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It was a beautiful Wednesday morning at the KSC. The Tracking Station reported Duna would be at the transfer window within the next two days. This meant that the best time to visit Duna was within this timeframe, as it would be the fastest and closest route. It was a big day for Kerbal History, as today was launch day. The SLS was now being prepared at the Vehicle Assembly Building as the ground crew was fueling up the engines and boosters. The crew members were putting on their space suits and helmets, and were mutually excited. Once the crew members got onboard the SLS, they strapped into their seats and prepared for launch. The SLS was nearly as tall as the VAB itself, and had a bright orange central fuel tank for the ‘Mammoth’ engine. The fairing at the top of the rocket was abnormally large, due to the large payload of a mothership and a lander. It was nearly time to launch. “T - 1 minute,” reported Mission Control. Valentina replied, “Copy Mission Control. pre launch checklist has been completed, we are ready for launch.” “T - 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. LIFTOFF,” announced MC. The ‘Mammoth’ engine and the ‘Kickback’ boosters ignited, lifting up the towering rocket. The SLS slowly started to pick up speed, and the exhaust from the engines created a gray cloud of smoke and water vapor around the base of the launch pad. Vibrations were being sent through the ship, and the crew members were rattling in their seats. Even Mission Control could feel the ground shaking from the waves being sent by the roaring engines. The launch was a beautiful sight, as it symbolized great kerbal engineering capabilities. Half a minute after the initial launch, the SLS automatically initiated its gravity turn, where it slowly pointed the nose to an angle parallel to Kerbin’s surface curvature. This helped gain horizontal velocity as well as vertical velocity. Vertical velocity is what lifts the rocket up into the sky, whereas horizontal velocity is what achieves a circularized and stable orbit. In order to achieve medium-Kerbal orbit, a spacecraft must be traveling at a velocity of over 2,300 meters per second, or over 5,000 miles per hour. “Kickback SRBs separation in 10 seconds,” notified MC. This stage of the ascent involved the separation of the ‘Kickback’ solid rocket boosters from the main fuel tank, which provided additional thrust in the initial stage of the launch. As fuel was burned, the rocket became lighter and lighter. This loss of mass made it easier for the rocket to accelerate. The rocket’s nose cone fairing was nearly on fire now, much like the Thunderbolt when it was at its fastest velocity. This wasn’t going to last for long though, as they were at the edge of Kerbin’s atmosphere. The Mammoth engine was now making a deafening noise [although there are no sounds in space since there is no material for the sound waves to pass through, we can imagine there are sounds to make the story interesting :D], helping the ship overpower Kerbin’s gravity. Soon enough however, the fuel tanks were depleted, and the crew didn’t experience any acceleration for a brief second. Stage separation had occurred, where the lower booster stage of the rocket separated and fell away. The upper stage engine, ‘Skipper’, ignited and propelled the craft upward. This accelerated the ship, but was a smoother acceleration compared to the first few minutes of flight. “Crew, we’re separating the fairings now,” reported MC. Within a few seconds of receiving the message, the crew could finally see past the protective shell. The fairings had separated in a symmetric fashion, similar to a lily flower blooming. This revealed Martina and Dustan. MC’s computers were tracking and predicting the ship’s trajectory, and saw that the craft was circularizing. The blue path of the ship was currently an oval shaped semi circle, but as the ‘Skipper’ engine was providing thrust, the semi circle was expanding out into a circle. Just 15 seconds into the burn, Val lowered the thrust of the engine down to zero percent. She did this to save some fuel, as it’s most efficient to circularize at the apogee which is the highest point in Kerbin orbit. As the craft approached apogee, Val cranked up the ‘Skipper’ to full throttle, completing the circularization. “Mission control, we’ve successfully circularized around Kerbin. We are awaiting commands to begin our trans-Dunan burn, let us know when to begin,” reported Val. “Copy Val, we’re plotting the maneuver now. We will send you the instructions once complete,” answered MC. Part 4: Off to Duna As circularization was successfully completed, the upper stage was no longer required. The stage had its own probe core which could be controlled by MC, which would be used to deorbit the stage in order to reduce the amount of space debris. The sepatron connecting the stages does its thing: it separates the payload and upper stage. Now the 4 nuclear engines (‘Nerv’s) were clearly visible on the lower portion of the craft. These highly efficient engines worked best in the vacuum of space with a high efficiency, but came at an obvious cost. They were extremely radioactive, releasing lots of heat. The ship was now freely orbiting Kerbin’s dark side, where the sun wasn’t shining. Halfway around their orbit, they planned to deploy the solar panels and radiators, to harvest the sun’s energy and to release the heat generated by the ‘Nerv’s to reduce their chances of toasting to death respectively. Once MC had completed plotting the course to Duna, they sent the information to the crew. “Val, we’ve sent the Trans-Dunan maneuver instructions. You may begin the burn once you reach the maneuver node. All the best everyone.” After four months of cruising through the dark and empty void of space, they could finally see Duna; It was a tennis ball sized sphere, red and brown in appearance. It seemed to have a bald spot of white at its north pole, which they knew was the polar icecap. They could see the sand dunes from up here, and were able to easily make out the deep trenches and tall mountain ranges. In order to get captured and stay in Dunan orbit, Val had to perform a Dunan Insertion Burn, where she burned retrograde (opposite direction) from where the craft was currently headed. It was as if slowing down a car by turning the car backwards and punching the gas. Once that maneuver was complete, it was time for Jeb and Bob to transfer over to the lander. “Alright guys. We’ll see you in a minute,” said Jeb with a smile. Bob however, wasn’t smiling. He was feeling quite nervous. They both got into the Dustan lander, and fastened their seatbelts. “Everything looks good here Val. We’re ready to undock,” says Jeb. “Copy Jeb, you can undock now. Use the RCS to fly away from the mothership before burning retrograde to deorbit the lander,” responded Val. The tips of the two docking ports were now slowly drifting away from each other, as Jeb had undocked the lander and mothership. Within 3 minutes, they were at a safe distance from each other for the RCS thrusters to be used. Jeb used the Reaction Control System thrusters, which are like little puffs of high speed air, to maneuver the craft into a retrograde direction. Now, all he had to do was ignite the ‘Dart’ liquid fuel engine. “Dart ignition was successful. Descending now onto Duna,” reported Jeb. He couldn’t hold his excitement. He was eager to jump around the dusty, red Dunan surface. Once the retrograde burn was complete, their trajectory was suborbital. They had successfully deorbited themselves, and were now about to hit the top parts of Duna’s atmosphere. Duna’s atmosphere is much thinner than Kerbin’s, so there isn’t much aerodynamic deceleration. The air isn’t thick enough to completely slow down the craft, meaning the four drogue parachutes and two main parachutes made almost no difference. This was however made up by the ‘Dart’ engine, which burned fuel to help decelerate the craft down to a safer velocity. As Dustan was approaching the upper atmosphere of Duna, it started to generate a wave of hot red plasma around it. The ‘Dart’ engine was burning at full thrust, trying to slow down the craft. At their current speed, they would crash onto the surface at over 800 meters per second. The ‘Dart’ did a good job at slowing them down though. As they descended down, the atmosphere was getting thicker. This meant that the parachutes could be deployed and would provide some assistance. But they didn’t. The parachutes never deployed, and the ‘Dart’ engine burned out. They were free falling down at a speed of over 500 meters per second. Dustan had exploded on the dusty surface of Duna.