Freedom - A Kerbalized Assembly of Space Station Freedom

[TwoCalories]

38 minutes ago, Toaster355 said:

Hello again, Kerbonauts! No final Freedom mission just yet sadly.

Sorry for the lack of anything, I've been grieving the loss of my cat, watching my sister perform in her marching band at jazz concerts and football games, dealing with Scatterer which is refusing to work in my KSRSS install  (which I still have zero clue as to why), and some other stuff.

But what I have done is KSP, however, is toying around with @blackrack's volumetric clouds (which, currently, you unfortunately must pay 5.37$ American dollars for on his Patreon) in a stock-ish install, and... just let the screenies speak for themselves.

 

Atmospheric flight with a MiG-21 inspired plane I threw together:

  Hide contents

Very, very fast.

Perhaps a bit too fast?

The intake was about to overheat, so I tried pulling hard to slow the thing down like an idiot so the wing popped off.

I tried regaining control so I could land the thing back at the KSC, but the plane refused and was nosediving so poor Jeb had to eject.

Orbital flight with my Ares 1 and custom Orion:

 

  Hide contents

High antialiasing creates weird flashing lights at the KSC for an unknown reason, so I apologize for them in the shot ^

I don't even have any words for these clouds, I am going to try using them in all missions from now on!!! Worth every penny.

Thank you all for being patient, I will fix the Scatterer issue and finish this thread Soon™

Wait, Freedom is almost finished?

Also, what sunflare mod is that? It looks amazing!

Edited October 8, 2023 by TwoCalories
Page 3!

[Toaster355]

On 10/7/2023 at 7:44 PM, TwoCalories said:

Wait, Freedom is almost finished?

Also, what sunflare mod is that? It looks amazing!

Yeah... Endeavor and Columbia will have her their final flights soon to finish Freedom for now, and then I will start a new thread before/right after it.
I will not be finished making threads like these; I have only just started!

Thanks! I believe it's from BetterKerbol.

EDIT: Nope, it's Spectra's sunflare.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Toaster355
Do I really need to give one?

[Ultim32]

19 hours ago, Toaster355 said:

Yeah... Atlantis will have her final flight next mission to finish Freedom for now, and then I will start a new thread before/right after it.
I will not be finished making threads like these; I have only just started!

Thanks! I believe it's from BetterKerbol.

Wait, I thought Atlantis went swimming for too long and was too damaged to fly?

[Toaster355]

27 minutes ago, Ultim32 said:

Wait, I thought Atlantis went swimming for too long and was too damaged to fly?

Shoot!!! I did not mean to type Atlantis; I was going to type Columbia and Endeavor, but while I was making the post I accidently typed out Atlantis instead because I was listening to this at the same time (I love this channel so much, go sub to them):

 

The post has been fixed.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Toaster355

[TwoCalories]

Anything?

[Toaster355]

57 minutes ago, TwoCalories said:

Anything?

Patience... you will soon see why it has taken so long.

I will (hopefully) finish today!

[Toaster355]

Goodbye, 'Deavor.

January 6th, 2011 | STS-132

5 days after watching the Jupiter-120-X test flight on New Years Day, Endeavor prepares for her final Endeavor.

____________________

Crew:

 Commander Carbert Kline
Pilot Neilbald Baker
EVA Specialist Calbart Campbell
Flight Engineer Jesdas Dunn
Payload Commander Digee Gavino
Scientist Kirk Rogers

____________________

 

Endeavor waits on her mobile launcher at Launch Complex-39B, awaiting the launch window tonight. The Shuttles have only been allowed to launch downrange into water, so no SRBs are dropped on mainland US, and the only window for that is tonight.

T-08:12:37 | The crew pose in front of the Shuttle stack. They will soon become the final Kerbals in history to ride on Endeavor.

After Sol goes to sleep, preparations for liftoff are well underway.

T-00:00:23 | The Intertank Access, Crew Access, and LOX Vent arms all retract.

T-00:00:10 | The Hydrogen Burnoff Ignitors are lit, igniting excess hydrogen to keep the orbiter safe.

