AAR- Mission to the Purple Planet

[RocketPilot573]

Mission to the Purple Planet

Chapter One

I’m doing this mission right now that I thought I should share with you guys. I don’t do AARs often, so let’s just see how it goes.

It’s that time again, time to tackle Eve! This will be my first Eve mission in career and my second Eve return mission ever. I’ll also visit Gilly afterwards. FOR SCIENCE!

First, the ship:

This is the Paramount, my main exploration mothership for my current save. It previously visited Moho (the first mission there ever). I won’t even bother checking if there’s enough Delta-V because I don’t see how a ship that’s been to Moho and back could be defeated by the closest planet to Kerbin and its tiny moon.

Now for a series of boring missions to get the ship ready, first up is the brand new “Onego†(one go) Refueler. The Paramount should probably be refueled after that other mission, so this should take care of that…

Somehow, it actually made it to orbit, and with fuel to spare! Many people seem to think that these new part are OP, but I disagree. These engines allow for a realistic looking rocket, not some insane asparagus thing

Anyways, next is some other (also boring) launches delivering some other payloads, one of the more notable ones is an Ion powered aircraft. I made this after the Ion engines got buffed, and after playing around with this thing I thought I might as well try it out on Eve (I’ve never brought an aircraft to Eve before).

And finally, the crew! For the Eve expedition we have Phil Kerman, who will be piloting the aircraft, and Hudbert Kerman, who will be driving the rover around. He’s one of my veteran Kerbals, as he’s the first one (besides Bill, Jeb, and Bob) to be hired in the astronaut complex. Moving on, for the Gilly mission we have Bob Kerman and Sean Kerman.

Once everything was checked and double checked (the snacks were quadruple checked), it’s time for the Eve burn! The Paramount is pretty light this time, so one burn was enough. Eve encounter confirmed!

Here’s an inventory of all the payloads:

-Eve lander: An rather small ship powered by 48-7S engines, it has rover wheels to drive to the highest mountain in the area. The main purpose of this is to get Phil and Hudbert back to low Eve orbit.

-Eve Plane: a one seat aircraft powered by 2 Ion engines

-Eve Rover: A rover...

-Eve Science Drop Pod: A small probe that contains tons of science experiments that won’t fit on the plane or rover.

-Gilly Science Drop Pod: Similar to the Eve version…

-MPPC (Multi-Purpose-Powered-Capsule): Basically a small ship that can do many things, for this mission it’s serving as the Gilly Lander. This also was the first thing I ever touched down of Moho.

After the burn, our brave Kerbals moved to one of the hitchhikers for radiation safely for the journey to Eve. Err, they MAY have gone into the one with the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator built into the wall…

***

[Vanamonde]

How the heck many parts does that Eve mission have?

[RocketPilot573]

I'll probably release the next chapter tomorrow (now that the forums are back).

[RocketPilot573]

Hello Eve! After a few months everyone has made it safe and sound, well, I guess there isn’t any sound in space…

First of all, some SCIENCE!

An aerobrake was plotted to place the Paramount in a 120 Km orbt around the planet, meanwhile, Bob made sure to observe the science out the window.

Over two gees!

Once the ship was safely in parking orbit, it was time for the landings! There will be quite a few… The most important thing is the escape lander. It is landed first to make sure the Kerbals have a ride home. The eve lander has 8,300 m/s of delta-V, so a landing site is chosen near some large mountains (one is 7.5 km high). It is packed with a set of rover wheels to get there. Of course, silly me complete forgot about that whole “deorbit maneuver†thing. Oops… (The fuel needed for that could jeopardize the landers ability to get back to orbit).

No need to worry, Kerbals have excellent problem solving skills! Sean hopped in the MPPC, undocked, and gently smashed the small ship into the lander (no docking ports).

To my amazement, the lander did not rotate or lose any control at all! Once the burn was complete, Sean hastily reversed back to the Paramount.

Back to the lander, reentry was uneventful. For some reason, it rotated up-side-down (top down), rather than wheels down… I guess that’s okay, since the lander should be in that position while launching anyways.

Parachute deployment confirmed! The lander quickly flipped back over and stabilized.

Landed! All systems nominal.

With the lander down intact, it’s time for the big event, the first Kerbal shall land on Eve… with style! Phil now boarded his trusty plane.

Since this is Ion powered, Phil was able to do the de-orbit burn himself, even with the sun below the horizon.

For science…

Phil realized that he was overshooting a bit, so he dived; this resulted in some sonic effects after the flames died out.

Phil is a happy Kerbal.

I had no idea how the plane would handle. It goes WAY slower than I hoped, 20 m/s instead of 50 like on Kerbin. However, it does turn way faster. Due to only having one elevon and one rudder, on Kerbin this thing could barely maneuver at all. But on Eve it’s all jittery with control.

Phil Kerman has become the first Kerbal on Eve (in this save)!

Next to land is the Eve science drop pod, this does some experiments on the atmosphere and the ground, to be recovered later.

And the forth landing is Hudbert in the rover. This design is based off of Brotoro’s Fido Rover (the most reliable design I known).

He also observed Gilly in the meantime.

Landed!

His first objective was to get the science from the drop pod, which is finished after a 20 Km drive. The thing had tipped over, but the experiments where intact.

Then Hudbert continued and met up with Phil.

[Space Peanut]

Nice work!

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Eve. Love going there but feel guilty because its always a one-way-trip for any kerbals i take there!!!