Ascension Mk1 Flight 13 (Radiation Field Study 11)

new fuel tanks & other parts for 3 add'l Ascension Mk1 missions will be ordered over next few months to cover the flights of Jeb & Bob as well as an unkerbed test flight. This will use up all remaining lift engines by April & unsure at this time if the new engine will be ready

yes, we feel the pressure waiting for the Mk1 flight report to be released but you can't rush these things. Hopefully next week we will know if the Mk2 mission is approved! Until then, read more about what happened this past week in our Ops Summary: kerbalspace.agency/?p=10366

at least some good news to come out of today: the newest K2-X engine was hooked up to the test stand & underwent successful static fire. It will be moved back to the VAB tomorrow to begin integration w/ flight hardware for March's mission. Horizontal stand awaits Boosterton II

a historic month draws to a close. Recap the Kerbin I mission, learn more about our upcoming missions and what else transpired this past week over at the Ops Summary: kerbalspace.agency/?p=10499

Also, now all the parties
🎆🎉🎊🎇

actually it will be the Ascension Mk1 that gets to continue Mystery Goo studies. The flight in May will carry two radial goo canisters on the side of the unkerbed Mk1 capsule up through both radiation belts and out of the magnetosheath twitter.com/KSA_MissionCtr…

💫 KERZZAH! ☀ - 12 times we have now traveled around Kerbol since the KSA was founded - at 1,025,316,660.821km distance traveled we are just 3 light minutes shy of a light hour's travel time over the same distance. Spaceship Kerbin is tooling along at a constant 9.28km/s

TL;DR - several recent minor oversights both in the rocketry & aircraft programs have begun to worry upper management that we are on course to make a catastrophic error in a future mission. Time to slow down before a major oversight occurs with horrible consequences

Operations Director @DKerman_KSA rejected Lead Engineer Simon's resignation today. He may have made mistakes but this just shows he is willing to accept them and we expect him to move forward with us and make the most of the experience he has gained over the past 3+ years

things will be slowing down for a while, but we do expect to clear out the backlog quickly starting Jun/Jul to remain as close as possible to our projections made at the start of the year. We waited to hear of more Chikelu news but nothing yet kerbalspace.agency/?p=10850

good static fire of the K2-X engine for the unkerbed Mk1 mission was carried out today. Although it will not be used as soon as planned due to the operational suspension, testing it now ensures any major defects could be addressed to not further delay the already delayed mission

scientists over in the R&D labs are getting Mystery Goo samples rdy for containment so they can be launched into space aboard a Mk1-A capsule later this year. Goo has been launched into space before (with Progeny rockets) but this will be the 1st use of radial-mounted containers

final major hurdle in getting back to rocket flight has been cleared with the full review & analysis of the orbital Kerbin I mission completed kerbalspace.agency/?p=10905 Now Progenitor & Ascension teams will spend May on upcoming mission plans

the IEF have pledged further financial support should we succeed at the upcoming unkerbed Ascension Mk1 mission that will further explore what we now know are the radiation belts. We have also accepted some of their members onboard for the Extremis program twitter.com/KSA_MissionCtr…

#OTD in 2018 we flew the radial Mystery Goo canister underneath a Deuce to test out Goo exposure via the containment device (mission report: kerbalspace.agency/?p=7290). Later this year the Goo will make another flight up into space in rocket-able radial canisters

events late last week postponed our bi-weekly Ops Summary to allow us to share better details, unfortunately the news from USI is not good & has temporarily suspended Progeny launches. Ascension looking better, but still behind sched. More details: kerbalspace.agency/?p=10993

we're ramping rocket operations back up! Sadly Progenitor remains sidelined but Ascension is free to fly and we have three launches in the queue:

6/23 @ TBD - Mk1 (unkerbed)
7/16 @ TBD - Mk1 (Spc Bob)
TBD August - Mk2

Save the dates! More details in the coming days 🚀✨

work is all set to resume in the VAB next week. Progeny Mk7-B assembly atop the 4 boosters will continue while we await launch permission. This month's rocket just needs to be stacked for final closeouts. Bob's ride still has a lot of prep for next month

we're launching a rocket next week! 🚀 This will mainly be yet another study of the radiation belt and magnetosphere, but also has many secondary objectives. L-0 set for 21:30 UTC - more details about the rocket and the mission on the Ops Tracker: ops.kerbalspace.agency

the capsule was stacked atop the lifter today so the rocket can be lowered horizontal for final closeout checks the remainder of this week. Launch prep remains on schedule for lift off next Tuesday. To see how we assemble our rockets, check out this album: flickr.com/photos/kerbal_…

Flight Director Lanalye has been in Launch Control drilling the Launch Team B hard all week. Normally handling Progeny flights, they need to be brought up to speed on Ascension operations. Launch Team A is prepping in the Astronaut Complex to manage Bob's mission next month

here is a closer look at the great job the engineering team did cramming batteries into the decoupler for this upcoming mission, which was absolutely necessary to power all the science equipment and beam the data home. More details from @DKerman_KSA: twitter.com/DKerman_KSA/st…

with rocketry programs ramping back up we're switching back to the weekly Ops Summary format to make sure you get all the infos. If you think you may have missed anything or want more expansive details on out operations, check it out - kerbalspace.agency/?p=11043

meteorologist Katgan has compiled her report for tomorrow & shows a 70% chance of good launch conditions, citing surface winds as the main issue. Of course, Wx forecasting is still a nascent concept that has the same probability of general accuracy... Regardless, Mk1 stands rdy!

post-launch operations have concluded: flight data collected for analysis, Lead Engineer Simon reports no damage at the launch pad, capsule will be back at KSC tomorrow on a train from Umbarg. Congrats to all the teams on a successful return to rocket flight!

here are the final moments we missed after LOS showing we actually came real close to losing the capsule - looks like we cut margins a little too fine in saving mass with smaller chutes - the capsule reached a safe landing speed only 50m above the sea surface!! 😬😬😬

the view from 426km over the equator is not what you want to be seeing without proper shielding to protect you from being pelted by large amounts of ionized radiation. At apokee, the camera is looking back over the KSC landmass across the ocean to the Great Desert

this was an exciting week, make sure you didn't miss anything by check out our weekly Ops Summary on the website, where we have some speculation on the USI sale. We hope everyone has a relaxing weekend! kerbalspace.agency/?p=11062