UKS MASEC Mission Logs [Picture Heavy] | UPDATE: Back in business, again!

[Cashen]

Mun Exploration Mission II

After that mysterious Mun arch was discovered from low orbit, a mission to land and examine it close up was quickly put together.

• Land NAMLARV near the site of the Mun arch.
  
• Detach Fennec and drive to the arch to investigate.
  
• Leave a flag behind as a marker. Explore the surrounding area.
  
• Return to Mun Station
  
• Pilot/Driver: Richbur Kerman
  
• Geologist: Jonbart Kerman
  

Richbur and Jonbart get into NAMLARV and undock. This will be the second Mun landing using this vehicle, and the first for these two.

Powered descent begins as they overfly the large impact basin, with the arch in the background.

"Well, looks like we're coming down inside a crater. Hope we can drive out of it!" Richbur remarks. NAMLARV begins to pitch down, maintaining its thrust vector against the relative surface velocity.

"We're down." They land in the crater, on a bit of a slope, and within sight of the top of the arch on the upper slopes of the basin.

Fennec's computer detaches itself and drives a few meters forward before the pair come out of the lander, ready to do some exploration.

"Looks like the quickest route out of the crater is this way." They initially head in a southwesterly direction to climb the crater wall.

Once out, they begin driving clockwise around the crater to a northeasterly heading, to begin climbing the steep slopes of the basin.

The begin the ascent, over two vertical kilometers between the arch and their landing site.

Unlike on Minmus, here Fennec handles steep upward slopes without issue, as much as 40 degrees from the horizontal in places!

"Unbelieveable. It's huge! What is it? How could it have formed?"

Richbur takes a moment to admire the view north into another crater, while Jonbart examines the base of the formation closely. "It looks like some kind of basalt structure, like it was formed by rapidly cooling lava. The shape is really odd though, almost seems unnatural. I've seen things like this on Kerbin that are produced by weathering, but what process made this is beyond me."

Jonbart gets the idea to use the RCS thruster pack to get on top of the arch.

The two of them admire the view from up so high. Jonbart looks north, while Richbur, with his back to us, looks south towards the crater they landed in. "I think I can see NAMLARV from here."

Jonbart plants a flag atop the arch, which will also act as a beacon for any future missions here.

The arch is much bigger than it appears from orbit. They collect some samples to return to Mun Station with.

Richbur uses his RCS pack to carefully jump down to the ground again.

They're off again, continuing west around the large crater south of the arch. The craters on the north and south edges meet at a very high and steep ridge.

Richbur pushes Fennec to its limits, riding the sharp edge of the ridge, using the right wheels to push forward while the left ones hand off the edge, acting to keep Fennec from sliding sideways. The rover is quite rugged and stands up to the abuse.

Soon enough they're around the crater and coming down the other side. Fennec isn't nearly as good coming down steep slopes as it is going up, requiring constant braking and careful steering to avoid going out of control and flipping over.

They return to the crater they landed in, and spot NAMLARV right where they left it.

Jonbart, as all back-seat passengers are trained to do, re-latches Fennec to NAMLARV for the trip back to orbit.

One last look at the arch as they begin the ascent. "I really like this craft, the lander/rover combination. We can explore anywhere with this thing!" The concept, at least for Mun exploration, is turning out fantastically.

The pair arrive back at Mun Station with their findings.

Here we see their route shown on Mun's surface. Red is the initial drive from the lander to the arch, and in green is the return route. Note the probe on the far left: ILP landed there quite a while ago, during Isis III.

Richbur Kerman:

Jonbart Kerman:

Edited May 2, 2014 by Cashen

[Logan.Darklighter]

Love this thread! Completely well thought out concepts and engineering ideas. Love the execution. But it's the story tying it all together that really makes it work. I'm looking forward to much much more of this!

[Cashen]

Love this thread! Completely well thought out concepts and engineering ideas. Love the execution. But it's the story tying it all together that really makes it work. I'm looking forward to much much more of this!

Thanks! I'm an engineer by trade but I do roleplay/creative writing as a kind of hobby, so Kerbal Space Program kind of allows me to merge the two like this.

[Cashen]

Anubis II

This will be the second unmanned test flight of the Anubis Lander. In Anubius I, MASEC successfully demonstrated the ability of the lander ascent stage and upper stage to fire using the descent stage as a platform. This will be the first orbital test and the first test of the descent stage, to see if it can land on Kerbin from orbit.

Mission Outline & Objectives

• Launch the Anubis Lander into Kerbin orbit with a full load of fuel, using a modified Lupis V rocket.
  