T-00:00:06 | the 3 RM-69s (formally referred to as RS-25s, but will from now on be known as RM-69s) are lit.

The 6 Kerbals look out the windows of the Orbiter, into the infinite void of blackness they will soon dwell in.
They brace theirselves for the violent sound, vibrations, and gees they are about to hear and feel.

"T-0:00:00 | "Booster ignition and LIFTOFF! Liftoff of Endeavor for the final time, nourishing the orbital station she helped put together."

T+00:00:11 | Footage from the EFT Hullcam, looking down at the coast.

T+00:01:06 | "And we confirm the Solid Rocket Boosters have separated from the vehicle."

(The Navcam was placed between the 4 jettison motors of the SRBs. Nobody really anticipated that the image would look terrible like this.)

The EFT Hullcam looks back at Florida, illuminated by many city lights.

Endeavor continues riding into space. Andromeda watches the launch about 685.7 thousand light-years away.

T+00:04:38 | "And we have reached Main Engine Cutoff."

T+00:04:48 | Endeavor stays attached to the External Tank for about 10 seconds, before it is finally jettisoned.

Luna also watches the final launch of Endeavor, only about 0.35 light-seconds from Earth.

Upon reaching daylight, Endeavor deploys her payload bay, along with something never seen on a shuttle before:

A solar panel!

The solar array generates the large amount of power needed to keeps the snacks cold until docked; the Orbiter's fuel cells are not enough.

And to avoid confusion, I imagine snacks are the Kerbal equivalent of food, I will call it that from now on.

Endeavor burns to correct her inclination.

Endeavor makes another burn; this time to intercept Freedom.

Upon approaching the Freedom, the solar panel will be ditched, as the giant solar panels on the station will keep the snacks cool. The batteries and fuel cells in the orbiter will keep the snacks cold, but for only for the next couple of minutes. Once docked, power will then be shared with the station.

Endeavor pitches over, using her Reaction Control System.

Jesdas: "Control, we confirm a good jettison! Running purely off Endeavor's 3 on-board fuel cells now.

Sorry for not turning on the lights for this shot ^
Jesdas: "Soft capture confirmed. Pulling her in now."

Jesdas: "Hard capture confirmed! Great to be home again."

The Trusscams point at the Orbiter's payload, illuminating and keeping an eye on it as Cupola-1 opens.
Renaming it to something that isn't Cupola-1 would be a good idea, right?

(I really wanted ALL the extras, but they broke my game when I tried installing them and nobody has given me a fix yet.)
Snack transferring begins!

(^ I apologize for bad antialiasing here; there's a weird bug that after every scene switch, it looks like anti-aliasing is automatically reduced to none. I have to manually change it back to 8x every time, and can sometimes forget or not notice it.)

Spoiler

Decals on Erikson! Should have put them on before they were even launched.

Also on this side, though they are generally harder to see.

Kibo has a couple decals too, though smaller.

The decals on Fortune and Providence have been updated to the new NASA logo, too!

Endeavor will stay in orbit for 6 months, as it always has when visiting Freedom.

_________________________
 

Over the vast emptiness of Russia(?), Endeavor and the crew prepare to return to the Cape.

Cupolas close up, to keep the windows from being scratched and damaged by micrometeorites.

Jesdas: "Undocking confirmed. See you soon, Freedom."

Endeavor slows down with her RCS to bring the perigee down into the atmosphere.

Her OMS fuel had been drained before it got to the station, because I was an idiot and was too busy taking screenshots of the launch so my inclination was very far off when the burn was finished as they heavy payload demanded it. Though the External Tank had plenty of fuel left, it was not used, as debris that large is banned from orbiting Earth. This is a tradition Kerbals have had since they first set foot out into the universe; to keep space pristine. Smaller objects like the solar panel are okay to leave in orbit. Anything larger than 10 meters is not.

This rung some alarm bells for Kerbals, as the last time an orbiter ran out of fuel, it was lost. But the remaining RCS fuel is more than enough to slow into the atmosphere, and they had undocked at a safe time. They could even head back to Freedom if they needed to, but that will hopefully not be necessary.

Right?

Endeavor hits the first traces of the atmosphere high above the Great Lakes in Canada.

