Ark
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Aloha, gents, today we're going to be flying a nice long resupply mission to the base on 90 Antiope, out in the Belt.
The ship is a Gilgamesh-class interplanetary transport, it's SC3 file has been upgraded with a greater ISP and main engine thrust to support longer-range cargo flights. We have two DGIV-sized crates to deliver, and a new landing craft that will enable the base's crew to make exploratory flights to Antiope's neighbor, S/2000.
The auxiliary tank doesn't add a whole lot of fuel, but it takes some of the ejection burn load off the main fuel tanks.
We've moved clear of ESS station, waiting for the eject burn.
On the night side, burning free of Earth's gravity. Takes about 900 seconds for the ship's upgraded engines to apply the needed delta-v.
The empty tank is abandoned into solar orbit. Time to settle in for the long flight, with about 15% fuel remaining, just barely sufficient for the rendezvous burn.
An exceedingly long time later, Antiope and S/2000 come into view. This is actually only six or seven minutes from the rendezvous burn, they're small asteroids and the ship is running about 4.5k/s relative to them. Insertion burn is really a misnomer here, the gravity is so faint it's more like pulling up next to a space station.
The base is just around the other side of Antiope, requiring the ship to dramatically swoop in between the two asteroids.
Antiope Base, buired under a bulge in the asteroid for radiation protection.
The ship hovers inverted over the base (due to the location of the cargo doors) and releases the lander. As it drifts down to the surface, workers from the base emerge to assist with loading and unloading of the cargo. EVAs on Antiope are a curious blend of orbital EVA techniques and surface operations, workers usually pulse the jets to hover a few meters off the surface, then translate over to the work area.
After dropping off the crates, the ship takes on a fresh supply of fuel and two containers of asteroid ore. The ore is mostly gold, platinum, and other heavy metals in short supply on Earth.
The ship burns up and away from the astroid to escape it's SOI, then...
...Reverses direction and initiates the burn to drop back down to Earth.
Inbound to Earth, about 20% fuel remaining. Since it had to drop in from halfway to Jupiter, the injection burn will be rather exciting.
The last of the fuel established a slightly sloppy, higher-inclination parking orbit. A shuttle will later be dispatched to retrieve the ore and transfer enough fuel to rendezvous with ESS station for a thorough inspection before the next run.
This was a fun mission for me, flying to asteroids with next to no gravity of their own can be quite exciting. It's easy to overshoot on your insertion/rendezvous burn, since you're not dropping into a 7k/s orbit, you basically need to come to a complete stop next to the asteroid. Positioning the base in a way that looks good took some trial and error as well. The choice of ship isn't too realistic, the flight time was rather long and the ship is really too small to support a crew for that duration. After all, it was originally intended for short Earth-Moon runs. Ah well, I get a kick out of repurposing things. :thumbup:
Oh, and did I mention the atmospheric enhancement mod combined with level 10 Earth textures looks really bloody good?
The ship is a Gilgamesh-class interplanetary transport, it's SC3 file has been upgraded with a greater ISP and main engine thrust to support longer-range cargo flights. We have two DGIV-sized crates to deliver, and a new landing craft that will enable the base's crew to make exploratory flights to Antiope's neighbor, S/2000.
The auxiliary tank doesn't add a whole lot of fuel, but it takes some of the ejection burn load off the main fuel tanks.
We've moved clear of ESS station, waiting for the eject burn.
On the night side, burning free of Earth's gravity. Takes about 900 seconds for the ship's upgraded engines to apply the needed delta-v.
The empty tank is abandoned into solar orbit. Time to settle in for the long flight, with about 15% fuel remaining, just barely sufficient for the rendezvous burn.
An exceedingly long time later, Antiope and S/2000 come into view. This is actually only six or seven minutes from the rendezvous burn, they're small asteroids and the ship is running about 4.5k/s relative to them. Insertion burn is really a misnomer here, the gravity is so faint it's more like pulling up next to a space station.
The base is just around the other side of Antiope, requiring the ship to dramatically swoop in between the two asteroids.
Antiope Base, buired under a bulge in the asteroid for radiation protection.
The ship hovers inverted over the base (due to the location of the cargo doors) and releases the lander. As it drifts down to the surface, workers from the base emerge to assist with loading and unloading of the cargo. EVAs on Antiope are a curious blend of orbital EVA techniques and surface operations, workers usually pulse the jets to hover a few meters off the surface, then translate over to the work area.
After dropping off the crates, the ship takes on a fresh supply of fuel and two containers of asteroid ore. The ore is mostly gold, platinum, and other heavy metals in short supply on Earth.
The ship burns up and away from the astroid to escape it's SOI, then...
...Reverses direction and initiates the burn to drop back down to Earth.
Inbound to Earth, about 20% fuel remaining. Since it had to drop in from halfway to Jupiter, the injection burn will be rather exciting.
The last of the fuel established a slightly sloppy, higher-inclination parking orbit. A shuttle will later be dispatched to retrieve the ore and transfer enough fuel to rendezvous with ESS station for a thorough inspection before the next run.
This was a fun mission for me, flying to asteroids with next to no gravity of their own can be quite exciting. It's easy to overshoot on your insertion/rendezvous burn, since you're not dropping into a 7k/s orbit, you basically need to come to a complete stop next to the asteroid. Positioning the base in a way that looks good took some trial and error as well. The choice of ship isn't too realistic, the flight time was rather long and the ship is really too small to support a crew for that duration. After all, it was originally intended for short Earth-Moon runs. Ah well, I get a kick out of repurposing things. :thumbup:
Oh, and did I mention the atmospheric enhancement mod combined with level 10 Earth textures looks really bloody good?
