Modded 64k Career game UPDATE Year2 Day36 (09/05/2017)

[Shania_L]

Here we go! I'll post a roundup of progress with missions up to date before I'm away on work for a couple of weeks again.

 

At the end of the last episode we had a trio of capture burns; Lilith II returning to Kerbin as well as Decender IV and Medea III/Cerbarus Ib arriving at Minmus. Finally all topped off by Cerbarus Ib landing on Minmus' icy slopes laying the initial foundations for mining operations required for the Charon Duna mission.

Year 2 Day 34, Low Kerbin Orbit

If Kerbals had noses there would be four of them pressed up against the portholes of Lilith II as the craft slews into position to dock at Pandora. Each of the four crew aboard had spent over 100days in space, elevating them in one mission from rookies to holding all the endurance records.

Aling launched aboard Lilith I Y1 D327 (132 days in space)
Bartlorf, Dersey and Lemlie all launched together on Ascender V Y1 D312 (147 days in space)

They all transferred from Pandora to Pandora Mun on Y1 Day 402 (54 days outside Kerbins SOI)

They not only performed multiple EVA missions in orbit facilitating the assembly of Pandora Mun Station, they completed 3 surface landings (putting more kerb boots on the ground in each of them than had been done in the entirety of previous Mun missions), they also hold the record for the longest (only) surface trek aboard Loki rovers, first Kerbals to explore anomalous signatures and the only Kerbal mission to return to Kerbin with the same amount of spaceship as they left with.

HOWEVER.

They will always be remembered as the only kerbals ever to leave the most important, contract dependent science instrument, the main purpose for their mission, attached to their lander, docked to a station, around the wrong planet!!!

Yup anomalous signal detector ... the one we painstakingly removed from Loki and carted 70kms across the Mun'r surface is still attached to the Decender III lander.

The arrival of Lilith II raises the population of Pandora to 9, a Lilith CTV will be launched to retrieve the science data returned as well as escorting the new heros to their next role in the customer complaints department.

Y2 Day 34, Minmus

Medea III, despite launching before the other craft arrives last due to a more lethargic transfer. There is however nothing lethargic about Medea III herself, designed to lift 80 tonnes off the surface of Duna, arriving at Minmus in an unloaded configuration her insane TtW ratio requires dialling back considerably.

At full thrust her triple Vulcan motors (761KN) could have completed the 690m/sec capture burn in only 4.8 seconds however this would expose the craft to an unnessisary loading in excess of 6Gs, which for a craft we need to use multiple times for mission critical elements is not considered wise. Instead her power is throttled back to 20% and she completes the burn in 24 seconds at 2.7G, much safer.

36x214km orbit, with a minor puff of Dv an intercept with Decender IV is arranged for the next time around.

Meanwhile, LKO

Medea II docked with Cerbarus Ic leave Kerbin.

Medea II was always designed for missions to both moons of Kerbin and is capable of pushing the 11,000kg payload with over 4km/s dV. 2,500 of this (10t of Methane) is used to put it on an intercept with Minmus.

Y2 Day 35, Minmus orbit

Medea III and Decender IV intercept in low orbit.

Velocity matching and docking alignment cost Medea less than 50m/sec, Decender being the only craft of the two posessing an RCS performs the actual docking.

Due to space constraints within the HDIV fairing, Medea III could not be launched with its (empty) methane payload tank, Decender IV had space and mass capacity to bring it to Minmus where it would be transferred before the craft land.

With no other requirement than the tank handover, Medea III undocks immediately and performs an 80m/sec incline change to overfly the mining site in half an orbit just as the sun is rising.

Despite an inefficient 'stop and vertical drop' style landing, Medea III still has 140m/sec in its tanks as it sets down within 50m of Cerbarus Ib. (the motors had to be dialled back to minimum for any hope of controlled descent)

The next orbit around it was Decenders turn, 85m/sec incline change and a larger fuel reserve allowing it to put down within 25m of Cerbarus.

Veteran pilot Sigbert and Rookie Engineer Aldmore Kerman are out on the surface immediately exploring the three landers.

Decender brings with it 6 containers full of assembly equipment, Aldmore is tasked with plumbing Cerbarus' mining/refining equipment up to Medea III's large empty tanks.

Cerbarus carries a single centre mounted drill and a 1.25m refinary module. it is noticed rather rapidly that the refinary is able to cope with flow rates far in excess of anything the single drill can hope to supply it with. It is noted for the later Duna editions of Cerbarus that additional drills could be subsituted in place of having a refinary on every craft.

Also, someone miscounted, as you can see Decender IV has had to be left out of the link due to there being 2 pipe ends too few. Cerbarus Ic enroute is carrying (like Ib did) two ports of its own so linking it in will not be an issue when it arrives. The only concern now is the flow rates, whether we can physically pump enough methane in order to meet the transfer window.

 

And thats it for this episode, not a great deal of time has passed in game, I am really trying to get as much done in as short a time as possible to meet this transfer window. Next episode is likely to be around the end of May, and should include the first few of the 6 (maybe 7) launches required to assemble the Charon Duna ship.