• Launch a Fennec Manned Rover and attach it to the docking clamp on the lander.
  
• Have the lander de-orbit and land near KSC to test the concept of a combination powered/parachute descent on Duna.
  
• Validate that Fennec can detach from the bottom of Anubis and drive around.
  

Using the rover for this mission gives an accurate representation of the weight Anubis would have to land with, plus we want to see if the docking clamp holds up under deceleration forces, and to see the actual clearance (Clearance with Fennec/NAMLARV is quite small for example).

The L-I and L-II stages of the Lupus V will serve to push a fully loaded Anubis lander into low Kerbin orbit, targeting 100km.

Mighty big rocket launching from KSC. Not seen a launch of this size in a while.

The L-I separates, and the L-II will perform the orbit insetion.

Once in orbit, the L-II is jettisoned, and later de-orbits itself. Anubis is successfully into parking orbit.

Next, a Fennec rover is packaged with a small ascent propulsion system, and the whole thing encapsulated and placed atop a lower stage. This Fennec is equipped with a docking clamp rather than a port for a winch, since the Fennec that goes to Duna will be left behind and not recovered (unlike the reusable ones at Mun and Minmus).

Here we see staging, which saw the fairing jettisoned, followed a few seconds later by Fennec and its propulsion system separating from the booster.

The rover performs a rendezvous with Anubis and moves to dock.

Docked, and before jettison of Fennec's ascent stage. The clearance doesn't quite work, it looks like Fennec's wheels will touch down before the landing legs. This is can easy fix, so mission controllers opt to continue with the mission anyway, but make note to fix the clearance issues.

Anubis performs the de-orbit burn 180 degrees from KSC, lowering its periapsis to around 41 km, attempting a precision landing. The descent stage is only equipped with about 350 m/s of deltaV.

Coming in close to KSC just after sunset, all chutes deployed. The drogues catch and decelerate Anubis before the mains open, reducing the total stress on the vehicle.

The chutes are not designed to provide all the deceleration, and Duna's thin atmosphere will be evel less effective. They'll help, but Anubis' own engines will slow the craft down to touchdown, as seen here.

Landing is a success! And even with the clearance issues, Fennec is still able to undock and drive out from under Anubis, with a little effort. Anubis is cleared to begin manned flight testing.

[Cashen]

Anubis Roster Announcement & Crew Shuffling

As mentioned before, the roster for Project Anubis' mission to Duna will contain seven Kerbals, the maximum capacity of the Aten COV. The crew will consist of three groups: A lead group of three, who will make landings at both Duna and Ike. There will then be two Kerbals who land only at Duna, and remain in orbit at Ike, and likewise two Kerbals who remain in orbit at Ike but land on Duna (This is because the crew capacity of the Anubis lander is 5). It was originally thought that all of the crew would land, and the Aten would be left unmanned in orbit, but later it was realized that the crew in orbit could provide direction from above and make more detailed observation of Duna and Ike as a whole, while the landing crew will be limited to half a day's driving distance on Duna, and walking/RCS distance on Ike.

The lead group has been announced, and MASEC is choosing guys with experience for these roles.

Mission Commander: Mac Kerman

Mac is a hero within the ranks of MASEC kerbonauts. He first flew in Geb VII, and performed the first rendezvous and docking. Next, in Aten III, he was one of the first Kerbals to orbit Minmus, and also perform a grand tour of the Kerbin system. Then, most famously, on Aten V, he became the first Kerbal to set foot on another celestial body, Mun. At the end of Aten he was given the command of MASEC's first space station, Kerbin Station. Since then, however, we've not heard much from Mac. He's been kept safe on Kerbin Station partly in order to prevent anything from happening to him. Mac doesn't like that, though. Stations have been built at the moons and some interesting science and engineering has taken place, and he hasn't been much a part of it. Well, he'll get his chance now, as MASEC has named him the commander of the mission to Duna and Ike.

Science Leader: Wildon Kerman

One of the original three scientists brought in during Project Aten, Wildon was somewhat overlooked initially. The first to fly the Aten Moon Lander (in Kerbin orbit) during Aten IV, he never got to visit any of the moons until after that project ended. Originally stationed at Minmus as a front-line geologist while the other two were given managerial positions, Wildon slowly and quietly collected an impressive body of experience, making landings and exploring both moons, and the only Kerbal to serve aboard all three space stations. Wildon will get his chance to shine as the science leader going to Duna.