She routinely loses communication, and continues heading down the "Neon Tube" to the home planet of the crew below.

As the orbiter is nearly slowed down enough for communication, her inclination had been corrected via aerobraking. The Orbiter then attempts to rotate her nose back up to avoid veering off to the west any further.

But as she tries...

 

 

 

Gene: "ENDEAVOR ?!?! ENDEAVOR, DO YOU COPY?!?!"

The radios continue reading static.

 

 

_______________________

Carbart: "Houston? Houston, do you read?"

The mission control room in Houston erupts into a brief cheer; the crew was alive, for now.

Gene: "Roger Endeavor, we copy! Now what on Earth happened up there!?"
Carbart: "It seems that an FCS computer for one of the elevons failed."
Gene: "Copy that. Now get the F out of there as soon as you can!!"

The Mid-Fuselage creaks and bends before finally breaking lose from the Forward-Fuselage.

 

Endeavor, or, what's left of it, continues to tumble through the thick atmosphere of Earth. Carbert manually uses the remaining RCS to slow the shuttle's rotation.

As Endeavor plunges through the atmosphere, Carbert and Neilbald pull the handles on their seats to eject about 4 kilometers above the surface.

The seats in the shuttle flightdeck are F-16C ejection seats, modified for spaceflight.

They eject in synchronization, with an intentional 0.25 second delay.

Calbart and Tedlas eject 0.5 seconds after Neil does.

However, there are 2 crew on the middeck who do not have an ejection seat; Kirk and Digee.

The Forward Fuselage plunges toward the surface. Digee is free from her seat first, where she then desperately tries to free Kirk.

She lets Kirk leave first, where he bails out only half a kilometer above the surface.
He desperately waits to see her leave and open her chute too.

Only to see...

...Her chute did not open in time.

 

 

_______________________________

 

 

 

 

 

In loving memory of Digee Gavino.

She gave her life to save Kirk.

The space program will ensure her sacrifice was not in vain.

____________________

 

Shortly after an investigation was started, it was quick to tell what went wrong.
One of the FCS computers, flight computers, in the shuttle had failed, so instead of obeying it's command, it violently rotated up, causing the entire shuttle to completely lose control.
This was due to poor maintenance on the shuttle, continuing to earn refurbishable spacecraft n already bad reputation.

 

This, as you could have imagined, has left the Shuttle program in shambles. Only 3 missions after Atlantis's ill fated final flight, another orbiter had been lost, let alone the life of a Kerbal.
The program has been long, expensive, and unsafe since it's very first flight in 1985. It no joke when engineers say it was a miracle that no Shuttles had been lost until STS-126.

Not only is the shuttle stack itself unsafe, but the crew are very much in danger too. There is no abort system, other than the ejection seats on the flightdeck. The 2 astronauts on the middeck have none, and must climb their way out. Crew cannot bail out until they are under 6 kilometers, or under 100 meters per second. This is partially due to fears that the suits would be ripped apart be the aerodynamic forces.
F-16C pilots IRL can somewhat-safely eject over 686 meters-per-second, but that's because there is much more room for the seat to fly out. Because of the large walls around the crew, there were fears that the crew would hit them on the way out. The crew on the middeck would have more ease bailing out on a lower altitude and speed.

 

 

As a result of all this,

The Shuttle Program has been cancelled.

 

____________________

 

For 26 years, from 1985 to 2011, the Space Shuttle was THE spacecraft of the world; an extremely iconic spacecraft, taking hundreds of people and payloads into Low Earth Orbit and beyond.

Spoiler

^ I attempted to loosly base this off of this iconic image from STS-1:

However, the Space Shuttle's legacy will live on, in a new program...

 

 

 

____________________

 

If you wish, you can enjoy some bonuses.

Do NOT read, unless you have finished reading everything else and are willing to have some things ruined!

 

Skybox:

Spoiler

I had to do a lot of manual skybox dimming...

Heres the AVP skybox at full brightness, no TUFX:

And with my modern TUFX profile:

Yeah... it's really bright.

