Operation New Dawn [Mission Log]

[Odo]

After my Minmus landing and Mun landing, I have shed my noobie skin and am now a novice rocketeer! (I think thats how it works :3)

And so, I've set my sites out of Kerbin's sphere of influence.

Operation Objective: Explore the planet Duna, the first interplanetary destination we have taken, and once we have found out enough about the planet, set up a small colony.

Mission 1: Land a probe on Duna to survey the atmosphere, temperature, material, and over all conditions of the planet, and transmit them back to KSC.

Mission outcome:Success

Mission 2: Establish an orbit around Duna with a mapsat satellite in order to map out the planet and select a landing zone for our future rover.

Mission outcome:Success

Mission 3: Land the rover "Journey" on the anomaly detected by our orbiting satellite, and investigate. Explore the surface of Duna after priority 1 has been completed.

Mission outcome:Success

Mission 4: Send the space plane "Hammerhead" to Duna and scout the planet.

Mission outcome:Failure

Mission 5: Land the manned research lander on Duna and study the planet, along with the face. Journey will regroup with the crew and assist.

Mission outcome:Success

Target: Duna

Ship: Dawn Mk I. Specifically designed to launch a small space probe to Duna.

Mission: Land the Dawn Mk I probe on Duna, take readings about the planets temperature, material, and transmit the findings back to the Loki Satellites orbiting Kerbin.

Crew: Unmanned

And we have Liftoff!

Low Kerbin orbit achieved.

Decoupled lower stage, activated Nuclear Engine, and burning for Duna.

Successful encounter!

Burning to Duna orbit. My fuel tank is disturbingly low.

The red planet is but a speck from this distance.

Fuel isnt looking good.

Aaaaaand engines out of fuel. Burning our RCS.

RCS is out. opening fairing and deploying the probe. Hopefully we'll be able to make it there using its tiny little engine, and 11 units of fuel.

Using Ike as a slingshot into Duna. Otherwise we arent making it to Duna.

Nice view of Duna.

The slingshot was a success! Looks like we're going to come down on one of Duna's poles. Wonder if thats snow?

Chute deployed! The glaring sun on whatever this white material is, is killing my eyes!

Chute opened! Rocks are coming into view now.

Landing! *Ground Control Applauds* Sadly I forgot to retract the solar panels on entry, so we lost them. Luckily I put an emergency generator on the probe, so its only a minor hinderance. This ground is ridiculously bright white, I have a hunch that its not actually that color, this seems more like a glare from intense sun rays then anything else. Time Warping.

Aha! My theory was correct. At dusk the ground is a more brownish red. The bright white is only a glare from the sun. It must be facing directly at the sun for it to be that bright.

Midnight has come, and the probe is transmitting its findings into the cosmos, and back to Kerbin. It is officially the first Kerbal made object to land on any other planet then Kerbin!

Landing site

Mission Outcome: Success.

Next Mission: Follow in NASA's foot steps and land an unmanned rover on Duna.

Thank you all for reading about my first ever interplanetary mission. This is another huge milestone for me, and I had to share it

Mods used in this mission: KW Rocketry for the fairing at the top of the rocket, which is not at all important to this mission. A normal decoupler would have done just as good, but the fairings look so much nicer!

Edited June 27, 2013 by Odo

[Odo]

...Thought people would be more interested in this

[Jaydee]

Cool! And maybe you should put a sat into orbit first?

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

Nice.

I would've found this earlier but I was all caught up in lucid dreaming forums and stuff yada yada.

Anyways, it looks like your making progress fast. What rover design will you be using?

PS: Some people just like reading these things. Like me

[Odo]

Cool! And maybe you should put a sat into orbit first?

Funny you should say that Im doing that right now XD

[Odo]

Nice.

I would've found this earlier but I was all caught up in lucid dreaming forums and stuff yada yada.

Anyways, it looks like your making progress fast. What rover design will you be using?

Gonna attempt to make a curiosity replica for fun. If that doesnt work out, Ill make a rover for it. Probably 2 wheeled buggy type thing. Ill leave a seat on it so if a manned lander is ever sent, they'll have a rover.

[Temeriki]

I was pretty interested, Im trying to run my space program "realistically" sending probes, building com infrastructure then sending Kerbals. Lots of people have sent probes, its nothing against you. Trust me, send a post about a manned exploration with returns, or send some kind of crazy floating mining base then youll have lots of response. We keep raising the bar, things that used to be awesome are now common place. I will say I liked the Ike gravity sling shot.

[Temeriki]

Lol, looks like we all wrote our posts at once. Im also in the mostly read, almost never respond category.

[Odo]

Lol, looks like we all wrote our posts at once. Im also in the mostly read, almost never respond category.

Ah. I saw all of the views and 0 responses and felt lonely XD

[Odo]

Id much appreciative if anyone could answer this: What is up with the poles of Duna? They are so dang bright and are like a chocolate molt color when it turns dusk and night :/

[Jaydee]

white stuff generally reflects a lot of light when the sun is shining right at it.