Command Pilot: Richbur Kerman

The chief engineer at Mun Station, Richbur is the least experienced of the command group, but MASEC was highly impressed with his most recent Mun exploration mission, and in particular his skills at flying multiple different craft (especially driving the Fennec rover). He will be the pilot and primary engineer in charge of the Aten and Anubis craft that will fly them all to Duna.

Also announced are the two Ike Landers. Two geologists: Jonbart Kerman, who was the first to explore the Mun arch in close detail, and Wehrrigh Kerman, a rookie kerbonaut who's been stationed at Kerbin Station up until now.

The two additional Duna landers will be chosen later; one Biologist and one Climatologist from the recently hired group, who will study Duna's climate and search for signs of past or present life.

Two further Anubis test flights are planned: Anubis III will be a repeat of Anubis II, except it will be fully manned. Mac Kerman will take the four recently hired scientists up in the lander to familiarize them with it, and then perform a re-entry/powered landing, and a detaching of Fennec rover. This means Mac will have to come down from Kerbin Station first. Anubis IV will be a test of the Anubis Lander's upper Ike stage, by taking the command group and the two Ike geologists and landing on Mun, which will serve as a stand-in for Ike in this case. Once that's completed, Project Anubis will be ready to go to Duna on the next transfer window.

Additionally, Kerbin Station is being (temporarily) converted from a research facility to a training and staging facility for Project Anubis, and the project roster will be stationed there. This means shuffling around the crew roster and recalling Wildon, Richbur and Jonbart from Mun, and sending replacements. That's what will happen now.

Mission Outline & Objectives

• Have the Horus SSTO (Bill Kerman as Pilot) fly Adwise Kerman up to Kerbin Station.
  
• After dropping off Adwise, Bill will pick up Mac and return to KSC with him.
  
• Adwise Kerman, Kennie Kerman, and Ellorf Kerman will board the Aten COV and depart for Mun to relieve Wildon, Richbur and Jonbart.
  
• Wildon, Richbur and Jonbart will make the return trip back to Kerbin Station
  

This is the first truly practical use of the Horus SSTO, ferrying passengers to and from Kerbin Station. Of course it can only ferry one passenger at a time. Nevertheless, this is a stripped down version of Horus without the rover wheels or any other unnecessary devices.

Adwise is one of the new geologists, and is lucky in that his first assignment is straight to Mun. Most kerbonauts do a stint in Kerbin orbit first.

This is Bill's second trip to orbit in Horus. He made the very first flight to orbit during Horus I. This marks the first practical, non-test flight of the SSTO.

They dock at Kerbin Station. Adwise joins Kennie and Ellorf in the Aten COV, with Ellorf flying. Kirmin Kerman, one of the engineers at Mun Station, has been given the Chief Engineer job to replace Richbur. Kennie will take Wildon's Chief Scientist job, and Adwise will replace Jonbart as geologist.

Off they go to Mun!

Meanwhile, Mac is needed on the ground. It's been a long time since he was there! So he hops into Horus and Bill flies him back into the atmosphere. Here they are at the peak of re-entry.

"It feels good to be back home." Mac will have a little time to enjoy it. Soon enough he'll be very far from home.

Back on solid ground. Mac has spent more time in space now than any other Kerbal.

An interesting sight; two Aten COVs docked at Mun Station. The crew transfer takes place. Adwise, Kennie and Ellorf begin their assignments, while Wildon, Richbur and Jonbart prepare to come back to Kerbin to get ready for their greatest adventure!

Richbur, piloting the COV, gets lucky, and demonstrates some skill. After the aerobraking maneuver to capture, he's able to plot an encounter with Kerbin Station without first adjusting his orbit out of the atmosphere. Why do two burns when you can do it with one?

They arrive at Kerbin Station. The stage is set.

[Scotius]

Busy day at MASEC

[Cashen]

Busy day at MASEC

Yep! I've found myself with a little free time for the next while, but I'll be on hiatus from December 20th to January 3rd at minimum since I'm flying home for the holidays, and I want to get to a certain point before then, so I've been pounding the missions out whenever I can.

[Cashen]

Anubis III

Anubus III is essentially a repeat of Anubis II, to further validate the landing characteristics of the Anubis Lander, to correct for some clearance issues noticed on the last mission. As well, it's the first manned test flight of the project, and the first spaceflight for four of the new scientists.

Mission Outline & Objectives

• Launch the Anubis Lander into Kerbin orbit with a full load of fuel, using a modified Lupis V rocket.
  
• Launch a Fennec Manned Rover and attach it to the docking clamp on the lander.
  
• Have the lander de-orbit and land near KSC to test the concept of a combination powered/parachute descent on Duna.
  
