments, and so on. But for Dudmon, he didn’t have much else to do. He’d practiced simulated launches in the Endevour so many times, he could do it in his sleep. He’d availed himself of the Castillo’s arboretum for countless hours, toured the factory, the two automated drills, the science observatory, and even the nuclear plant. There just wasn’t much else to do. But there was one other thing that he could do: grab a Duna stone for Ribler’s family back home. He knew that Ribler had promised his son that he’d bring back a rock from the Rusty Planet, and with his death so many months ago, he couldn’t fulfill his promise. So, Dudmon took it upon himself to get a Duna stone.

After leaving Jonas in charge, Dudmon stepped outside and hopped into Buffalo Rover 2. Seeing it in good condition, he retracted the ladders and disengaged the parking brake. Then he set out in search of a suitable stone. He stopped by one of the meteor remnants scattered around Knights Landing and activated the rover’s scanning arm. It collected some science, but it just wasn’t the kind of rock that he was looking for, so off he went looking for another candidate.

His next attempt looked more or less like the previous rock, so he didn’t even bother to stop. Dudmon just kept driving, looking over the horizon for the next possibility. He appreciated the quiet time alone as he conducted his search, though he kept within site of Duna Base just in case something happened. He came across a small cluster of “Duna Berries” that looked promising, and even took a complementary soil sample- it had traces of water- but no luck finding the right rock. Nonetheless, Dudmon chiseled some sample berries, pocketed them, and kept going…

Finally, just when he was about to give up- he envied the persistence of his science team- Dudmon found what he was looking for. He climbed up onto the rock, chiseled away a Duna Stone, and pocketed it for later. He took his time driving the nearly 5 km back to Duna Base. Before stepping back inside, Dudmon detoured over to Endeavour to carefully pack away the rock samples. He wanted to ensure that they weren’t forgotten.

*

The next morning, the crew had their last breakfast on Duna, put on their spacesuits, and stepped onto the surface one last time. The crew silently gathered at Ribler’s grave to say their goodbyes to their fallen comrade. Each member of the crew gave a short speech, or reflected on his or her time with Ribler, or both. Finally, Dudmon concluded his speech.

“We’re going to miss you, Ribler,” Dudmon said, choking back tears, “but we know that you’d have been happy with what we’ve done with the place. And don’t you worry, I’ll get this Duna Stone back to your son. I Promise. Before we go, I have one more duty to perform. As commander of the Duna Base Expedition 1, I hereby declare that Duna Base shall be henceforth known as Ribler’s Refuge. Mission Control has already approved the name change.”

The crew cheered the announcement, said their final goodbyes, and proceeded to the Endeavour…

As they approached the ladder, Dudmon tried repeatedly to jump up and grab it. To his chagrin, he couldn’t! Tobias vonKerman chuckled, and then promptly ran over to the mobile crane that he and his engineers built, grabbed one of the jack lifts, dropped it on the ground, and triggered the extension spring. Then he helped each of his crewmates up onto the lift and watched them climb up the ladder. Finally, Tobias climbed the makeshift platform and grabbed onto the ladder himself. One at a time, the astronauts climbed up the ladder and boarded their ride into orbit…

“Ok, master switch on, MPU on, power is online,” Dudmon said, going through his checklist. “Let’s go around the horn… Life support?”

“Life support is go,” Emma vonKerman answered. She sat in the copilot’s seat.

“E.C.?”

“Electric Charge is at 2400 and steady.”

“Prop?”

“Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer at 100% capacity,” Emma responded.

“Monoprop?”

“61% and steady,” she answered.

Dudmon didn’t like that, but all their attempts to patch the leaks had still resulted in a slow leak somewhere. He continued his checklist. “Fresh Air and Snacks?”

“Both at 100%”

“Always good to pack your snacks,” Ferwin mused.

Dudmon grunted a response. “Ok, retract the ladders.”

Emma pressed some switches on the console. “Ladders retracted and locked,” she said a few seconds later.

“Ok, cycling engine hydraulics,” Dudmon said. The flight computer ran a program to wiggle the engine bell, and it responded as expected. “Emma, check the staging,” he called out.

Emma called up the staging program. “Engine at Stage 1, gear separators in Stage 0,” she confirmed.

“Acknowledged,” Dudmon said simply. He was mentally gearing up to fly their home-built craft. “SAS on. MechJeb disabled, quick save/restore off. Engine armed…”

He paused for a moment. Whatever happens, happens, he thought to himself. “Crew, it’s been a pleasure exploring Duna with you,” he said. “Let’s go to space. Emma, start the countdown.”

“10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… Ignition sequence start… 3… 2… 1…”

“Liftoff! We’re on our way,” Dudmon said.

