Zokesia Skunkworks PROJECT R Official Record (Image Heavy)

[zekes]

This is the biggest project ever attempted by ZS. It will be to put a base on Laythe, a Station around Laythe, and supply it regularly. The base will have vehicles, boats, and planes. the station will send down SSTOs to refuel the base, and will store fuel. The Orbital vessels will be sent from Kerbin to Resupply the fuel at the station and swap crews periodically.

Act 1

The LRDSCS is part of the long range exploratory Project "R"

Thanks to the Cira IV I have the power to put 100+ ton ships into orbit, meaning i can get a laythe base there in one piece (hopefully).

For now, this is just the opening sequence of a grand Opera.

PART I: Orbit

The first flight of the Long Range Duty Small Crewed System - LRDSCS. The LRDSCS I "Warspite" will be a test mission to the Mun and Minmus to make sure all systems function and the realistic D/V is on target with calculated, but on paper she should have at least 7700 m/s. Liftoff of the huge Cira IV and her 113 tonne palyoad, along with kerbonauts Calford, Chasnie, and Desney Kerman.

Making the slow gravity turn with the first stage, all systems running nominal.

Safe second stage decoupling, continuing ascent.

Once in orbit,

Calford (Electronics Officer) moved down the ladder to deploy the medium range antennae.

Calford and science officer Chasnie moved into the Science Bay to check out systems while pilot Desney made two corrective burns with the second stage to place Warspite in a 101 by 103 km orbit above Kerbin.

They then settled in for the night in the crew quarters. In 6 hours they would make their first munar burn with the last of the second stage.

[zekes]

PART II: Mun+Minmus+Duna Transfer

The Warspite's mission was to perform checks of the new ship, so her mission was to go to the Mun, Minmus, Duna, and return back.

The transfer burn to the mun was easy enough - the second stage had enough fuel for it plus two more burns to lower the orbit. The spent stage still had power thanks to a built in control module, but it was empty so it was shut down and let drift.

The Warspite went into a much lower orbit, to test the main Nuclear drives, then setup a transfer burn to Minmus.

Arriving, Desney put the ship in a 6km orbit but realized it was too low to be safe so moved it to 11km.

Chasnie then decided to EVA to the surface. This was highly dangerous; no Zokesian kerbal had ever made the trip and survived (RIP Langley Kerman, 11-21-2013)

It was a bouncy landing... with exactly 50% fuel remaining.

He planted the flag and took a surface sample. Does not taste like cheese.

His ascent took him into a nice orbit, but he ran out of fuel just as he was coasting to the ladder. Desney's superb piloting skills saved the day as he backed up the Warspite and Chasnie was able to drift to the ladder. Safe and sound!

Desney then took the ship on an escape trajectory from Kerbin. He lined up the burn to Duna and set off for their last two objectives: Orbit Duna and Ike.

[zekes]

PART III: Duna and Ike

The Duna transfer went without a hitch. Soon, all three kerbals crawled into the Command module to view Duna coming into view.

A short burn put Warspite on an aerobraking trajectory.

Aerobraking went well, abeit a little short.

Parking in Duna Orbit.

Desney then executed a tricky maneuver to Ike, since the ship was in a polar orbit.

As soon as they were in a stable orbit, Chasnie decided he wanted to do some "science" outside, above Ike.

Calford also came out to snap some pics of Chasnie. They had a good time.

[zekes]

PART IV: Dres and Home

With 3200 out of 7700L of rocket fuel left in the tanks, Desney told mission control he was going to go for a Dres orbit, or at the least a flyby. ZS Ground didn't like that; it was a little unnecessary, and would add about 2 years to the flight, but they agreed.

By the time they had made their two burns to align with Dres and intercept it, they had used almost 1200L of fuel and were left with a narrow 2000 to get back home on. They didn't want to risk it; many a crew had missed Kerbin by small D/V amounts. They just lowered the flyby of Dres to 380,000 km and zoomed past, while snapping pictures.

Finaly, another 600L burn put them in Kerbin intercept, and all looked great... untill the aerobrake went about 5km higher than it should have been. Instead of the atmosphere pulling them into a lower orbit, the ship had to use almost all of its remaining fuel to get on a wildy eccentric but stable Kerbin orbit.

After a tiny burn at the top of the arc, the Warspite gently intercepted the atmosphere and decoupled from her transfer stage. The stage had pushed them across 6 celestial bodies and back home again. Farewell.

The CM then went into a 4 minute re-entry.

The ride got gentler as the parachutes began unfurling.

The main chutes opened as planned, and the two emergency chutes were never used.

Splashdown left the capsule unharmed. It was a perfect mission.

Four years and 115 days after their launch, the Warspite I was home. Its crew was safe, after making an incredible journey. Before the hull burned up on re-entry, it still contained at least 200L of rocket fuel and about 300 of Oxidizer. The ship made circular orbit around 5 bodes: Kerbin, then the Mun, then Minmus, then Duna, then Ike. It passed by Dres. It made 5 plane changes to go from horizontal to vertical orbit around Duna to aligned with Dres to a 35 degree incline back to Kerbin. Their mission was a complete success. While the LRDSCS had its flaws - not enough batteries, no lights, no landing craft, no independently controllable transfer stage, no RCS ports on the CM, and no RCS fuel on the transfer stage, the ship managed to make a grand tour of the local system, and will most certainly be able to fly to Laythe and all of Jool's moons with ease. Project "R" has a bright start to it.

[kalor]

Nice work, and some great pics to show off too

[SuperWeegee4000]

Looking good. Hey, how did you fix the Mk 1-2 pod's KerbPaint compatibility?

[Spartwo]

Looking good. Hey, how did you fix the Mk 1-2 pod's KerbPaint compatibility?

Newest version on page 25 or 26 of the kerbpaint thread.

[SuperWeegee4000]

Stock Addon v3? Doesn't work. It does add more paintability, but no Mk 1-2.

Edited July 10, 2014 by SuperWeegee4000

[Spartwo]

Apologies, page 30.

[SuperWeegee4000]

Thanks!

(DAE tenchar?)

[zekes]

??UPDATE?

So I've mapped out the plan for the launch, landing, and contstruction of the ground base. Now I just need to build, and test it on kerbin, then make a drive for it and put it on top a Cira IV. I calculated that if i can put 170 tonnes to LKo, then I will have 50 tonnes of cargo if i want 6000 m/s of delta vee to get me to Laythe. Is that right? Can someone check my math, or is 6k not enough to get to laythe? keep in mind i dont aerobrake at jool, i just run striaght into laythe for a 4 or 5 k deceleration aerobrake.