• Pilot: Mac Kerman
  
• Passengers: Jedlock, Thompler, Gilfal and Dilden Kerman
  

"We are clear the launch clamps!" Mac's first spaceflight in a long time! First time he's been launched on a rocket since being assigned to Kerbin Station.

"We're pitching. L-II looks good." You can just barely see the L-I falling away in the background.

Once into orbit they jettison the L-II, and you can see how it's a big cluster of engines.

The same Fennec Rover from Anubis II is re-packaged for flight again.

Staging.

"We can see Fennec approaching from the east," Mac calls down to the ground, as controllers at KSC perform the rendezvous.

The crew spend a full day in orbit familarizing themselves with Anubis. It'll be their home on Duna after all. Here's a nice closeup of the Lander/Rover combination, just after they perform the de-orbit burn. Another precisely calculated burn 180 degrees from KSC, aiming for a mid-day landing this time.

Re-entry over the mountains. Hard to tell where exactly they'll end up. Short? Long?

"I can confirm the chutes are out. We're a little short, but within easy driving distance." Anubis only needs to land within driving distance of anything.

"Descent engines on." Controlling the speed with the engines is surprisingly easy. Combined with the parachutes, each thrust setting established some 'steady state' velocity, and so throttling the four aerospikes allows one to very carefully control the rate of descent.

The clearance issue works and Fennec comes out from under Anubis with no issues at all. All five of them then climb down the ladder, confirming there's no design issues with getting out of the lander. Mission accomplished!

[Scotius]

Dang. I hope devs will fix 'sponginess' of stock landing legs in 0.23. All plans of equipping my standard Isis Lander with a underslung rover are on hold, because currently Isis has very little clearance between bottom and the ground. Too little to pull something like your Anubis\Fennec combo.

[Cashen]

Dang. I hope devs will fix 'sponginess' of stock landing legs in 0.23. All plans of equipping my standard Isis Lander with a underslung rover are on hold, because currently Isis has very little clearance between bottom and the ground. Too little to pull something like your Anubis\Fennec combo.

Hah, you said Isis and I was immediately thinking of my own unmanned missions. I'm using Egyptian gods for all the project names. Anyway, it might still be possible to do a stock lander/rover combination like this. The core of the lander would have to be the 2.5m diameter parts, and you could have three radial pylons with engines on the bottom and chutes on top, but they'd have to protrude low enough below the base of the core to give enough room underneath for a rover. I said three as well because it would give enough space between the pylons to drive between (four wouldn't give enough clearance, which is why I have NovaPunch's extra long landing legs).

The drawback is that my lander likes to wobble continuously after landing, because of the flexibility of the joints between the lander and its legs, which is mildly annoying. This must be because of the weight of the lander; NAMLARV never did this. I'm hoping on Duna with the lower gravity it's not an issue. But I had been considering switching to stock landing legs and doing the above-mentioned adjustments to correct that.

[Cashen]

Also, I had a bit of a scare last night. I went and updated all the mods I use (at least the ones with significant updates) since they were all pre-hiatus versions, and was careless about reading that KAS is basically a completely new mod with new parts incompatible with the old ones. When I loaded the game, because NAMLARV has a KAS stack connector/winch, it decided to delete them. They were both docked to Mun Station and Minmus Station and there were several other vessels docked as well, so the whole thing got deleted! Fortunately I quit the game, rolled back to the old KAS, reloaded the game and then went to the last quicksave, which reloaded the stations as they were. Close one! I'll have to figure out what to do with KAS later.

I also used the memory reduction mod and re-installed KW Rocketry, and I seem to be running quite stable again! So we might see parts from KW in the future.

[Cashen]

Showing off a new mod I've installed. I've always been a fan of ISA MapSat and mapping in general, but at the time I started the MASEC thread, Mapsat was more or less unplayable for me due to memory issues. So I decided, reluctantly, to start this thread without mapping, hoping it would be possible later. Well, I'm not here to show you MapSat, instead I've installed another mapping mod, SCANsat, which is still in development (you can find the thread here). The mod itself doesn't have proper models yet, so I've instead done a little tweak of my own and merged the mapping tools into AEIS Aerospace's various antennas and dishes.

Isis X

Between the two final Anubis test flights, Team Isis had the time to launch something new. It's the IKSS Mk2 more or less, but they've added some high-powered radar mapping equipment, and made a few other changes, including more solar panels, more batteries, more fuel, and a larger engine. Oh, hey, and this also marks the return of KW Rocketry into the fold, after a long hiatus from providing hardware to MASEC, as the new mapping probe's main engine is the old Vesta VR-1, the same engine that powered the Geb spacecraft so long ago. Overall the new design is an upgrade in most areas, and meant to correct some of the issues with the previous IKSS probes. Should this mission be successful, it will likely spell the gradual retirement of all the IKSS probes, as they are replaced one by one with the new versions. The new version is known as the RAdar Mapping and Survey of Extraterrestrial reSources, or RAMSES.

