The interesting thing about my MTV design is the way we tackled things like rad shielding, using propellant as a shield can be pretty advantageous! I wonder what that might look like though on a real deep space mission, it would certainly be scary. Your illustrations are always highly highly appreciated!!
Proxima: A Human Exploration of Mars
- Thread starter defconh3ck
- Start date
I think one of the key lessons in spaceflight is the constant reminder that space is a challenging and never consistent environment, and deserves to be treated with respect. If you do not respect the realm you're in, you may find yourself falling into a world of hurt.
No image annex today, that'll come tomorrow as I got a lot of stuff on my plate - sorry for the delay!
Chapter 26.5: Image Annex
Chapter 26.5: Image Annex
Hi all, happy Thursday, I'm so sorry that I couldn't get our usual image annex up on Wednesday, life finds a way to be difficult sometimes. I hope you all enjoyed this week's chapter with all of it's drama and stuff - this week, I have some wonderful images from Jay and Zarbon who are always just the absolute greatest at conveying the dynamic nature of our very expansive programs - I really value all of their contributions to this project! Anyway, I can't wait to show you all what we have in store!
Hi all, happy Thursday, I'm so sorry that I couldn't get our usual image annex up on Wednesday, life finds a way to be difficult sometimes. I hope you all enjoyed this week's chapter with all of it's drama and stuff - this week, I have some wonderful images from Jay and Zarbon who are always just the absolute greatest at conveying the dynamic nature of our very expansive programs - I really value all of their contributions to this project! Anyway, I can't wait to show you all what we have in store!
With the delivery of Donatello, Zarya can once again look to expansion and further exploration of European-Russian cooperation, a sign of ever growing interconnectedness in space, and collaboration in science and technology.
The module itself was a largely unmodified node, with the rear adapter being converted for compatibility with Russian systems. Ultimately, this would mean that APAS-equipped Soyuz vehicles would become the norm for operations in orbit.
The module itself was a largely unmodified node, with the rear adapter being converted for compatibility with Russian systems. Ultimately, this would mean that APAS-equipped Soyuz vehicles would become the norm for operations in orbit.
Olympus 6, under the command of Sharon Kensworth, makes their approach to Earth for rendezvous and landing. Their return journey was uneventful, only weathering a minor solar storm. The moon, and her newly minted pockmark, hang silently in the distance.
Finally home, the crew prepares for their LEO operations, and to shut down the MTV for refit and post flight inspection. Refit times for the MTVs have been shrinking rapidly, enabling far more flexibility for mission planners.
Her departure burn complete, Hera prepares for Lunar flyby, ready to inspect the newly added scar on the Lunar surface. Mission planners were eager to test out Hera's still installed cameras, from her previous mission to Venus.
Now, so far from home, the perils of a voyage to Mars awaits.
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Hi all, minor schedule update - due to me being a little bit busy this weekend, Proxima Chapter 27 will be released on Tuesday, May 31. Apologies for the delay, but we got some really exciting stuff coming up and I'm super duper excited to share it with you all. Can't wait to hear all of your thoughts about what's coming next!
Chapter 27: The First Home of The Earthlings
Good morning everyone, happy Tuesday! I hope you all had a good memorial day, and a good Monday. This week, we're resuming our exploration of Mars with the crew of Olympus 7. This week, I've got Zarbon and Jay to thank, who have always been so wonderfully helpful with everything they've contributed to this project, and I cannot wait for what's coming next. Can you believe that we're almost at chapter 30? Anyway, let's get started!
Chapter 27: The First Home of the Earthlings
The crew of Olympus 7, now bearing down on Mars, would face their most difficult tasks yet... landing on the Red Planet.
The mood on Hera during the cruise had best been described as concerned. Every day, as the crew grew closer to Mars, the prospect of not being able to remain on the surface weighed even heavier in their mind. The new year, 2003, had brought them some joy, and they spent time celebrating onboard, but concerns remained. The idea that their supplies on Mars may not be there to support them during their stay was alarming to say the least, and weighed heavily in their Commander’s mind. Commander Diaz found himself spending time reviewing the contingency procedures, and preparing himself for how to break the news to the crew that their stay on the red planet would be cut short. Throughout the rest of the crew, the mood was tense. In the solar storm, some of the computers containing personal entertainment had been wiped. Fortunately for the crew, disks with films had been left on the Base Station for their enjoyment post arrival. Mars crept into view around the six month mark in their voyage, and soon, they could begin to prepare for their arrival on the Red Planet. Scorpius, the crew’s MSAV, had weathered the journey with minimal damages, a testament to the robust design that the Lockheed-Mitsubishi consortium had built into the vehicle. The days leading to orbital insertion were full of excitement, but a resonating anxiety sat in the hearts of the crew members. A failed or critically damaged module on the surface would ultimately result in an abort, and having to spend their stay in orbit, something that would ultimately be detrimental to their health. 3 days before orbital insertion, they would observe the streaks of light visible on their telescopes as the Olympus 8 equipment successfully streaked towards the landing site of their successor mission, albeit without the drama of their own endeavor. The day of orbital insertion finally came, and the crew very diligently strapped into their seats, waiting to feel the push of the engines on their backs. Hera pushed on diligently, ditching her drop tanks cleanly as her nuclear engines pushed her into orbit. Ever so gently, her velocity would fall, and the red-brown dust of Mars would seem to lap at their windows, like the waves of some unforgiving ocean. The crew of Olympus 7 had done it, becoming the fourth crew to orbit Mars, a moment shared quietly among the crew as the ship assumed the correct attitude for operations in Mars orbit. The mood had improved as they made their way to the Base Station, and as Scorpius moved ever closer to docking. But, even still, as the landing date approached, Commander Diaz would find his Mission Specialist, Mikkel Fischer, crying silently as he sat in the cupola. “Commander…” he would later recall saying, “I’m sorry. I meant to be stronger than this. I know I can do it, I know we all can, but the thought of coming this far and not touching the surface with my own hands hurts me so.” Diaz would comfort him the best he could, but in his mind, he knew that the risk was very real, and the same fear began to grow inside the commander’s mind.
30 days after arriving at Mars, the crew would board their lander, and begin the process of undocking. Scorpius would soon back away from the great complex, and the crew could feast their eyes on the sheer magnitude of the spacecraft assembled in Martian orbit. The weather forecasts at their projected landing site had looked rocky during the first ten days of their orbital stay, but the dust had begun to settle, and the crew felt comfortable pressing onwards with the landing. Very carefully, Catarina Hammond would back the lander away, and soon, it would be nothing more than a speck hanging over the red brown horizon. Entry would be the next item on the agenda, with only one orbit left before they could commit to their descent and entry burn. Ignition of the LE-57Ms would push the crew into their entry couches and the vibrations of the engines would shake the crew. Unlike previous landings, with all of the crew on the flight deck, half of the team would be in temporary seats on the middeck, separated by a bulkhead. In some ways, it was isolating, and only added to the tension of entry. Soon, the atmosphere would start to lick at the vehicle, causing the cabin to vibrate. The sounds of the atmosphere biting at their ship soon started to increase, as the lander extended its airbrakes and fired its engines for the descent burn. Learning from the previous landings, the vehicle made finer adjustments of heading and orientation, and kept a lock on the landing beacon. Soon, the jolt of the ballute would slow the craft even further, and the RCS would begin to help orient the craft towards the landing site. The crew would soon capture the first images of their outpost, less than half a kilometer from their projected landing site and still in one piece. This brought some comfort to them as the vehicle fine tuned its landing, and switched to their single engine for the final moments of descent. The vehicle shuddered and groaned as they made their final descent, and the touch of the landing legs on the surface, the sounding of the contact tone, were of some comfort to the crew. The spool down of the systems onboard, and the mechanical switching of fans and motors a sigh of relief from their mechanical chariot. They had made it, and as the dust settled, the scope of their mission became clear. The next few days were spent in the comfort of the lander, adjusting to gravity, and prepping their spacesuits for the next task at hand, establishing their home away from home.
