Chapter 6 - Hecate's Shrine
Sorry for the day delay, it took a bit to get all the images done. As always, feedback is always appreciated! Enjoy the chapter!
After several months of travel, Mariner 3 began to approach its destination, the large world of Venus. Photography was not a priority for this mission, though there was still a camera, it was not as powerful as missions designed to head to Mars or the Moon, but this is made up by the numerous instruments. As it flew past, Mariner 3 observed the makeup of the Venusian atmosphere, further refining its composition and making rough assessments of the vertical differences in it, although a true atmospheric probe would be needed to fully characterise it. Such a craft would not be possible for some time, heat shield technology was barely capable for Earthly atmospheric reentry as is.
January 28, 1963
For the time being, the Moon would be given more attention for exploration, beginning with the Block 2 Ranger missions. The first of these, Ranger 3, was already well on its way to the Moon, having launched the previous day. Drifting towards the moon on the path that physics dictates, Earth grows ever smaller behind the probe. This was to be an attempt at impacting the lunar surface, as well as, potentially, landing. Normally the spacecraft would be incapable of decelerating enough to land softly on the lunar surface - which is why it doesn’t land softly. Under a minute before impact, a smaller spacecraft would separate, carrying instruments inside a ball of balsa wood, filled with liquid heptane. Attached to this ball was the solid motor, it would ignite and just seconds before impact, 300m above the lunar surface, reach a standstill. From there, the balsa sphere would fall by itself, hitting the surface around 40m/s, a survivable speed for the acceleration-hardened technology. One of the instruments was an incredibly sensitive seismometer; it could theoretically detect the impact of a 2kg meteorite on the opposite side of the moon. Unfortunately none of this would come to fruition on this flight, as Ranger unexpectedly lost communications mid-transit.
February 19, 1963 - 2:10pm - Vandenberg AFB
CAPCOM “White, We’re all ready here on the ground. Weather is go. Clouds have parted for a bit, and the wind is within acceptable ranges, around 6mph right now. We are all go for launch.”
White “Roger, Go for launch.”
CAPCOM “Good luck, Robert, T-60 seconds.”
The sun shone on the launchpad, Spearhead Kittyhawk was ready to go; The first of three suborbital test flights of the vehicle. It was placed atop a Vulcan-Centaur, the more powerful sibling of the rocket placing the Mercury capsules into orbit. The engines lit up, slowly pushing the craft up off of the launchpad, leaving a billowing cloud of dust on the ground. It began to move faster and faster, putting the full scale aerodynamics of the vehicle to the test. The first stage burns out, breaking away as the centaur ignites, sending it
accelerating even faster, reaching an apogee of 300km. This should be sufficient enough to test the effects of reentry on the vehicle. It quickly fell back down to Earth, Robert White piloting it through reentry, keeping it stable as the plasma flared around it. The plasma quickly cleared, leaving only the difficulty of keeping stable in supersonic flight, thankfully made easier due to reaction control jets. Eventually it hits the thicker parts of the atmosphere, giving its control surfaces purpose once again. White brings the runway into his view, descending towards it and touching down elegantly. A perfect first mission, the first of what is sure to be many for the Spearhead program.
April 19, 1963
Continuing the Ranger program, Ranger 4 would launch on its own trajectory to the Moon, in an attempt to correct any and all possible failures that may have struck the spacecraft last mission; every component was double checked again and again. And as the rocket rose up through the spare cloud cover, mission control let out a collective sigh of relief, the vehicle reaching orbit. They spent extra time in low earth orbit to confirm all systems were operating nominally, and once that was confirmed, they proceeded on with the trans-lunar injection. The Agena ignited its engines, Ranger quickly accelerated towards the moon, and as the burn ended on time, mission control celebrated. It wasn’t until a few hours later they finally got the velocity information, taking the doppler shift from the spacecraft, and found it was ever so slightly off. The Agena stage had experienced minor thrust loss, building up over the burn to cause Ranger to miss the moon by just 430 kilometres. This was still better than the previous missions, all falling victim to one failure or another before ever reaching the moon. Briefly forgotten by control for several minutes after the bad news arrived, Ranger had mid-course correction capabilities. Enough fuel to, early in the flight, shift its trajectory by almost 10,000 km! It took time to get the proper commands sorted out, but once sent to the probe, it was on track to collide with the moon as planned. Sending back televised photos live, the small spacecraft raced towards the lunar surface, slightly northeast of the crater Fabricius, showing craters ever smaller, before suddenly - impact. No luck with the lander unfortunately, as it failed to separate.