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

Well, I think your problem there is that you were so close to the red ground of Duna. So when it came twilight, the sun was shining on the red ground and making the place around you, red.

The other option is Duna's "red" atmosphere. In this game when your on a planet with atmosphere at night, your screen changes to that color of the atmosphere, hence the redness.

As far as blindingly white at day, image you were on Antarctica, and it was mid-day. It would be blinding right?

I rest my case.

Edit: Or you could explain it more simply (see above post)

[Odo]

Oh, I thought the ground there wasnt white, I thought it was a redish brown. My assumption was that the only reason it was white was because of the blaring sun right ontop of it, didnt realize it was actually white. The red atmosphere thing makes sense.

[Odo]

Funny thing just happened. While attempting to get an orbit around Duna my orbit somehow got messed up so bad that Ive ended up in a 2 million km orbit around Jool. 0_)

[Odo]

Just got a mapsat satellite orbiting around Duna at 500 km by 500 km on a diagonal slope. A pretty good angle for a mapsat, even though Id have preferred a polar orbit better.

This Satellite will provide communications for us on further Duna missions, and will also map out the planet to find easter eggs and a good landing spot to send down the rover (Next mission)

Target: Duna

Ship: Dawn Mk II

Mission: Launch the Dawn Mk II Satellite around Duna to provide communication and map out the planet

Crew: Unmanned

Lift off!

Burning for Duna.

Orbit has been established.

Leaving the Atomic engine and fuel tank attached to the satellite as it still has about 100 units of fuel left, which can get me far if I ever need it.

Dawn Mk II has begun mapping out Duna and transmitting the information back to Kerbin.

Mission outcome: Success

So some things about the Dawn Mk II vs the Dawn Mk I. The launcher of the Dawn Mk II has 4x symmetry on the liquid fuel boosters, while the Dawn Mk I had 3x. The Dawn Mk II has 3 extra tanks of fuel on the atomic stage, and the satellite stage has a functioning mapsat dish as opposed to the aesthetic one on the Mk I.

[DarthJazno]

...Thought people would be more interested in this

Don't feel too bad, lots of lurkers like me that just read the reports and move on. Blame it on laziness on my part not to comment most of the time but that said, keep it up, I really enjoy and appreciate the effort sharing your mission. I've got some that I just haven't had the time to load..

[Scotius]

Nice and clean booster and transfer stage design. I use droppable tanks for my ships, and am glad to see they went a long way towards the succes for you too

[GJames]

It's a refreshing change to see some really nice rocket design instead of the mass of boosters that a lot of people seem to use...

Anyways, with an upper stage like that you can pretty much get anywhere as long as you aerocapture into orbit once you get there. Did you aerobrake at all or did you capture into Duna orbit using only rockets?

[Odo]

It's a refreshing change to see some really nice rocket design instead of the mass of boosters that a lot of people seem to use...

Anyways, with an upper stage like that you can pretty much get anywhere as long as you aerocapture into orbit once you get there. Did you aerobrake at all or did you capture into Duna orbit using only rockets?

Ive heard the term Aerobreaking but I've got no idea what it is. I might have done it without knowing, but for all I know I just burned to it with rockets. Ive slingshotted into it using Ike before.

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

Well, aerobreaking is where you use the planet's (or moon's) atmosphere to slow you down into an orbit, without burning precious fuel. It is a popular technique for most people, but with a large moon like Ike, you could use its gravity to slow you down as well.

[Odo]

I've polarized Dawn Mk II's orbit and it's finished a complete map of Duna. The landing site for the rover has been selected, and the engineering process has begun.

[Odo]

Well, aerobreaking is where you use the planet's (or moon's) atmosphere to slow you down into an orbit, without burning precious fuel. It is a popular technique for most people, but with a large moon like Ike, you could use its gravity to slow you down as well.

Oooh that's clever!

[GJames]

Ive heard the term Aerobreaking but I've got no idea what it is. I might have done it without knowing, but for all I know I just burned to it with rockets. Ive slingshotted into it using Ike before.

Basically what Spaceisbeautifulul said. It's where you skim through the upper atmosphere to slow you down. Aerocapture is where you use aerobraking to capture into an orbit, but it doesn't really matter which word you use. For Duna you want to aim for a apoapsis of around 12-15km, but definitely quicksave first, as it depends very much on how fast you go screaming through the atmosphere as to whether or not you get captured.

Once you get an orbit, you can use a few more aerobraking passes to lower the periapsis to the right altitude. Just remember to retract any solar panels first, or they'll get ripped off.

[Odo]

Game crashed before I could save in the VAB... Had an awesome rover design T_T gotta start over again. *Sigh*

[Jaydee]

Maybe you should rename the thread? since you've now done 2 interplanetary missions.