Kron series (Kron 6 end of mission) - temporary halt of program

[Hydrazine_Soup]

Elowiny said:

You shouldn't wake them up, so they will die painlessly in their sleep if the ship blows up.

That'd be sad :S

Edited March 5, 2020 by Hydrazine_Soup

[Bev7787]

Looking good

[Rath]

Lemme guess: you're writing the Kerty reports cause you don't have acces to a computer cause vacation.

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

PUBLIC NOTICE: For best dramatic effect, read Kerty's reports while listening to the "Gayane Ballet Suite (Adagio)"

https://youtu.be/EB3IokHelRk

[lajoswinkler]

Lemme guess: you're writing the Kerty reports cause you don't have acces to a computer cause vacation.

No, I'm just hot. Also, Pluto.

[lajoswinkler]

[highlight]/start of transmission/

report by Kerty

day: 1555

crew condition: hibernation

distance from Urlum: 2.56 million km (entering SOI, <20 days until aerobraking)

speed relative to Urlum: 1466 km/s

charge: nominal

fuels pressure: nominal

current delta v: 8919 m/s

atmosphere: 100%

ionizing radiation: very low and rising

sunlight: insufficient

average ship temperature: -120.5 °C

snacks: 93%

Kerty: happy go lucky

end of line

/end of transmission/[/highlight]

Kerty will now perform a series of maneuvers to correct the ship's trajectory, namely inclination and periapsis for aerobraking at Urlum, seen here as a pale blue dot in the distance.

Edited July 20, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[lajoswinkler]

Trajectory has been set. Additional Urlum periapsis corrections will be done if needed. Inclination corrected. 8 m/s of delta v has been spent on these corrections, using only the central engine at half thrust.

Series of snapshots will be taken as the ship falls towards Polta and Urlum.

Edited July 24, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[Mister Dilsby]

Welcome back! You are starting to convince me to install these planets, can't wait for the snapshots. Maybe there'll be an update to put a 'heart' and a couple of mountain ranges on Polta before you get there

[lajoswinkler]

Oh, I'm using KSP 1.0.2. and not the latest OPM (although not much has changed).

5 days before aerobraking. Urlum is clearly visible as a crescent in the void of space.

Kron 4 has turned prograde. Most of ship's systems are still offline. Ionizing radiation is growing in intensity.

[lajoswinkler]

Less than one day is left before Kron 4 starts ablating.

From left to right, there is Wal, then Priax, and Polta is visible transiting Urlum.

[lajoswinkler]

4 hours before atmospheric contact. Priax and Polta doing their dance.

[Seshins]

Read the whole thread in one sitting. Love your work.

[lajoswinkler]

Thanks.

And we're swinging over Polta at some 600 km give or take, more than one hour before aerobraking. Wal and Priax in the distance.

Edited July 24, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[Rath]

Spams reload button

- - - Updated - - -

Y u leave us hanging!!!!!!!!

[lajoswinkler]

Calm down.

One hour before aerobraking. Faint system of rings is visible.

[lajoswinkler]

27 minutes to go. Kron 4 is falling over the first rings of Urlum.

- - - Updated - - -

125 km above Urlum, the main heatshield of Kron 4 begins to heat up. Initial speed is 3160.0 m/s.

[Rath]

'Main heatsheald starting to heat up'

Dude, the things like flaming!

[lajoswinkler]

[Yukon0009]

That is ominous.

[Jodo42]

Have to admit I was expecting some aerobraking issues, but as he wasn't on 1.0.3 with the nastier heating mechanisms I didn't believe we'd see a catastrophic failure.

Hopefully the ship is just in communications blackout due to the plasma or b/c it's passing behind Urlum, and we're not looking at a mission loss.

[lajoswinkler]

Well, chaps, I had to play Kod.

Yes, this is 1.0.2., but it is a 1.0., therefore I expected some problems will occur. I had the reentry heating set to 120% and I have Deadly Reentry installed, so even with periapses at 105, 112, 119 and even 123.5 km (basically just scraping the atmosphere) would end up with the ship tearing itself apart. I watched it end up like Tiangong 2 in "Gravity" at least five times.

First the strut endpoints would explode, then the ship would start tilting no matter how strongly the 3.75 m reaction wheel and RCS worked. Then it would be too exposed and as the tanks would start breaking, mass symmetry would be lost and total breakup would occur. It was gradual and spectacular, but really awful. It proved that this kind of design can not work for Hohmann transfer and aerobraking beyond Sarnus.

So I disabled the heating and watched the ship start tumbling 123 km above the "surface".

Indeed, it tumbled its way through the brick wall of Urlum's high atmosphere. When it was finished, periapsis was between Priax/Polta and the rings. I've corrected the orientation and set up a low delta v cost burn to catch Wal.

Main heatshield was jettisoned,

Instruments, radiators and antennas have been deployed and nuclear rockets have performed the burn.

Kron 4 is now in a highly eccentric orbit of Wal.

Next, Kerbals will be awaken to start preparing for the finer adjustments of orbit, surface scan to find the weird bright spot on Wal, send a rover near it and then land.

Edited July 25, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[lajoswinkler]

Breaking at periapsis to establish a circular low Wal orbit.

Kron 4 is now in a roughly 50x50 km, almost polar orbit near the terminator, which enables high contrast of the surface features.

- - - Updated - - -

Engineer Bill is the first to wake up. Time to inspect the ship.

[lajoswinkler]

The crew is awake. TAC+DeepFreeze caused the food supplies to plummet rapidly despite using the recommended trick. Good thing HyperEdit has a slider for it.

The ship will soon pass above the anomaly reported a decade ago by an orbiting probe, so you'll get better images of it.

[lajoswinkler]

Kron 4 passed made a first pass over the area where the probe detected a bright object. By comparing the sight with old imagery, it was apparent the object has either moved or rolled down the crater wall. Its increase in brightness can be explained both by increasing albedo or actual size.

On the next pass, the ship will deploy WalEye, the lander.

[Mister Dilsby]

Well color me intrigued...