May 15, 1963
Mercury-Vulcan 9 launches with Gordon Cooper in what would be the second last Mercury mission, pushing the bounds yet again and aiming for a full day long flight, remaining in orbit for 33 hours. While up, it would perform similar tests and observation experiments as previous missions, as well as having the periscope replaced with a telescope. Found somewhat hard to operate, it allowed Cooper the ability to see the other planets in our solar system without the atmosphere in the way. It wasn’t a very good telescope, but it was enough to show the galilean moons as faint pricks of light besides the miniscule disc of Jupiter. The mission concluded with a successful reentry and splashdown, and Cooper was safely recovered.
June 7, 1963
The president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, has decided to visit the NOTS facility, to meet the minds behind NOTSNIC, the SLV and Seafarer. He arrived early in the morning, around half past 10, and was given a tour of the facilities. He was able to view a series of NOTSNIC-2 vehicles in various stages of production, models of various NOTS and AMSA built spacecraft, and the early in production Seafarer 2. Also on view, exclusively to the president and accompanying staff, was the preliminary assembly of Arcturus, the upcoming medium lift launch vehicle. Various components sat lying around, some ready for testing, some being constructed, a few pieces of charred metal from failed engine tests, it was a sight to see. Once the tour was completed, Kennedy was invited to the director’s house for lunch, and after a short motorcade, left by Helicopter to Los Angeles.
June 16, 1963
After several months of waiting, the fleet of Mars probes approached their destination, Mars 2 encountering the deep red world first. On its fall inwards, it performed a flyby of Deimos, showing its peculiar shape and surprisingly smooth surface against the disk of Mars. Not much could be gained from the images shown of the small moon, besides the existence of a few small craters, and a singular large crater, warping the entire shape of the moon to convex. The probe continued on, gazing at the beautiful world before it with its robotic eyes, a single craft by itself for millions of kilometres. It saw much the same planet as last time, vast deserts of rusted sand and soil, weathered craters and sparse dry riverbeds. It also gazed upon the vast Tsiolkovsky Valley yet again, and the massive volcanoes that lay nearby, towering so tall that they encompassed the entire horizon from the top. Mars 2 then continued on, flying away into interplanetary space, transmitting the final images and results, and powering down. A successful mission complete, the whole Martian system’s preliminary observations done, now was the time to continue the discoveries, and plan to send a robotic ambassador to stay.
June 18, 1963
Mariner 4 followed shortly after, encountering the red planet and showcasing the other half, which failed to be imaged by Mars 2. Mostly focusing on Syrtis Major, Noachis Terra and Hellas Planitia. These unique terrains all proved to be incredibly interesting, both scientifically and to the public. A massive gash blasted out of the planet that would stretch from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe that was 7 kilometres deep. A large field of dark rock and dust, a massive volcano field in the middle of it. Beautiful landscapes viewed from far above, the last sights of a probe destined to circle the sun for the rest of eternity, until eventual collision or ejection.
