It is with great pleasure that I can inform the Ministry of the latest manoeuvres done by our current mission and their complete success.
The Mercury probe successfully completed its initial insertion burn 9 days ago, where it lowered it’s apoapsis enough to perform another manoeuvre in just under three months. If the manoeuvre goes as planned, it should result in a trajectory leading to a stable orbit sometime next year.
There do seem to be some sensor issues on the craft, but nothing critical.
The Opposition Discoverer completed its Venus gravity assist and completed a minor burn to touch up the orbital height, which was completed slightly under budget. In three months it will be complete a mid-course correction, to fine-tune the inclination and ensure an optimal fly-by course at Mars.
KSA is currently moving all focus towards the upcoming launches of the initial KERMIT mission, its refueller and the Mars supply pods built at Baikonur.
As Gene sits in his office, Wernher and the rest of the senior staff enters for a rare occasion where everyone is in the same room.
Gene: “Welcome to the meeting gentlemen, I know you’re all busy preparing for tomorrows launch, but I wanted to discuss the new campaign that the Ministry is launching today. Mortimer, I believe you can introduce the background?”.
Mortimer: “Certainly Gene, as you know we’ve been relying on government contracts for a while – and they’ve been lucrative and helped us gain quite a reputation at what we’re doing. Unfortunately the government contracts are on a decline. After the coming Mars contract and a few follow-up contracts around Mars, we don’t expect much – and we’re already running KSS² completely unfunded, expecting the Lunar Gateway and future lunar missions to do the same. Quite simply, we either need to scale back and stop doing a lot of things, or find alternative funding”.
Gus: “He’s right, operations are as streamlined as we can make them – but what government contracts we’re looking at just doesn’t allow us to pay for everything we’re doing. We’re launching as efficient as we can, but governmental contracting costs only barely cover our costs. Unless the government suddenly re-enters a major race with the Illyriens, we don’t see their funding taking us that far”.
Wernher: “But there’s a limit to how efficient we can make things, we can’t launch cheaper unless you start finding magic anti-gravity engines for me!”.
Gene: “Don’t worry Wernher, Mortimer and the Ministry have hatched a plan to provide us some additional income for now. But we’re expecting some backlash, at least temporarily, over it. I’ll let Walt explain”.
Walt: “Well, we’re becoming sell-outs, that’s about it. Some now and more later”.
Gene: “What Walt means is that we’re going to start partnering with the various industries in Kerbinia to provide added funding. For now, we’re partnering with some, and long term we expect to start providing scientific data to the various industries. Walt will explain the expected repercussions”.
Walt: “Right, well, we’re expecting to take an initial hit to our reputation, which in turn will likely limit the contracts people will entrust us with. We expect to recover our reputation in time, but it’ll take longer than usual. On the upside, we’ll be making extra money”.
Gene: “How big a his are we expecting?”.
Walt: “We expect around ten percentage point, but given the most recent survey placed our reputation as trusted by a full 97 %, it’s still not that bad”.
Linus: “Well that doesn’t sound too bad, but I don’t like the sound of selling off our scientific work for money, that doesn’t sit right with me Gene”.
Gene: “Don’t worry Linus, we’ll still be prioritizing your guys – this is for when we start getting even more behind on research than we are currently – you guys are very far behind on all the data we’ve been gathering, and we mostly need you to focus on what can give us better rocket technology”.
Linus: “I know Gene, but this is space exploration, for the good of all Kerbalkind”.
Gene: “Exactly why we can’t keep everything to ourselves. Don’t worry Linus, we’ll be holding off a bit on the, science-sell-out as Walt would call it, and seeing how far the industry partnerships can take us first. See you guys tomorrow for the launch”.
As the meeting wraps up, Gene looks at the plans on his desk – but then decides to instead look at the plans for the launch next day – much more interesting, even to him.
“Welcome everyone to the annual new years party, and remember to wave at the uplink screen, so everyone on KSS² also feel like they’re here”, Gene began the annual speech to the employees at the KSA.
