Mission Commander Kirus Kerman, Mission Specialist Katsuki Kerman and lead scientist Wehrdard Kerman sat uneasily in the seats of their Delta 8 spacecraft. The wanted to go. “Countdown confirmed, fueling stopped, we are go for launch” blurted the speakers.
Thor launched had now become very normal launch phenomena and even the transfer to the Mun turned out to be not that difficult. They entered orbit with more delta-v left than Delta 7, which was a testament to many flight improvements and a lighter payload.
Once the spacecraft was docked with the Gateway system, mission specialist Katsuki was up. She would spent many hours in EVA, installing the recyclers which would extend the station’s operational lifetime considerably.
She also checked the wiring on the new node, which serves as a cooling hub, but also offered 2 small size docking ports in anticipation of the new lander design. All things went smooth and slowly the small station in Mun orbit was growing to its potential.
Wehrdard also performed a couple of EVAs, in which he fetched the science and did several checks on the crystal growth experiment. The mission would also be slightly longer, spending a total of 23 days in orbit of the Mun and attempts to contact the probes and rovers on the surface were also performed.
The most interesting experiment was the crystalize experiment that had been left by the crew of Delta 7. It had grown to full-size crystals, scientists speculated that there were unique properties to this material.
After 3 weeks in orbit, the return flight began. This time they had made great timing, “You will land near the desert base crew,” Gene explained. “That is if nothing goes wrong.”
“I wish he hadn’t said that,” Kirus said when he tried to deploy the main chutes. They had been ripped off for some reason. He activates the backup shutes of the KP-10 module. They still had this strange horizontal drag effect, but in the end, they landed just fine, about 5 km from their target LZ. “Better check the chutes on Delta 9 CapCom,” Kirus said when he radioed in their positon.
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