On Sol 7, after a week of light activity and overall confinement inside the lander, the first work on establishing their home away from home on Chryse Planitia could begin. The first step in preparing the MSAV’s descent stage for conversion would be the draining of any remaining propellant in the 7 meter habitat, and fetching the augmentation modules. Solovyova would be the technician to focus on this, and a command from the flight deck would see the vehicle dump its propellant overboard. The hydrogen and oxygen, much colder than the surrounding environment, would evaporate to steam, dissipating into the atmosphere of the planet. The next step would be the half mile traverse to the logistics modules, and inspection. One by one, the astronauts would don their ARES suits and assist the others onto the crew elevator. The group’s first steps on the Martian soil were full of excitement, and for a moment, they would forget the tension of their situation. They were walking on another planet, for God's sake. The low gravity led to a few stumbles, but soon, the crew had planted their 7 flags, and had begun to unpack the rover to inspect the logistics modules. The drive over was not filled with chatter, as the module’s condition remained uncertain. The crew of four, Diaz, Hammond, Solovyova and Foust trundled over the uneven Martian landscape, eyeing the two habs as they crested a crater. The two habs sat about 90 meters apart, atop their movable platforms. Ladders extended from them, and a seat with a joystick for control back to the lander. As the crew arrived and got to work, the extent of the impact on the logistics module became clear. The cable had indeed whipped against the vehicle, but not significantly enough to puncture the pressure vessel, and a quick check of the habitat’s systems showed that pressure was stable. The crew could breathe a sigh of relief, Diaz’s heart rate finally slowing enough that his life support systems could stop telling him to take it easy. The crew were overjoyed, and soon, Hammond and Solovyova were navigating the twin modules into position on the sides of the lander, ready to begin their integration. As part of the final test of the systems, the crew would drive the modules up to the sides and begin to erect them to the level of the descent stage. Soon, the modules would be lifted to the height of their hatches, and the covers cast into the dirt, ready for integration.
Integration of the twin modules was as smooth as they could expect, and soon, the crew could work on setting up their home away from home. Using a special hatch built into the bottom of the lander, the crew could climb into the tank and doff their suits, mitigating dust issues which were an ever present threat. As the crew changed into shirtsleeves, headlamps and work gloves, it was clear that they had a lot to do. The empty, cavernous space of the fuel tank would soon be bathed in light, as the crew worked to get the hatches to the logistics modules open. With the hatches open, they could begin to install the walls, floor and radiation shielding within the habitat. It was tiring work, but the light weight components and overall ease of installation sped the process along. By the end of the first day of assembly, the 3 main floors of the habitat, and wall dividers for crew privacy had been set up, and the life support racks were moving air throughout their new home. It was, admittedly, a strange feeling to sit within a fuel tank and use it as your home away from home, but to the astronauts, they felt at peace, comforted by the walls of their own sleep stations - that itself was a benefit. Actual beds, albeit they were rolled up mattress pads and cots, but they were real beds, and as the astronauts headed to bed after their first of many days on the surface, they found themselves sleeping comfortably. The next few days saw the crew setting up equipment racks inside the logistics modules, and moving supplies from the habitat in the ascent stage of the lander. This was supplemented by a trip to their small logistics lander, Cecilia Payne, to collect mission specific science kits from the small spacecraft. By Sol 14, the crew could finally finish up the cosmetic outfitting of their home away from home, and remove the window covers on the end of the logistics modules, letting in natural light and letting the crew finally start to feel comfortable in their new home. The immediate science objectives for the mission would be the trek to the Tempe Terra outflow delta, and begin to look for signs of past or present life, and identify what processes drove the creation of these features. Weeks would soon turn into months, and the crews on the ground would marvel at the science return gathered. Images from the planet would showcase the great deltas and valleys carved from Martian sandstone, and the crew would spend countless hours in the lab investigating their findings, doing more in the first five months on the surface than all of the other crewed missions combined. The long stay era on Mars was here.
On Earth, mission planners within NASA’s robotic science division were left with a challenge. The intrepid probe Galileo, orbiting the planet Jupiter for nearly a decade, was heading towards its end of life. Current plans for Jovian exploration called for a new breed of spacecraft, the Jovian Moons Explorer, or JOME to be launched in the upcoming 2011 window. Utilizing lessons learned from nuclear power in space, this probe would represent some of the latest and greatest technological advancements in space exploration. Nuclear electric propulsion would be utilized, resulting in a massive spacecraft assembled in multiple launches. In order to keep science at Jupiter going for as long as possible, the mission planners at JPL would make use of the mysterious moons of the planet to swing the probe into a new regime, a higher latitude orbit that would enable scanning of the planet and moons from a variety of angles. The probe had performed better than anyone had expected, and even in the high radiation environment of the planet, the probe continued to return images and data from the giant world. This new mission phase, called the Great Voyage, would see Galileo work to expand its knowledge in this new orbital regime. The successor, the concept formerly known as JOME, would be named Borelli, after the great astronomer who continued Galileo's work. Work on the Planetary Defense Program would begin in earnest this year, with the beginning of planning for JAVELIN: The Joint Asteroid VELocity INterceptor. A joint mission between the newly renamed JAXA and NASA, this mission would aim to slam into asteroid Didymos, which, rather conveniently, had a small moon orbiting it. The European Space Agency would also begin work on their contributions to the PDP, a monitoring probe named NEO-Hunter, a powerful, cryo cooled telescope that would scan near-earth space to investigate possible hazardous objects, as well as a mission known as the Asteroid Rendezvous-Tracking Probe. This secondary probe would aim to investigate the system visited by JAVELIN, and better characterize the impact The program received incredible public support, as fears of impending doom loomed over the public. To many, space was a place to be explored, but also still a place of fear, an ever present threat that could just as easily eliminate life on Earth, as well as seed it elsewhere in the cosmos.
Shenzhou 7 docks with the Tiangong-1 station in LEO, a major leap for China as a growing space power, and a shocking message for the Western world.
