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Colonizing Duna... and Beyond

Launch 5-12: Biko 2 [Mun] Refuelling

3/29/2016

 
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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.
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Payload: orange tank
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Lifter: DLSv3 Atlas V+2x
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Booster jettison.
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First stage jettison.
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This is not fine.
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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.
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Once the tanker rendezvoused with the station, DEUCES 4 docked the CFV to it.
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After decoupling from the tank, DEUCES 5 was docked to BIKO 1.
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Let's go already!
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Mun rises midway through the trans-munar injection burn.
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Temporary loss of communication midway through the transfer.
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Communications are restored once we near Mun.
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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.
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With this much fuel, DEUCES must begin its suicide burn immediately after zeroing forward velocity!
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Fulfilling a longstanding contract.
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We were pretty near that crater, eh?
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Takeoff was not nominal, and it won't be any surprise that DEUCES 2 was sent to rescue DEUCES 4.
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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.

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