Mission Outline & Objectives

• Launch the RAMSES probe into a 495km polar orbit around Kerbin.
  
• Begin both high and low resolution radar mapping, as well as kethane scanning.
  

Launch of the RAMSES probe to orbit Kerbin. This will be a test run to see if it can replace and retire the current fleet of IKSS probes.

Fairing jettison. It looks much like IKSS, but you can see the radar mapping equipment; hardware courtesy of AEIS Aerospace, and the software from SCANsat. AEIS also provided a larger set of propellant tanks, and KW Rocketry provided the probe's engine. NovaPunch of course provided the booster, as they seem to have a monopoly on that at this point.

Booster separation. RAMSES has over 2km/s of deltaV on its own, much increased over IKSS. Part of the reason for this was the failure of the Gilly IKSS probe due to lack of fuel, and the other part is simply greater flexibility. RAMSES is intended to orbit at a much higher altitude.

Solar panels deployed and dishes pointed down at Kerbin, RAMSES begins mapping during the coast up to its 490km orbit altitude.

Success! Of course the kethane scanners worked perfectly, and here we see the beginnings of a map of Kerbin. The entire planet has been covered with the wide-beam low-res mapping (in grey) and most of the planet has been mapped in high resolution (colour).

[Scotius]

Pretty SCANSat. I have to say AIES provides good looking parts for medium-to-small ships.

[Commander Zoom]

Looking awesome!

What I suggest for the KAS / NAMLARV issue is to extract the old winch part from the old set, put it in the new set (for now) - it doesn't even have to be functional, it just needs to exist where the game can find it and load it. Then you can replace the old part with one of the new winches, perhaps by having an EVA kerbal grab it and make the swap, or by undocking and deorbiting the whole NAMLARV and launching another. Once it's no longer in your save file, you can delete the 'orphan' part entirely.

[Cashen]

Looking awesome!

What I suggest for the KAS / NAMLARV issue is to extract the old winch part from the old set, put it in the new set (for now) - it doesn't even have to be functional, it just needs to exist where the game can find it and load it. Then you can replace the old part with one of the new winches, perhaps by having an EVA kerbal grab it and make the swap, or by undocking and deorbiting the whole NAMLARV and launching another. Once it's no longer in your save file, you can delete the 'orphan' part entirely.

That was my plan, actually, to de-orbit the old NAMLARV/Fennec combination and launch new ones. I may do one more exploration mission on Minmus to make sure Fennec doesn't work there properly before doing that. I plan to incorporate SCANsat into both of their designs. I probably wouldn't play that out in a mission report, the swap, I think I'd just do that in the background and explain it away as a 'slight hardware upgrade'. This might have to wait until after Christmas though since right now I have two big missions I want to get done before I have to break for the holidays.

Thanks for reading!

Edited December 15, 2013 by Cashen

[Cashen]

MASEC is on hold until some of the mods I use get updated to 0.23. The Lazor camera specifically does not work and I narrowly avoided the game deleting all my craft with it. Hopefully things get updated before I have to go on break for the holidays, as I was hoping to get the guys on their way to Duna first.

EDIT: Scratch that, successfully rolled back to 0.22, so expect another update later tonight.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Cashen

[USKnight]

Cashen,

I registered with the boards just to let you know that I very much enjoy your Mission Reports. Your designs will inspire many of my future projects as I expand into the Kerbol system in my own Space Program. I hope you continue this thread and I wish you well in your efforts to further the accomplishments of all Kerbalkind and the UKS.

Many thanks for your creativity and time,

-Ryan (USKnight)

[Cashen]

Cashen,

I registered with the boards just to let you know that I very much enjoy your Mission Reports. Your designs will inspire many of my future projects as I expand into the Kerbol system in my own Space Program. I hope you continue this thread and I wish you well in your efforts to further the accomplishments of all Kerbalkind and the UKS.

Many thanks for your creativity and time,

-Ryan (USKnight)

Thanks! I really appreciate the kind words, and on your first post even! Welcome to the board, and I hope you enjoy it here and enjoy KSP as much as I do.

In the meantime I'm actually in the process of writing up a new mission report. It was... we'll say it didn't go as planned, but I was able to salvage it and I'm very proud of it. We'll say I know how the Apollo 13 guys feel to a certain degree.

