Flight of the US1. A NEAR desaster.

[Tw1]

After some experimentation with rovers, I, like most others, decided to build a big spaceplane. I also recently upgraded to NEAR, and haven't quite got the hang of it yet.

I threw something together, and began launching:

I tried many times:

...many times:

Eventually, I got something that works.

The Untitled Spacecraft 1 takes off vertically, under a combination of solid booster and main engine thrust. It has to be throttled down, and turned gently, before extreme speed shreds the wings.

It had a nice, clean booster separation.

And got into orbit with 1400m/s delta v to spare.

Now it was time for some space activities. First, I had a payload to deploy.

Two canned scientists, enthusiastic to begin their research.

If they are good, I might send up a hab module, or even a control source one day.

Then, I dropped off a few kerbals.

Those rescue contract kerbals have to come from somewhere right?

Well, now you know.

I had one final experiment that would continue into landing.

Cargo bay party!

Give them a little thrust.....

Give them a little spin...

And thus began our eventful reentry.

The burn put us on a trajectory that without gliding, would have us impact the center of KSC's continent.

Landing took several attempts. On the way down, a final retrograde burn was used to slow us to 1600m/s, while still in the upper atmosphere. Reasons for disassembly varied. Did you know the new Mk3 cockpit has a rear hatch self destruct button?

Ironically, when the plane disintegrated over land, the kerbals most likely to survive where the ones that feel out of the cargo bay.

Eventually, there was a successful-ish attempt. And that's the one I'm going to recount.

My crew was confident. Jeb performed the flip to retrograde, then a return to prograde. But this time, we left a little spare fuel in the tanks.

The plane came in hot, Jeb aiming for some object lying around KSC. Many quick corrections were needed to stop it from rolling. They dived, hoping to slow down closer to the ground.

But they were coming in too fast. They pulled up, avoiding the mountains, overshooting KSC.

When it became clear they would also miss the island airstrip, effort was made to turn the plane around. But all we could do was make it verr a little.

So the flight continued, over the sea, into the darkness.

Slowly, speed was lost. The plane dipped into the lower atmosphere, aerodynamic stress picking off weaker parts of the wing.

The aim was to land on the next continent. It wasn't far off, and was slightly north of the current trajectory. But during an attempt to alter course, the plane became unstable.

The plane began to tumble, eventually settling into a flat spin. I instructed Jeb to point it prograde, but there was nothing he, or I could do.

We waited, as the plane slowly descended towards the inevitable

Splash!

But wait! The fuselage is intact!

They're alive?

YES! All the little kerbies survived and the cargo bay party, is now a pool party.

The crew soon joined them. (Except for Bill, who wanted to inspect the hull.)

They happily waited for rescue, and all lived happily ever after- until the next time.

And that's

Edited December 18, 2014 by Tw1

[zekes]

-snippppp-

Oof. Those failures. I feel you. Wheee.