“We’ve cleared the crane,” Emma said quickly.

“Rolling right to zero niner zero,” Dudmon reported. “Commencing pitch-over maneuver.”

“We’re headed in the right direction,” Emma said, smiling. “Altitude 2635 and climbing, velocity 186.7 and climbing.”

“Pitching over to 45 degrees,” Dudmon called out.

“Trajectory looking good, Dudmon. Zero AOA… Passing 10,000 meters…”

“Jettison the landing gear.”

Emma flipped the arm switch, then pressed the fire button. With a loud and satisfying clunk, the makeshift landing gear jetted away from the Endeavour’s body. There was no going back, they were at the point of no return. “Landing gear jettisoned,” Emma confirmed. “Altitude 13,180, velocity 331.6. Apo is 19.6 kilometers and rising. Hey, the navigation lights finally came on,” she said, chuckling.

“One minute to atmospheric exit,” Dudmon said.

“Apo is 100.2 kilometers, velocity is 1,110.8, altitude is 48,745,” Emma called out.

“Ok, engine stop,” Dudmon responded. He waited patiently for Endeavour to coast above the atmosphere, and then plotted a circularization burn. “Time to Apoapsis?”

“Three minutes, thirty seconds,” Emma said.

It took a few tries to get the orbit plotted. “Got it,” Dudmon finally said. “Burn in… 55 seconds.”

Nearly a minute and 452.1 m/sec of delta-v later, Endeavour was in a 94.9km by 106.3km orbit!

Dudmon breathed a sigh of relief. “Deploy the high gain antennas and solar arrays,” he commanded.

Emma tried to comply, even cycling through the sequences three times before giving up. “High gain antennas and solar arrays are non-responsive,” she said, disappointingly. Endeavour had to rely on the OX-STAT solar panels that they’d bolted onto the sides as well as the fuel cells.

“Alright, I guess that’s what we get. Let’s match planes with Kopernicus,” Dudmon said.

Then the gyros on the Arrow 5 Upper Stage’s instrument unit failed. “Ugh,” is all Emma could say. “Switching to backup…”

“I’m only getting about 10% authority from the Estonian gyros,” Dudmon noted.

“Sorry, Commander, couldn’t be helped,” Tobias vonKerman said from the back seat. “It’s either that or let them break too…”

“Ok, I’ll work with it. Activating RCS…” The crew could hear the loud banks of the RCS motors as Dudmon yawed and pitched Endeavour until it lined up with the navball’s maneuver reticle. Fifty seconds later, Endeavour made a 153.5 m/sec plane change maneuver to bring it into alignment with Kopernicus. Then another alarm went off.

“Estonian RCS thruster quads disabled and in Safe Mode,” Emma said nervously.

“We still have the AUS RCS thrusters and the 5-way Verniers,” Dudmon responded, trying to reassure the crew- and himself. He plotted an orbital interception burn, playing with the numbers, until he got something that would place Endeavour about 1.3 km away. Good enough, he thought to himself. “Ok, crew, we have four hours and forty-five minutes until the next maneuver burn…”

Two hours of waiting later, the starboard fuel cell on the Arrow 5 Upper Stage failed and took out the starboard Z-100 rechargeable battery packs along with it. Jonas vonKerman, Calbro mcKerman, Ferwin Kerman, and Raald mcKerman were all stressed out at this point. Even Emma vonKerman was getting stressed. Only Tobias and Dudmon were keeping their cool.

On time, Endeavour executed its 48.5 m/sec burn, but due to some maneuvering errors, their closest approach to Kopernicus grew to 3.8km. Six and a half minutes later, Dudmon made a small correction burn that would place Endeavour just 800 meters away.

“Aux Tank 1 is leaking,” Tobias said, taking Emma’s place. “I think the Verniers that we installed are causing problems.”

“Shut them down and seal the transfer valves,” Dudmon said simply. Endeavour had to rely upon its slowly leaking monopropellant thrusters for the remainder of her journey. Dudmon tried to not think about how Endeavour’s systems were failing…

A few seconds after the correction burn, Aux Tank 2’s transfer valves slammed shut on their own. Tobias ran through the diagnostics but couldn’t find anything wrong. All his attempts to reopen them had failed. “Main tank has 558 m/sec of delta-v in it,” he said, running the numbers, “enough to make the rendezvous.” They would know in another 27 minutes…

A few minutes before Intersect 1, Endeavour’s portside fuel cell failed, taking the portside batteries with it. Tobias shut down non-essential systems, though the navigation lights remained stubbornly on. “At least the life support is solid,” he quipped.

