Planetstuck - Planet Jam 2 Career - Heading to Haut-Oklo

[fulgur]

Planet Jam 2 is an incredibly exciting and beautiful planet-pack mod, created by a very long list of people including the great @GregroxMun. This is my attempt at a career-mode mission report. [Obviously there will be spoilers for the planet pack ahead.]

To this I have added the following mods:

Spoiler

Textures Unlimited + Textures Unlimited Replacement Depot
Umbra Space Industries:
Life Support + Airline Kuisine
Modular Kolonisation Systems
RemoteTech

[X] Science!
Attitude Adjuster
Better Burn Time
Better Time Warp
CCK, CRP, CTT
Contract Configurator + Field Research, Space Station, RemoteTech packs
Drop-in Replacement Textures + one of JadeofMaar's skyboxes
Editor Extensions Redux
EVE
Kerbal Engineer
Kerbal Joint Reinforcement
kOS
Navball Docking Alignment Indicator
Precise Node
RemoteTech
SCANsat
Scatterer
Trajectories
Waypoint Manager

Planet Jam 2 + dependencies

* * *

Aboard the K-Drive interstellar colonisation ship, HKS Orbles:

"This is your captain speaking. Outside the port windows you should see the inhospitable Ilio-Pyri system. The ladders are providing a perfectly nominal 1.60 krakens of movement and we will arrive in our destination system in around five d-"

Jeb's practised speech was interrupted violently as the craft suddenly decelerated, throwing him forwards into the cupola window. "Wernher! Status report!" he shouted.

"We've got a loss of integrity in the left ladder drive," Wernher replied, "so we won't be able to escape Ilio's gravity. Besides, the runaway gravioli reactions will no longer be safely contained within the ladder structure, so-" He stopped abruptly as Val ran past him, dragging him into one of the escape pods. An alarm began to blare and every kerbal aboard the ship was racing to one of the escape pods.

With a nudge from the engines, Val set a course for one of the major atmospheric planets. It was official procedure to land somewhere habitable-looking, or at least landable, and wait for the kerbs back home to come rescue you later.

***

Several weeks later, Gene was sitting outside their slowly expanding underground shelter, fiddling with a homemade radio reciever. Listening to its tinny, whistly signals, his face fell. He wandered back inside and told the four kerbonauts the news. "Looks like the folks back home have declared us "mysteriously missing." We might have to make our own way off this rock."

***

Edited June 28, 2023 by fulgur

[fulgur]

The launch of the Skywards I was a great success. Every Kerbal on Armstrong - all 20 of them - came to watch the tiny rocket, filled with goo and explosions, lift off into the air.

It turns out that one Flea is just about enough to break through the atmosphere. Mortimer Kerman, whose project management expertise meant that he was overseeing the metal-mining and fuel-processing operations on Armstrong, rewarded us with √48000 credits.

However, the ball of pilot-goo we stuffed in a metal sphere was unable to send experiments back to the Armstrong Space Center. Here is expert pilot Valentina Kerman taking the Skywards II science vessel for a short hop of around 100m.

"Excellent piloting, Val!" - Jeb

"Ouch, my face..." - Val

Skywards III launches us further from Armstrong than the colony has ever gone before.

Unfortunately, a lack of steering on the first stage meant we were very far from orbit. [not sure if this could have made orbit in the end - ed]

The piloting goo tries valiantly to keep the ship pointing in the general direction of Space -

but nonetheless, it explodes in the sunny upper atmosphere.

However! Bill has finally remembered how radial decouplers work, and so Skywards IV launches during the total night. A much larger liquid fuel stage allows the piloting goo a little control over its vessel, even if it isn't exactly able to hold a proper heading.

The Goo does manage to keep itself pointing roughly Skywards, and so...

Armstrong orbit achieved! One entirely useless lump of bronze-painted metal is floating proudly around Pyri.

Several experiments are subsequently gathered by our semi-reliable science hopper, pictured here collecting Flying Low measurements for pressure and science Jr.