June 23, 1963
And as Mariner 4 left Mars, Seafarer 1 Approached, the singular
military interplanetary probe. The experience gained from the original military lunar flyby had been put to good use, as had the experience with NOTSNIC and the numerous rotating scanner concepts. The craft slowly approaches mars, spin-stabilised scanning its robotic eyes across the disk of Mars over and over, slowly filling up its field of view. This miniscule spacecraft as it flew through the Martian system, simultaneously paved the road for further miniscule spacecraft. Such a small system could carry unique scientific experiments unable to fit into larger probes, and could be sent to smaller objects for cheaper, as with the 21 Lutetia flyby craft in preliminary study. Seafarer 1 took several images of Mars as it slowly scanned, including one with Phobos appearing multiple times, orbiting fast enough to chase the scanner’s field of view. Seafarer 1 too drifted into heliocentric space, transmitting its images with beautiful results, a mosaic of Mars.
August 3, 1963
Pushing on with the test program, Karol Bobko took Spearhead for a test ride, launching up beyond the atmosphere, performing a similar test of the vehicle’s capabilities to the last flight, going up - this time to about 400 km, then coming back down. This time, as further proof of operations, a quick test of the cargo deployment system was performed, deploying a redundant flight backup of Seafarer 1, imaging Spearhead from outside. Spearhead began falling back into the atmosphere, plasma building up beneath the belly of the craft, and melting the still somewhat close Seafarer. Bobko took the craft out of reentry orientation, pointing it to place Spearhead back on track towards the Vandenberg runway, touching down and bringing an end to the second ever spearhead mission, with just one left to go before the eventual orbital test flight, tensions were high. But for the time being, there was celebration.
September 9, 1963
Launched three days prior, Mechta-8 raced towards the lunar surface, falling to Mare Vaporum, almost dead-centre on the Earth-facing side of the Moon. It ignited its retrorockets, decelerating at breakneck speeds to prevent another
catastrophic impact. Its velocity slowed, and as the spacecraft detected contact on a long boom, the retrorockets sputtered out, and the lander segment separated away - flying upwards for a few seconds before falling back to the surface, bouncing across the lunar terrain before finally coming to a rest. Mechta-8 has become the first ever spacecraft to land on the surface of the moon, transmitting a photo back, the first from the surface of another world. This image is picked up at Jodrell Bank and transmitted across the globe. The image showed a vast expanse of flat terrain, the basin of the mare, with miniscule craters and boulders strewn across the landscape.
October 12, 1963
The final Spearhead Kittyhawk suborbital mission was about to begin, Milton Thompson sitting atop the gargantuan rocket inside the spaceplane. Prior to this, he had breakfast with the other astronauts of the program, Karol Bobko, Francis Neubeck, Robert White, Albert Crews, Lachlan Macleay, James Taylor and Michael Adams. They all wished Thompson good luck, and now he was ready for launch. The rocket ignited, pushing the incredible vehicle beyond the clouds, through the atmosphere and into true space. The spacecraft continued rising, surpassing 430 km, the highest yet. Though this was still suborbital, no time could be wasted. Similarly to the Kittyhawk 2 flight, Thompson opened the cargo bay, and deployed its contents. A fully vacuum designed NOTSNIC. Thompson fired the control jets to push the spaceplane down, beneath the rocket, leaving it clear to fire. The HOTROC motors ignited, sending the rocket screaming off into the black of space, illuminating the interior for a few seconds before fading into a dim glow, drifting towards the horizon. Now that the payload had been deployed, Thompson prepared for reentry, adjusting the spacecraft as the atmosphere flowed around it, heating up, and dissipating just over a minute later. He prepared for touchdown, and gracefully landed the vehicle on the runway at Vandenberg. The test program of Spearhead was over, and now the next step could begin, full orbital flights, and the launch of Fletcher station.
