Mission Time: 1 Year, 13 days
Probe: Explorer 01
Target: Moho
Trajectory: Post gravity assist correction burn
The boys back at navigation were restless, today was burn date, but long-range telemetry had put the craft off-course. At least the commlink was good.
After dropping the booster stage, it continued on the spare tank that was designed for capture, once that was burned it started with the last 400 m/s in the maneuver tank.
They ended up with an orbit lower than Moho and higher than Duna, but due to the inclination, it would never intersect with either of them. With a sad face, mission control scrapped the mission and shut down communications.
“Send out a request for proposal for a new probe,” was the response from the science council. Many things had gone great, it was only natural that some projects would go wrong.
The Nav team had a nice idea for the next Eve window, it should be possible to use Eve as a slingshot to lower the orbit of any probe and get free dv to Moho. “We will see,” Gene replied.
KSC Archives 