The Gobi Desert was once again rocked by something great, a blue and white streak riding a pillar of flame, sending the beasts of this barren expanse running for safety. The seemingly deserted launch site was awash in the light from the clustered first stage, disturbing the long held peace of the sand. The vehicle streaked skywards, the second crewed launch of the Chinese Manned Space Program, Shenzhou 7. The crew consisted entirely of People’s Liberation Army Air Force veterans, but the exact complement was not yet known to Western observers. Their rocket punching through the atmosphere, shedding components as they set their sights on a target, a small, orbital laboratory loitering in orbit, Tiangong-1. The station’s launch had been detected by Western satellite intelligence days prior, and had slipped into a comfortable orbit. It was rumored that several KH-11 KENNENs had turned their optics towards this object, unsure of its purpose. Now, as Shenzhou 7 spread its wings in orbit, it became clear - this was a docking attempt at a space station, a major leap. The Shenzhou capsule would spend the following two days chasing the station, a delicate orbital balance that saw the two vehicles conduct proximity operations, and after 48 hours of chase, the APAS-like ports of the two vehicles would meet, and the Chinese press would broadcast footage of the crew inside their own fully fledged space station - a shock to Western space powers. In a televised speech, the commander of the mission Zhai Zhigang would address the world and inform them of the greater ambitions of the Chinese Space Program - To conduct the first Chinese spacewalk on this mission, and prepare for greater things in the years to come: a modular space station constructed in Low Earth Orbit, as well as a telescope that would be serviced at this new facility. The agency would also unveil a new cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou, that would be based off of the pressure vessel of their very station. This space station would be open to all those who wished to fly their astronauts or experiments onboard, and aimed to within the first year that the station was completed, to fly a UN sponsored mission. They would then follow this up with the advancement of heavy lift rockets for crewed missions to Near Earth Objects starting sometime in the late 2010s, perhaps early 2020s. It was a bold claim, a claim not matched in scale since the announcement of the Olympus program as a whole, all those years ago. But they had shown the speed and success unmatched in modern spaceflight, and cemented their place as a power to admire.
Chapter 27: The First Home of the Earthlings
The crew of Olympus 7, now bearing down on Mars, would face their most difficult tasks yet... landing on the Red Planet.
The mood on Hera during the cruise had best been described as concerned. Every day, as the crew grew closer to Mars, the prospect of not being able to remain on the surface weighed even heavier in their mind. The new year, 2003, had brought them some joy, and they spent time celebrating onboard, but concerns remained. The idea that their supplies on Mars may not be there to support them during their stay was alarming to say the least, and weighed heavily in their Commander’s mind. Commander Diaz found himself spending time reviewing the contingency procedures, and preparing himself for how to break the news to the crew that their stay on the red planet would be cut short. Throughout the rest of the crew, the mood was tense. In the solar storm, some of the computers containing personal entertainment had been wiped. Fortunately for the crew, disks with films had been left on the Base Station for their enjoyment post arrival. Mars crept into view around the six month mark in their voyage, and soon, they could begin to prepare for their arrival on the Red Planet. Scorpius, the crew’s MSAV, had weathered the journey with minimal damages, a testament to the robust design that the Lockheed-Mitsubishi consortium had built into the vehicle. The days leading to orbital insertion were full of excitement, but a resonating anxiety sat in the hearts of the crew members. A failed or critically damaged module on the surface would ultimately result in an abort, and having to spend their stay in orbit, something that would ultimately be detrimental to their health. 3 days before orbital insertion, they would observe the streaks of light visible on their telescopes as the Olympus 8 equipment successfully streaked towards the landing site of their successor mission, albeit without the drama of their own endeavor. The day of orbital insertion finally came, and the crew very diligently strapped into their seats, waiting to feel the push of the engines on their backs. Hera pushed on diligently, ditching her drop tanks cleanly as her nuclear engines pushed her into orbit. Ever so gently, her velocity would fall, and the red-brown dust of Mars would seem to lap at their windows, like the waves of some unforgiving ocean. The crew of Olympus 7 had done it, becoming the fourth crew to orbit Mars, a moment shared quietly among the crew as the ship assumed the correct attitude for operations in Mars orbit. The mood had improved as they made their way to the Base Station, and as Scorpius moved ever closer to docking. But, even still, as the landing date approached, Commander Diaz would find his Mission Specialist, Mikkel Fischer, crying silently as he sat in the cupola. “Commander…” he would later recall saying, “I’m sorry. I meant to be stronger than this. I know I can do it, I know we all can, but the thought of coming this far and not touching the surface with my own hands hurts me so.” Diaz would comfort him the best he could, but in his mind, he knew that the risk was very real, and the same fear began to grow inside the commander’s mind.
30 days after arriving at Mars, the crew would board their lander, and begin the process of undocking. Scorpius would soon back away from the great complex, and the crew could feast their eyes on the sheer magnitude of the spacecraft assembled in Martian orbit. The weather forecasts at their projected landing site had looked rocky during the first ten days of their orbital stay, but the dust had begun to settle, and the crew felt comfortable pressing onwards with the landing. Very carefully, Catarina Hammond would back the lander away, and soon, it would be nothing more than a speck hanging over the red brown horizon. Entry would be the next item on the agenda, with only one orbit left before they could commit to their descent and entry burn. Ignition of the LE-57Ms would push the crew into their entry couches and the vibrations of the engines would shake the crew. Unlike previous landings, with all of the crew on the flight deck, half of the team would be in temporary seats on the middeck, separated by a bulkhead. In some ways, it was isolating, and only added to the tension of entry. Soon, the atmosphere would start to lick at the vehicle, causing the cabin to vibrate. The sounds of the atmosphere biting at their ship soon started to increase, as the lander extended its airbrakes and fired its engines for the descent burn. Learning from the previous landings, the vehicle made finer adjustments of heading and orientation, and kept a lock on the landing beacon. Soon, the jolt of the ballute would slow the craft even further, and the RCS would begin to help orient the craft towards the landing site. The crew would soon capture the first images of their outpost, less than half a kilometer from their projected landing site and still in one piece. This brought some comfort to them as the vehicle fine tuned its landing, and switched to their single engine for the final moments of descent. The vehicle shuddered and groaned as they made their final descent, and the touch of the landing legs on the surface, the sounding of the contact tone, were of some comfort to the crew. The spool down of the systems onboard, and the mechanical switching of fans and motors a sigh of relief from their mechanical chariot. They had made it, and as the dust settled, the scope of their mission became clear. The next few days were spent in the comfort of the lander, adjusting to gravity, and prepping their spacesuits for the next task at hand, establishing their home away from home.
MSAV Block 2 Scorpius prepares to bring the crew of Olympus 7 to the surface of Mars, the first 8 person crew to land on the planet. The upgraded lander sported a more robust upper stage, and a descent stage more attuned to wet workshop conversion.
