Kapricorn One

[kookoo_gr]

This thread is a description at my attempt to complete the challenge Duna Permanent Outpost Mission Architecture Challenge

My Base so far is still at the design phase on Kerbin and so far it is comprised of a habitat module, a 3-Kerbal rover, a science module, a transport from Duna to Duna orbit and a supply tank for Duna's surface. All of these modules except the supply tank were designed (except the transfer stage) and tested during 0.20 as i was planning a Duna base for my own fun. What needs to be designed and tested are a 4 Kerbal Kerbin-Duna transport ship and a fuel supply ship along with a lifter to a 75km Kerbin orbit. The lifter will be able to lift 50 tons but this is to be determined to see which is the heaviest module, the heaviest module so far is 45 tons. For the early missions to Duna i will send the supply ship loaded with 4 satellites. The three of them will be paced at a synchronous orbit in order to provide communications to/from Kerbin and the fourth will be placed at a polar orbit for mapping the planet. Note that i have already mapped the Duna surface with ISAMapsat and i am not placing the MapSat antenna on the fourth satellite instead i will use a GPS module just to have the map activated. All of the modules will paradropped on Duna in order to save fuel and weight.

The mods i am planning to use on this mission are Kerbal Alarm Clock, Steam Gauges, Procedural Fairings, Kerbal Engineer, Mechjeb (for stats), ISAMapSat. If i forgot a mod or i intend to use another i will update accordingly

The Modules

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Edited August 16, 2013 by kookoo_gr

[kookoo_gr]

I believe it's high time i started this challenge since i managed to find some spare time. I redesigned the transfer stage and went for nuke propulsion for weight considerations. This design decision allowed me to redesign some of the mission modules and i present the second and final version of them. As for the gameplay itself of this challenge. After finishing the campaign mode and unlocked all the nodes i reverted the date using Hyperedit to day 1. The reasoning behind this is that i want to have the science flavor text on my excursions on Duna, the only planets that i spammed for science are Kerbin, Mun and Minmus and a bit of solar orbit. As for the schedule of the mission i have a copy of my excel timetable that i believe is easy to understand, a note on the dates at the parentheses i have the day for Window transfer that Kerbin alarm shows and is what i use, there is a small difference form the theoretical date that i used form a site that calculates transfer window (can't remember the site but it's well known for the KSP community).

Mods that i use

Procedural fairings

Mechjeb

Kerbal engineer

Scansat

Kerbal Alarm clock

Papi lights

Steam gauges

Enhanced navball

Docking alignment indicator

Clouds and city lights ( i may come and go for this mod since i had some strange crashes lately and i am trying to figure out if it's the cause)

If i forgot any mods i will mention them during the reports

In order to emulate the supplies that the Kerbals need i placed RCS modules on my various ships. The only ships to use RCS are the Sardine Box SSTO, The Lander and the Transport ship (for the transport ship the large RCS modules will be disconnected in order not to use any RCS).

The main lifter i use is the Duna 50T Lifter that can deliver 50 tons of payload into a 75km orbit. The lifter is made of 7 rocket engines with asparagus staging and depending on the payload weight i can have either the 6 side boosters recovered for heavy weights or the 4 side boosters for light weights, the core engine of the lifter that delivers the payload into orbit it will either burn up in the atmosphere if it has any remaining fuel or remain in orbit. Having established this, the launch time between modules is 75 days. At the album pictures i show the landed 6 boosters

The weight of my modules are:

Duna Habitat 50t

Duna Lander 49.87

Duna Light Rover 35.01

Duna Robotic Tank 49.83

Duna Science Probe 48

Duna Supply Tank 42.82

Duna Supply Tank without the starting satellites communication and map satellites 40.56

Duna Transport 44.14

So far i have launched the Duna supply module and is on its way to Duna followed by the Habitat 1 module into orbit. The Habitat 1 has no crew, which will be transferred 5 days before the window with the help of the Sardine Box SSTO. The burn for Duna for all the modules will be done 5 days before the window in order to leave Kerbin SOI since the transfer stage is weak and has to do 3-4 burns in order to get a Duna encounter.

[kookoo_gr]

Update: The Duna Supply tank has reached orbit and established a coms network along with map polar satellite watch the album at the start of the topic

[kookoo_gr]

I continue the ventures of Kapricorn One with the landing of the supplies that the Kerabls are going to need in order to survive at Duna. The landing site is the at the equator region of the large canyon at the SE of the crater were the Face of Duna lies in order to save ÃŽâ€V. The landing took place at day 122 of the challenge's MET. The following launches were the rovers that would go to Duna and Ike along with the lander the crews are going to use for Duna orbit. Finally about 13 days before the launch window Bill Bob Jeb and Hudrim were shuttled to the Habitat module with the help of the Sardine Box SSTO and then i launched all three modules to Duna. At this point i noticed that the lander i forgot to place a probe core and once decoupled from the interplanetary stage i wouldn't be able to control it, guess i'll have to figure out a solution once at Duna.

