January 16, 2014

Mission "Rescue Bill Kerman" Part One: Planning

Ladies and gentlekerbs, allow me to express the thanks of the Royal Squirrel Patrol Space Force for the outpouring of support for Bill Kerman.  It means a great deal to his family, all of us here at the Kerbal Space Center, and no doubt it would mean a lot to Bill himself were he aware of it.  Rest assured that our focus here is now completely on getting Bill back home safely.


Our scientists and engineers have reviewed every scrap of data Bill sent back before his batteries died. We have a good understanding of what went wrong with his landing, and we're beginning to come up with a plan for his rescue.

Bill crashed on Eve eight days ago. The launch window to Eve from Kerbin opens in another 183 days, and we plan to have a mission ready on the pad when that day comes.

In that 183 days, our scientists, engineers, and test pilots will have a variety of challenges to face.  From Bill's data, we've learned that Eve has a much higher gravity than Kerbin, the opposite of what we've found on the Mun, Minmus, and Duna.  Eve also has a much thicker atmosphere, again the opposite of our experiences so far.  While the thick atmosphere was a benefit to Bill while attempting to slow down his spacecraft for landing, it will be a large problem for any vehicle attempting to escape from Eve back into space.  Likewise, the heavy gravity, which was the cause of his crash, will make it much harder to land a rescue vehicle and get it back into space.

One approach our planners are already considering is to first send a small vehicle to Bill that will allow him to complete his mission of exploring Eve, and that will also let him move to a more suitable location for rescue, at higher elevation.  His crash site is at 1,500 meters above Eve's sea level, quite deep inside Eve's gravity well and atmosphere.  If he can move to a mountaintop site, the difficulties facing his rescue ship will be much less.  In pursuit of this plan, we've spun up two teams to explore competing design approaches.

Lanlo Kerman is the Test Pilot Lead for a program to explore the option of sending an aircraft to Bill.  We call this project "Program Kerbalhawk" and it has already produced the X-0 rocket plane.

X-0 Rocket Plane

Just this morning, Lanlo took the X-0 out for it's first test flight.  The flight began by firing small launch assist rockets to get the plane into the air.  We chose this method over using the length of the runway on the basis that Bill isn't likely to find a runway near his crash site.

X-0 takes off with rocket assist

Once he had the plane in a hover over the runway, Lanlo fired the main engine and began his flight around the KSC.

X-0 beginning forward flight

After a quick flight around the KSC, the X-0's engine ran out of fuel, and Lanlo glided it back over the runway, where he deployed parachutes for landing.  Again, given the dense atmosphere, heavy gravity, and uneven surface of Eve, this seems the wise approach to landing.  Lanlo also seemed to like the idea of not having to land an experimental plane on his first flight.

X-0 landing via parachute

At the same time as Lanlo was conducting his successful test flight of the X-0 rocket plane, our other team, working on "Project Kascar" rolled out their first test vehicle, the K-0 rover.  Doodbus Kerman, the Test Driver Lead for this project, took his rover on a ground tour of the KSC, stopping in front of the memorial to Jebediah's first flight for this publicity photograph.

Doodbus and the K-0 rover

We expect that the rocket plane and rover programs will make rapid progress, and in the time between now and the launch window to Eve to rescue Bill, they will undergo many test missions here on Kerbin, the Mun, and possibly even on Minmus and Duna.

Posted by: TheSquirrelPatrol at 06:52 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 I've really been enjoying these posts. Please, keep it up!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 18, 2014 06:14 AM (+rSRq)

2 Thanks for the feedback.  I don't intend to stop any time soon, but I'm going to slow down to 1 or 2 posts a week so I don't burn out.  The next set of posts should be fun once I figure out the right way to approach them.  Doodbus's trip to the Mun to test his rover didn't work out so well, nor did the rescue attempt.  The RSPSF has not had a good week.

Posted by: David at January 19, 2014 02:51 AM (da+4f)

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