Mysteriously, the Scientific Committee for Advanced Navigation appear to have agents permeating the known universe as a contract appears on our desk to create maps of Kerbin. The "Oliver I" mapping probe barely squeaks into a fairly low orbit, but in a few weeks it should successfully be able to cover Armstrong's surface.

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

If it will help, I have a hangar full of early-to-mid-game craft on KerbalX. I don't know how well they'll work with Planet Jam 2, but they should be a good start.

https://kerbalx.com/hangars/163740

I also have a fleet of several SSTOs ready for takeoff (that I have you to thank for helping me design, by the way).

[fulgur]

The problem with Armstrong, the new KSC had determined, was that 1.75g and 0.06 bars were not very conducive to returning to the surface. It was fine on the ascent - sure, you needed more thrust and dV, but the thin atmosphere meant that you could just ignore drag. No, what was keeping Bill up at night was his complete lack of design for any return vehicles.

In the hope of discovering something useful, we sent up a Terrier-powered probe, the Skywards VI.

Skywards VI has a fairly difficult time plotting a trajectory which will take it skimming past Desmet, a small but non-inclined moon fairly far out from Armstrong. Val can only hope that the batteries will last long enough with the complex manoeuvres sent over the flight computers - oh, it's a half hour flight from Low Armstrong Orbit to Desmet.

It would take us around 500ms-1 to circulalrise here, but Val's not bothered.

And like clockwork, a mysterious Kerbal from the World's First Record Keeping Society pops up in Mortimer Kerman's office, hands him a stack of worthless credit chips and one official-looking "science point", and subsequently disappears. There's a new certificate hung in one of the VAB offices, too.

We send a similar probe to Buzz, which is highly inclined but in a fairly low orbit. Thanks to our transfer from an equatorial orbit, we spend two minutes in Buzz SoI at around a thousand metres per second of relative velocity. Buzz looks like great fun.

Jeb and Val are getting tired of controlling probes intermittently, when they pass by the KSC dishes, so we send up a series of relays.

A man from RemoteTech pops out of a sattelite phone and hands us several thousand credits.

***

With this money in hand, it's now time for our most audacious mission yet. Our space probes are alright, but they're hardly intelligent; they can't even tell us what our Mystery Goo is doing with any degree of accuracy! A fairly comfortable ship is designed, with hab space and supplies for around 15 days, and there's only one kerbal who we can send on this one-way journey: accomplished scientist and master experimentalist Bob Kerman himself.

"We are go for launch, Temporary Ship. I repeat, we are go for launch." Val's soothing voice came over the intercom as she prepared to launch the vessel, named the Temporary Ship in the hope that the next ship would be far bigger and more comfortable.

"Copy that, KSC" replied Bob. He was thrown back in his seat as the four Thumper engines were lit, pushing hard against Armstrong's 1.75g of force. Just as she had done with the previous space probes - in fact, far more easily with the upgraded HECS core keeping the ship stable - the Temporary Ship was guided smoothly into low Armstrong orbit.

Bob prepared to leave the capsule as it left the dark side of Armstrong, moving round towards the tidally-locked side permanently lit by Pyri. The bright, orange light of Pyri lit up the green-and-black paintwork characteristic of a space station.

Sheltering from Pyri behind the capsule, Bob manages to jot down some clear notes about the appearance of Armstrong's atmosphere and regolith, which will be invaluable in the design of future ascent vehicles.

He also takes a short pass by Buzz, which allows the scientific program to better comment on likely chemical compositions and geological features the tiny moon holds.

With over 200 science points obtained from the trip, it seems like time to return to Desmet...

[Whirligig Girl]

I'm enjoying this playthrough so far. though i would suggest, uh. Planet Jam 2 is really meant to be played with darker, more muted skies. The bright blue nebula prevents the eye from properly adjusting to the orange Pyrishine as it would otherwise have a shot at doing, and generally messes up the whole color balance of the system. This is ultimately just a suggestion, but maybe you could use a subtler skybox like https://spacedock.info/mod/925/Pood's Deep Star Map Skybox  or use a mod like Distant Object Enhancement to darken the skybox when bright planets or stars are visible.