On Sol 7, after a week of light activity and overall confinement inside the lander, the first work on establishing their home away from home on Chryse Planitia could begin. The first step in preparing the MSAV’s descent stage for conversion would be the draining of any remaining propellant in the 7 meter habitat, and fetching the augmentation modules. Solovyova would be the technician to focus on this, and a command from the flight deck would see the vehicle dump its propellant overboard. The hydrogen and oxygen, much colder than the surrounding environment, would evaporate to steam, dissipating into the atmosphere of the planet. The next step would be the half mile traverse to the logistics modules, and inspection. One by one, the astronauts would don their ARES suits and assist the others onto the crew elevator. The group’s first steps on the Martian soil were full of excitement, and for a moment, they would forget the tension of their situation. They were walking on another planet, for God's sake. The low gravity led to a few stumbles, but soon, the crew had planted their 7 flags, and had begun to unpack the rover to inspect the logistics modules. The drive over was not filled with chatter, as the module’s condition remained uncertain. The crew of four, Diaz, Hammond, Solovyova and Foust trundled over the uneven Martian landscape, eyeing the two habs as they crested a crater. The two habs sat about 90 meters apart, atop their movable platforms. Ladders extended from them, and a seat with a joystick for control back to the lander. As the crew arrived and got to work, the extent of the impact on the logistics module became clear. The cable had indeed whipped against the vehicle, but not significantly enough to puncture the pressure vessel, and a quick check of the habitat’s systems showed that pressure was stable. The crew could breathe a sigh of relief, Diaz’s heart rate finally slowing enough that his life support systems could stop telling him to take it easy. The crew were overjoyed, and soon, Hammond and Solovyova were navigating the twin modules into position on the sides of the lander, ready to begin their integration. As part of the final test of the systems, the crew would drive the modules up to the sides and begin to erect them to the level of the descent stage. Soon, the modules would be lifted to the height of their hatches, and the covers cast into the dirt, ready for integration.
Integration of the twin modules was as smooth as they could expect, and soon, the crew could work on setting up their home away from home. Using a special hatch built into the bottom of the lander, the crew could climb into the tank and doff their suits, mitigating dust issues which were an ever present threat. As the crew changed into shirtsleeves, headlamps and work gloves, it was clear that they had a lot to do. The empty, cavernous space of the fuel tank would soon be bathed in light, as the crew worked to get the hatches to the logistics modules open. With the hatches open, they could begin to install the walls, floor and radiation shielding within the habitat. It was tiring work, but the light weight components and overall ease of installation sped the process along. By the end of the first day of assembly, the 3 main floors of the habitat, and wall dividers for crew privacy had been set up, and the life support racks were moving air throughout their new home. It was, admittedly, a strange feeling to sit within a fuel tank and use it as your home away from home, but to the astronauts, they felt at peace, comforted by the walls of their own sleep stations - that itself was a benefit. Actual beds, albeit they were rolled up mattress pads and cots, but they were real beds, and as the astronauts headed to bed after their first of many days on the surface, they found themselves sleeping comfortably. The next few days saw the crew setting up equipment racks inside the logistics modules, and moving supplies from the habitat in the ascent stage of the lander. This was supplemented by a trip to their small logistics lander, Cecilia Payne, to collect mission specific science kits from the small spacecraft. By Sol 14, the crew could finally finish up the cosmetic outfitting of their home away from home, and remove the window covers on the end of the logistics modules, letting in natural light and letting the crew finally start to feel comfortable in their new home. The immediate science objectives for the mission would be the trek to the Tempe Terra outflow delta, and begin to look for signs of past or present life, and identify what processes drove the creation of these features. Weeks would soon turn into months, and the crews on the ground would marvel at the science return gathered. Images from the planet would showcase the great deltas and valleys carved from Martian sandstone, and the crew would spend countless hours in the lab investigating their findings, doing more in the first five months on the surface than all of the other crewed missions combined. The long stay era on Mars was here.
Scorpius Base stands tall on Sol 26, the positioning rovers having been moved out of the way. The added living space, equivalent to a single family home, would prove advantageous to crew morale.
On Earth, mission planners within NASA’s robotic science division were left with a challenge. The intrepid probe Galileo, orbiting the planet Jupiter for nearly a decade, was heading towards its end of life. Current plans for Jovian exploration called for a new breed of spacecraft, the Jovian Moons Explorer, or JOME to be launched in the upcoming 2011 window. Utilizing lessons learned from nuclear power in space, this probe would represent some of the latest and greatest technological advancements in space exploration. Nuclear electric propulsion would be utilized, resulting in a massive spacecraft assembled in multiple launches. In order to keep science at Jupiter going for as long as possible, the mission planners at JPL would make use of the mysterious moons of the planet to swing the probe into a new regime, a higher latitude orbit that would enable scanning of the planet and moons from a variety of angles. The probe had performed better than anyone had expected, and even in the high radiation environment of the planet, the probe continued to return images and data from the giant world. This new mission phase, called the Great Voyage, would see Galileo work to expand its knowledge in this new orbital regime. The successor, the concept formerly known as JOME, would be named Borelli, after the great astronomer who continued Galileo's work. Work on the Planetary Defense Program would begin in earnest this year, with the beginning of planning for JAVELIN: The Joint Asteroid VELocity INterceptor. A joint mission between the newly renamed JAXA and NASA, this mission would aim to slam into asteroid Didymos, which, rather conveniently, had a small moon orbiting it. The European Space Agency would also begin work on their contributions to the PDP, a monitoring probe named NEO-Hunter, a powerful, cryo cooled telescope that would scan near-earth space to investigate possible hazardous objects, as well as a mission known as the Asteroid Rendezvous-Tracking Probe. This secondary probe would aim to investigate the system visited by JAVELIN, and better characterize the impact The program received incredible public support, as fears of impending doom loomed over the public. To many, space was a place to be explored, but also still a place of fear, an ever present threat that could just as easily eliminate life on Earth, as well as seed it elsewhere in the cosmos.
Shenzhou 7 docks with the Tiangong-1 station in LEO, a major leap for China as a growing space power, and a shocking message for the Western world.
The Gobi Desert was once again rocked by something great, a blue and white streak riding a pillar of flame, sending the beasts of this barren expanse running for safety. The seemingly deserted launch site was awash in the light from the clustered first stage, disturbing the long held peace of the sand. The vehicle streaked skywards, the second crewed launch of the Chinese Manned Space Program, Shenzhou 7. The crew consisted entirely of People’s Liberation Army Air Force veterans, but the exact complement was not yet known to Western observers. Their rocket punching through the atmosphere, shedding components as they set their sights on a target, a small, orbital laboratory loitering in orbit, Tiangong-1. The station’s launch had been detected by Western satellite intelligence days prior, and had slipped into a comfortable orbit. It was rumored that several KH-11 KENNENs had turned their optics towards this object, unsure of its purpose. Now, as Shenzhou 7 spread its wings in orbit, it became clear - this was a docking attempt at a space station, a major leap. The Shenzhou capsule would spend the following two days chasing the station, a delicate orbital balance that saw the two vehicles conduct proximity operations, and after 48 hours of chase, the APAS-like ports of the two vehicles would meet, and the Chinese press would broadcast footage of the crew inside their own fully fledged space station - a shock to Western space powers. In a televised speech, the commander of the mission Zhai Zhigang would address the world and inform them of the greater ambitions of the Chinese Space Program - To conduct the first Chinese spacewalk on this mission, and prepare for greater things in the years to come: a modular space station constructed in Low Earth Orbit, as well as a telescope that would be serviced at this new facility. The agency would also unveil a new cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou, that would be based off of the pressure vessel of their very station. This space station would be open to all those who wished to fly their astronauts or experiments onboard, and aimed to within the first year that the station was completed, to fly a UN sponsored mission. They would then follow this up with the advancement of heavy lift rockets for crewed missions to Near Earth Objects starting sometime in the late 2010s, perhaps early 2020s. It was a bold claim, a claim not matched in scale since the announcement of the Olympus program as a whole, all those years ago. But they had shown the speed and success unmatched in modern spaceflight, and cemented their place as a power to admire.