“This year may seem devoid of novel accomplishments, but we did manage quite a bit of work when you look at it”.
“It may not seem like much, but KSS was replaced in its entirety by the brand new KSS², and we even transferred some of the modules over before allowing the old KSS to burn up majestically above the Kindian ocean”.
“The new station incorporates every lesson learned on KSS, and upgraded modules all around. In particular the new large docking ports makes moving things around internally much easier I’m told”.
“Scientifically, we also sent out a couple of probes towards Jupiter, aimed at studying the various moons around that neighbourhood. The probes are our standardised long range probes, and should have fuel to move around Jupiter’s moons a bit”.
“Lastly, we captured the initial station and supplies into Mars orbit, getting ready to send a manned mission in the near future. Now that all the pieces are safely in place we can actually safely launch out brave kerbonauts. And let me tell you, the KERMIT is a mighty improvement upon the Illyrien attempt, which looks like a bad copy of our original Discoverer vessel”.
“Speaking of the Discoverer, in less than a month, Valentina and her crew will be setting off in the updated Discoverer on their opposition fly-by, setting another new record, by being the first crew to pass by two planets in a single trip”.
“I know Wernher have a Mercury probe ready as well, since the Illyriens seemed to have such trouble with this, we decided to just make one and show them how to do it properly, although they did finally get one there on their umpteenth attempt”.
“Aside from this, the first KERMIT will be launched in all its glory next year as well, setting Jebediah and his crew on towards Mars, and transporting Calney and his crew to the Mars Station 1 where they’ll be studying Mars for a while – a veteran station crew to handle any new things around Mars”.
“The last planned upgrades for the Mars Station 1 will also commence, some of which will go out along with the KERMIT, while some will be going out with the next KERMIT mission – but that is a while into the future yet”.
“I know Wernher also wants to start on the Lunar Gateway Station, to start laying the groundwork for a permanent presence upon the Moon, but we are likely going to have to postpone some things simply due to the level of funding and available places to construct things”.
“Everyone have a great party!”.
End of year status:
Funds sitting at 2.3M (were below 1M during the year), with around 4100 science and lab queued for over 2 years.
Employees: 2250.
Scientific progress of 8.6 TB per day.
Satish having 3 lines building 27 units daily, with the 3 Baikonur lines building each 16 (129 total).
“Welcome everyone to this press conference, especially to our dear Minster of Information and Truth”, Gene began the conference, pointing to the official government delegation at the stage.
“First I would like to introduce today’s topic, that Kerbinia is in no way behind on the space race. As we saw a few days ago, the Illyriens have sent a ship to Mars, and are there first. Let me iterate that we got the the Moon first, and got to another planet, namely Venus, first”.
“In fact, when looking at the Illyrien craft Dawnthreader, it is very similar to our Discoverer craft, the Discoverer seems to be a bit larger on crew space, and only have a heat-shield for its re-entry pod. In fact, in half a year, an updated Discoverer will leave on an extended journey to visit both Venus and Mars in the same trip before returning to Earth”.
“The Discoverer missions are not our Mars programme though, to give you an overview of this, I would like to welcome Wernher to the stage to present our KERMIT programme, which is also already under construction for the next Mars launch window”.
As Gene turns to the side, Wernher enters the stage and takes the podium, going straight to his presentation immediately, “The Kerbinian Earth Return Mars Intercept Transfer vehicle is the Kerbinian Mars transit system starting from the next launch window to Mars”.
KERMIT vessel
“What you see here is the main ship intended for the planned regular schedule, and yes, the plan is regular. The long-term plan is to have two KERMIT vessels cycling between Earth and Mars, providing crew transfer windows every transfer window”.