November 7, 1963
Following the final Kittyhawk launch a month later is Voskhod 1, the first flight of the brand new Soviet space capsule of the same name. Voskhod 1 was a marvellous capsule, able to seat one, two, or three cosmonauts within it, the first multi-crew capable vehicle to fly, Spearhead not counting as all its flight had been suborbital, and never carried the full possible two astronauts. Voskhod 1 would be seated with three cosmonauts, Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Vasili Lazarev. Only Komarov had flown before, the other two were on their first trip into space. And what a trip it is, lasting for two days, gazing upon the earth below through the windows, performing microgravity experiments, and just confirming the validity of the capsules engineering. It was found to be quite cramped, any time longer than 2 days spent in the capsule with this many people crammed inside would probably make the cosmonauts go insane. Thankfully, no further 3 person flights were planned - though something could always require it. As the crew continued their days in space, they began to act slightly irritated, finding issues with the food and experiencing general discomfort. Thus, it was decided to bring about an end to the mission slightly earlier than planned. Still a decent 37 hours, which was still taken as confirmation that the capsule was truly fit for spaceflight, and would fly again not too long after the mission ends. And as this capsule contains multiple cosmonauts, they parachute down with the capsule; as opposed to the Vostok spacecraft, necessitating a parachute jump to land. As the first mission has successfully concluded, Sergei Korolev lays out the full plans for the Voskhod program - artificial gravity testing, military experiments, spacewalks - male and female. It was a beautiful dream, one that would hopefully come to fruition.
November 22, 1963
While travelling through Dallas, Texas, on his way to have lunch with two senators, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was struck by two bullets, one in the neck, one at the top of the skull, killing him instantly. The first president to be assassinated in over 60 years, bringing an end to an era. The man who averted the Cuban missile crisis, and began the race to the moon, was dead. In memoriam, the NASA Launch Operations Center was renamed to the John F. Kennedy Space Centre, and the vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson became the president.
Chapter 6 - Hecate’s Shrine
December 28, 1962After several months of travel, Mariner 3 began to approach its destination, the large world of Venus. Photography was not a priority for this mission, though there was still a camera, it was not as powerful as missions designed to head to Mars or the Moon, but this is made up by the numerous instruments. As it flew past, Mariner 3 observed the makeup of the Venusian atmosphere, further refining its composition and making rough assessments of the vertical differences in it, although a true atmospheric probe would be needed to fully characterise it. Such a craft would not be possible for some time, heat shield technology was barely capable for Earthly atmospheric reentry as is.
January 28, 1963
For the time being, the Moon would be given more attention for exploration, beginning with the Block 2 Ranger missions. The first of these, Ranger 3, was already well on its way to the Moon, having launched the previous day. Drifting towards the moon on the path that physics dictates, Earth grows ever smaller behind the probe. This was to be an attempt at impacting the lunar surface, as well as, potentially, landing. Normally the spacecraft would be incapable of decelerating enough to land softly on the lunar surface - which is why it doesn’t land softly. Under a minute before impact, a smaller spacecraft would separate, carrying instruments inside a ball of balsa wood, filled with liquid heptane. Attached to this ball was the solid motor, it would ignite and just seconds before impact, 300m above the lunar surface, reach a standstill. From there, the balsa sphere would fall by itself, hitting the surface around 40m/s, a survivable speed for the acceleration-hardened technology. One of the instruments was an incredibly sensitive seismometer; it could theoretically detect the impact of a 2kg meteorite on the opposite side of the moon. Unfortunately none of this would come to fruition on this flight, as Ranger unexpectedly lost communications mid-transit.
February 19, 1963 - 2:10pm - Vandenberg AFB
CAPCOM “White, We’re all ready here on the ground. Weather is go. Clouds have parted for a bit, and the wind is within acceptable ranges, around 6mph right now. We are all go for launch.”
White “Roger, Go for launch.”
CAPCOM “Good luck, Robert, T-60 seconds.”
