Moho 1 Mission Report for KASA

[Joe_Bender]

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this week is out, of landing a kerbal on the mun and returning him safely to Kerbin.

There is no strife, no prejudice, and no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all kerbal-kind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the Mun? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountains?

We choose to go to the Mun. We choose to go to the Mun this week and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. Also mistakes will be made, others will be blamed.â€Â

~ John F. Kerbin

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I recall hearing this speech right after I became Director of KASA (Kerbal Aeronautical and Space Administration) and believed what our late president, John F. Kerbin said was true and possible. However, we have come upon a setback which may hinder our plans to expand further into outer space.

MOHO 1 mission report:

Objective:

Place an unmanned probe onto the surface of Moho, investigate and photograph the Moho environment, return the data by telecommunications link in preparation for landing an excursion module with at least two Kerbals in the near future.

Prelaunch:

Per mathematical calculations and use of a ‘cheat sheet’ found in a drawer, Delta V data was computed to put a probe into LKO (low Kerbal orbit), eject from the planet, transfer to Moho, obtain a low Moho orbit, and land a probe upon the surface. As such, exact amounts of fuel were loaded upon the spacecraft with little overrun for any type of contingency.

Spacecraft design:

The probe would be using the Rockomax 48-7S motor with a FL-T200 fuel tank for deorbiting and landing only.

The transfer vehicle will be built with one LV-N atomic rocket motor and one Rockomax X200-8 fuel tank.

Launch vehicle will be the standard build of four liquid fuel boosters and tri-motor with Rockomax Jumbo-64/X200-8 fuel tanks.

Mission:

Vehicle launch was nominal with no errors indicated. Ejection burn from Kerbal was completed on time and no errors indicated.

However, an error was found at median point of transfer flight. The orbits between the spacecraft and Moho were not coplanar. Investigations into the orbit path did show that the spacecraft would encounter the planet but not on an elliptical orbit. A decision was done to try to correct this issue with a midpoint burn of around twenty seconds.

Planet encounter was achieved but the angle of attack was not in the Moho equilateral plane. A burn was planned at the PE to circlize the orbit of the spacecraft and place it within an acceptable altitude for probe landing.

It was at this point that the amount of fuel in the transfer vehicle would not be enough to perform this maneuver. As the unit burned the remaining fuel, it was jettisoned and the probe motor was used.

The probe began its descent with no issues. At the altitude of 2500m, it became apparent that there was not enough fuel left in the probe to achieve a safe and successful landing. The probe ran out of fuel fifty meters above Moho grade elevation. There was a major development that led to the mission failure.

Diagnoses of mission:

Errors – failure to fully design the flight path which lead to a fuel inefficiency and mission demise.

Recommendations:

Check and back check all calculations for flight plan and fuel usage. This will become more mission critical once we get ready to activate the next program.

Thank you,

Joe Bender

Director

Kerbal Aeronautics and Space Administration