Operation: "New Mexico Flyer"

[Randazzo]

So my attempt to set up a Karbonite refinery over Duna was a failure due to the fuel costs associated with shuttling full tanks from the Surface, so a wizened friend suggested I move the operation to Ike instead. I was going to wait and put the whole thing up as a single album, but I'm too eager to show off to wait. So I present Phase I!

Phase I of Operation New Mexico Flyer was recovery of Polonius Base crew from Dunas surface and transferring Kepler station to Ike orbit. The recovery of the Polonius crew hit two snags. First, the Castaway (recovery vessel) landed too far to refuel from Polonius' storage tanks. Two, when trying to attach vital equipment to the Castaway, the Kerbals proved too short to reach. Heldrin Kerman, first class engineer (you should trust her), devised the "Altitude Enhancing Module" to solve this dilemma. Castaway was also required to dock at Kepler to refuel before heading to Ike. Surprisingly, everything else went according to plan.

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Phase II will be a SATSCAN probe and Karbonite sampling surface drones. Phase III will be arrival and landing of the new surface Karbonite extraction facility and delivery of the crew. Finally the operation will be tested for sustainability. If fuel costs still remain too high, a new Karbonite tank shuttle will be devised to be lighter than Tarantula. If this still fails to produce a sustainable operation, Castaway I will carry the surface crew back to Kerbin and Castaway II will be deployed to recover Kepler stations crew, after which the station will be aggressively deorbited into Ikes surface. If sustainability is acheived, Jeb will return Castaway I to Kerbin and begin preparing for Jool missions from Duna.

Edited February 10, 2015 by Randazzo

[Randazzo]

"New Mexico Flyer" Phase II operations commenced tonight with the deployment of the Columbus Probe Delivery Vehicle and the Karbonite Survey Satellite. Both deployments went smoothly and the vessels arrived at Duna 6 days apart. K.S.S. arrived first and was deployed into a polar orbit over Ike. Columbus arrived and deployed it's surface probes before the main Mapping Satellite array uncoupled from the transfer stage and deployed into a polar orbit as well. With the resulting map in hand, three sites were chosen for surface probe landing.

Since Karbonite levels were already known from the K.S.S. survey this was mainly to find a suitably flat area for the deployment of El Dorado base in Phase III. Ultimately the site of Columbus Surface Probe II was chosen. The remaining five probes will remain in orbit until the arrival of El Dorado, when they will be landed to serve as perimeter transfer points in the case of an inaccurate landing of the fuel shuttle. By attaching pipe lines from El Dorado to the probes tank and then to the shuttles tank, missing the landing zone will not require a shuttle hop to transfer fuel. After a staging area was chosen, the Columbus Mapping Satellite was tasked with transferring to and mapping Duna to complete a contract requiring data from Duna space. Funds have been getting thin with all efforts being centered being on this operation, any chance to bolster them without losing focus must be taken.

Two important decisions that will be critical to the sustainability of the operation were also made. First, the operation would no longer center around transferring full Karbonite tanks to orbit for processing. This was far too inefficient and was unlikely to provide a net fuel gain. Instead, processing will take place on the surface and the fuel itself will be transferred to Kepler Station. Secondly and as a result of the first decision, the "Tarantula" shuttle will be decommissioned*. Initially, plans were to send empty standard fuel tanks to replace the current loadout of Karbonite tanks, as Tarantula was designed to be modular and accept different payloads. However, Tarantula was built for Duna operations and as a result was unnecessarily large and powerful for operating on Ike's surface, which translated into being highly inefficient. Rather than replacing Tarantulas Karbonite tank load with a standard tank, a much smaller purpose-built LFO shuttle will be constructed and deployed alongside El Dorado in phase III. This will also render the "Skiff" tank loader obsolete in it's current role, but it will remain docked at Kepler Station for it's potential use as a general purpose tug.

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* Flown directly into the surface of Ike at high speed

[Randazzo]

Phase III operations saw the deployment of "El Dorado" base, and "Mule" fuel transport to Ike. Both launches went smoothly, as Duna launches are becoming almost routine. With both craft safely in Ike orbit, Jeb and the surface crew departed from Kepler station and descended to the surface to await arrival of El Dorado. In the meantime, the components formerly attached to Polonius base on Duna were removed from Castaway for stowing on the surface. The nearby Columbus Surface Probe was relocated as well, to be used as a junction for fuel transfer. That was probably the most ridiculous ordeal of the whole operation. Trying to gently move a .7 ton probe with a TWR of 178 in Ike's gravity was...trying. Finally after setting the limiter as low as possible, the probe was in position. El Dorado arrived soon after, first in a series of rather hazardous landings. Fuel lines were run to allow Karbonite and Fuel transfers, and mining commenced immediately. El Dorado needed to shed the excess fuel (which was brought intentionally) in it's landing engine nacelles before decoupling the engines themselves. All remaining fuel was transferred to Castaway and the nacelles were jettisoned in a rather inglorious manner, landing barely a meter away, further cluttering the LZ.

Mule arrived next, and awaited fuel production from El Dorado. Supplementary mini-drills both from Polonius and stowage on the base were deployed to increase Karbonite extraction. El Dorado proved capable of producing a full storage tank (720 lf/880 o) in just under three hours. With it's own storage now fuel, Mule ascended and rendezvoused with Kepler and delivered it's payload. Able to deliver the fuel and return to the surface without having to fill it's own tanks at Kepler, Mule proved capable of delivering the payload with 100% net gain, and left running, El Dorado already had a full tank waiting. However, due to a small design oversight with El Dorado, Tarantula was spared it's fate of being deorbited into Ikes surface. No distillers were installed on El Dorado, and as such raw Karbonite will have to be brought up to Kepler for processing into Monopropellant every so often and Mule is not capable of this task.

With the fuel production operating perfectly, the Castaway could now depart without evacuating the crew. This was uneventful, and Jeb finally returned home to Kerbin. The LZ was cleaned up, all attachable parts were stowed and the engine nacelles rolled away down a hill. The remaining Columbus probes were deorbited. After quite the ordeal, fuel production has commenced and preparations for missions from Duna can begin.

Thanks to anybody who bothered to read all this stuff and look at the Albums, it was my first extended mission anywhere to do anything other than just land and do Science! before returning to Kerbin.

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