[fulgur]

I have changed the skybox to Pood's Calm Nebula skybox. It will turn up in future screenshots Soon^TM.

Emboldened by the success of the Temporary Ship and desparate to recieve some surface samples from Desmet, the KSC launch "Temporary II," a ship with much more dV than the Temporary I. It soars up through Armstrong's atmosphere, its shiny boosters invented after poring over a cryptic note in one of Bob's orbital studies, which simply read "MOAR". Underlined twice. In red pen.

Temporary 2 coasts to a nominal orbital insertion.

It's rather a shame for Bob to leave the nice, comfy "Temporary I" with its spare habitation space and extra supplies, which have been diminishing at a slightly faster rate than normal. He carefully jetpacks over to the Temporary II.

While burning for Desmet, Bob also tries to keep the fuel balanced. Without the aid of fuel lines, it's quite difficult to keep emptying the external fuel drums and a slight torque is introduced.

"Bill, why hasn't this ship got fuel lines?" There's a slightly static noise over the radio, and Bill replies, "I'm not sure how we used to make them. We'd need to see how materials were affected in deep space. Like in your science kit thingy."

After a half hour watching the latest series on Kerbflix, Bob pulls in to an "orbit" of Desmet. Linus says it's a perfectly valid, Keplerian orbit, but Val thinks that if you can move to escape velocity with an especially big sneeze, it doesn't really count. From personal experience, Bob disagrees with Val; a small sneeze is all you need to escape Desmet.

Landing near the equator, a small sneeze from the engine is required to keep ground contact and ensure that we can run all our experiments "landed at Desmet". Bob plants a flag, gaining 15XP? If he ever makes it back to the surface of Armstrong, he'll be an incredibly effective scientist and a boon to the R&D program. The R&D program whose goal is to leave Armstrong forever.

Planting flags on the steep slopes of Desmet's Highlands. In the dark, as is only right and proper.

Having hit three obvious biomes - Highlands, Lowlands and Equator - a course is plotted back to low orbit of Armstrong. The little experiments box above Bob's head now contains precious tiny samples of different materials' behaviours in deep space, as well as several samples of Desmet' surface.

We also arrange a close flyby of Buzz, grabbing some Goo and Science Jr. experiments from a low flyby.

With the Temporary II back in a fairly low Armstrong orbit of 100km, it is now time to design an Armstrong Return Vehicle for experimental data. Bill and the team spend several days producing a careful design which maximises dV while ensuring that the craft will survive the heat and still have a TWR >1.

It promptly explodes.

So does the next one.

The final version, containing an incredible 7 Sparks in the final stage, does not actually use a heatshield at all, but instead simply annihilates orbital velocity through a 2-stage system.

But, inelegant as it is, it managed a safe splashdown in the seas not too far from the KSC!

It's around this time that we get a call from two stranded Kerbals. It turns out that Samantha and Doald Kerman didn't like the look of Armstrong - quite correctly, as it turns out - and so spent several months floating around in low orbit. Since we'd need one anyway, a new passenger transfer vessel is sent up.

Painted in the only fashionable colour combination I have yet inflicted on my dear readers, the Iggy Pop 1 transfer vessel can take up to three passengers anywhere within the Armstrong system.

Or it can take in passengers from anywhere in the Armstrong system! Samantha Kerman, Scientist takes a good look at the packets of snacks awaiting her.

Later, Bob carefully carries his box of snacks science over to the Iggy Pop. Delicious, Desmetian science.

The Iggy Pop then proceeds to rendezvous with the Armstrong Return - Science Experiments, situated in fairly low orbit.

The procedure for this descent is to "burn very very hard".

As in, "doesn't need a heatshield" hard.

Like that.