“The first KERMIT vessel do have an added feature in the form of an emergency escape-pod, but otherwise future flights are intended to propulsive capture back into Earth orbit where a pod will be sent up to change crews. This pod adds a substantial weight, as it is not only designed to be able to re-enter Earths atmosphere at full speed, but is also designed to separate and manoeuvrer earlier, to allow a failing KERMIT-1 to not enter the atmosphere at all, but be ejected away”.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
“This also necessitates a larger than usual fuel resupply vessel in Mars orbit, which we’re handling by using a sister-ship to the KERMIT, delivering a large fuel load and also returning. Future refuelling will likely be handled by a disposable refueller also aerobraking at Mars – but the drive section of the initial refueller will be re-used for the KERMIT-2”.
“Speaking of re-use, the KERMITs are rated for up to 10 return trips, before the drive-section has to be replaced. The main section does not have a currently expected end of life, but will be evaluated on an ongoing basis”.
“With 3 advanced nuclear engines, and a full 10 of our new and updated ION engines, the ship has a great amount of capability. The nuclear engines gets the KERMIT into and out of orbit, with the ION engines providing extended burns in transit, and possibly minor orbital corrections – but they do take very long to do this, so it is only likely to be done when back at Earth, when it have months to complete a manoeuvrer”.
“The Mars transit itself require a very large amount of fuel though, and for this, the KERMITs are fitted with 4 drop-tanks of liquid hydrogen”.
KERMIT-1 with drop-tanks.
“These drop-tanks are jettisoned two at a time, after executing the two serial burns needed for the initial Mars injection. After that, the KERMIT proceeds with full tanks towards Mars, completing an extended burn with the ION engines, before using the nuclear engines again to capture at Mars. The ION engines are supplied by the nuclear reactors, with life support mainly drawing power from the solar panels”.
“At Mars, the tanker tops up the KERMIT, while it docks with the Mars Station One, readying it for the return trip. All in all, the components of the KERMIT-1 is the Drive Section, Hab section and Emergency pod”.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
“As the KERMIT is ready in Earth orbit, it is a nearly 400 T vessel – so we will be using our new Proton-B series of rockets extensively for the launches and future resupplies of the KERMIT vessels when in Earth orbit”.
As Wernher finishes, Gene joins him at the podium, explaining further “now, the KERMIT-1 will go to Mars and oversee final assembly of the Mars Station One. There it will deliver an experienced station crew from the KSS, while the command crew returns the KERMIT-1 to Earth. Yes, the ship supports cycling of 6 crew at a time”.
“The KERMIT-2 will be accompanied by exploration vessels to have crew visit the Martian moons, and we are currently developing a crewed lander as well to accompany this mission, beyond possible unmanned landers that the crew there can land at specific sites to explore further – and in the future, we are considering small outposts to allow landed crew to stay at the surface for extended periods of time”.
“Now, as we wrap up, are there any questions”, Gene asks the assembled reporters, who are all looking wide-eyes, much to the delight of the Minister of IT present on the stage.
As Wernher Kerman entered Gene’s office, Gene were sitting with his phone held away from his ear, and a loud angry noise yelling at him, with Gene occasionally putting in a brief “yes sir” or “of course sir”.
As the yelling died down, Gene hung up the phone and turned to Wernher, “the Minister of IT is not a happy man today”.
“I know, I heard him yelling all the way from Moskow as I were coming down the hall. Your secretary said you wanted to see me?”, Wernher asked.
Putting out a signed piece of paper and handing it to Wernher Gene began explaining, “yes, here is the official documentation. Project KERMIT is now officially de-classified and you are holding a press conference tomorrow to present it to the world press”.
“Uhm, ok, but why Gene? We’ve kept it so well under wraps so far, so why go out and do this now?”.
“Simple Wernher, the big boys in the government wants to show the world that we’re still ahead after yesterdays Illyrien press conference. So, we’re to present our full Mars plans, and you’re to compare the Illyrien Dawnthreader to both the KERMIT and the Discoverer craft on expected performance”.
“And I have to have all that ready by tomorrow you say?”
“Yes Wernher, you can have all the staff you want, but this press conference will be tomorrow, so you have exactly 23 hours from now to make the presentation. The reporters have already been invited by the government to hear the official Kerbinian response to the Illyrien mission”.
