Operations Summary – Week of 5/28/18

Progenitor Program Prepares for the Mk6 Block II

After this week’s final planned launch of the Mk6 Block I, it’s time for the program to finally return its focus to the Block II. Although it debuted alongside the Block I back in October of 2017 (then designated Mk5) the more-powerful Block II was put on the back burner after the Block I reached the height the Block II was supposed to fly to, negating any reason for it to to be used. Since successive flights of the Block I failed to make it high enough to pass completely through the hazardous radiation region, the Block II finally has a mission it can take on. While preparations are being made to launch two Block II’s in close succession sometime in the middle of this month, the loss of the last Block I and tight purse strings has led to a part shortage. If we lose the first Block II as well that will set things back a few weeks while new parts are ordered and integrated for the second rocket.

To help fund the Block II missions, a new organization has pledged money to us. The Interstellar Exploration Foundation is comprised of scientists whose families have deep pockets and has dedicated itself to helping companies involved with anything that could lead to kerbals one day traveling among the stars. Given that the threat of radiation to future astronauts is a serious concern, helping us explore a potential danger to just leaving the planet is well within their interest. We thank them for their support!

New Crew Welcomed Aboard

With an aerial survey flight this week, Captain Jebediah and Commander Valentina officially ended their tenure with the Genesis program. Today they, along with Specialists Bob and Bill (who also had their final KerBalloon mission this week), transferred over to the Ascension program to begin working on kerbed spaceflight. Because Jeb and Val had to stop over in Kravass to get back on the ground before nightfall, they were able to ferry over to KSC the new crew members that will take over their duties in the Genesis program. Aldeny and Tedman Kerman have accepted the position of Flight Officer, which means they are certified to fly aircraft within the atmosphere. While Aldy is committed to one day earning the rank of Captain to participate in space flight, Ted is currently more than happy to remain within Kerbin’s atmosphere testing and developing new fixed-wing aircraft with Genesis and C7.

We originally extended the job offer to Aldeny and Helta, but Helta declined, leading to us approaching Tedman next. Although we had hoped to diversify our new crew intake, Helta informed us she was more than happy to leave Val working as a role-model for young kerbettes with the space program while she continued to champion female pilots within the aviation community. It’s worth noting she didn’t turn us down because she had no interest in going to space.

Ascension Mk1 Works to Overcome Hurdles Prior to Flight

The first Mk1 rocket finished assembly this week. The rocket mostly came together as planned, the only real problem was mating the test weight to the fuel tank. Because the entire rocket is meant to be recovered for analysis purposes (all the high-res data will be stored in the test weight) the test weight won’t be leaving the fuel tank and the interstage decoupler seen in the blueprints was not included. This fact was not communicated to the test weight manufacturer and so some adjustments had to be made to mate it directly to the fuel tank.

Once the rocket was stacked, it was laid horizontal so the VAB technicians could access everything for final checkouts before it was loaded onto the carry vehicle in the same orientation. Problems arose here as well when it came to strutting the rocket down to the frame of the carry vehicle – the attach points created an uneven load on the treads that would have caused the vehicle to want to constantly steer off to the side. Adjustments were made and the rocket was successfully moved out to the launch pad earlier today.

However problems continued to plague the carry vehicle when the hydraulics failed during the lift to vertical. Thankfully fail safes locked the push rods in place and the platform did not collapse back down onto the bed. The cranes used to construct the service towers were moved back into position to help lower the rocket and the carry vehicle was able to return to the VAB. The crews will continue working over the weekend to assess the failure and repair the carry vehicle to hopefully try again on Monday. There is plenty of room in the VAB to raise the rocket there, so testing can be done before the move to the pad. Unfortunately not enough money was in the budget to build a scale model of the rocket to test the carry vehicle prior to this (hence the fail safes).

Once the rocket is out on the pad we still have to go through connecting it to the service towers, installing its engine support collar, ensuring fuel, power and comms are all in working order – there are still plenty of things that can go wrong but it’s hard not to have issues with such a complex operation like this. The teams are ready to work through issues and that’s what they’ll do.

Monolith News

This past weekend the team on the Monolith research project that has spent these last 10 months following the vein of crystals that headed in the general direction of Sheltered Rock & Ockr have announced they’ve reached a break. A fault line has sheared the vein vertically by just over a meter, which would have meant any energy sent along them would have not been able to reach any further. This could maybe explain why both caverns failed to receive deadly electrical discharges during The Incident while Umbarg and Kravass both experienced them. We say maybe because it is unknown yet whether these veins actually extend all the way to either cavern – the digging continues. This discovery has once again brought up speculation that the Monolith was trying to actively kill kerbals, but the discovery could also mean that the inability to fully discharge its energy across its entire crystal network led to more powerful than normal surges traveling back to hit Umbarg and Kravass. There is no evidence yet discovered that the energy was discharged at the break.

In additional news, a peaceful protest outside the Monolith visitation registration offices turned violent earlier this week, forcing a police response with tear gas to disperse the crowd. Several arrests were made but none of them claimed to be responsible for agitating the crowd. The office has remained closed since the end of last year when it was attacked by a still-unidentified group of kerbs that left some staff injured. The government refuses to open it until those responsible have been found however despite religious leaders claiming to be doing all they can to help no arrests have yet been made and the case remains cold. Whether or not the same mysterious group incited the riot is still not known and authorities remain frustrated.

ATN Database

The weekly update for the Asteroid Tracking Network database is available here, containing 2,008 asteroids and 7 updated with new observation data.

Celestial Snapshot of the Week

We’ve had several close planetary encounters recently and the latest is Duna and Eve, captured here by the Kerman Observatory atop Kravass. Although they did come closer, no scopes were in place to witness it. Because Eve is on an inclined orbit, it doesn’t always approach Duna when they share the same elongation, or height above the horizon. Furthermore as an inner planet it doesn’t always get high enough in the sky to approach Duna’s position either. Duna’s moon Ike is visible but Eve’s moon Gilly was too far away to be included in this close-up image.

From the Desk of Drew Kerman