In support of that goal, our engineers have taken the original Kassie I prototype, and gone over it with the proverbial fine toothed comb, searching for any flaw, no matter how minor, at the same time upgrading it and preparing it for flight.

The Kassie II may have cost Philmon his life, but it nearly came to blows over who would have the privilege of strapping into the capsule of the Kassie III to continue the mission in his honor.  In the end, we drew straws.  The other pilots suspect that I cheated.  I will not lie.  Of course I did.  If the Kassie is going to claim another life, it will be none other than that of Jebediah Kerman.

The Kassie is an enormous, ponderous beast, with the large Eve launcher surrounded by the even larger ring of launch boosters that will deliver it into orbit.  The massive ring of boosters guzzles fuel so fast that the first for tanks, once brimming with a full 12,800 liters of fuel each, are exhausted and drop free in 30 seconds, and we're a mere 4,500 meters above the pad.  30 seconds later the twelve solid rockets drop free, and as soon as they're a safe distance away, the second set of four tanks follows.  With the craft now much lighter and the atmosphere getting thinner, the third set of tanks lasts longer, and the fourth set of tanks get me into a 100km parking orbit with a few hundred liters to spare.

As soon as I report that I'm safely in parking orbit, the crews back at the Kerbal Space Center rush into action, moving the Kassie III-B from the Vehicle Assembly Building out to the pad.  The Kassie III-B launch will bring Bob Kerman up to rendezvous with me in the interplanetary transfer vehicle.  A month ago, this would have been the biggest launch at the KSC, but the Kassie III-A makes it look like a child's toy.

The Kassie III-A and III-B vehicles have been built with the same core, an array of five modules, each with a docking port at the end.  The five ports on the III-A will mate with the matching five ports on the III-B, and the hope is that the wider base of five docking points will provide a solid connection between the two vehicles, avoiding the flex we've seen in some earlier multi-ship dockings under thrust.  Of course, making sure that all five docking ports line up and connect properly will be quite the challenge, and the III-A module has no docking thrusters, that would be needless weight on the trip down to Eve and back.  This maneuver is entirely up to Bob to pull off.

Of course, Bob always shines under pressure, and soon the two ships are solidly docked.  Again the crews back at the KSC work overtime, this time bringing out the Kassie III-C launcher, with two conventional landers.  One lander will hopefully be used to explore Gilly, gaining us some scientific benefit from the mission, and the other will be sent down to Eve on autopilot to scout out a landing site for the main lander, and if possible move Bill to that site.  Although there are two landers as the paylod of the Kassie III-C launch, Lanlo Kerman is the only pilot on board, as we only have return capacity for four astronauts, and one spot is reserved for Bill.

Lanlo docks the first lander to the side of the Kassie III-B module, and we find the first flaw in the vehicle.  The III-A module had reached orbit with spare fuel in the booster tanks, and we had kept those tanks attached rather than waste fuel we might have good use for.  Unfortunately, with those tanks in place, the docking ports for the landers were blocked, so we had to detach them to clear the path for Lanlo to dock.

With Lanlo docked, Bob Kerman goes EVA to retrieve and dock the second lander.

After Bob docks the lander, we have the complete Kassie III mission vehicle assembled in orbit above Kerbin.

We still have over a month before the launch window to Eve opens, so the next order of business is to give the vehicle a shakedown.  We set course for an orbit that will carry us past the Mun in a near flyby, then return us back to Kerbin.  If all goes well, we'll brake ourselves back into a high orbit above Kerbin, and a tanker will be sent up to replace the fuel we use up in this test.

Unfortunately, this burn does not go well.  Even with the five point docking between the lander and the interplanetary stage, there is enormous flex.  And the two auxiliary landers on the side dangle loosely, adding their own flex and dragging us off course.  The craft remains solidly together, we could feel that it was holding, but the flex caused us to have to correct our course constantly.   To add to our problems, the six nerva rockets on the interplanetary stage prove woefully inadequate.  The transfer burn to the Mun, which took mere seconds even with the large Kerbis and Klark explorer, is plotted to take nearly half an hour for the Kassie.  But we soon find that this is optimistic, as the constant corrections sap our thrust, and we move farther and farther from the periapsis of our orbit and the most efficient maneuver point.

In the end, the craft that in theory should have had enough fuel to put us on course for Eve and then bring us back, in reality lacks the ability to get us to the Mun.  For the moment, Bob, Lanlo and I remain aboard here in an eccentric orbit.  Hopefully the big brains back at the KSC will have an idea of how we can turn this mission around in time to go to Eve and rescue Bill Kerman.

Hide Comments | Add Comment