“Well, then excuse me Gene, but I believe I have work to do then”, Wernher yelled at Gene as he were already out the door heading for the engineering section of the complex.
As Wernher left, Gene put his face in his palms and sighed “I better go help the engineers”, getting up and asking his secretary to send some of the PR people along.
Today KSS were de-orbited, hitting the ocean south-west of Satish. The nearly 250 T station had been in operation for an unprecedented 1560 days, being manned by brave Kerbinian kerbonauts throughout this period.
The Kerbinian presence in space have not been broken though, and before the last crew of the KSS de-orbited the station and left it, KSS² were placed into operation and fully crewed. The second-last transport to leave KSS even passed by the fully crewed KSS² to deliver a few spare supplies before the very last transport left KSS and de-orbited it.
Four days ago, the laboratory module was added to KSS² and the particle accelerator from KSS was moved to KSS² by the old KSS tug, with the new tug taking over upon arrival and handling the docking of the module. The emergency escape pod have also been added to KSS², as this image captured by the old tug as it left for de-orbit shows.
KSS² after all components have arrived, including the spare transport in case of emergencies.
Three days ago KSS² was officially declared operational as the first crew arrived. on the station and the flight commander conducted a visual inspection of the exterior of the station – while the flight engineer conducted the systems check, and the scientist made a survey of the laboratories and instruments. Later supply missions will also be taking a number of extraneous elements back with them, but these will remain on the station until such time.
Station being inspected visually on the outside after bringing it operational.
Two days ago, one of the additional KSS Transports had a launch mishap. A booster on the trusty Proton-3 broke apart on separation. The crew aborted safely and launched yesterday on a back-up rocket that was ready on the pad.
Yesterday KSS² was fully crewed and operational, receiving a visit from a KSS crew returning to Earth passing by to drop off a few miscellaneous tools as well as have a look at the shiny new station.
KSS² fully crewed and operational.
The visiting crew were suitably impressed, especially with the new large docking connectors between the modules, which allowed much easier movement according to them (and the engineers who designed it).
“Welcome back from the launch everyone”, Gene began the brief post-launch press conference.
“As we said, this was our known tried and true long range probes, so the launch itself weren’t that special. What is special is the mission though, as we’re going to delve a lot deeper into the intricacies of the small system made up of Jupiter and its moons”.
“While we have a probe in orbit, the new probes will be aiming for equatorial orbits, and spend years travelling around the Jupiter system visiting all the moons, and we even plan to have them skip the top of Jupiter’s atmosphere to learn more about this giant amongst planets”.
“Now, I know many will question if the probes have enough fuel to do all this, but that is why it’ll take years – as we will be conserving the fuel and instead try to utilize the numerous moons to help with gravity assists to get around, instead of trying to get everywhere on the probes own fuel”.
“As a final announcement, we are issuing a warning to air and marine traffic travelling in the area between the Duna Sea and Kerstralia that we plan to de-orbit KSS sometime in the second part of July and care should be taken in this area. We will of course issue a more precise alert as the day approaches, and the Kerbinian Navy will be on station – but the odds of getting hit by the controlled re-entry are astronomically small – but we do expect some pieces of the almost 250 T station to make it all the way down and hit the ocean”.
As Gene and Wernher leaves the press room, they take a short status meeting as they walk the corridors of the KSA.
Gene: “So, all things related to the initial KERMIT launch are in place?”.
Wernher: “Yes Gene, although it will take many launches to do the orbital assembly”.
Gene: “Good, and the crews have been selected?”.
Wernher: “Yes, we have crews for both planned KERMIT missions planned, including the staying crews that are experienced in this from long KSS stays – and we have developed systems allowing the KERMITs to remote-control probes directly”.
Gene: “Good, that’ll eliminate the need for advanced AI programs for now. And the Discoverer Opposition?”.
Wernher: “Almost done, crew getting ready as well, we’re even trying a couple of re-supply launches from Baikonur, as the lines at Satish are full”.
