KSC, we have a problem

Venn Base

Venn base arrived in polar orbit and used the coordinates provided by the Beale to target the landing zone. It descended just fine, but the deployment would prove to be troublesome.

It descended just fine and landed with a bit of bouncing. Some parts broke but that was all minor stuff. Redundancy in the design covered for it.

Sojourner arrives

Next up was the Sojourner. It started its descent and had plenty of fuel, but a bit of trouble to get the controls aligned with the state the vehicle. It had to switch between, axis to get a good landing vector, but ultimately they figured it out. And so it landed.

The landing site turned out to be about 3 km from the base. So it drove there and the teams used the cameras on both the base and the rover to complete a visual assessment of the equipment. Everything was good to go.

Releasing a Dragon Fly

The DragonFly was an experiment that had been added to the mission by the Kerbin Aeronautics Academy. They figured that if Duna had an atmosphere, it would be flyable. Katsuki assembled the DragonFly in the cargo bay and deployed it by giving it a gentle push.

The deorbit stage directed the craft to an interesting landing site and began the deceleration burn. As the craft glided through the atmosphere it deployed its four propellers and spun them up. Not much happened, though the spacecraft did manage to slow down a bit. After a not-so-gentle landing, it collected some data and tried to hop to a new place. This failed. Apparently, Duna’s atmosphere was not cooperating. There was hope that fiddling with the blade pitch might help but that would be an activity for another time.

A broken Falcon

Valentina, Katsuki, and Finni were excited to start their mission. They detached from the Beale and started a small correction burn before going for the descent. Directly after the initial burn Katsuki noticed a problem, “Val, check these readings.  I don’t think that they are registering correctly.” Val checked the numbers on her monitor. “Reading the same here, we are low on fuel.”

As the craft descended down, 3 adjustment burns were needed to land near Venn Base. “We are way off course,” Finni said. “I think the magnetic field is disrupting our sensors.” Katsuki homed in on the beacon of Venn. “We are going to need another burn commander.”

The Falcon ran out of fuel, 3 seconds before landing. That was something the gear could handle. Katsuki checked the valves. None of the 604 liquid fuel was left and only 280 of the 738 oxidizer. “KSC, this is Valentina reporting. We have a problem. We landed 3.2 km from the base, but this Falcon is broken. We have no more fuel for the ascent. Repeat, no fuel for the ascent.”

Katsuki found the cause quickly enough. A broken fuel line and a valve that had the engines of the Beale allowed to drain the fuel from the Falcon’s ascent stage. Easy to fix, but not easy to replace the fuel.

They planted the flag and send the picture home before shutting down the Falcon’s main systems and putting her in sleep mode. “Let’s find a place to stay,” Finni said.

They deployed the standard Falcon rover and Katuski added the third chair, as well as some small containers from spacecraft. They also deployed the seismic science post and picked up some interesting rock formations. They then started the long drive to Venn Base.

Once they settled in they established the uplink with KSC, there was a message waiting for them. “Rest assured that we will do everything in our…” Val turned down the volume and sighed. “There is not much you can do Gene.”

Katsuki was the first to report back. “The Sojourner is in good shape and from the logs, I can see that the landing stage still had about 300 units of fuel left. We can pick it up in about 30 km in that direction.” and he pointed towards the North.

Finni had found 50 in the base. Together it would not be enough. Perhaps if they ditched the capsule and used the one from the Sojourner. Or drive to Cobalt base, or that failed Galahad experiment, or, or, or. “Let’s sleep on it,” Valentina said. “We have plenty of time and a big mission. Tomorrow we start working on our main objectives and see what KSC has come up with.”

Needless to say, the teams at KSC were not getting much sleep that night.