 

Post-Death

Spoiler

Kirk lands in the plains below, briefly unable to move after the shock of watching a crewmate die right before his eyes.

The rest of the crew land about 2 kilometers within each other.

Attempting to ignore the tragic event that just happened, commander Carbert takes in the beauty of the remote field in South Carolina(?).

As the crew regroup, they had to carry Kirk over to a larger clearing with them, still unable to move.

 

 

American Flag on the Orbiter

Spoiler

Even though I tried mirroring the flag, it is not persistent. There is a bug in the stock flag decals that does not allow you to have flags in mirror symmetry and then have them mirrored.
So, sorry for the flag pointing forward instead of backward like this.

 

 

____________________

 

 

____________________

 

 

____________________

 

 

 

Wow, what a post! I hope it was worth the wait!
I'm trying a new style; everything is centered, there is no longer a huge spoiler with the entire mission in it, and there were many, many screenshots in portrait. Heavily inspired by @AmateurAstronaut1969 and @Jacktical's Artemis thread; I hope you liked it! And if you want, if it's too much of a pain to scroll, I can keep them in huge spoilers. But when it's in a spoiler, pics look slightly smaller and everything is in an ugly gray background, and I don't like that. There may also be many minor mistakes, as it is getting late and I have been eager to release this for several days.

It's gonna be pretty sad seeing the Shuttle finally go. But don't worry too much; I have some bonus missions planned for the shuttle. You can still look forward to those if you are gonna miss the Shuttle!

And Kerbonauts; thank you for liking posts, leaving comments, and giving me support.

Goodnight.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Toaster355
Grammatical errors, typos, among other changes.

[TwoCalories]

13 minutes ago, Toaster355 said:

In loving memory of Digee Gavino.

She gave her life to save Kirk.

The space program will ensure her sacrifice was not in vain.

Digee... no... 

A sad but lovely ending to this amazing report. Looking forward to what comes next with the Jupiter Direct program!

Edited October 23, 2023 by TwoCalories

[Kerbalsaurus]

19 hours ago, Toaster355 said:

Goodbye, 'Deavor.

January 6th, 2011 | STS-132

5 days after watching the Jupiter-120-X test flight on New Years Day, Endeavor prepares for her final Endeavor.

____________________

Crew:

 Commander Carbert Kline
Pilot Neilbald Baker
EVA Specialist Calbart Campbell
Flight Engineer Jesdas Dunn
Payload Commander Digee Gavino
Scientist Kirk Rogers

____________________

 

Endeavor waits on her mobile launcher at Launch Complex-39B, awaiting the launch window tonight. The Shuttles have only been allowed to launch downrange into water, so no SRBs are dropped on mainland US, and the only window for that is tonight.

T-08:12:37 | The crew pose in front of the Shuttle stack. They will soon become the final Kerbals in history to ride on Endeavor.

After Sol goes to sleep, preparations for liftoff are well underway.

T-00:00:23 | The Intertank Access, Crew Access, and LOX Vent arms all retract.

T-00:00:10 | The Hydrogen Burnoff Ignitors are lit, igniting excess hydrogen to keep the orbiter safe.

T-00:00:06 | the 3 RM-69s (formally referred to as RS-25s, but will from now on be known as RM-69s) are lit.

The 6 Kerbals look out the windows of the Orbiter, into the infinite void of blackness they will soon dwell in.
They brace theirselves for the violent sound, vibrations, and gees they are about to hear and feel.

"T-0:00:00 | "Booster ignition and LIFTOFF! Liftoff of Endeavor for the final time, nourishing the orbital station she helped put together."

T+00:00:11 | Footage from the EFT Hullcam, looking down at the coast.

T+00:01:06 | "And we confirm the Solid Rocket Boosters have separated from the vehicle."

(The Navcam was placed between the 4 jettison motors of the SRBs. Nobody really anticipated that the image would look terrible like this.)

The EFT Hullcam looks back at Florida, illuminated by many city lights.

Endeavor continues riding into space. Andromeda watches the launch about 685.7 thousand light-years away.

T+00:04:38 | "And we have reached Main Engine Cutoff."

T+00:04:48 | Endeavor stays attached to the External Tank for about 10 seconds, before it is finally jettisoned.