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Zarbon and Jay continue to knock it out of the park with the images, I love this patch for Olympus 7. The way you describe the crew's reactions to everything is realistic as always, bringing the story even more to life. I also enjoyed learning about the setup of the base, and want to know more about the wet workshop.
Always glad to see other players in the world as well, so I'm glad to see the Chinese space program continuing to more of a role here.
Quote of the week (only a portion of a sentence, but an artful one):
Always glad to see other players in the world as well, so I'm glad to see the Chinese space program continuing to more of a role here.
Quote of the week (only a portion of a sentence, but an artful one):
Wet workshops are notoriously difficult to do in real life, and the closest we got in real life was the conversion of Skylab into a space station. Doing so on the surface gives you gravity to work with, and that makes the work much more doable. I wouldn't be surprised if converting bits of a spacecraft into a habitat is done as part of our forays to mars in the coming decades.
And thank you, I try to describe nature scenes as being very still and tranquil, keeping it in the cosmic sense ya know?
habitank is such a cool concept, I really enjoyed reading about all the potential applications of it throughout its existence
Ahh I understand, thank you! I agree, I think converting bits of spacecraft into parts of the habitat, or other structures even, makes perfect sense, less to carry, more that can just be re-used.
And you're welcome! I think you nail that pretty well
The human element of spaceflight is always what fascinated me, and learning about how it impacts the brain and considering what a martian mission may do is the most important thing I could think to take away from all of it.This was a great chapter, especially with regard to Olympus 7. Hearing about the anxieties and uncertainties of the crew really helps to ground the story in their humanity, and reminds us not to take these amazing successes for granted.
Also, Scorpius Base just looks and sounds awesome
Hi all, no image annex this week, but schedules will resume as normal this coming monday!! Looking forward to this next chapter and everything we have in store for y'all
Chapter 28: Rest Weary Travelers
Good morning all, happy Monday! I'm really excited to share with you some amazing stuff from lots of amazing folks today, and to dive back into our exploration of the Red Planet. This week, we'll explore the crews of both Olympus 7 and Olympus 8, as well as some of the robotic missions going on throughout the Solar System. I wanna thank a bunch of people this week, including Steven, Jay, Zarbon and Ben, who have done such amazing stuff for us. Ben has been working on, as well as some amazing art for our story, some pieces of music as well, including the latest piece: Flight of the MTV! I hope you all really enjoy this chapter this week!
Chapter 28: Rest Weary Travelers
On the first of July 2004, billions of miles away from Earth, the Cassini spacecraft retracted the cover to its propulsion system, oriented itself, and prepared for orbital insertion around the ringed giant, Saturn. The spacecraft had spent 7 years in the icy grip of deep space, and now, the great and magnificent world loomed large before the digital eyes of the spacecraft. For the mission team, cruise had been relatively uneventful, waking the dormant spacecraft occasionally to poke and prod at its systems, and make sure that the ship remained functional. Now, for the first time since launch, the great spacecraft would be put through its paces, and work to complete the arrival burn. Its main engine, a derivative of the venerable R-4D thruster, would soon spring to life to begin the nearly 100 minute burn. As a consequence, the spacecraft could not communicate with Earth via the high gain antenna, instead only transmitting a low gain carrier tone throughout the maneuver. Factoring in the light delay, it was a rather tense moment for the mission team. In JPL, the peanuts were out in full force, and the flight team looked anxiously at the signal from the deep space network, desperate to see if this great spacecraft had made the voyage in one piece. The silence cut deep, and as the probe swung behind the planet, it would work to capture images of the planet as the burn was conducted. The probe soldiered on, and soon, the engines onboard would shut down, and the probe would fine tune its attitude. Eventually, after a full systems check, it would point its high gain antenna at a distant speck in the depths of space, and would transmit its health data, confirming to those on the ground that humanity had made orbit around another world, Saturn. The immediate science and commissioning phase would put Cassini to the test, flexing all of the science instruments onboard, and preparing for the first year at the planet. The pictures Cassini would take during the first year would fundamentally change the way humankind viewed the ringed giant, no longer this great leviathan but a figure suspended in the delicate harmonies of gravity, so fragile seeming. The true magnum opus for Cassini’s first year would come in the form of Titan, and the glinting methane seas peeking through the foggy atmosphere. The image of a glinting, methane ocean on the surface of Titan would shock the world, and the anticipation towards the release of the Huygens lander would only grow. Soon, the time for the deployment of the intrepid landing probe would come, as Cassini swung by the massive moon. Huygens was cast off into the abyss, calling back into the void to the ship that carried it here. Cassini would turn and point its camera at the little space probe as it fell towards this alien world, unsure of what exactly it would find on the surface. The probe would slam into the atmosphere, the turbulent gasses ionizing around the spacecraft and preventing the little spacecraft from transmitting. It would be a painful few minutes for those on the ground, but soon, the camera eyes of Huygens would open to reveal an alien world, so different from the one that had created it. It saw the flowing of rivers into oceans, and waves lapping at a gentle shore. The probe would set down on a gently sloping seashore, and an onboard microphone would record the scraping of the hull against the ice and rock, the first sounds from the outer planets. It was a tremendous triumph, and science teams around the world celebrated as this brave little probe performed its precious hours of science.
On Mars, the changing of hands was nearly upon the crew, and the astronauts of Olympus 7 had wrapped up their work, and left behind their great base on the planet’s surface. Their departure from the Red Planet had gone smoothly, and the transit period back to Earth was a welcome rest from their activities on the planet. Despite the hiccups earlier in the mission, the actual surface period had exceeded many of their expectations, and proved to be far more comfortable than the short stay sorties of the previous missions. Their nearly 400 sols on the surface had amassed an impressive sample size, and the crew worked tirelessly to perform scientific analysis on the materials they had collected. A highlight of the mission had been the discovery of trace gasses trapped within some of the rocks, and seeping out of the ground, indicating to the crew that there was a potential process that governed this kind of behavior. It was not out of the question that geological processes could be contributing to the release of methane and other volatiles, but it was also not entirely out of the question that organic processes could lead to the same result. Nevertheless, the crew worked tirelessly in the first floor of their habitat, carefully dissecting the samples they collected. Some of the experiments they had conducted focused entirely on spaceflight research, aiming to assist later crews in their stays upon the planet’s surface. Such experiments included exercise regimes, dietary analysis and other experimental human health tests. Another unique test that was conducted was the use of hydroponics to grow crops onboard, aiming to meet two objectives: crew psychological comfort and consumption of vitamins and minerals from fresh fruits and vegetables. During their stay, they grew 3 separate crops of lettuce, 2 of spinach, and attempted a batch of potatoes before ultimately not finding them to be viable hydroponically. These activities also were remarkable in how much the crew looked forward to them, eager to spend their time working on things that reminded them of home. Dust storm season had been, luckily, much more manageable than they expected, and the crews would perform limited EVAs to install weather monitoring stations around their basecamp. As the summer turned to fall on Earth, the crew of Olympus 7 would make their return to their home planet, eager to leave that chapter of their lives closed, but deeply longing for the adventure at their core. Their return journey was uneventful, and gave them time to rest and recuperate. Upon arrival at Earth, they were plucked from the heavens by the crew of Intrepid, more than eager for their debrief. When comparing post flight interviews between the short and long stay crews, the long stay crew seemed to have a much more cohesive narrative of their experience, as they had worked together to accomplish goals and negated issues of splitting the crew up. All in all, and despite the complications of the early mission, proved that the long stay was the way forward. Their return was heralded as a huge success for the program, showcasing the benefits of the conversion design for the lander. The crew would remain incredibly close even after their mission had drawn to a close, with Dr. Bianchi and Mission Specialist Takahashi getting married in the spring of 2010.
