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Tag Archive: Valentina
Oct 25 2019
Operations Summary – Week of 10/21/19
Oct 01 2019
Ascension Mk1 Flight 9 Analysis
The second kerbed mission would see Commander Valentina become the second kerbal to venture up into space. Lessons learned both from Specialists Bill’s flight and the more recent unkerbed Mk1 mission were applied to the mission planning to make this the most on-target ascent to date for the Ascension Mk1. In the weeks leading up to the launch Val and her backup crew member Captain Jebediah trained together for the mission and in the days leading up to the launch they both were sequestered inside the Astronaut Complex as per the quarantine protocol that was established with the first kerbed mission. This once again helped to ensure the astronauts remained healthy, allowed medical doctors to draw baseline observations and gave both crew some much-needed downtime. Come launch day, both were refreshed and ready. Jeb remained suited up on standby while Val boarded the capsule and was ultimately not required to replace her for the mission as pre-launch operations proceeded smoothly.
The Flight
The scheduled launch at 13:10 local time was met with a good ignition of the K2-X lifter engine, producing 125kN of thrust to push the rocket gently off the pad at 1.2 TWR, taking 3 seconds to rise up and clear the service towers before throttling up to near full thrust to hold a TWR of 1.65 for a comfortable ascent. At this time also the guidance routine kicked in to roll the rocket on a heading of 54° while beginning to pitch over and head downrange. Aboard, Val was dutifully calling out regular readings from her instruments so ground controllers could ensure that everything was operating correctly.
Sep 17 2019
Ascension Mk1 Flight 9 (Commander Valentina)
Jul 11 2019
Deuce Science Flight 11
Captain Jebediah and Commander Valentina fly out to the most remote largest landmass located at Sector IS-L031 to survey the area for a future months-long science expedition arriving by sea
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Mar 26 2019
Deuce Science Flight 10 (Attempt 1)
Captain Jebediah & Commander Valentina had time off from their rigorous astronaut training schedule to attempt a science mission to Area ZN-223 however they were denied by bad weather enroute
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Feb 26 2019
C7 Effectively Shut Down by Government Investigation
Earlier today a raid by government authorities at the company headquarters in Kravass rounded up the entire executive division of C7 Aerospace, leaving the company without leadership. The entirety of the company’s financial assets have also been secured and frozen. All employees have been furloughed without pay and told they must remain available for investigators. This was all revealed at a press conference held just recently outside the C7 corporate headquarters. What wasn’t mentioned is why the government is taking such a strong-armed approach against a privately-owned company, which sets a potentially disturbing precedent. We are pleased at least that the top executives weren’t spirited away in the midst of the night or something equally as sinister, but are still left slightly worried given the fact that we are also a privately-owned company and we are close working partners with C7 Aerospace. As of yet, no mention has been made of the KSA and no government agents showed up at KSC today – C7 employees here at the Cape simply received notification of their status shortly after the press conference concluded.
Jan 07 2019
Ascension Postpones Orbit for Capsule Technology Testing
Over the past week since returning from holiday break program teams have been working on how they want to approach operations in 2019. For the most part everyone stuck to what they had going when 2018 drew to a close, but the Ascension team is continuing to move forward with a big change they began to plan late last year which is to forego further attempts at making orbit with just the Mk1 lifter and instead focus on preparing for sub-orbital capsule flights.
The main reason behind this decision was due to successive failures at modeling an ascent profile that would reach a decaying orbit using the new Launch Vehicle Designer that comes with the Trajectory Optimization Tool from ArrowstarTech*, one of our external partners. Even when the test payload mass was reduced as much as possible, 278kg down from 1t, the rocket was still unable to reach a final state at MECO that would carry it around the planet at least once. The main problem is that the rocket uses control surfaces for guidance, which means it can only control its pitch for about half of the ascent – past 37km the air grows too thin for the control surfaces to have effect on the rocket’s orientation. Although the natural force of gravity can continue to lower the nose past that point, it will do so only based on how fast the rocket was pitching before then. In the modeling, if it pitches over fast enough to end the burn with a positive perikee, it stays within the atmosphere. If it pitches over less aggressively to prevent this, past the point of aerodynamic control its nose doesn’t drop fast enough to push the orbit perikee out from under the surface while still making it to space before MECO.
May 31 2018
Deuce Science Flight 7
Captain Jebediah and Commander Valentina head far west to survey Sector SH-4D0W, which could be a location for a future science outpost that would serve the region’s exploration needs
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