Operations Summary – Week of 2/6/17

Medical Quarantine Partially Shuts Down KSC

It started last week with a few cases of respiratory sickness being checked into the support village medical center, but a few days later kerbs were showing up every few hours and flooding the medical ward. Those not feeling sick enough to check themselves in were still complaining of being short of breath or having a bad cough. Some of the earlier patients were on respirators by the time the Disease Management Organization was called in to take control of the situation.

Given the size of the apparent outbreak, their first major action was to quarantine the KSC to ensure that nobody took this infection to nearby Umbarg City (many patients were transferred to medical centers in Umbarg but under quarantine protocols). Then they had to take blood samples from all remaining employees to see if they could identify any foreign agents that could be lying dormant in someone who has been unknowingly spreading the infection. However some of the DMO agents working in their own section of R&D came down sick without any prior exposure to KSC staff, which caused them to go to full HAZMAT protocol and only interact with KSC employees behind the yellow environment suits that would protect them from exposure.

So far the DMO has not made any formal announcement while it still works through all the blood samples collected from employees, including those that are in the hospitals. The quarantine/HAZMAT protocol has prevented kerbs from walking around outside without environment suits and while everyone has been staying indoors reports of respiratory problems have markedly decreased. The filters used in the KSC building’s environmental system cannot remove viruses from the air, so something larger like moss spores or tree pollen could be a cause.

We hope to have some news from the DMO next week. In the meantime limited work is being done in the admin offices, astronaut complex and R&D labs which are all environment controlled. The HAB and VAB however both remain shut down.

Third Moonlet Discovered

In a surprise announcement this week the Asteroid Tracking Network revealed a third moonlet of Kerbin, along with their theory on how it might have been captured without the help of Mun. The diminutive ICX-922(A) will be with us for a long while it would appear, and could be the first object from outside our system that we will visit some day. This discovery comes close on the heels of the second moonlet that was found by accident at the end of last month. What else is out there we don’t know about? There has been a rush lately on amateur astronomy equipment – so it seems lots of kerbs are eager to find out.

Colored Asteroids Fly By

Astronomers have known for a while now that a small portion (<6%) of asteroids they’ve been finding out in the Main Asteroid Belt between Jool and Duna have shown weird spectral signatures denoting some unknown element(s). However recently these strange asteroids have also been showing up in the crowd of Near Kerbin Objects that swing past our planet on a regular basis. Two of these asteroids cruised by this past week and astronomers were able to train the largest telescopes on them to get optical images. The resolution of these images was only a few dozen meters per pixel but still they were able to see greenish hues in one asteroid and magenta hues in another. Astronomers hope that one of the NKOs is on a collision course with Kerbin to see if any of the mystery material(s) makes it down to the ground for further study.

Program News

The Progenitor Program passed another milestone this week with the completion of the payload bays for the Progeny Mk3. The booster cores are not far behind and the lower-stage boosters are ready for shipment once KSC re-opens. Lead Engineer Simon expects a week and a half of final integration for the first rocket once assembly is allowed to resume.

Both Civvies remain in various states of assembly and repair. The prototype’s air frame has been found to remain flight worthy so it will just be needing a new vertical stabilizer and engine along with some external lighting parts that were also damaged. To be safe, engineers have decided to replace the landing gear as well. The production model is still in need of some more interior wiring and cabling work before the engine can be installed followed by the landing gear.

Since the report of icing, we’ve placed new orders for high-altitude KerBalloon units, which will arrive next month. We still have three low-altitude units but no contracts currently with which to use them on.

Celestial Snapshot of the Week

Val’s been waiting a long time for this one, in which you can just barely make out that the bright light of Laythe is partially blotted out due to the shadow of Vall falling across it as the shadow of Laythe falls on Jool. A double transit!

From the Desk of Drew Kerman