On pad 39A and 39B, two Jupiter-OPAVs sat stacked with their Phaeton upper stages, and even more precious cargo. The cargo in question was the pre staging equipment for the upcoming Olympus 9 mission, destined to leave for the Red Planet in a little over 2 years. They would soon lift off from the twin pads a day apart, casting them on a trajectory that would take them on a lengthy journey to Gusev Crater, a rich bio-geological site which hopefully held more clues to the origins of the planet. Their OPAV pods, Adventure and Tenacity, would be recovered in the desert at White Sands, and the crews would work to quickly load them onto their carrier aircraft to ready them for their next flight. The accident of 2001 still sat in their minds, but the comprehensive review carried out of the Jupiter-OPAV system ensured that something like this would never happen again. The problem observed during Olympus 7’s pre-staging had been identified after a lengthy investigation, revealing a pyrotechnic bolt that had been manufactured to the wrong standard. Luckily for the crew of Olympus 8, the deployment of their Augmentation Landers had gone to plan, setting them down in Jezero Crater, yet another geologically interesting site that hopefully held the clues to the planet’s past. Their landers waited patiently for the arrival of the crew, ready to make history as they prepared for their departure. The Olympus 8 crew, themselves, had spent the last year training extensively for their mission to the Red Planet, and further advancing their previous crew’s work on living off of the land. Part of the mission's main scientific objectives in the Jezero Crater region would be analysis of the exposed geological features, and a traverse up the outflow delta to look for dried aquifers. The unofficial science team motto for the mission was "Step by Step the the Source," highlighting the importance of meticulous analysis of the landscape. The crew of Olympus 8 would be commanded by the second non-US citizen to lead up a mission to the Red Planet, German born ESA astronaut Alexander Mensen. The MTV pilot for Olympus 8 would be NASA’s Blake Ripley-Jones, a former Naval pilot. Their flight surgeon would be NASA’s Dr. Craig Healy, a woodland paramedic and cardiologist who would go on to become the youngest NASA astronaut to fly to Mars at the age of 29. Konstantin Tereshkova, of Russia, would act as the scientific lead for the mission, and would deploy new and refreshed experiments to help aid in the ever present search for life. NASA’s Michael L. Jones would pilot the MTV to the surface, joined on his right by Spain’s Juan Del Rey. JAXA’s Hiroyuki Ikuta and ESA’s Claude Heltier would be the habitation specialists, performing the task of augmentation module checkout and docking. They were a fine crew, and would enable the further exploration of the planet. Their media tour pre-launch was one of the first uses of NASA on social media, enabling greater outreach for children and adults alike. In the days leading up to launch, they would spend time at the beach, isolated from the rest of the world with a layer of comfort, and soon head for the launch pad.
The Olympus 8 mission patch, highlighting the various activities the crew would undertake, and the spiraling organic nature of footsteps on the Martian surface
Intrepid sat on pad 39A, ready to carry the crew of Olympus 8 to Prometheus, waiting patiently in orbit. Since her last flight, Prometheus had been refit with improved avionics, an improved solar shelter, and new racks for experiments, including microgravity gardening. This had been a feature the Olympus 7 crew had reviewed quite favorably. During their first countdown, wind constraints would force a recycle, causing the crew to wait on the ground until their lander, Lynx, had departed. There was some concern that the crew would not be able to make the window to leave, and have to wait a considerable length of time to be reassigned, but Intrepid and the weather would finally cooperate, sending the crew off on their voyage. The orbiter would leap from the pad and pitch over, beginning the 8 ½ minute ride to orbit, and subsequent day and a half chase to Prometheus. She sat, so elegantly suspended in orbit of the Earth, her solar panels glinting in the unfiltered sun. No matter who flew to her, who ferried crew, or who was about to embark on a great expedition, these great ships were always a sight to behold. Intrepid would dock at the forward port of the MTV, and would start the process of unloading cargo into the great volume of the craft, and begin to prepare the crew for departure. For the delivery crews, it was always a bittersweet moment - on one hand, the advancement of human science to push them to a new world, but at the same time, the farewells to the crew, and the farewells to Earth still hurt. Intrepid would back away, and the crew would hold handmade signs up to the windows of the orbiter for Prometheus’ crew to see, documenting the final departure of humans they’d see until their return. Olympus 8 would cast off from Earth two days after Intrepid’s departure, pushing humans deeper and deeper into interplanetary space. The first months of their cruise were uneventful as they settled in, ready to explore a world slowly becoming familiar to humanity. Along with them was a passenger, a small multiple impactor probe to be deployed autonomously by the MTV while the crew performed their activities on the surface. With the lessons learned from Hera at Venus, the MTV could act as a venerable science platform all on its own, enabling the crews on Mars to collect science from multiple angles. After they began their sortie on the surface, and converted their lander into a long stay habitat, they would begin to conduct their scientific mission, aiming to answer questions about the Red Planet's past, and begin to ponder the future of humanity once again.
In the jungle of French Guiana, something startled the hundreds of thousands of organisms that called this tranquil paradise home. A great rumbling, and a crack as an Ariane V roared into the twilight sky. Onboard, not one, but two passengers, designed to travel together to a mysterious world, a comet discovered long ago called 67P Churyumov/Gerasimenko. This world, discovered long ago, had been a notable long period comet, and proposed for study numerous times. The larger of the two spacecraft was Persephone, a deep space satellite equipped with the latest technology for maneuvers in space, an ion drive, designed to convert the power of the sun into usable energy. Persephone would act as the mothership and brains of the operation, while the smaller, more maneuverable Aeon probe would move to intercept the comet and explore it up close, ultimately returning a sample of this icy world to the mothership. It had been a bold idea when thought up years ago, and there were concerns that something of this scale would not be possible given ESA’s commitment to other programs, but the dream of exploration had pushed the mission through its political muck. Development of a system to collect the cometary material had pushed some of the engineers across ESA’s member states to their absolute limits, testing everything they thought they knew about spacecraft design. Ultimately, it came down to a bizarre solution: after nearly 10 years of travel together, the two spacecraft would separate as they arrived at the comet, with Aeon making the journey towards the nucleus. There, Aeon would secure itself to the surface of the comet, and act as a stationary workplace, operating as the comet drifted further and further away from the sun. Then as the comet once again approached the sun, its surface getting warmer, Aeon would wake from its quiescent mode, and prepare to collect the best sample it could find to be delivered to the waiting mothership. Persephone would be the ultimate catcher's mitt, picking up a small container of samples ejected out of a system onboard Aeon called the Near Earth Retrieval Facility, or NERF. Persephone would then use her solar electric system to depart from the comet, and head back to Earth where she would deploy her samples for collection, roughly in 2019. As the probe spread its wings, it would extend its robotic catch arm, equipped with a camera to take an image of itself and the Earth in the background, receding into the distance. It was the first image of many taken by the probe, and pointed towards a bright future for the exploration of comets.