Wernher: “We are working on something, although with our production facilities as busy as they are, it’ll be a least two launch windows out before we can get anything out I estimate”.
Gene: “I see, well Mars and KSS² have priority for now, and the Lunar plans after that. If we can squeeze something in I’m fine with that, but no compromising the priority missions”.
Wernher: “Of course not. We are getting more messages from the Ministry of Finance though, something about spending too much money. Do they not know that rockets are expensive?”.
Gene: “I don’t think they do, no. But many of our contracts are also limited in up-front money, and our newer missions are very long term, eating well into our budget buffers. But I’ll handle the bureaucrats – maybe we’ll even accept that commercial contract for a global communications network”.
As Gene is waiting for Wernher to come to his office to discuss the KERMIT project, Gene is finishing up his quarterly report to the Ministry.
First quarter of 1963 have gone by in a routine manner. We have launched most of the modules for the replacement station for KSS. As mentioned in previous communiques we are more or less replacing the station wholesale, as that turned out to be the simplest and easiest solution – we are still planning to move over some of the heavier auxiliary modules though.
As expected, the KSS cannot serve as a part of a lunar gateway system, launching to the Moon’s orbit from the Kosmodrone is simply too complicated for a routine service as such – it will have to be launched from the Satish site and be built after the current Mars initiative starts to leave room for other projects there.
As for the future, the last of the new KSS station will be finished and we estimate de-orbiting the old station and ramping up the new one fully by the end of the year – although plans to get the lab up and running may draw out somewhat. The next launches should be in the summer, and thus daylight, which means we can invite reporters to witness the launches as we cannot during the winter, where all launches to that orbit happens at night (which is boring for the reporters, apparently).
Aside from KSS², as it has been affectionately named by the coming first crew by now, progress on the Opposition Discoverer mission is continuing on schedule. We have also begun construction on the first component for Project KERMIT with our new tank designs, although the Ministry of Information and Truth informs us that the Illyriens may have gotten a hold of our new tank specifications.
Our Mars launches from the last window should be arriving at Mars during the summer, where we expect to capture them into close orbits, but currently do not plan to intercept and dock them, as we have not yet developed the automated procedures for this. As such, intercept and final assembly of the station will have to wait either until we have developed the automated systems, or a crew is there to manually control everything.
Lastly, we are preparing a few of our long range probes that we have in storage for the upcoming Jupiter launch window, and will be going for equatorial orbits here, in order to attempt to pass by the various moons in orbit of Jupiter.
Signed,
Gene Kerman
As Gene finishes the report and puts it down, Wernher comes into his office holding up some papers exclaiming “great news Gene, just listen to this…”.
“Welcome again to a new semester”, the professor began the yearly first lecture in what had eventually been nicknamed the space-line of the university.
“We have Wernher Kerman here again this year, although for this year, we will not be looking at large rockets like previous years, but will instead be taking a deep-dive into cryogenic engines. Wernher?”, he ended as he welcomed Wernher to the stage.
“Ah yes, the wonders of cryogenics and space. Really wonderful for efficient rockets, but a pain none the less due to evaporation”, Wernher began the lecture.
“We have had several fuel studies in orbit where we have evaluated various types of tanks, until we finally ended with the currently used well insulated tank. Now, with last years return of the Venutian Discoverer, we ended our first long-term cryogenic fuelled mission, and have some initial long term evaporation data”.
Initial evaporation data from Venutian Discoverer.
“The adjustment burn to return home happened around day 120, where the ship was passing Venus, and thus closest to the Sun. As you can see, the data quite clearly indicates a worse boil-off when closer to the sun”.
“The use of cryogenic engines for hypothetical missions is the topic this year, including how to optimize missions and equipment”.
“We will also be providing you data over the year from our satellites orbiting Earth, Venus and Mars, so you have an idea of the solar irradiance at each of those location, and the final project will include estimating the total fuel loss for Venus and Mars missions based on your solutions”.
