Launch 5-12: Biko 2 [Mun] Refuelling

Year 5, Day 133.
Mission Objectives:

1. Take fuel to Mun.

We have a station around Mun, in the CFV we have a lander, and we already have crew aboard the Kerbin station. We just need fuel to get them to the surface and back. While we could just use a DEUCES mk 2, we want to land on Mun with a DEUCES mk 1 so we'll take that instead. It wouldn't ordinarily have the dV to get a 30T payload to Mun, but since it can use the fuel from the payload, it should be no problem.

Payload: orange tank

Lifter: DLSv3 Atlas V+2x

Booster jettison.

First stage jettison.

This is not fine.

With the orange tank, the upper stage had over 5km/s of fuel, so it would eventually reach orbit, just with about half as much fuel as we'd hoped. That's still enough for our main mission.

Once the tanker rendezvoused with the station, DEUCES 4 docked the CFV to it.

After decoupling from the tank, DEUCES 5 was docked to BIKO 1.

Let's go already!

Mun rises midway through the trans-munar injection burn.

Temporary loss of communication midway through the transfer.

Communications are restored once we near Mun.

After insertion and circularization, the external tank would be nearly empty. Instead of docking it with the station and then landing, we'd land directly, discarding the tank in the process.

With this much fuel, DEUCES must begin its suicide burn immediately after zeroing forward velocity!

Fulfilling a longstanding contract.

We were pretty near that crater, eh?

Takeoff was not nominal, and it won't be any surprise that DEUCES 2 was sent to rescue DEUCES 4.

We then docked both DEUCES with Biko 2.

Mission Summary:

1. Take fuel to Mun: no fuel was added to station.

Despite the fact we didn't actually get any fuel to Mun, we did complete a contract and continue to perform research on the station. In those terms, the mission was a success.

What has become clear, however, is that the efficiency of our flight control software, for both rendezvous and docking, needs to be improved.