Although, preferably not in a mountain range. ["Who plotted this descent?" screamed Gene Kerman, watching the flimsy box of expensive and important experiments come closer and closer to some incredibly steep slopes, half  the planet away from the KSC.]

An eminently successful mission!

We gathered rather a lot of science from this, so I think our next stop may be Armstrong's trojans, Lu and Garner.

Trojans occur at the lagrange points, π/3 ahead or behind the major body. The tracking station says that Armstrong, which is tidally locked to the star Pyri, rotates once every kerbal day (6h). So a transfer to Lu should take 7 hours, and to Garner should take 5 hours (with the opposite times for returns).

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by fulgur

[jimmymcgoochie]

Armstrong Return - Science Experiments is a bit of a long name, could do with an acronym 

[fulgur]

Walt Kerman (Public Relations) has determined it to be a non-acronymable name.

With three Kerbals stuck in orbit, Gene decides that the best thing to do would be to create a more permanent space station for them to inhabit, rather than attempt to bring them back to Armstrong's surface. So Jeb, Val and Bill settle into a very basic space station.

Stronginthearm Station is later joined by Iggy Pop and its passengers. We now have a full space station for 6 kerbals (more if you include the docked vessels) but we don't have any data in the lab.

However, before we select our next target, we need to do some surveys. A very reliable, high dV design is produced and Jeb and Val take it in turns playing with the remote control piloting.

Launch of the "Hector" interplanetary mapping satellite. Upper stages contain around 5,000ms-1 dV.

Valentina makes sure to extend the local omni antennae and point the dish back towards Armstrong.

Approaching Lu.

"Is there something wrong with the ship? She won't move when I - oh, there it is." Val had just discovered the nasty effects of an 0.3s speed-of-light delay.

So the orbital insertion is done by the RemoteTech computer. Bill, who is creating a makeshift dV map, notes down that it takes around 1,200ms-1 to get a Lu intercept and a further 1,200 to capture. That's a total of 2,400 to Lu orbit (with up to 400 for a 0.7deg plane change if necessary).

Similarly, here is a photo of the other Hector outside Garner's SoI. Being so deep in Pyri's gravity well, it has an incredibly small SoI, extending just 40km above the surface. Technically, this is not high enough to get some of my SCANsat readings, although I ended up with maps anyway after I moved back to the space centre.

While the mapping is ongoing, we take another brief trip to Desmet. It turns out there are 3 biomes there we haven't hit yet. Firstly, we send up another Armstrong Return of Science Experiments to dock with the station.

The "Desmeeting" is designed to bring all 5 kerbonauts to Desmet for the first time (except Bob, who has already been). It turns out that sticking a pole in Desmet automagically grants pilots the ability to hold towards manoeuvre nodes with the push of a button, so they do that.

It only takes us half an hour to approach Desmet and, soon after, enter its orbit. However, with such slow orbital velocity, it takes a very long time to land. [Desmeeting has enough fuel for the trip, but not so much that we can burn hard towards our landing spots.]

I believe these to be Desmet's Equators. In this position the gravitational force is less than the required centripetal force and so Desmeeting floats gently off the surface. Jeb cleverly taps the RCS to maintain ground contact and allow surface readings to be taken.

Heading south towards Desmet's Craters.

It's rather scarily dark as scientist Samantha Kerman plants a flag in the Ingress Basins. It appears that something very big smashed a hole into the bottom of Desmet, and in the pitch darkness she can't help but remember the ancient tales of the Deep Space Kraken...

Back to Armstrong! All the science is done, so Jeb runs away from the Kraken very, very fast.

Jeb moves slowly in to dock. With the frequent use of RCS to perform small adjustments around the surface of Desmet, he has to be very careful to ease Desmeeting in towards the station without running out of fuel.

Some of the samples are kept in the laboratory to be analysed in a zero-gravity environment close to that of the surface of Desmet. However, we have two sets of most samples and so they are transferred into the return vessel, which deorbits.

