Landing a base
Gene tossed back and forth and eventually put the decision back to Werdhart who decided to go on with the mission. And so Sampond would not only be the first Kerbal on Duna, but the first to land a 20-ton base. Losing the base would be losing the mission, and so Sampond made the ultimate ride.
“Sampond here. Landing burn went ok. The tank does not detach as expected.” There was some hesitation in his voice, as he knew what this meant. The craft continued to descent and parachutes deployed perfectly, but would not be effective with the additional weight.
And so Sampond existed the base mid-flight and detached tank. Despite the fierce wind for Duna standards, it was actually not that difficult to hang on to the ladder and operate the drill at the same time. What was troublesome was that the tank came loose about 300 meters before touchdown. However, Sampond was onboard and deployed the gear, just before touchdown.
“Sampond, here. Duna is fun guys, why don’t you come visit me.” Bookmakers had a bad day. In other good news, the tank that she detached survived and had plenty of fuel left.
Retrieving a Pipet
Pipet had been waiting for quite some time in orbit, but now it could finally do a rendez-vous and its automatic systems made it dock with the Sirkut. The data was interesting, but the team was looking forward to landing and join their teammate.
Landing a Falcon
The Sirkut drops the Falcon so they can save delta-v. It took a couple of correction burns but finally the parachutes deployed because the pressure levels were met. Engines kicked in just before launch but it still used quite a bit of fuel.
And so landed the crew of the Sirkut and on year 6 the 34 of Jebsilon. Kirus and Werdhart were happy to set finally foot on this alien world. Despite not being the first they felt over the moon, or planet perhaps. They deployed the rover and headed for Cobalt II. Data indicated that they still had 463 of the 738 oxidizers left and 373 of the 604 liquid fuel.
Settling in
The team settles in and power on the lab, hydroponics bay and … the recycler. Sampond removed all components that had been used for the descent and cleaned up all stuff that was not needed. Then there was this huge fuel tank of the descent stage still laying around.
Sampond used the winch to pull the tank closer and togther they made it possible to connect it to the base. There was significant fuel in there. Enough to refuel the Falcon for their trip back up. However, it was parked 700m away. How would they get the fuel over there?
One day later the Beetle showed up. Sampond hooked her up to the base and the workshop started work on building fuel tanks to take the fuel to the ascent vehicle. It will take a while, but the team had a couple days to settle in. The mission was green, their favorite color.
Kirus and Sampond set up the greenhouse, they loved the smell of fresh food. Meanwhile, Werdhard set up the lab and restored communications with Kerbin. There was a lot of work to be done.
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