Luna also watches the final launch of Endeavor, only about 0.35 light-seconds from Earth.

Upon reaching daylight, Endeavor deploys her payload bay, along with something never seen on a shuttle before:

A solar panel!

The solar array generates the large amount of power needed to keeps the snacks cold until docked; the Orbiter's fuel cells are not enough.

And to avoid confusion, I imagine snacks are the Kerbal equivalent of food, I will call it that from now on.

Endeavor burns to correct her inclination.

Endeavor makes another burn; this time to intercept Freedom.

Upon approaching the Freedom, the solar panel will be ditched, as the giant solar panels on the station will keep the snacks cool. The batteries and fuel cells in the orbiter will keep the snacks cold, but for only for the next couple of minutes. Once docked, power will then be shared with the station.

Endeavor pitches over, using her Reaction Control System.

Jesdas: "Control, we confirm a good jettison! Running purely off Endeavor's 3 on-board fuel cells now.

Sorry for not turning on the lights for this shot ^
Jesdas: "Soft capture confirmed. Pulling her in now."

Jesdas: "Hard capture confirmed! Great to be home again."

The Trusscams point at the Orbiter's payload, illuminating and keeping an eye on it as Cupola-1 opens.
Renaming it to something that isn't Cupola-1 would be a good idea, right?

(I really wanted ALL the extras, but they broke my game when I tried installing them and nobody has given me a fix yet.)
Snack transferring begins!

(^ I apologize for bad antialiasing here; there's a weird bug that after every scene switch, it looks like anti-aliasing is automatically reduced to none. I have to manually change it back to 8x every time, and can sometimes forget or not notice it.)

  Reveal hidden contents

Decals on Erikson! Should have put them on before they were even launched.

Also on this side, though they are generally harder to see.

Kibo has a couple decals too, though smaller.

The decals on Fortune and Providence have been updated to the new NASA logo, too!

Endeavor will stay in orbit for 6 months, as it always has when visiting Freedom.

_________________________
 

Over the vast emptiness of Russia(?), Endeavor and the crew prepare to return to the Cape.

Cupolas close up, to keep the windows from being scratched and damaged by micrometeorites.

Jesdas: "Undocking confirmed. See you soon, Freedom."

Endeavor slows down with her RCS to bring the perigee down into the atmosphere.

Her OMS fuel had been drained before it got to the station, because I was an idiot and was too busy taking screenshots of the launch so my inclination was very far off when the burn was finished as they heavy payload demanded it. Though the External Tank had plenty of fuel left, it was not used, as debris that large is banned from orbiting Earth. This is a tradition Kerbals have had since they first set foot out into the universe; to keep space pristine. Smaller objects like the solar panel are okay to leave in orbit. Anything larger than 10 meters is not.

This rung some alarm bells for Kerbals, as the last time an orbiter ran out of fuel, it was lost. But the remaining RCS fuel is more than enough to slow into the atmosphere, and they had undocked at a safe time. They could even head back to Freedom if they needed to, but that will hopefully not be necessary.

Right?

Endeavor hits the first traces of the atmosphere high above the Great Lakes in Canada.

She routinely loses communication, and continues heading down the "Neon Tube" to the home planet of the crew below.

As the orbiter is nearly slowed down enough for communication, her inclination had been corrected via aerobraking. The Orbiter then attempts to rotate her nose back up to avoid veering off to the west any further.

But as she tries...

 

 

 

Gene: "ENDEAVOR ?!?! ENDEAVOR, DO YOU COPY?!?!"

The radios continue reading static.

 

 

_______________________

Carbart: "Houston? Houston, do you read?"

The mission control room in Houston erupts into a brief cheer; the crew was alive, for now.

Gene: "Roger Endeavor, we copy! Now what on Earth happened up there!?"
Carbart: "It seems that an FCS computer for one of the elevons failed."
Gene: "Copy that. Now get the F out of there as soon as you can!!"

The Mid-Fuselage creaks and bends before finally breaking lose from the Forward-Fuselage.

