C017E Charon Heavy 07 was launched for the second time. Rather than advertising spacecraft reusability, KOS was now calling it “flight-proven” and KSC liked that idea. And so 07 flew again. Carrying the relief crew to UKSS. Katerny would be in command of this mission. The engineer was Valwig and Elifal and Fjalarr would continue the science of the freezer. This time Fjalarr was scheduled for a 200-day hibernation. That is if they could wake Dr. Erilorf without any problems.
“Whooah, I’m really cold. can we start the experiment now?” Were the first words of Dr. Erilorf after she thawed. “That was 100 days ago, mam,” Fjalarr responded. They did a couple of tests, but other than dizziness, nausea and a headache, the scientists seemed in perfect health. “Great to be back at the station. So did anything happen in the meantime?” She asked the crew. “Indeed, something has and we need to prep you for an immediate return to Kerbin. “What, no? I still have tons of experiments to run.” She resisted, but to no avail.
Soon after the last of the D variants undocked from the station and descended directly for KSC. “Why are we not landing in the desert? This thing never goes to KSC?” The crew was confused. “Sorry team sounded Gene. Need to know only, we are ready to pick you up.” Trajectory turned out to be slightly off and the Charon Heavy ended up splashing down in Kerbin’s ocean.
And then the craft flipped. “I don’t believe it!” Scott said. “Well, the design sais the buoyancy is greater than 1, it doesn’t speak off the center of mass,” Sampond said. “KSC we have a problem. We have 2 hours of power left and 4 hours of oxygen. We can leave the craft but then it will probably sink.” It took a minute before the reply came. “Stay put Charon, I’m almost there!”
It was Sean Kerman, piloting the Orca II with yet another new crane design. Together with Melly and Samus he lifted and secured the capsule on deck. Before unlocking the capsule and releasing the crew.
Seamus briefed Erilorf in secret. She explained how the saucer had been found and designated artifact 51 or A-51. Then she went on that they had had some success reverse-engineering the secondary propulsion systems but the capsule had still been locked and was displaying some code they could not decipher.
Dr. Erilorf had, however, no problems unlocking the doors and finally a Kerbal set foot inside the capsule that had been kept in pristine condition. She tried powering up systems but only very basic elements sprang to life. What surprised her most was that the displays remained dark. She was missing something, it was as if the spacecraft did not like her at all. There were some notes on how Jeb-Ahn had taken the power source as a precaution and something about “the key of kinship.”
KSC Archives 