KSP 2 might have been announced but doesn't mean we can't play KSP any more! I took a break from KSP but I kept slowly planning my next step, now that I have two ComSats around Duna it's time to go back there, but this time we are not sending probes, we are sending a full manned expedition with the idea that we will be able to bring them back... hopefully. While for some of the pros in this thread this is nothing it is going to be a new mile stone for me so bow to me, or at least don't laugh too hard
This story starts around MinMus, more precisely at EE MinMus in orbit of said moon, originally it was a research station, now there's also a refinery that can make fuel from MinMus ores, obviously I plan to refuel here so the first step is to design and launch all the different ships of Duna expedition and dock them there to refuel and grouping up.
Yes with so many things attached to each other the thing looks like it can snap at any moment, very kerbal-like.
Appart from the old ships of MinMus mission you can see:
Duna Station: A lab, coms, fuel tank, docking ports and a Refinery(*)
Duna Lander: A big ship for three kerbals and a full assortment of science toys designed to be able to land and go back to Duna Stations... hopefully.
Ike Miner: Drills, solar panels, little refinery, ore tanks and even science stuff to get the ore and the science in one go (*)
Fuel Transport: An automated ship that is basically a self propelled fuel tank. You know I think I know what I am doing but... I don't want to get a ship stranded just short of a few hundred m/s dV so if that happens hopefully I can refuel it with this.
ComSat Ike II: This SAT has a huge RA-100 and Survey Scanner, it will act as supplementary COM and Scan Ikke. (Not in the picture it's so small it doesn't need to refuel.
(*) I'll go ahead and say it Ike Refinery is an steaming pile of extravaganza and barely functional. It weights a shit ton which makes it expensive but according to Flight Engineer it should have worked, only that FE doesn't take into account ORE WEIGHT!! After I tried the thing in MinMus it barely could lift off when fully loaded becuase the TWR rather than 6.5 was 1.6... Given that Ike has higher gravity it would need to fly at mid load to even lift off making the profitability of the trip doubtful, in the end I decided to use the old MinMus refinery and leave Ike Miner behind, at least this one is powered by a Poodle and boasts a higher TWR, you really have to wonder wtf I was thinking when designing that extravaganza putting on it a single Terrier and 8 tiny engines to reinforce it, with a Poodle it would have been just fine.
Just in case we try the Duna Lander, because you know sometimes I am stupid... besides planting 3 flags will level up some crew fresh from KS Centre and fulfil a minor contract to make some money.
This time there were no surprises and the ship worked and ended the mission with plenty spare fuel, good thing since landing on Duna is a lot more demanding.
With all possible test completed and with a sense of impending failure it was time to depart.
The three different main ships as they drift away of EE MinMus, Godspeed kerbals.
The plan is for the 4 ships to travel close to each other in the same transfer window, orbit at Duna, go to Ike, and rendezvous in Ike's orbit to begin refuelling operations. The Survey Satellite will hopefully avoid that last stage and instead park itself in its target polar orbit right away. I will save you the details of the trip since it was uneventful and more tedious than exciting, every node had to be place 4 times, all nodes had to be fine tuned afterwards to make sure we didn't end orbiting in an stupid orbit such as a polar orbit or reverse turning direction. The first two ships to arrive at Duna were Duna Lander and MinMus Refinery, these were the less problematic since they had a very generous fuel surplus, while Duna Station and ComSat Ike were OK, they had little room for mistakes, this time luck was with me and as I was creating the nodes for Duna Station to orbit Duna something strange happened. An Ike encounter appeared!! Yay! And the same Happened with ComSat close by. This wasn't necessary, and fine-tuning the nodes to ensure I didn't end in absurd orbit around Ike was laborious but I saved a couple hundred m/s dV by going directly to Ike's orbit with just a fly by past Duna.
Amazing no ship lost in outer space!! The hardest part is over. (Did I mention how my attempt at positioning a ComSat at Moho ended in a speed run by it??)
And finally:
VICTORY:
Man what I love the most about KSP is that it forces me to pay attention and sometimes is even tiring, but that only means when you succeed it's worth something.
d so much since then