[Cashen]

Anubis IV

One final test flight remains for Project Anubis: Landing the Ike Lander on Mun. Some have questioned if this step is really necessary, since the Ike Lander is so closely related to the Aten MLRM that was quite successful, but MASEC has deemed the test important enough to carry out. Meanwhile it will also be a legitimate Mun Exploration Mission in and of itself. The target is a deep canyon on the far side of Mun. This will also mark the first flight of the Aten IEV, or Interplanetary Exploration Vehicle, an up-rated Crew Operations Vehicle with a larger propellent tank and a larger, more powerful nuclear engine. Unlike the Anubis lander, this vehicle is not to be discarded, so the one launched here will be the one that goes to Duna.

Also, the two scientists who will round out the Anubis team have been decided: Jedlock Kerman will study Duna's atmosphere and climate, while Gilfal Kerman will search for signs of past or present life.

Mission Outline & Objectives

• Launch the Aten IEV and dock with UKS Kerbin Station
  
• Launch Crew: Mac Kerman (Commander), Gilfal Kerman & Jedlock Kerman (Passengers)
  
• Launch the Anubis Ike Lander unmanned into low Kerbin orbit.
  
• The remaining Ike team will transfer to the IEV, before undocking and rendezvousing with the lander.
  
• Jonbart will perform the rendezvous to simulating meeting the Lander after Duna Ascent.
  
• Transfer to Mun. Everyone except Jedlock and Gilfal will move to the lander, undock, and descend.
  
• Land in the canyon on the far side of Mun, do some exploration on foot.
  
• Return to Mun orbit, Jedlock will dock with the lander and everyone will return to the IEV.
  
• Discard the lander and return to Kerbin.
  

During the Duna mission, Jonbart and Wehrrigh will remain in the IEV, and since the lander has no RCS of its own, the IEV will perform the docking. Similarly during the Ike mission, Jedlock and Gilfal will remain in the IEV. Therefore, one each has been chosen to be the pilot during the rendezvous and docking, so this mission will give them both some practice at doing just that.

Launch of the Aten Interplanetary Exploration Vehicle, carrying Mac, Jedlock and Gilfal. They launch with the Aten's propellent tanks empty, a common way of launching to save weight.

Being much heavier than the Aten COV, it uses two large liquid boosters and a liquid core stage, rather than the usual solid lower stage and liquid upper stage. Propellant cross-feed means the core stage tanks are full at booster separation.

During the coast to apoapsis, the core stage transfers all remaining fuel up to the IEV, before being discarded. The IEV would then use its nuclear engine to circularize.

The three Kerbals reach Kerbin Station.

The upper part of the Anubis lander is placed atop an old Latrans II booster, ready to be hurled into orbit next. It's being launched unmanned. Note the lander's fuel tank has been changed. With KW Rocketry available again, they've gone back to the same (larger) fuel tank that was used on the Aten MLRM. This is needed anyway since the old fuel tank would not give enough deltaV for a Mun landing, though it would have worked on Ike.

Anubis discards its booster and uses its own engine to complete the orbit.

Aten takes on a full load of propellant at Kerbin Station, and then moves to rendezvous with the unmanned lander, with Jonbart piloting.

Trans-Munar Injection.

Coasting between Kerbin and Mun.

Arrival at Mun. It's daylight on the far side of Mun, and here they pass over the canyon at the edge of a large impact depression, directly on the opposite side of Mun. This feature was first spotted by Bob Kerman during his famous Geb V mission.

The five Ike Landers (Mac, Wildon, Richbur, Jonbart and Wehrrigh) crawl over to the lander and undock to prepare to descend.

On the descent orbit, passing over the impact depression with the canyon starting to appear in the background.

Powered descent begins, killing lateral velocity.

They make a successful landing, and get out to stretch their legs. Landed on quite a slope, but the lander looks very stable! However, there's a problem.

Richbur: Okay, Aten, we've got a bit of a problem here.

Jedlock: What's the problem, guys?

Richbur: The landing took more fuel than we expected. We don't have enough to make orbit again.

Jedlock: Okay. Well, worst case scenario you'll have to be rescued by Mun Station's NAMLARV.

The excursion on the surface is aborted. This is a serious problem. Mun requires around 600 m/s of deltaV to make orbit, and Anubis has only 570. It's not even close to being enough to make orbit. So some thinking and calculations are done. NAMLARV could effect a rescue to Mun Station, or ferry the stranded Kerbals back to the IEV, so they're not really at risk of being stranded. But Mac Kerman comes up with a different idea.