The re-entry goes just as it did the other two times, but Jeb is still holding his breath as he begs the craft to have enough fuel left to land.

Luckily, we do, and this land is much flatter than the mountainous region we landed on last time.

***

We have enough Science! to unlock nuclear engines and some bigger fuel tanks. Next stop: Lu!

 

[fulgur]

"According to our SCANsat mapping equipment, Lu has 'a heck of a lot' of biomes," Gene reports. "It's a technical term," added Linus. "Therefore, we want some infrastructure to explore more thoroughly."

Launch of the "Lucinda" fuel module.

Powered by 4 brand-new nuclear engines, this is very simply a tank of fuel with solar panels attached.

Approaching Lu.A low Lu-nar orbit having been established, Lucinda keeps her fuel tanks in order to refuel the future nuclear powered tug.

Next up, Bill brings out an ancient design for a 3-kerb Mun exploration vessel. It should probably be suited to hopping around Lu.

Valentina is distinctly unhappy about the signal to Lu. Not only is it extremely intermittent, it also has a 0.5 second delay entirely unsuitable to docking spaceships. Eventually...

And finally, the launch of the Lu Interplanetary Transfer and Return Expedition.

It checks in at Stronginthearm Station to pick up Jeb, Samantha and Doald for the first Lu expedition.

Jeb is very excited to collect magnetometer reports from high over Pyri.

Approaching Lu!

It takes a fair bit of dV to capture at Lu (about 1,200ms-1).

However, Jeb siphons the fuel off from the transfer stage, filling LITRE's tanks to 5,000ms-1.

He carefully backs the "Lunder" lander away from the station and takes it down towards the surface.

"Thrust feels a bit low... nothing worrying, but the burn will be a little long."

"Fuel is dropping further than expected..."

Jebediah skilfully brings the Lunder down to the Synpyrian Maria of Lu, but rather unfortunately I underestimated Lu's gravity. It turns out it is around the size of Duna, so I really want about 3,000ms-1 to land, biome hop and ascend.

Everyone is glad to plant the flags and collect the science, but it's a massive shame that we can't explore the rest of Lu's surface with this craft.

Jeb takes us back to orbit, and it's a good thing we didn't go for another biome because there's barely 200ms-1 left to dock.

We very quickly escape Lu, and here it becomes apparent that something is wrong with my piloting today.

The manoeuvre to lower solar periapsis and hit Armstrong is so very long that I am actually still burning as I cross the SoI. At this point, the manoeuvre node resets itself and is completely and utterly wrong. I had this problem once before, when exploring Gilly, and I started burning earlier to compensate; however my last quicksave was on the surface and I couldn't be bothered.

Therefore I was now sat around in deep space with fuel margins.

After an emergency conference with Gene, Linus, Val, and Bob, we manage to plot a course which takes us back to Armstrong. In two days, rather than one, but whatever.

I've decided that LITRE could do with some additional snacks and dV, plus larger RCS, so everyone gets out and we hurl it into the atmosphere.

Goodbye.

Another of my workhorse Armstrong Return - Science Experiments heads up to grab the few samples we got from that expedition.

It makes a nice gentle splashdown just East of the KSC.

Next time, we'll head back to Lu.

The story of Planetstuck will continue! ... in July.

Edited June 15, 2023 by fulgur

[fulgur]

It is not quite July but I am now free!

Following the disappointing performance of the Lunder and LITRE, we launch some shiny new replacements.

LITRE, now with extra fuel tanks, heads over to Stronginthearm Station to pick up Val, Bill and Bob for their trip out.

We all meet up at Lucinda Station. Val manually pilots the Lunder in because 0.3 seconds of signal delay is quite annoying.

A quick and skilful descent brings Val and Bob to Lu's Antipyrian Lowlands.

and the Highlands

and the Slopes

and back up to orbit for a refuel.

We also crash the old Lunder into the surface for seismometer science points.

