Deuce Science Flight 10 (Attempt 2)

BREAKING: KNN has reported that the entire executive division of C7 Aerospace has been arrested and the government is launching a full scale investigation into the company. We are partners with them and have no idea what is going on - this is all news to us!!

with favorable weather today, FOs Ted & Aldy have just departed from Rwy09 for bit.ly/Area_ZN-223. They will fly overnight across the water and reach land by sunrise. Any guesses why they are flying at night other than having no hazardous terrain to worry about?

aircraft has dropped below the horizon out of contact as they climbed through 6km - getting high to save fuel on the long journey with still just under 800km to go. They should be back in contact with us sometime after 22:00 UTC if all goes well

by now the Deuce should be circling its destination, deploying its suite of science instruments. They also should have passed through the elevated radiation region similar to the one found in the north polar regions. Levels will not be harmful during their brief exposure

arriving over the target >7km ASL they will make the initial return leg at just ~500 AGL to pass again through the hazardous radiation region under a thicker layer of the atmosphere to record the difference in levels before climbing back to a high cruise altitude

Tedman has just hailed us to request approach vectors, reports they had nothing but minor chop to contend with on their flight. Congrats to them both on being the first to explore the southern polar region by aircraft! Their flight path is also a hint for our previous question

flight controllers set up the aircraft for a pattern approach to Rwy09 (now on final) and we received this image from the belly camera of Mun and Minmus alongside a snowy mountain range as the Deuce hugged the deck on the way home over the ice caps

still no right answer to our question yesterday as to why the Deuce mission flew through the night over water. Here's a related question - why didn't the aircraft just fly straight back to KSC from the polar region like it did on the way there? twitter.com/KSA_MissionCtr…

with the radiation data from last week's flight compared with the mission over the north polar region a year ago scientists have been able to confirm a suspected linear increase in radiation dosage as one gets higher from the ground, ~0.0035rad/hr every kilometer

flying 2km higher than the 2018 mission (ops.kerbalspace.agency/?body=Kerbin-S…) only exposed the crew to a max of 0.085rad/h for 4min. It takes ~37rads to show signs of radiation sickness so the crew was never in any danger

one more photo from the recent Deuce flight looking south towards the flat ice caps as the sun rises almost as high as it ever gets over the horizon down there, seen just over the last snowy mountain range from 8km ASL. Isn't that cold clear air just stunning?