Mac: We don't have enough fuel to make orbit, but we can at least get to a fairly high apoapsis on a ballistic trajectory. It might be possible to have the IEV perform a rendezvous and docking while on that trajectory, and then use its own engine to complete the orbit.

Eventually, this is the course of action chosen. A rescue using NAMLARV would only be able to carry one Kerbal at a time, or perhaps three if they were willing to risk sitting inside the Fennec rover during powered flight. They decide that Mac's idea is possible and would be much faster. But it will require that the two rookie Kerbals in the IEV perform their first rendezvous and docking under incredible pressure. In the meantime, the IEV is raised to an 80km circular orbit to await the attempt. Calculations suggest Anubis should be able to get to an apoapsis about that high.

When the timing is right, Anubis lifts off and pitches 25 degrees up from horizontal, and burns until the fuel tanks are totally empty.

Shortly thereafter, the IEV makes a manuver to intercept them.

An encounter is achieved, but Aten will have to make a move of over 200 m/s to null velocity, and it'll put them both in an impact course, accelerating towards Mun!

The guys successfully perform the rendezvous. Now, time to dock under immense time pressure! Mun is coming up fast under them.

They get docked. There's no time for a crew transfer, the IEV will have to burn to avoid crashing with the lander still attached.

Aten pointed its engine down and slightly back and burned at full throttle to try to avoid crashing. They passed through a periapsis of just 4km, low enough to strike the surface in some spots, but they luckily cleared the ground safely! The burn also put the other side of their orbit into a Mun escape trajectory.

Mac: That was some outstanding flying!

A triumph in maneuvering. Jedlock and Gilfal showed some excellent poise under pressure. While they may be scientists by trade, all MASEC Kerbonauts undergo extensive training and simulation to make them pilots before they ever actually fly. It seems to have paid off, and the pair would be the first to be awarded with the Space Rescue Cross.

On the way back to Kerbin, the empty lander is discarded to be destroyed on re-entry, and the IEV aerobrakes...

... And returns to Kerbin Station. Some will regard this as MASEC's finest hour.

After the mission, it was decided not to make any further changes to the Anubis Lander, on the reasoning that the deltaV requirements at Ike are quite a bit less than on Mun: Even if Anubis has burned the same amount of fuel on Ike (which is unlikely), the fuel it did have would have been enough to get back to orbit.

The next manned flight will be the departure to Duna.

[Scotius]

Five minutes of terror, huh? Rescue missions on timer are always hair-raising.

[Cashen]

Five minutes of terror, huh? Rescue missions on timer are always hair-raising.

Sure was! Glad I had the lazor docking cam. The lander's apoapsis was around 85km but they had fallen downhill to around 41km by the time I got to rendezvous with them, and we were falling at about 200 m/s, which meant we'd impact the surface in less than 3 and a half minutes. So I had 3 and a half minutes to get docked, and then attempt to get into a stable orbit (not nearly enough time to transfer crew and dump the lander). Those nuclear engines don't have the greatest thrust-to-weight so I just pointed the engine as close to straight down as possible and went full throttle. It was on the night side of Mun so I couldn't really see the ground, but I could see my altitude dip below 5000m and was hoping I wouldn't strike a mountain.

In the end I was actually really happy and proud of having done it, after I thought for sure I had stranded guys on Mun. I also really didn't want to have to try to land NAMLARV next to them because precision landings have never been my strong suit and it would have required at least two separate landings to rescue all of them. But it does pay to have assets at Mun already because that would have worked too.

[Cashen]

Isis XI, XII, XIII, XIV: The Jool Science Package

Transfer windows to Jool and Duna both open very close together. So MASEC has been quiet now for a while as all efforts are focused on a rapid series of launches over the span of just a few days. The window to Jool opens first.

Jool and its collection of moons have always been a very high priority interest to MASEC planners; mostly because of Laythe. It's known from ground observations that Laythe is relatively warm and covered with liquid, most likely water. It's not known from this distance if there's land, or what the surface really looks like, but there are long term aspirations of permanent bases in orbit and on the surface of Laythe. And so, these missions have been in the works for a very long time, and in fact the recent developmnt of the RAMSES probe was driven by having something more advanved than IKSS to go to Jool with. While sending RAMSES to Mun and Minmus are obvious and easy goals, Project Isis works on a limited budget and all funding is necessary for these Jool and Duna windows.

