Ascension Mk3 Design Finalized, Probe Technology Announced
The Ascension Mk3 blueprint has been released, revealing all the details of the rocket that will be the first to send kerbals into orbit (Block II details to be finalized after Mk1-B capsule finishes qualification trials) and probes to other celestial bodies under the Extremis program in 2021. We will get a tab added to the Ascension program page later this year or at the start of next year when the rocket officially comes into service. The parts for the first launch are already being built and the final purchase agreement signed this month with the various agencies responsible for the parts that will assemble the rocket. We are targeting late January/Early February for the first launch. If successful, the rocket will undergo a series of tightly-spaced launches throughout the year to prepare for orbital kerbed space flight and launch of Extremis I, set to travel past Eve, Jool and Plock.
Our confidence in a strong showing from the Mk3 throughout 2021 is based on the rocket’s design consisting almost entirely of flight-proven hardware. The only part that has not yet flown is the new WildCat-V lifter engine, which is still undergoing final manufacturing ahead of qualification trials to begin next year. In the meantime however we can still use the K2-X engine proven from the Mk1, of which two are currently in our inventory with three more ordered to arrive over the first half of 2021. These will sustain us until the WC-V is ready for flight and can also carry out the majority of planned missions if the WC-V fails to enter service for some reason – this could put Extremis I at risk though.
The other factor for Extremis I is that the Mk3 alone will not be able to get the interplanetary probe through its mission – it will need its own vacuum engine to complete the burns out of Kerbin orbit and past Eve and Jool. Heavier payloads bound for Mun and Minmus and even satellites in orbit around Kerbin that require flexible trajectories and plane changes will also need a more powerful engine than the 1kN cold gas motor currently in use for orbital stability. We’ve contracted with Rockomax to produce a 1m vacuum engine to meet these requirements, with a minimum of 6 restarts. It will be tested on the first flight of the Ascension Mk3 while attached to Kerbin III, which will be a long-term orbital mission primarily to study the radiation belts. More info on the probe will come next month.
Another development related to future probes is that the Monolith crystal has finally been worked into a viable product: new capacitors with high-density energy storage. Although they can store more energy that batteries in the same footprint, they cannot release the energy as needed without becoming violently unstable in the process. If they are to be used, they must dump out all their energy in one shot. This means we still need to use batteries, but those batteries can be recharged by the capacitors. So a single capacitor with 400EC can recharge a bank of four 100EC batteries. Instead of having to place 40 batteries on a probe, we can get the same energy capacity with 4 batteries and 10 capacitors. The use-case for this would be early short-term missions to Mun and Minmus, where it doesn’t make sense to send an RTG that will last longer than the mission but unable to be recovered without adding to mass and propellant constraints.
Kerbin II Mission Updates
Kerbin II remains in a stable orbit and continues to perform science observations and conduct telecom tests. The spacecraft has now traveled over 10,000,000km and orbited Kerbin over 2,000 times. Last week our founder and Operations Director Drew Kerman placed a call from a handheld satellite phone to the Presider, who came to the surface above Sheltered Rock in order to receive the signal bounced directly from Kerbin II. Until this point all communication to and from Kerbin II had been though dishes or towers and then routed by cables to a communications device. This direct “satcom” link will be a vital service carried out by the first communications satellite fleet to launch next year.
Surface expeditions have already taken advantage of Kerbin II and two more are currently underway that will rely on the satellite for keeping in touch with command & logistics centers back in the home caverns. The KerBalloon program has dispatched both its high and low altitude crews along with a scientific expedition deep into the Badlands to investigate a (hopefully dormant or extinct) suspected super-volcano caldera. The large expedition will be split into separate teams who will be able to stay in direct contact while Kerbin II is overhead. The second major expedition is a privately-organized one heading out to the Great Desert in search of a group of kerbals that may have been separated from society since the asteroid impact. They have also seem to become enthralled by a large group of religious extremists that were exiled out to the region in 2018.
On the scientific side of things, the data sent down has reduced to a trickle of just several hundred kB per day as the instruments have become calibrated to their environment. They are now recording only minor changes and the current data rate will no longer outpace the transmission rate or fill up the hard disk drive bit by bit while the satellite remains out of contact with ground stations for short periods between DSN Central and Arekibo. This means the probe can now run observations 24/7 and we no longer have to worry about power overdraw issues unless there is a data spike. The power management software has been updated accordingly to handle this event should it transpire. We expect the spacecraft to maintain continuous science observations until it is recovered during the final week of 2020 KSA operations starting 12/14.
Progenitor Program Mk6/7-B/8 Updates
Progress towards the launch of the Mk8 in early 2021 continues. The major fabrication facilities are in place to begin producing the flight hardware and the rocket engines are currently undergoing testing. Three of the seven Skeeter engines that will power the first stage have arrived at KSC so they can be tested on our vertical stand in a cluster under simultaneous firing using the engine plate that will eventually hold all seven. They are placed as far apart as possible so as not to impinge upon each other and make it so all we need to worry about is feeding them propellants, which has been a bit troublesome. While they all ignite properly, numerous cutoffs or thrust drops have been occurring as fuel flow becomes retarded to one or another. Engineers are working on the feed issues and once all three can run reliably they will start to be moved closer to their actual configuration. Then we will add two more, and the final two after that. While this is going on over the next month (hopefully not longer), Luciole will be using their internal testing facilities to work on the 0.625m vacuum engine. Expected to put out 12kN of thrust, it will match the performance of the 0.35m USI aerospike engine, which goes to show how promising the technology is. Luciole continues to integrate the research purchased from USI to work on their own 0.625m aerospike engine.
The Mk7-B completed its final launches last month and the analysis reports have been released for flight 3 and flight 4. Although the rocket has been officially retired we’ve come to realize it still has its use in being a relatively cheap way to continue to test the flight worthiness of refurbished Boostertron II SRBs. With a dummy second stage on top to keep TWR down and flight loads reasonable, it can be launched and discarded with the first stage continuing to be recovered until it reaches a point of failure. We’ll be slotting in these missions between Ascension Mk3 and Progeny Mk8 launches as time is available.
Preparations are well underway for the upcoming Progeny Mk6 launches in support of the Kerbal Sounding Project. The launch stand completed checkouts today and will be moved to the pad on Monday. The Block I for next week passed vertical load checks and its payloads will finish being installed on Monday before load up and roll out on Tuesday for wet dress rehearsal. The following two rockets are proceeding well towards their final integration and all launches remain on schedule.
ATN Database
The latest update for the Asteroid Tracking Network database is available here, containing 6,004 asteroids and 2 updated with new observation data. Here are the 53 asteroids that were discovered this past week.
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