 

Endeavor, or, what's left of it, continues to tumble through the thick atmosphere of Earth. Carbert manually uses the remaining RCS to slow the shuttle's rotation.

As Endeavor plunges through the atmosphere, Carbert and Neilbald pull the handles on their seats to eject about 4 kilometers above the surface.

The seats in the shuttle flightdeck are F-16C ejection seats, modified for spaceflight.

They eject in synchronization, with an intentional 0.25 second delay.

Calbart and Tedlas eject 0.5 seconds after Neil does.

However, there are 2 crew on the middeck who do not have an ejection seat; Kirk and Digee.

The Forward Fuselage plunges toward the surface. Digee is free from her seat first, where she then desperately tries to free Kirk.

She lets Kirk leave first, where he bails out only half a kilometer above the surface.
He desperately waits to see her leave and open her chute too.

Only to see...

...Her chute did not open in time.

 

 

_______________________________

 

 

 

 

 

In loving memory of Digee Gavino.

She gave her life to save Kirk.

The space program will ensure her sacrifice was not in vain.

____________________

 

Shortly after an investigation was started, it was quick to tell what went wrong.
One of the FCS computers, flight computers, in the shuttle had failed, so instead of obeying it's command, it violently rotated up, causing the entire shuttle to completely lose control.
This was due to poor maintenance on the shuttle, continuing to earn refurbishable spacecraft n already bad reputation.

 

This, as you could have imagined, has left the shuttle program in shambles. Only 3 missions after Atlantis' s ill fated flight, another orbiter had been lost, let alone the life of a Kerbal. The shuttle program has been long, expensive, and unsafe since it's very first flight in 1985. It no joke when engineers say it was a miracle that no Shuttles had been lost until STS-126.

Not only is the shuttle stack itself unsafe, but the crew are very much in danger too. There is no abort system, other than the ejection seats on the flightdeck. The 2 astronauts on the middeck have none, and must climb their way out. Crew cannot bail out until they are under 10 kilometers, or under 43 meters per second.
F-16C pilots IRL can somewhat-safely eject over 686 meters-per-second, but that's because there is much more room for the seat to fly out. Because of the large walls around the crew, there were fears that the crew would hit them on the way out. The crew on the middeck would have more ease bailing out on a lower altitude and speed. There were fears the suits would also be ripped apart be the aerodynamic forces.

 

 

As a result of all this,

The Shuttle Program has been cancelled.

____________________
 

For 26 years, from 1985 to 2011, the Space Shuttle was THE spacecraft of the world; an extremely iconic spacecraft, taking hundreds of people and payloads into Low Earth Orbit and beyond.

  Reveal hidden contents

^ I attempted to loosly base this off of this iconic image from STS-1:

However, the Space Shuttle's legacy will live on, in a new program.

 

 

____________________
 

If you wish, you can enjoy some bonuses.

Do NOT read, unless you have finished reading everything else and are willing to have some things ruined!

 

Skybox:

  Reveal hidden contents

I had to do a lot of manual skybox dimming...

Heres the AVP skybox at full brightness, no TUFX:

And with my modern TUFX profile:

Yeah... it's really bright.

 

Post-Death

  Reveal hidden contents

Kirk lands in the plains below, briefly unable to move after the shock of watching a crewmate die right before his eyes.

More crew land about 2 kilometers within each other.

Attempting to ignore the tragic event that just happened, commander Carbert takes in the beauty of the remote field in South Carolina(?).

As the crew regroup, they had to carry Kirk over to a larger clearing with them. He was still in shock.

 

 

American Flag on the Orbiter

  Reveal hidden contents

Even though I tried mirroring the flag, it is not persistant. There is abug in the stock flag decals that does not allow you to have 2 flags in mirror symmetry and then mirror them.
Sorry for the flag looking like this.

 

____________________

 

____________________

 

____________________

 

 

Wow, what a post! I hope it was worth the wait!
I'm trying a new style; everything is centered, there was no huge spoiler with the entire mission in it, and there were many, many screenshots in portrait. Heavily inspired by @AmateurAstronaut1969 and @Jacktical's Artemis thread; I hope you liked it! If you want, if it's too much of a pain to scroll, I can keep them in huge spoilers. But when it's in a spoiler, pics look slightly smaller and everything is in an ugly gray background, and I don't like that. There may also be many minor mistakes, as it is getting late and I have been eager to release this for several days.