Val heads back down to the Synpyrian basin

and we hop around various similarly coloured patches of rock in the name of science.

We head back up to Lucinda and get back into LITRE.

Departing...

and arriving.

Another science return box is sent up.

The precious surface samples are sent down to our R&D building.

and arrive "safely" on the surface of Armstrong.

We didn't make enough money to upgrade the R&D building to level 3, so next time we'll scout out a variety of temperature and pressure surveys... above Garner!

[fulgur]

With our expedition to Lu complete, it is time for our next expedition: a mission to the other Trojan, Garner! Instead of being π/3 behind Armstrong, it's π/3 ahead, requiring more dV to reach but less to leave. Also, its gravity and SoI are smaller.

A small container of liquid fuel is sent up to refuel LITRE.

Since we had to mount two expeditions to Lu, each with thousands of m/s dV, we don't have quite as much of a budget for Garner. Therefore, Wernher cooks up an all-in-one vessel which can grab science, refuel itself, and even carry ore back up to LITRE (not difficult with Garner's low gravity). I present: the Gardener in the Light.

LITRE, fully refuelled, heads out again. Val, Bill and Bob head out aboard; we'll need our best engineer to run the experimental mining setup and develop improvements for future missions.

Even with Valentina, a genius pilot with a gift for orbital mechanics, setting up our manoeuvres, it is still near-impossible to circularise efficiently at Garner. This is because we need to (a) make a two-thousand metre per second retrograde burn and (b) do it in a SoI spanning 45km above the surface.

However, Gardener in the Light has some spare fuel and so manages to return to low Garner orbit.

Starting the burn a lot earlier, LITRE's high dV allows it to circularise in a single burn, and head over to the Gardener.

Bob heads out of the capsule and looks at some random bits of goo he fished out of the sewer. Oh no... is that an external seat?

Val and Bill get to sit inside the cabin while Bob sits outside staring at the Science Jr.

Garner's surface is quite bumpy and high. Pictured: Val passes over the surface, at orbital velocity (200m/s).

The first landing is in the half-night of the Ilio stars.

Everyone has fun wandering around in the low gravity. Also, we set up the deployed science experiments.

We have enough fuel for about 3 landings, making our third with 100m/s to spare. Landing on the sunny slopes of Garner, Bill activates the drills and watches as ore flows into the tanks.

We hit all the biomes. It's fairly boring.

Ascending back to orbit with a full tank of ore.

We are able to refuel about 1/5 of LITRE's tanks with one flight. We then cheat our way to full fuel tanks repeat the missions to the surface and back.

Leaving Garner is also annoying as it's impossible to complete the burn while in the SoI of Garner. Upon exiting, the manoeuvre resets to 0% complete, and is now pointing somewhere completely different.

This is one of my favourite KSP photos.

The crew return to Stronginthearm Station in triumph!

Heading down quite close to KSC Island.

With quite a lot of science and cash having been earned, we are now ready to upgrade the R&D building and build some really big rockets.
Next time: building some really big rockets.

[fulgur]

I have designed a really big rocket.

Someone wanted a satellite to crash into Desmet, and they paid us √500,000 to do so. We have no idea where these contracts are coming from or what all these square roots mean, but they make Mortimer seem very happy as he putters around his rebuilt finance offices.

Back to the Really Big Rocket. It has a Really Big Payload.

Like so.

The Cerulean-class Space Tug is the forwards section with the six nuclear engines and the massive antenna. The middle section is an empty fuel tank, and the final section is the "Desminer" mining rig. Mission profile: visit Desmet and mine some ore.

Thrust to weight ratio is a little bit low.

But not for the potato "moon" Desmet! We land the entire thing on its tail and start mining.

Back at Armstrong Station, Jebediah is itching for his next assignment. He, Samantha and Doald all climb into the LITRE.

As an afterthought, he quickly docks Iggy Pop 1 to the front of LITRE. It's always useful to have more fully fuelled ships.

