The end of the KASA agency

[sreinmann]

Well, my last mission of .23.5 with Interstellar, TAC, Kethane, Remote Tech, DMagic Science w/Core, and ScanSat and a dozen or so other addons went something like this ...

After completing a science survey of Mun, MuLab-005 completed an intersystem transfer to Minmus. We'd done a lot of science at Minmus prior to going back to Mun, but we believed that there was still usable life in MuLab that could be leveraged and could probably knock out Minmus's biomes in short order. During the 6 day transfer, KASA also launched a replacement transfer shuttle, MiT-001, straight to Minmus (Mu's transfer shuttle having arrived with the remaining Mu science and the replacement crew earlier) with an additional payload of 3 SCANSat probes to join the already in place Kethane probe. Post accident investigators have noted that the first indications of how rushed the agency was occurred during this flight. The SCANSat probes were beefed up with additional comm dishes to serve double duty in their staggered polar orbits. With a Moho probe also scheduled to depart the system between the arrival of these two space vessels, someone should have read between the grease pencil smudges that bad things were coming.

MuLab arrived, but inserted in a counter rotating orbit. Mission planners decided that Minmus's lower gravity - and low fuel supplies on board - would not create a significant problem and the mission continued. The Kethane probe factory, KeFac-002, was deorbited. But lack of comm coverage (MiT-001 with its fleet of SCANsat/CommSat was only just arriving in the outer edges of Minmus's SOI) resulted in it leaving just prior to its tanks being 40% full. It docked with the station and refueled MuLab-Lander which was then dispatched for its first mission to visit 3 biomes. MiT-001 then arrived and performed a perfect insertion, with an AP and PE allowing excellent positioning of its first two SCANSats. The third transfer orbit went just as well and Dildred set up his intercept orbit with the station. Were things looking better? Ah, now comes ACT 3.

KeFac-002 was dispatched for another Kethane site, this time the location was planned based on the best available signal coverage, however after landing and deploying its drills, the sun immediately set. All too quickly the batteries were drained and we lost contact with the probe. We would not have a refuel of the station for another Minmus day. But that didn't matter much. Bob decided upon returning to MuLab that the opportunity two hit three more biomes was too good to pass up. He topped off his tanks with all the fuel MuLab had available, undocked ... went to map view ... pitched to aim for his target biome ... and lit his engines.

"Hey, MuLab, did you guys hear something? MuLab? Was that a crash sound? MuLab?

Back to the in cockpit view and we were just in time to see the several dozen parts of the station disintegrating in their deorbiting trajectories.

Luckily, Bob managed to reverse thrust just in time to return to the scene of the crime. All four scientists bailed out of their modules, MuLab-Lander not having enough time to dock with the spinning/falling debris and one by one they RCSed up to the lander to grab hold of whatever they could. Now, Lander pod holds two and there's five guys in orbit. The MiT-001 with its Mk2 cockpit and single pilot has room for 2 more. Which now left me playing the ridiculous EVA transfer with the extra guy while we awaited another transfer shuttle to come all the way out to Minmus to finally bring everyone back.

We may have lived, but that's the last mission of this save. Good bye 23.5 Hello contracts. Ugh.