March 13, 2014
Kassie Goes to Eve
At long last, the day is here. The Kassie IV vehicle has been refurbished and reassembled, and is poised on the pad, ready for it's mission. Ready this time not for another test or demonstration flight, but for it's true purpose: the journey to Eve to rescue Bill Kerman and bring him safely back home.
After the Kassie IV test mission, we made some minor updates to the vehicle. While that mission was successful, it did show where some improvements were necessary. Gone are the radial engines on the launch boosters, instead the second and third stage boosters now have larger, more powerful main engines. The total thrust of the platform is actually increased, the weight is dropped, and while the larger engines are less efficient, the increased thrust in the middle of the launch profile more than makes up for it. With that additional launch performance, the fuel tanks of the interplanetary stage have been enlarged, leaving us with more fuel available for orbital maneuvering upon arrival at Eve. And finally, it was determined that there were no reasonable circumstances where the service module could be used as a backup return vehicle, so it was shrunk down to service just the base role of refueling the lander after it's return from the surface.
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I'd like to claim that I'm prepared for the violence of launch this time. And with the radial engines gone the vibration and noise are both reduced. But honestly, it makes no difference. For the first fifteen seconds of the flight it is all I can do to remain conscious, all my focus for breathing and letting the noise flow over me, with nothing left over for the rocket.
For this launch, we've added a camera in a protected housing on the launch pad. It survived to capture this image of the Kassie a few hundred meters above the pad.
After the violence of launch, the flight to orbit is on profile, and only by the instruments is any difference from the previous flight noticeable. As before, we achieve an 80 km parking orbit above Kerbin with just a few dozen liters of fuel left in the final tanks of the launch stage.
On the previous mission to the Mun, the transfer burn was several minutes long, and it was done as a single burn. For the transfer to Eve, the burn is long enough that in order to keep as much of the burn near the apoapsis and take advantage of the Oberth effect, I'll split the burn in two. For the first burn, I fire all engines for two minutes, beginning one minute before apoapsis. The launch stage is exhausted and discarded in the first seconds of this burn.
On our next orbit, we turn off the lander engines, and make the final burn using just the nerva rockets. This burn takes a total of ten minutes, after which I'm on course for Eve.
The journey to Eve is uneventful. I conduct a few science experiments, do a lot of reading, and catch up on the sleep I've lost over the last few months of preparation. On day 22 of the mission I perform a short mid-course correction burn to refine my approach to Eve.
On day 34 of the mission, Eve is recognizable as more than a star to my naked eyes. Finally, on day 36 I slip past the orbit of Gilly and arrive at Eve. I duplicate Bill's approach, aiming below Eve for insertion into a polar orbit. My initial approach is to a mere 60km above Eve's sea level, deep into Eve's atmosphere. This pass won't slow me down enough for a landing, but it should brake my interplanetary velocity and put me in something approaching a reasonable Eve orbit without having to burn fuel.
After the aero-capture maneuver, I am in an eccentric Eve orbit with a periapsis of 58km and an apoapsis of 535,000km. I decide to raise my periapsis to 70km and perform another aero-braking pass. This time my apoapsis is down to 300km, and I finish my orbital maneuvering with engines, making two short burns to achieve a circular orbit 125km above Eve.
Having achieved a safe, stable orbit above Eve, my attention turned towards making contact with Bill Kerman on the surface below. His landing site was now about 20 degrees ahead of me along Eve's rotation. As I came over the horizon, I trained my telescope in the direction of his landing site and tuned my radio to his suit frequency.
"-epeat, orbiting vessel, this is Bill Kerman, please respond,"
I'm sure, once this transmission is played back on Kerbin, I won't be the only kerbal who's eyes teared up to hear that voice. I won't bother repeating our initial discussion here, I'm sure anyone reading this log will have heard it already.
After our greetings, we got down to the business of preparing for my landing. With the orbit I was in, the first opportunity for a daylight landing would be in five days. In that time, it was up to Bill to explore his area as best he could to find a suitable landing site. Of course, in the time he'd spent here already, he had some good possibilities in mind already.
While Bill went on a trek to review some possible landing sites, I prepared the lander for use. The refueling vessel was undocked and it's operation verified.
The days went by quickly, and soon enough it was time for me to join Bill on the surface of Eve. As I came over the horizon at the longitude of Bill's chosen landing site, I began the de-orbit burn.
As soon as the de-orbit burn was finished, I detached the interplanetary stage, and prepared for another aero-braking.
This time, headed deep into the dense atmosphere of Eve, the aero-braking effects were the most dramatic I've seen. Fortunately the craft was well designed and after all the testing and improvements was able to handle the stress without complaint. Soon enough, I was down to a velocity of just a few hundred meters per second, and falling down towards the chosen landing site.
Just the dense atmosphere of Eve alone was enough to slow the lander down to nearly 100 meters per second. The drogue chutes cut velocity further, and then the final landing chutes brought our descent down to 9 meters per second.
Just before impact I deployed the landing gear and blipped the throttles for some last deceleration. Even with the final descent speed dropped below 1 meter per second, the landing was rough, and a couple of the landing legs collapsed, with one breaking completely. But I was down, and the lander seemed intact.
Bill had been able to watch my landing from just a few hundred meters away. Mere moments after landing, we met outside the lander to plant a memorial flag.
Finally, I welcomed Bill aboard the Kassie lander, and he's been on the radio back to Kerbin ever since.
In a few days we'll begin a science survey of the local area, Bill says he's seen some interesting formations that he'd like the examine now that we have functional instruments and communications back to Kerbin. We have 140 days before it's time to launch back into orbit and return home.
Posted by: TheSquirrelPatrol at
12:34 AM
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