"What are you doing, Jeb? I thought I told you to wait in orbit!"
"Quit worrying, Gene! Gravity's so low here I'm almost on an escape trajectory!"

"Hey, Gene? Are we going to have more than one of these space tugs?"
"We've got more than one design, but yes, we need to carry quite a lot of hardware around the system for cheap."
"In which case, we need some names. I christen this one the Duchess of Desmet!"

A lot of World Firsts from this mission. We're creeping towards profit!

Undocking and re-docking, mere metres above the surface. Jebediah now holds the record for lowest-altitude docking (not one that Val intends to break...)

All the ships get fully fuelled. Duchess has about 10,000m/s with that fuel tank attached!

Iggy Pop stays put in Desmet orbit, while the Duchess of Desmet and LITRE head down to a 500km parking orbit.

Next time, we're going to head over to Haut-Oklo, our first major interplanetary mission! I haven't peeked at the actual appearance of the planet, but I understand that it's got moderate gravity, high atmospheric pressure and a slightly warm surface. If anyone has any ideas about what I should send there, I'll gladly listen.
... Transfer Window Planner tells me it will take 7000m/s to go from Armstrong to Haut-Oklo. LITRE can head there one-way, and even the Duchess can't actually make the round trip. (That's why she's so big... I want her to carry mining equipment, and I want the mining equipment to have 2500-3000m/s sea level dV on Haut-Oklo).

Edited June 27, 2023 by fulgur

[jimmymcgoochie]

That’s the first time I’ve seen what this planet pack looks like in map view… So many overlapping orbits!

[fulgur]

There are a lot of tiny asteroids which I am not going to visit because (a) I don't like visiting tiny lumps of airless rock (b) they have tiny SoIs and (c) Transfer Window Planner says they will take a total of 10¹²m/s to orbit. No, seriously:

***

Following the highly successful mission to test refuelling at Desmet, we have developed a mission architecture for Haut-Oklo. It takes about 7000m/s each way to visit, and unfortunately we don't have any ships with 14,000m/s dV. But LITRE and the Duchess of Desmet both have enough fuel for a one-way trip.

First up we have a disposable fuel tank, plus a long girder section. To the  girder we have radially attached 3 probes, the Spacebat electric helicopter, and a counterweight made of liquid fuel.

Next, we have the Orthoklase shuttle/lander. Haut-Oklo's 0.7 atmospheres means that I'm relying on wings to head for good ore spots and flat areas of land.

This mission will be easier with 2 pilots, especially because RemoteTech, so Val heads out of Armstrong Station on Orthoklase.

There's still a little fuel left in those Rhinos, which we'll be using. Val vents almost all the oxidant from Orthoklase in order to increase Duchess' dV.

Firstly, LITRE leaves for Haut-Oklo...

and a day later, and much slower, Val takes the Duchess through an incredibly slow series of periapsis kicks.

The disposable fuel tank is emptied and disposed of.

One day later...

"It's beautiful!" whispered Jeb, staring out of the window. Samantha was busying herself with compiling reports from the magnetometer scans; after the crash on Armstrong they had lost quite a few computer systems and so the numbers she was staring at were in .csv format. "Oh dear," she said eventually, "it looks a little more radioactive than expected."
"But we were expecting quite a lot of radiation," said Jeb worriedly.
"Yes, but this is more."

I don't think we'll be staying at Haut-Oklo.

Valentina brings the Duchess into a somewhat inclined orbit, in order to launch the polar satellites.

We begin to scan the surface of Haut-Oklo with extensive spectroscopic instrumentation. It turns out, if we need any number of nuclear reactors, Haut-Oklo could fuel them for millenia.

Valentina lowers and equatorialises Duchess' orbit for a meeting with LITRE.

and we prepare to head down through Haut-Oklo's atmosphere.