It's gonna be pretty sad seeing the Shuttle finally go. But don't worry too much; I have some bonus missions planned for the shuttle. You can still look forward to those if you are gonna miss the Shuttle!

And Kerbonauts; thank you for liking, leaving comments on the thread, and giving me support.

Goodnight.

I'm sad to see this thread go, as well as Endeavor (it's my favorite shuttle) and Digee. But this was awesome thread, and I look forward to see what you do with the Jupiter DIRECT!

Edited October 23, 2023 by Kerbalsaurus
i cant spel

[Ultim32]

R.I.P. Digee, you will not be forgotten. I am also sad to see this end, but I can't wait to see what happens in the DIRECT missions! I am also a fan of the DIRECT proposal.

Spoiler

Is it wrong to put the world's smallest violin in here?

 

[Toaster355]

20 hours ago, TwoCalories said:

Digee... no... 

A sad but lovely ending to this amazing report. Looking forward to what comes next with the Jupiter Direct program!

Thanks man, me too!

 

1 hour ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

I'm sad to see this thread go, as well as Endeavor (it's my favorite shuttle) and Digee. But this was awesome thread, and I look forward to see what you do with the Jupiter DIRECT!

Me too, I'm going to miss the Shuttle. I can't wait to continue working too!

 

37 minutes ago, Ultim32 said:

R.I.P. Digee, you will not be forgotten. I am also sad to see this end, but I can't wait to see what happens in the DIRECT missions! I am also a fan of the DIRECT proposal.

Yeah, I'm going to miss her too. Even though she never got any character development and never grew too close to any of us, there's still a great sense of loss and sorrow when losing a Kerbal (unless you are Danny2462, lmao).

Sweet, another DIRECT appreciator!!! You will (hopefully) not be disappointed; I've got some great things planned. 

Spoiler

  Reveal hidden contents

Is it wrong to put the world's smallest violin in here?

Um, sure!...

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Toaster355

[Kerbalsaurus]

Congrats on TOTM, @Toaster355!

[Toaster355]

4 hours ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

Congrats on TOTM, @Toaster355!

Thanks a ton man!! And once again, I love the festive PFP 

[Toaster355]

THANK YOU ALL FOR TOTM!!!

WOW! It's only been several months, and I was nominated for TOTM by all of you! Truly, thank you for nominating me and even just enjoying my work here!

And since school is ending for me, I will be much less busy; you can expect more posts more often!

____________________

 

June 6th, 2013

Ares 5 | Uncrewed Freedom Docking

Payload:

Orion 004
ATV-1

____________________

 

This mission will be a quick one; this Jupiter-130 is carrying the first Orion to dock with Freedom, and a surprise payload too; an ATV!

An uncrewed Orion is sent to Freedom before any crew, so the crew always has two return vehicles in the event of one Orion experiencing issues.

 

Huge cumulonimbus (? I don't know my meteorology...) cloud from Blackrack's EVE volumetrics.

The LAS only served as an aerodynamic nose cap for Orion for this flight; it was not fueled or rigged for an abort. The purpose of the LAS is to only save the crew inside Orion, so it saves on a very little bit of effort and time to drain the fuel from it if Orion isn't carrying any crew.

The payload is revealed! A modified, stripped-down ATV from the ESA (basically just a big bag full of snacks and life support) is riding on this flight. It will ride on every flight to Freedom that isn't carrying an upgrade module.

This is a very early version, so it is almost guaranteed to be changed in the future.

Orion circularizes with the ATV.

Many small correction burns over the course of a couple days were performed, until the eventual rendezvous with Freedom.

Hard capture!

Orion doesn't stay for long, though. It will move itself to a PMA.

(Did a sneaky flip before capturing; if multiple Orions are docked, they must be rotated by 90 degrees so their solar arrays dont hit each other.)

Thank you all for reading, and once again, than you for TOTM!

Edited December 8, 2023 by Toaster355