For financial constraints only four launches can be accomplished for this mission, so MASEC and the Isis team have prioritized the four launches as follows:

Isis XI: Jool/Laythe Atmospheric Package

This will be one launch with a payload of three small probes. Two of the probes will be Atmospheric Survey probes much like the one landed at Eve. One will plunge into Jool's atmosphere on a suicide mission to study its properties and composition. The other will plunge into Laythe, doing the same, and splashing down in Laythe's ocean to study that as well. An Isis IALP lander is also being brought along to attempt to land on Laythe's solid surface, should one be discovered.

Isis XII, XIII, XIV: Jool RAMSES Armada

Three identical launches, carrying the same payload. One RAMSES probe each. One will enter polar orbit at Laythe and map the moon, including conducing a surface radar mapping mission and a kethane survey. If solid land is found at Laythe, and kethane is also found there, MASEC wants to know if kethane deposits overlap with land, as this single fact alone will decide much of the direction permanent settlement at Laythe will take. While off-shore extraction of Kethane is theoretically possible, a deposit on land would greatly simplify logistics in the Jool system.

It seems likely nevertheless that for permanent bases on and around Laythe, MASEC will need to extract kethane from one of Jool's small, outer moons (much like they do at Minmus already), and so the other RAMSES probes are being sent to orbit, map, and survey both Bop and Pol.

For the moment, lower priority missions, such as landing probes on the four airless moons, or mission to Vall and Tylo at all, are being deferred to a future launch window.

Isis XI, The Jool/Laythe Atmosphere Package, sits on the launch pad awaiting liftoff. This single rocket carries three probes bound for the Jool system.

The Isis Jool mission is underway! Six solid rockets strapped around a large liquid core lift the payload skyward.

All six solids are jettisoned and fall away in a pretty spiral pattern.

Once in orbit, you can see the three probes clearly. The uppermost probe, the Jool Atmosphere Probe, has no parachute. It will be destroyed in Jool's atmosphere, but will transmit valuable data about the gas giant. The middle probe is nearly identical, but carries a parachute, and will drop into Laythe's atmosphere and then ocean, conducing the same sort of survey that was done earlier at Eve. The lowest probe is the familiar IALP probe that will land on solid ground at Laythe. This version is lighter as it carries no internal propulsion, only a parachute. The two uppper probes, interestingly, have their own tiny propulsion systems to guide them into a direct entry trajectory.

With KW Rocketry making rocket stages for MASEC again, comes the opportunity to bring a beast of a rocket out of retirement. Since the new RAMSES probe is much heavier than the old IKSS, and because it's being sent to Jool, where delta-V requirements are higher, Isis has contracted NovaPunch and KW Rocketry to build three brand new, complete Lupus V rockets; the same rocket that first sent Kerbals to the moons. Except RAMSES will replace the Aten spacecraft as the payload.

The Lupus V carries Isis XII off the ground, temporarily designated "RAMSES Jool A". The three probes will not be given actual destinations until they arrive at Jool. Which probe goes to which moon will be an opportunistic decision based on arrivel trajectory and differences in remaining delta-V.

The massive L-I stage drops away as the vehicle begins pitching east.

Shortly thereafter, the payload fairing is jettisoned. KW Rocketry makes better fairings than NovaPunch, but not as good as AEIS (who nevertheless don't make fairings this large)

The L-II gives nearly all the boost to orbit, leaving less than 100 m/s for the L-IVB, which will act as the Kerbin departure stage. RAMSES unfurls its solar panels, but the science equipment remains retracted.

The second launch, Jool RAMSES B, a short while later.

The empty L-II stage falls away during the coast to apoapsis, before the L-IVB places the payload in orbit to await transfer.

The final launch, shown here just after staging with the L-I falling back.

The payload fairing opens up like the petals of a flower during second stage flight.

Once all four missions were in orbit, they would perform the ejection burns on a course for Jool.

RAMSES Jool B gets the first transfer and burns to escape Kerbin.

RAMSES Jool A follows suit shortly after.

The Jool Laythe Atmosphere Package then does the same.

Finally, RAMSES Jool C completes the escape...

...and the Isis Armada is off to Jool.

[The mun]

this is awesome

Edited December 18, 2013 by The mun
spellcheck

[Scotius]

So, you are planning permanent base on Laythe? Looks like Brotoro will have a competition for best thought out and maintained base there. Awesome More good reading for all of us.

[Cashen]

So, you are planning permanent base on Laythe? Looks like Brotoro will have a competition for best thought out and maintained base there. Awesome More good reading for all of us.

I have to give credit to Brotoro because his Laythe thread was my original inspiration behind even doing this level of in-depth roleplay. Laythe has always been the most interesting place to go, to me. And Jool in general. But I also wanted to take the proper steps beforehand to build up to that first.