Edited June 28, 2023 by fulgur

[fulgur]

After a little bit of orbital rearrangement, Valentina and Samantha climb into the cockpit of the Spacebat helicopter, while Jeb and Doald stay in the Orthoklase mining shuttle.
"Take us down, Jeb!" cries Valentina, and the six Aerospikes ignite, pushing the assemblage onto a suborbital trajectory. With glee, Jeb pushed the STAGE button and the ship broke apart. He pulled the Orthoklase round and returned to low orbit.

Val lit up the two Terrier engines and pushed the Spacebat, and its delicate rotorblades, away from the empty and likely explosive fuel tank.

The Spacebat experiences gentle flames licking over its fuselage as Valentina carefully controls the angle of attack, making sure this first aerobraking pass will bring us down near a nice, sunny, ore-filled spot. - "Was that the airlock?"

Intrepid scientist Samantha Kerman slips out of the airlock to grab an EVA report and reset the scientific instruments - but she loses hold of the ladders! With vast quantities of grim determination and jetpack fuel, she manages to claw her way back into the cabin.

Back on the day-side of Haut Oklo, Valentina pushes the Spacebat into a dive, heading down towards the rugged surface.

For something as odd-looking as the Spacebat, it flies very well. Samantha pores over the mapping readouts and instructs Valentina down towards a large, flat area where she thinks the Orthoklase could land.

Jeb takes a more direct route towards the landing site. The Orthoklase handles quite well in the lower atmosphere, despite its small wing area. Sort of like if you attached a paper aeroplane to a small brick. But only a small one.

Anyway, Orthoklase makes a gentle landing quite near Valentina's marker. All the Kerbals get out and enjoy the feeling of radiation warming up their feet.

Val and Doald wander over to the Orthoklase and get the mining set up.

While Jeb and Samantha head down to the sea to grab some splashed-down science!

With the dorsal rotors, the Spacebat lands in the water as gently as a non-space bat lands on a branch.
Samantha gets out and grabs some samples of what appears to be a supersaturated solution of polonium salts. It starts to crystallise slowly around the grips in her feet.

It appears something in the water is disturbed.

"What's that?" asks Jeb as the light becomes slightly greener.

"What?" asks Samantha, looking into the sky. She misses the mysterious entity diving back into the radioactive seas.

Meanwhile, Val manages to get the Orthoklase airborne, a thing it really does not want to do.

But as soon as it is, the shuttle cruises easily to orbit and meets up with the Duchess, carrying a full load of ore.

And it docks straight to the fuel tank. Ore begins to flow through the convert-o-tron and fuel splashes into the empty tank. Now Val just has to [Alt]+[F12] infinite propellant and watch fuel appear out of nothing repeat the trip about a hundred times.

Meanwhile Jeb flies around some highlands and also some lowlands.

It's extraordinarily relaxing to float between brown-green hills and a pale blue sky. Jeb's missed Kerbin.

He's also missed swimming, although the colour of this water appears a little unhealthy. He's glad for the lead coating on the underside of the Spacebat.

Haut-Oklo is an incredibly beautiful planet and it's a shame we're not coming back here.

It looks so habitable in the morning sun.

Meanwhile, having taken the last trip up to orbit, Val heads down for the final time.

She finds a nice flat spot on the equator, and lets the Spacebat come to them.

Bye-bye Spacebat! You were an exceptional helicopter.

Jeb and Samantha take the LITRE away from this cursed and radioactive holiday resort.

while Val and Doald take the Duchess.

Duchess is quite heavy, so the burn lasts a while.

Soon after, we arrive back at Armstrong.

as does the Duchess.

The Armstrong Return of Science Experiments comes through again, delivering a nice box of radiation straight to Mission Control.

and finally, Val takes Duchess back to its waiting miner and refuels, ready for the next mission.

 

Sorry for not updating for a while - life has been a bit much. Sorry for not updating in the near future - uni will be a bit much.
Next stop will probably be Bifrost, a very large gas giant with 6 moons. Any ideas for payloads? They will probably be delivered by the Duchess or a sister ship of the same design.

Edited September 4, 2023 by fulgur