“We shall then see if you came up with better solutions that the KSA engineers did for the Opposition Discoverer mission later this year”, Wernher ends the topic presentation with a smile.
“Well well people, quiet down a bit. You all know that it’s the time of year when I have to sum up the year that passed, and the year to come”, Gene started from the podium of the annual New Years Eve party at the Kosmodrone.
“So, last year we unveiled a new series of rockets – but you may all ask yourselves, why have we not seen launches of them? Well the answer is simple, everything launched this year was pretty much decided and in production before those were ready – but we do have plans to show at least some of them off next year”.
“Now Wernher did a lot of work earlier in the year on completely re-useable launch vehicles, aka. shuttles. And while some people were very happy about the prospect”, Gene continues, looking sideways at Valentina, “ultimately it turned out that it just wasen’t worth it. We expect to further refine our rockets, and the costs simply looks to be in favour of the rockets – even before we factor in the versatility and ease of use”.
“Now, this year we also have Jebediah, Bill and Bob with us, as they returned to us from the first ever interplanetary journey done by a Kerbal”. As Gene mentions them, he holds out his arm towards the trio for the applause. “And as you can all see, they are happy and eager to get out there again – especially Jeb”, Gene says with a small chuckle.
“And will they? Well perhaps sooner than later- This year we also launched five payloads towards Mars. Two sections of a space station, two resupply missions and a refueller. That doesn’t make the station complete, but we estimate that by the next launch window, we’ll have the last designs built to ensure adequate supplies as well as transit”.
“A bit closer to home, the entire KSS has been re-designed. Only a few of the older sections will be surviving, with most sections being replaced by more modern parts as a result of the lessons learned on KSS so far. On critical part in particular that will be replaced throughout is the docking mechanism that joins the individual sections together – this will be replaced by a brand new one, that is almost as wide as most modules, and will remove the bottleneck between each section that is present now”.
“Now, that’s a lot about the year gone by – next let us take a look forward, both to the year to come, and even further ahead”.
“Obviously we’ll be launching the replacement modules for the KSS as they complete – in fact, many are already in production and close to completion. We’re mainly looking at the sequence of the launches, as well as looking at the team that will be putting everything together. For that purpose we’ll be using a different team than usual, with more engineers taking the places of the scientists usually on the KSS. This is only temporary though, as the new designs are put in place. After the station is fully upgraded, it will return to a more traditionally science-heavy crew”.
“Next year will also see the use of the last two of our stocked long range probes, as we will be launching those in the coming launch window for Jupiter. This time instead of aiming for a polar orbit to get the maximum amount of data for Jupiter itself, we’ll be aiming at an equatorial orbit, with plans to fly by the various moons in orbit of Jupiter”.
“Mars will still be an important aspect, and most of the efforts at the Satish site will be focussed on the next launch window towards Mars – design and construction is still going on, so an exciting time is ahead”.
“Satish is also currently building the Discoverer Opposition vessel, which is an updated version of the vessel used to pass by Venus. About a year from now, Valentina and her crew will be taking the ship on a long journey, passing by both Venus and Mars, before returning to Earth. They are in fact already training for the mission, getting input from the original Venutian Discoverer mission as well”.
“Lastly, once the KSS is fully upgraded, the Kosmodrone will begin work on a similar upgrade to the KLS station, although this may end up as a complete replacement. The aim of this project will be to develop a gateway in orbit of the Moon, that can be used as a staging ground for a Lunar base long term. Having an operational gateway station is essential to the security of the Kerbonauts of a future Lunar surface base”.
“But for now, enjoy the rest of the party, knowing that we’ll all definitely have a lot more work to do over the coming years”.
End of year status:
Funds sitting at over 6M, with around 3700 science and lab queued for over 3 years.
Employees: ~2200.
Scientific progress of 8.5 TB per day.
Satish having 3 lines building 27 units daily, with the 3 Baikonur lines building each 16 (129 total).
Kerbinia Space Agency 