The sun shone on the launchpad, Spearhead Kittyhawk was ready to go; The first of three suborbital test flights of the vehicle. It was placed atop a Vulcan-Centaur, the more powerful sibling of the rocket placing the Mercury capsules into orbit. The engines lit up, slowly pushing the craft up off of the launchpad, leaving a billowing cloud of dust on the ground. It began to move faster and faster, putting the full scale aerodynamics of the vehicle to the test. The first stage burns out, breaking away as the centaur ignites, sending it
April 19, 1963
Continuing the Ranger program, Ranger 4 would launch on its own trajectory to the Moon, in an attempt to correct any and all possible failures that may have struck the spacecraft last mission; every component was double checked again and again. And as the rocket rose up through the spare cloud cover, mission control let out a collective sigh of relief, the vehicle reaching orbit. They spent extra time in low earth orbit to confirm all systems were operating nominally, and once that was confirmed, they proceeded on with the trans-lunar injection. The Agena ignited its engines, Ranger quickly accelerated towards the moon, and as the burn ended on time, mission control celebrated. It wasn’t until a few hours later they finally got the velocity information, taking the doppler shift from the spacecraft, and found it was ever so slightly off. The Agena stage had experienced minor thrust loss, building up over the burn to cause Ranger to miss the moon by just 430 kilometres. This was still better than the previous missions, all falling victim to one failure or another before ever reaching the moon. Briefly forgotten by control for several minutes after the bad news arrived, Ranger had mid-course correction capabilities. Enough fuel to, early in the flight, shift its trajectory by almost 10,000 km! It took time to get the proper commands sorted out, but once sent to the probe, it was on track to collide with the moon as planned. Sending back televised photos live, the small spacecraft raced towards the lunar surface, slightly northeast of the crater Fabricius, showing craters ever smaller, before suddenly - impact. No luck with the lander unfortunately, as it failed to separate.
May 15, 1963
Mercury-Vulcan 9 launches with Gordon Cooper in what would be the second last Mercury mission, pushing the bounds yet again and aiming for a full day long flight, remaining in orbit for 33 hours. While up, it would perform similar tests and observation experiments as previous missions, as well as having the periscope replaced with a telescope. Found somewhat hard to operate, it allowed Cooper the ability to see the other planets in our solar system without the atmosphere in the way. It wasn’t a very good telescope, but it was enough to show the galilean moons as faint pricks of light besides the miniscule disc of Jupiter. The mission concluded with a successful reentry and splashdown, and Cooper was safely recovered.
The president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, has decided to visit the NOTS facility, to meet the minds behind NOTSNIC, the SLV and Seafarer. He arrived early in the morning, around half past 10, and was given a tour of the facilities. He was able to view a series of NOTSNIC-2 vehicles in various stages of production, models of various NOTS and AMSA built spacecraft, and the early in production Seafarer 2. Also on view, exclusively to the president and accompanying staff, was the preliminary assembly of Arcturus, the upcoming medium lift launch vehicle. Various components sat lying around, some ready for testing, some being constructed, a few pieces of charred metal from failed engine tests, it was a sight to see. Once the tour was completed, Kennedy was invited to the director’s house for lunch, and after a short motorcade, left by Helicopter to Los Angeles.
June 16, 1963
After several months of waiting, the fleet of Mars probes approached their destination, Mars 2 encountering the deep red world first. On its fall inwards, it performed a flyby of Deimos, showing its peculiar shape and surprisingly smooth surface against the disk of Mars. Not much could be gained from the images shown of the small moon, besides the existence of a few small craters, and a singular large crater, warping the entire shape of the moon to convex. The probe continued on, gazing at the beautiful world before it with its robotic eyes, a single craft by itself for millions of kilometres. It saw much the same planet as last time, vast deserts of rusted sand and soil, weathered craters and sparse dry riverbeds. It also gazed upon the vast Tsiolkovsky Valley yet again, and the massive volcanoes that lay nearby, towering so tall that they encompassed the entire horizon from the top. Mars 2 then continued on, flying away into interplanetary space, transmitting the final images and results, and powering down. A successful mission complete, the whole Martian system’s preliminary observations done, now was the time to continue the discoveries, and plan to send a robotic ambassador to stay.
June 18, 1963
Mariner 4 followed shortly after, encountering the red planet and showcasing the other half, which failed to be imaged by Mars 2. Mostly focusing on Syrtis Major, Noachis Terra and Hellas Planitia. These unique terrains all proved to be incredibly interesting, both scientifically and to the public. A massive gash blasted out of the planet that would stretch from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe that was 7 kilometres deep. A large field of dark rock and dust, a massive volcano field in the middle of it. Beautiful landscapes viewed from far above, the last sights of a probe destined to circle the sun for the rest of eternity, until eventual collision or ejection.