Fourteen minutes later, the home-built SSTO matched velocities with Kopernicus. “I see it, visual contact,” Dudmon said. He oriented Endeavour towards Kopernicus and made a short burn towards it. A minute later, he parked the ship next to their ride home. Dudmon silently noted that the protective endcap of the ventral cryopod was missing due to KSP wigging out over autostruts…

Since Kopernicus’ nose had the older Mk1 docking port and Endeavour had the newer Mk2 design, he selected the forward-portside docking port on Kopernicus’ greenhouse module. He had to be very conservative with his RCS thrusts given how little monopropellant remained. Next, he shut down the Fulcrum engine, knowing full well that it would never start again. But it didn’t matter, they only had a few dozen meters to cross.

“Docking shield open,” Tobias said, confirming that the three petals on the new docking port opened as expected. With just a few more meters to go, Dudmon yawed Endeavour to the right as it neared the docking port. Within seconds, Endeavour docked with DSEV-02. Given the ailing spacecraft’s condition, the crew quickly boarded Kopernicus, turning on the lights and waking it up from its slumber. With that done, Dudmon turned off the lights in Endeavour and put it into standby mode before exiting the craft and closing its hatch.

Then, from Kopernicus’ side of the connection, he closed the hatch and undocked their ride into orbit. Residual air in the vestibule served to separate the two craft.

“Goodbye, Endeavour, we thank you,” Dudmon said as their home-built craft slowly sailed away…

Two weeks later, on Jool 22, 2006, after the crew relaxed and gardened to reduce their stress, and Tobias had a chance to attach some much-needed struts, Dudmon once again sat in DSEV-02’s cockpit and prepared Kopernicus for her departure burn.

Right on schedule, her atomic rocket roared to life and provided the 882 m/sec needed to escape the Rusty Planet’s gravity well.

Two and a half days later, the ship exited Duna’s sphere of influence. When it became time to bed down in cryogenic slumber, the vonKerman engineers- Tobias, Jonas, and Emma- insisted, no, demanded, that they be the ones to take the damaged cryopod. They insisted that despite the damage, it was fully operational, and they trusted vonKerman engineering to get them home safely. After what he witnessed them accomplished on Duna, Dudmon wasn’t going to argue with them. The vonKermans were the undisputed masters of EVA engineering.

One by one, his crew went into cryosleep for the long journey home. Then only Dudmon was awake, but not for long. He looked around, thinking about all that they’d accomplished…

…They survived a hard landing…

…They built the Endeavour from salvage…

…They built the Buffabus to embark on the longest off-world “road trip” in history…

…And they discovered incredible evidence that the ancient Kermantians had somehow reached Duna thousands of years before modern society did…

Dudmon tapped the bulkhead of his cryopod. It was hard to believe that the ship had been state of the art when they left Kerbin orbit, but it was already obsolete before its return. He hoped that Kopernicus would become a museum ship when they returned to Kerbin, but her fate was uncertain. And it was up to someone else to decide.

All he knew was that after a long career starting with Münflight and continuing through the Shuttle Era, he was ready to retire- and he was sure that there were those in the Ministry of Space that would ensure that he retired after all the antics that Duna Base Expedition 1 had pulled. Then again, the ISC needed experienced commanders for their new Deep Space Exploration Vessels…

“See you in a few months,” Dudmon said finally before triggering the hibernation sequence. The door, and this chapter in his career, slid closed…

[Angelo Kerman]

Epilogue

“Sandcaster was hardwired so that it could only create the robots that it needed to build Duna Base along with the base itself," Tobias said.

“Why, exactly,” Dudmon asked

“To avoid it becoming a Berserker.”

“A what?”

“A Berserker,” Tobias repeated. He saw Dudmon’s confused look. “A Berserker is a malignant version of a Neumann vonKerman Probe...”

- Flight of The Endeavour, Chapter 4

As Kopernicus (DSEV-02) sped away from Duna and coasted back to Kerbin, the crew remained oblivious thanks to being tucked away in cryostasis. Duna Base remained on the surface and devoid of any occupants. When its ecosystem matured in a year, the next crew would have plenty to eat. But for now, the base’s computer systems kept the lights dim and the temperature comfortable and ready for the next visitors.

Outside, the refitted Sandcaster sat idle, ready for its next print job. Mission Control was already drawing up plans for a tracking station/radio telescope array. Once they had the plans finalized in a few months, they’d instruct the Sandcaster, freed from its hardwired limitations, to begin building the new facilities.

But several months too early, unbeknownst to Mission Control, the Sandcaster woke up. And it began printing…

+++

Thanks for reading Flight of the Endeavour! I hope you had as much fun reading about my exploits on Duna as I had making them and writing about them.

My JNSQ journey continues in…

The Last Münflight.