Chapter 28: Rest Weary Travelers
On the first of July 2004, billions of miles away from Earth, the Cassini spacecraft retracted the cover to its propulsion system, oriented itself, and prepared for orbital insertion around the ringed giant, Saturn. The spacecraft had spent 7 years in the icy grip of deep space, and now, the great and magnificent world loomed large before the digital eyes of the spacecraft. For the mission team, cruise had been relatively uneventful, waking the dormant spacecraft occasionally to poke and prod at its systems, and make sure that the ship remained functional. Now, for the first time since launch, the great spacecraft would be put through its paces, and work to complete the arrival burn. Its main engine, a derivative of the venerable R-4D thruster, would soon spring to life to begin the nearly 100 minute burn. As a consequence, the spacecraft could not communicate with Earth via the high gain antenna, instead only transmitting a low gain carrier tone throughout the maneuver. Factoring in the light delay, it was a rather tense moment for the mission team. In JPL, the peanuts were out in full force, and the flight team looked anxiously at the signal from the deep space network, desperate to see if this great spacecraft had made the voyage in one piece. The silence cut deep, and as the probe swung behind the planet, it would work to capture images of the planet as the burn was conducted. The probe soldiered on, and soon, the engines onboard would shut down, and the probe would fine tune its attitude. Eventually, after a full systems check, it would point its high gain antenna at a distant speck in the depths of space, and would transmit its health data, confirming to those on the ground that humanity had made orbit around another world, Saturn. The immediate science and commissioning phase would put Cassini to the test, flexing all of the science instruments onboard, and preparing for the first year at the planet. The pictures Cassini would take during the first year would fundamentally change the way humankind viewed the ringed giant, no longer this great leviathan but a figure suspended in the delicate harmonies of gravity, so fragile seeming. The true magnum opus for Cassini’s first year would come in the form of Titan, and the glinting methane seas peeking through the foggy atmosphere. The image of a glinting, methane ocean on the surface of Titan would shock the world, and the anticipation towards the release of the Huygens lander would only grow. Soon, the time for the deployment of the intrepid landing probe would come, as Cassini swung by the massive moon. Huygens was cast off into the abyss, calling back into the void to the ship that carried it here. Cassini would turn and point its camera at the little space probe as it fell towards this alien world, unsure of what exactly it would find on the surface. The probe would slam into the atmosphere, the turbulent gasses ionizing around the spacecraft and preventing the little spacecraft from transmitting. It would be a painful few minutes for those on the ground, but soon, the camera eyes of Huygens would open to reveal an alien world, so different from the one that had created it. It saw the flowing of rivers into oceans, and waves lapping at a gentle shore. The probe would set down on a gently sloping seashore, and an onboard microphone would record the scraping of the hull against the ice and rock, the first sounds from the outer planets. It was a tremendous triumph, and science teams around the world celebrated as this brave little probe performed its precious hours of science.
Triumphant at Saturn, Cassini prepares to deploy the European Huygens probe, destined for a landing on the mystery world of Titan
On Mars, the changing of hands was nearly upon the crew, and the astronauts of Olympus 7 had wrapped up their work, and left behind their great base on the planet’s surface. Their departure from the Red Planet had gone smoothly, and the transit period back to Earth was a welcome rest from their activities on the planet. Despite the hiccups earlier in the mission, the actual surface period had exceeded many of their expectations, and proved to be far more comfortable than the short stay sorties of the previous missions. Their nearly 400 sols on the surface had amassed an impressive sample size, and the crew worked tirelessly to perform scientific analysis on the materials they had collected. A highlight of the mission had been the discovery of trace gasses trapped within some of the rocks, and seeping out of the ground, indicating to the crew that there was a potential process that governed this kind of behavior. It was not out of the question that geological processes could be contributing to the release of methane and other volatiles, but it was also not entirely out of the question that organic processes could lead to the same result. Nevertheless, the crew worked tirelessly in the first floor of their habitat, carefully dissecting the samples they collected. Some of the experiments they had conducted focused entirely on spaceflight research, aiming to assist later crews in their stays upon the planet’s surface. Such experiments included exercise regimes, dietary analysis and other experimental human health tests. Another unique test that was conducted was the use of hydroponics to grow crops onboard, aiming to meet two objectives: crew psychological comfort and consumption of vitamins and minerals from fresh fruits and vegetables. During their stay, they grew 3 separate crops of lettuce, 2 of spinach, and attempted a batch of potatoes before ultimately not finding them to be viable hydroponically. These activities also were remarkable in how much the crew looked forward to them, eager to spend their time working on things that reminded them of home. Dust storm season had been, luckily, much more manageable than they expected, and the crews would perform limited EVAs to install weather monitoring stations around their basecamp. As the summer turned to fall on Earth, the crew of Olympus 7 would make their return to their home planet, eager to leave that chapter of their lives closed, but deeply longing for the adventure at their core. Their return journey was uneventful, and gave them time to rest and recuperate. Upon arrival at Earth, they were plucked from the heavens by the crew of Intrepid, more than eager for their debrief. When comparing post flight interviews between the short and long stay crews, the long stay crew seemed to have a much more cohesive narrative of their experience, as they had worked together to accomplish goals and negated issues of splitting the crew up. All in all, and despite the complications of the early mission, proved that the long stay was the way forward. Their return was heralded as a huge success for the program, showcasing the benefits of the conversion design for the lander. The crew would remain incredibly close even after their mission had drawn to a close, with Dr. Bianchi and Mission Specialist Takahashi getting married in the spring of 2010.
Burning for home, the crew of Olympus 7 heralds the completion of the first long duration stay on the Martian surface, setting the stage for the flood of activity to come over the next several years.
On pad 39A and 39B, two Jupiter-OPAVs sat stacked with their Phaeton upper stages, and even more precious cargo. The cargo in question was the pre staging equipment for the upcoming Olympus 9 mission, destined to leave for the Red Planet in a little over 2 years. They would soon lift off from the twin pads a day apart, casting them on a trajectory that would take them on a lengthy journey to Gusev Crater, a rich bio-geological site which hopefully held more clues to the origins of the planet. Their OPAV pods, Adventure and Tenacity, would be recovered in the desert at White Sands, and the crews would work to quickly load them onto their carrier aircraft to ready them for their next flight. The accident of 2001 still sat in their minds, but the comprehensive review carried out of the Jupiter-OPAV system ensured that something like this would never happen again. The problem observed during Olympus 7’s pre-staging had been identified after a lengthy investigation, revealing a pyrotechnic bolt that had been manufactured to the wrong standard. Luckily for the crew of Olympus 8, the deployment of their Augmentation Landers had gone to plan, setting them down in Jezero Crater, yet another geologically interesting site that hopefully held the clues to the planet’s past. Their landers waited patiently for the arrival of the crew, ready to make history as they prepared for their departure. The Olympus 8 crew, themselves, had spent the last year training extensively for their mission to the Red Planet, and further advancing their previous crew’s work on living off of the land. Part of the mission's main scientific objectives in the Jezero Crater region would be analysis of the exposed geological features, and a traverse up the outflow delta to look for dried aquifers. The unofficial science team motto for the mission was "Step by Step the the Source," highlighting the importance of meticulous analysis of the landscape. The crew of Olympus 8 would be commanded by the second non-US citizen to lead up a mission to the Red Planet, German born ESA astronaut Alexander Mensen. The MTV pilot for Olympus 8 would be NASA’s Blake Ripley-Jones, a former Naval pilot. Their flight surgeon would be NASA’s Dr. Craig Healy, a woodland paramedic and cardiologist who would go on to become the youngest NASA astronaut to fly to Mars at the age of 29. Konstantin Tereshkova, of Russia, would act as the scientific lead for the mission, and would deploy new and refreshed experiments to help aid in the ever present search for life. NASA’s Michael L. Jones would pilot the MTV to the surface, joined on his right by Spain’s Juan Del Rey. JAXA’s Hiroyuki Ikuta and ESA’s Claude Heltier would be the habitation specialists, performing the task of augmentation module checkout and docking. They were a fine crew, and would enable the further exploration of the planet. Their media tour pre-launch was one of the first uses of NASA on social media, enabling greater outreach for children and adults alike. In the days leading up to launch, they would spend time at the beach, isolated from the rest of the world with a layer of comfort, and soon head for the launch pad.
The Olympus 8 mission patch, highlighting the various activities the crew would undertake, and the spiraling organic nature of footsteps on the Martian surface
Intrepid sat on pad 39A, ready to carry the crew of Olympus 8 to Prometheus, waiting patiently in orbit. Since her last flight, Prometheus had been refit with improved avionics, an improved solar shelter, and new racks for experiments, including microgravity gardening. This had been a feature the Olympus 7 crew had reviewed quite favorably. During their first countdown, wind constraints would force a recycle, causing the crew to wait on the ground until their lander, Lynx, had departed. There was some concern that the crew would not be able to make the window to leave, and have to wait a considerable length of time to be reassigned, but Intrepid and the weather would finally cooperate, sending the crew off on their voyage. The orbiter would leap from the pad and pitch over, beginning the 8 ½ minute ride to orbit, and subsequent day and a half chase to Prometheus. She sat, so elegantly suspended in orbit of the Earth, her solar panels glinting in the unfiltered sun. No matter who flew to her, who ferried crew, or who was about to embark on a great expedition, these great ships were always a sight to behold. Intrepid would dock at the forward port of the MTV, and would start the process of unloading cargo into the great volume of the craft, and begin to prepare the crew for departure. For the delivery crews, it was always a bittersweet moment - on one hand, the advancement of human science to push them to a new world, but at the same time, the farewells to the crew, and the farewells to Earth still hurt. Intrepid would back away, and the crew would hold handmade signs up to the windows of the orbiter for Prometheus’ crew to see, documenting the final departure of humans they’d see until their return. Olympus 8 would cast off from Earth two days after Intrepid’s departure, pushing humans deeper and deeper into interplanetary space. The first months of their cruise were uneventful as they settled in, ready to explore a world slowly becoming familiar to humanity. Along with them was a passenger, a small multiple impactor probe to be deployed autonomously by the MTV while the crew performed their activities on the surface. With the lessons learned from Hera at Venus, the MTV could act as a venerable science platform all on its own, enabling the crews on Mars to collect science from multiple angles. After they began their sortie on the surface, and converted their lander into a long stay habitat, they would begin to conduct their scientific mission, aiming to answer questions about the Red Planet's past, and begin to ponder the future of humanity once again.
Intrepid separates from her External Tank, carrying the crew of Olympus 8 towards their waiting ship, Prometheus. After a swift docking and transfer to the MTV, the crew is ready to begin humanity's second long duration stay on the Martian surface.
In the jungle of French Guiana, something startled the hundreds of thousands of organisms that called this tranquil paradise home. A great rumbling, and a crack as an Ariane V roared into the twilight sky. Onboard, not one, but two passengers, designed to travel together to a mysterious world, a comet discovered long ago called 67P Churyumov/Gerasimenko. This world, discovered long ago, had been a notable long period comet, and proposed for study numerous times. The larger of the two spacecraft was Persephone, a deep space satellite equipped with the latest technology for maneuvers in space, an ion drive, designed to convert the power of the sun into usable energy. Persephone would act as the mothership and brains of the operation, while the smaller, more maneuverable Aeon probe would move to intercept the comet and explore it up close, ultimately returning a sample of this icy world to the mothership. It had been a bold idea when thought up years ago, and there were concerns that something of this scale would not be possible given ESA’s commitment to other programs, but the dream of exploration had pushed the mission through its political muck. Development of a system to collect the cometary material had pushed some of the engineers across ESA’s member states to their absolute limits, testing everything they thought they knew about spacecraft design. Ultimately, it came down to a bizarre solution: after nearly 10 years of travel together, the two spacecraft would separate as they arrived at the comet, with Aeon making the journey towards the nucleus. There, Aeon would secure itself to the surface of the comet, and act as a stationary workplace, operating as the comet drifted further and further away from the sun. Then as the comet once again approached the sun, its surface getting warmer, Aeon would wake from its quiescent mode, and prepare to collect the best sample it could find to be delivered to the waiting mothership. Persephone would be the ultimate catcher's mitt, picking up a small container of samples ejected out of a system onboard Aeon called the Near Earth Retrieval Facility, or NERF. Persephone would then use her solar electric system to depart from the comet, and head back to Earth where she would deploy her samples for collection, roughly in 2019. As the probe spread its wings, it would extend its robotic catch arm, equipped with a camera to take an image of itself and the Earth in the background, receding into the distance. It was the first image of many taken by the probe, and pointed towards a bright future for the exploration of comets.
Every contributor continues to knock it out of the park, the Olympus 8 patch is gorgeous. Ben's piece here is incredible as well, and I really enjoy the melding of some synth/electric piano elements together with more traditional orchestration. A nice combination of the old and the modern.
Seeing more of the fruits of the first long-stay mission is wonderful, and I'm excited to see what more there is for our crews to learn and discover. I'm also stoked on how everything that's been learned in moving toward Mars has been opening the doors for these other missions.
As always, the windows into the lives of the people remains ever a large part of what keeps me coming back, and so this week's favorite line is this:
Seeing more of the fruits of the first long-stay mission is wonderful, and I'm excited to see what more there is for our crews to learn and discover. I'm also stoked on how everything that's been learned in moving toward Mars has been opening the doors for these other missions.
As always, the windows into the lives of the people remains ever a large part of what keeps me coming back, and so this week's favorite line is this:
The learning how to live off the land is one of the key elements in Martian mission planning, and I can only wonder how the predictions i make here will play out in the real world!