June 23, 1963
And as Mariner 4 left Mars, Seafarer 1 Approached, the singular
August 3, 1963
September 9, 1963
Launched three days prior, Mechta-8 raced towards the lunar surface, falling to Mare Vaporum, almost dead-centre on the Earth-facing side of the Moon. It ignited its retrorockets, decelerating at breakneck speeds to prevent another
October 12, 1963
The final Spearhead Kittyhawk suborbital mission was about to begin, Milton Thompson sitting atop the gargantuan rocket inside the spaceplane. Prior to this, he had breakfast with the other astronauts of the program, Karol Bobko, Francis Neubeck, Robert White, Albert Crews, Lachlan Macleay, James Taylor and Michael Adams. They all wished Thompson good luck, and now he was ready for launch. The rocket ignited, pushing the incredible vehicle beyond the clouds, through the atmosphere and into true space. The spacecraft continued rising, surpassing 430 km, the highest yet. Though this was still suborbital, no time could be wasted. Similarly to the Kittyhawk 2 flight, Thompson opened the cargo bay, and deployed its contents. A fully vacuum designed NOTSNIC. Thompson fired the control jets to push the spaceplane down, beneath the rocket, leaving it clear to fire. The HOTROC motors ignited, sending the rocket screaming off into the black of space, illuminating the interior for a few seconds before fading into a dim glow, drifting towards the horizon. Now that the payload had been deployed, Thompson prepared for reentry, adjusting the spacecraft as the atmosphere flowed around it, heating up, and dissipating just over a minute later. He prepared for touchdown, and gracefully landed the vehicle on the runway at Vandenberg. The test program of Spearhead was over, and now the next step could begin, full orbital flights, and the launch of Fletcher station.
November 7, 1963
Following the final Kittyhawk launch a month later is Voskhod 1, the first flight of the brand new Soviet space capsule of the same name. Voskhod 1 was a marvellous capsule, able to seat one, two, or three cosmonauts within it, the first multi-crew capable vehicle to fly, Spearhead not counting as all its flight had been suborbital, and never carried the full possible two astronauts. Voskhod 1 would be seated with three cosmonauts, Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Vasili Lazarev. Only Komarov had flown before, the other two were on their first trip into space. And what a trip it is, lasting for two days, gazing upon the earth below through the windows, performing microgravity experiments, and just confirming the validity of the capsules engineering. It was found to be quite cramped, any time longer than 2 days spent in the capsule with this many people crammed inside would probably make the cosmonauts go insane. Thankfully, no further 3 person flights were planned - though something could always require it. As the crew continued their days in space, they began to act slightly irritated, finding issues with the food and experiencing general discomfort. Thus, it was decided to bring about an end to the mission slightly earlier than planned. Still a decent 37 hours, which was still taken as confirmation that the capsule was truly fit for spaceflight, and would fly again not too long after the mission ends. And as this capsule contains multiple cosmonauts, they parachute down with the capsule; as opposed to the Vostok spacecraft, necessitating a parachute jump to land. As the first mission has successfully concluded, Sergei Korolev lays out the full plans for the Voskhod program - artificial gravity testing, military experiments, spacewalks - male and female. It was a beautiful dream, one that would hopefully come to fruition.
November 22, 1963
While travelling through Dallas, Texas, on his way to have lunch with two senators, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was struck by two bullets, one in the neck, one at the top of the skull, killing him instantly. The first president to be assassinated in over 60 years, bringing an end to an era. The man who averted the Cuban missile crisis, and began the race to the moon, was dead. In memoriam, the NASA Launch Operations Center was renamed to the John F. Kennedy Space Centre, and the vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson became the president.
hopefully the chapter will be soon! might wait for this friday if it takes too long.