The insertion to Duna was a success and the only hiccup to this part was that the Lander used almost all the fuel of the interplanetary stage in order to arrive to Duna but it made it safely. Once at Duna orbit i had a good inclined orbit for the delivery of the first rover to Duna so i used it, although the rover landed at a big distance from the supply module i drove the rover to it (good thing i always put probe cores at my rovers). I sent the second rover at Ike and since i wasn't sure about the highest point at the equator i established a 60-ish km orbit. Also since i wasn't sure about the duration of the fuel the lander stage had, i used a bold procedure.

I used the interplanetary stage to deorbit the rover, decouple it, immediately establish orbit for the interplanetary stage that will serve as a fuel depot tank and then use the rover's rockets for the final touchdown. The whole procedure worked flawlessly and the Kerbals have a second rover to explore Ike. At day 355 the Kerbals arrived at Duna and the following day they landed on Duna after the landing of the Lander which landed 11 km away from the supplies, this landing was as not as precise as i wanted had its reason. Before decoupling the Lander the alternative was to leave it in orbit and land it with the help of a Kerbal. This would require a lot of fuel from the interplanetary stage of the Habitat module and i wanted to use these fuel as a refueling station for the next step of the mission. So i used the technique i used at Ike. The landing was not that accurate since i had to activate the parachutes before decoupling thus loosing ground distance, also the fuel of the interplanetary stage were almost zero after the orbit establishment. The distance the lander landed was of of little consequence since the Kerbals can go with the rover provided.

The habitat module landed at half the distance at day 356 and the Kerabls planted a flag to memorize the event. For the next launch the transport ship was equipped with a probe core along with docking ports that would be attached at the bottom of the Lander in order to have control over it and sent it to space along with the Habitat 2 module 75 days later.

While on Duna i sent the Kerbals with the rover to inspect and repack the parachutes of the lander. The rover has 3 seats with the logic that the Habitat module must always have one person in it to operate it (for role play reasons). About 10 days before the next window for Duna i delivered the next Kerbal crew to Duna Habitat 2 and sent it to Duna along with a return science module and the return ship.

At this point i somehow screwed up the Kerbal calendar and i couldn't send the second supply module with the second window so i had to wait for window No. 3 but thankfully the Kerbals had supplies up to day 1333 well within the arrival of the supply tank No.2. At day 583 the second Kerbal crew arrived and landed at Duna this time near the supply tank. The science module and the transport ship arrived at Duna with a few days apart. Also i forgot to mention that a few days after the establishment of the Duna coms network i reduced the orbit of the coms network to half since they were inside Ike's orbit and that was dangerous for them either to either crash into it or sent into interplanetary orbit.

Anyway once at Duna orbit i docked the transport ship to one of the interplanetary stages for refueling and landed the science module at Duna. After repacking the parachutes for Kerbin reentry i sent it back to orbit only to discover that i forgot to place RCS tanks on it (). Guess i'll have to address this problem later.

Now that i had some free time i took Bill and Hudrim for a drive and discovered a floating rock on the way to the lander module. Also i sent a refueling tank in orbit. As the days were getting close for the first crew to return to Kerbin i sent them to Ike after a Duna orbital refueling. The landing was easier this time and the first crew planted a flag on Ike, drove the delivered rover and examined another floating rock. Then after another refueling at Ike's orbit the first crew arrived at the transport ship that would deliver them back to Kerbin and left at day 678. Finally i returned the lander back to Duna with the help of the newly installed probe core.

Since my plane flying capabilities are not the best i decided to launch a return vehicle, the Duna Re-entry ship that would deliver the two crews at Kerbin from their return from Duna. Finally Bill, Bob, Jeb and Hudrim arrived at Kerbin and after a safe aerobrake and rendezvous maneuver they landed safely back at Kerbin near the KSC at Y3 Day 54.

A few days later the second transport ship along with the second supply module and the robotic refuel tank arrived for Duna. This time the supply module landed near the first supply module. Now the tedious part started.

Since i didn't want to spend a lot of fuel and waste a lot of time with different maneuvers i decided to dock all the modules that would return to Kerbin in one big ship and manage it from there. First i docked the science module with the transport ship. This is the first ship that will return to Kerbin. Then the Robotic refuel tank with the transport/science module followed by the interplanetary stage of the second supply tank.

When the time came the second crew took a final picture and left Duna surface at Y3 D204 and docked with the rest of the fleet. After some fuel transfer the next day the lander/robotic tank ship left for kerbin followed by the science module with transport ship/crew. I wanted to send these modules back in order to collect the science i took from Ike/Duna.

At Y3 D313 the second crew arrived at Kerbin and established orbit the next day followed by the lander. The final docking was the most nerve wrecking since i had bad control over the science/transport ship and managed to dock with no rcs left in it (the large RCS tanks are the Kerabl supplies used for the journey) and the second lander had no electricity since i forgot to put solar panels on it. At last the second crew landed at Y3D316 (MET 1045) near the K2 mountains.

As a bonus i landed the science module and the lander and collected the science from Ike/Duna.

Edited December 15, 2013 by kookoo_gr

[Death Engineering]

Congrats on a great mission! And, done in Career Mode with science.. Nice solution to add the probecore to your lander and quite an interesting location in that canyon to set up your base. Planking on Ike.. heh. Surprised to see the Ike surface report talk about "something zipping past"; was that part of the stock game?

Your mapsat made me think of this guy: