Proxima: A Human Exploration of Mars

[defconh3ck]

I don't have a whole lot to say, other than so much has been leading to this. The pace of the world will only pick up after this post, and will only get more exciting for us. This is one of the things I've been so proud of, and also so nervous to share, but I'm being brave and sharing it. Jay is gonna have an amazing image annex for us on Wednesday and I'm very excited to share this part with you. Thank you again for everyone who's gotten us here, and thank you for everyone who's supporting what's coming. I hope you all enjoy. Just as a note, I may be taking a short break to catch up and take a moment to write some more, so I can have more for you ready to go!

Interlude 2:

Olympus 3, October 10, 1997, 9:35 AM Local Landing Site Time
Descent to Elysium Planitia
MSAV: “Zephyr”, MTV/CAPCOM: “Basecamp”​

Douglass: Basecamp, we are five by and ready for undocking, greens across the board here

St. Michel: Controls green, Zephyr is ready, standing by for undocking procedures

Ueno, CAPCOM: Roger that, we have a good visual on externals and will be monitoring separation, go for undocking at your discretion.

St. Michel: Affirm, 10 seconds until undocking command… hooks retracting now.

Douglass: Nice and easy, Laurent. Let’s not scratch the paint before we get on the surface.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Hooks locked on our end, go for push-off.

St. Michel: Go for push-off - we are clear of Basecamp. Relative speed .05 meters per second. I’m gonna wait for the flight computer before I pulse the RCS anymore, let us drift.

Shoemaker, SURGEON: I’m getting good life sign telemetry from your suits now, we’ll be able to track your vitals during descent. Everyone’s looking just fine. Cabin pressure also looking stable.

Maksimov: Deploying UHF antenna now… good deployment start. Good AOS with Basecamp.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Ready for pitch around maneuver at your discretion, Zephyr.

St. Michel: Roger, Basecamp, preparing for pitch around.

Douglass: Just like Odyssey ops, nice and slow. Let them get a real good look at us.

St. Michel: Firing forward jets-

Ueno, CAPCOM: Looking real good, Zephyr, TPS looks solid, not seeing any ice or FOD. Waiting for the engine section to come into view now…

Bromley: Cabin is secure, commander. After we move into the descent orbit we have a few items to stow, but we should have the largest objects bolted.

Douglass: Wonderful - CAPCOM, our cabin is secure, moving through checklist 1 for descent engine insertion prep once we’ve completed the pitch around.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Roger, we have a visual on the engine section now. No FOD detected so far, TPS continues to look good. Speedbrake covers look good… Zephyr can you confirm two way telemetry uplink looks good on your end?

Douglass: Roger Basecamp, we have stable signal and data-rate. Once we move to separate, we expect some data losses but relays will make up for line of sight loss if necessary.

Koch, MS: That’s affirm, we have uplink from the onboard atmospheric navigation packages. We will monitor them during descent and do what we can to help navigate to the landing site.

Maksimov: Sensors are online and reading notional values. I think we’re nearly ready, sensor wise at least.

Douglass: C'mon, Maks, have some confidence! We've only come how many million miles? Basecamp, we are ready for descent orbit insertion, can you verify?

Ueno, CAPCOM: That’s affirm. I think we’re ready to have you begin moving to the descent orbit. Zephyr crew, are you ready to proceed?

Douglass: Affirm, Basecamp.

St. Michel: Affirm, Basecamp.

Bromley: Affirm, Basecamp.

Maksimov: Affirm, Basecamp... Zephyr is ready.

11:50 AM Local Landing Site Time
Descent Orbit, MSAV "Zephyr"​

St. Michel: Alright, we are ready for initialization of powered descent, Maks, how are our systems looking?

Maksimov: Greens across the board, with one slight issue. Slightly sticky redundant RCS jet. I’d suggest a quick pulse of the whole system.

Douglass: Get on that, we’re coming up on the landing burn - Basecamp, how far are we from the go/no go point - How’s our connection to the relay network?

Ueno, CAPCOM: Coming up on the go/no go for landing attempt 1 in just a moment, standby.

Bromley: We are connected currently to Zreniye-3, will hand off between MRI to Zreniye-2 during our projected entry time.

Douglass: Basecamp, we are online and transmitting, awaiting telemetry check on your end for entry.

Ueno, CAPCOM: We’ve just got uplink from Mission Control, Earth, we are go, repeat, go, for you guys to commit to the landing. Move to section 3-1 of your checklists, and finish up securing the cabin. We have healthy telemetry from Zephyr, surgeon is receiving health data from all four of you.

Douglass: Roger that, basecamp. Moving to section 3-1, cabin securing in progress.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Good readback, Zephyr.

Douglass: Let’s get everything secure and switch to descent guidance, we have powered descent at our discretion… as your commander, I am asking you now, are you willing to commit to this landing gentlemen?

St Michel: I’m with you commander, let’s set her down.

Maksimov: I concur.

Bromley: Anna, what do you think I’m going to say? Of course. We’ve come this far.

Douglass: Basecamp, we have crew confirmation, we are set to descend… Starting our countdown clock for powered landing operations, flight computer is configured at this time.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Roger that Zephyr, you are clear to proceed with powered descent.

Douglass: Basecamp, get ready for Descent Burn 1.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Roger that Anna, you’re on the money for DB1. I will provide a countdown along with the flight computer… 10, 9, 8, 7, 6… go for engine ullage, 4, 3, 2, 1 - Ignition.

Bromley: Feel that mother go!

Douglass: We have a good light for DB1! Flight computer shows us right on the centerline… How we looking, Laurent?

St. Michel: Greens across the board, we are on a nominal trajectory, engine performance looks good.

St. Michel: We have shutdown, preparing for coast…

Ueno, CAPCOM: We have good shutdown, Zephyr.

12:05 PM Local Landing Site Time
Descent, MSAV "Zephyr"​

Shoemaker, SURGEON: I’m seeing some elevated heart rates guys, remember your breathing techniques.

Douglass: Copy that, we’re a little bit excited down here… Looking at Abort Mode 1A…

St. Michel: Roger that, Abort 1A. Coming up on atmospheric entry interface in about 2 minutes guys, cabin locked down?

Maksimov: Roger that, we are all bolted in, ready for entry interface.

St. Michel: 90 seconds until atmospheric entry interface

Douglass: Pyrotechnics armed?

Bromley: Copy that commander, we are set for EDL procedure.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Zephyr, Basecamp, we have you 70 seconds out from atmospheric entry. Got a good visual of you on scopes.

Douglass: Copy that basecamp, expect acquisition of signal once we clear the initial ionization.

Ueno, CAPCOM: Have fun down there, Zephyr, we’ll be watching you.

St. Michel: Entry interface in 45 seconds. Let’s start to look for landing guidance from Marie Curie…

Maksimov: I have AOS on Marie Curie!

St. Michel: 30 seconds, pyros on ballute and air brakes armed. We have green lights on the board.

Douglass: This is it gentlemen, let’s hang tight.

St. Michel: 15 seconds… 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Entry interface, we are hitting atmosphere.

Bromley: I’m picking up some vibration, nothing outside expected parameters… plasma buildup starting…

Maksimov: I think… there! I have a visual on the landing site on scopes, we are on target!

St. Michel: Here come the G’s… prepping for entry burn, good light!

Douglass: We have good burn from all 5 descent engines, moving through the worst of the heating now…

Bromley: Zephyr is responding well, commander!

St. Michel: Okay, engine shutdown in 10 seconds - shut down, and- hey we’ve got a caution light!

Douglass: Okay, checklists people! What are we looking at?

Maksimov: Guidance fault, we can’t keep a lock on Marie Curie… is it the ionization? It doesn’t appear to be from plasma..

Douglass: We need that lock re-established so Laurent can put us down in the correct spot, Bromley, you and Maksimov need to work through options.

St. Michel: 2g! 30 seconds until the ballute deploys, I need that nav system back!

Bromley: Working on it!

Douglass: Maks, we need to start considering abort options if we can’t navigate to the launch site, we’re still early in the descent profile.

Maksimov: Commander, we have the manual option for landing-

Douglass: It’s too risky, I don’t wanna risk the ship coming down in an uncharted area-

St. Michel: 20 seconds to ballute deployment, Bromley! Coming up on 2.5g!

Bromley: Almost got it!

Douglass: Bromley!

Bromley: Lock established! You are go for ballute deploy!

St. Michel: Jesus, feel her go - Prime the airbrakes!

Maksimov: Airbrakes primed!

St. Michel: Shutdown, airbrakes out! Jeez its getting hard to breathe, I can feel the weight of the planet…

Douglass: Let’s look alive, boys! Deceleration is nominal, ballute pyros are primed! Deployment on my mark! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Mark! Ballute out!

Bromley: Shit! Spiked at 10g!

St. Michel: Good thing they gave us these crashpads, right? Abort mode 1C!

Maksimov: Commander, I have visual on the landing site! Guidance computer is showing us on a nominal trajectory- vibrations look nominal!

Douglass: Nominal is a good word for fucking intense, we’ve been in microgravity for so long… Alright, let’s get ready for pathfinding!

Bromley: Zephyr is looking at the ground for landmarks!

St. Michel: Systems primed for ballute cut!

Bromley: Coming up in 20 seconds, looking to align with engine burn!

St. Michel: Preparing for powered descent! Prep for ullage on my mark, 3, 2, 1… Mark! Ignition!

Bromley: Good light! 3 engines burning!

Douglass: Shit, we’ve got another caution light- Maks, how we looking on guidance?

Maksimov: Commander, we are out of lock again with Marie Curie, we’re flying on instruments. Current estimates put us down a half kilometer from the lander, its further than we planned but-

Bromley: Jesus, our dipole antenna has been ripped clean off! We won't be able to use the landing beacon!

St. Michel: So much for Marie Curie...

Douglass: Ok, we still have comms with Basecamp via the UHF antenna... Can we continue the descent? Laurent?

St. Michel: I can put us down. Maks, I’ll need callouts of location and altitude

Douglass: Laurent, are you sure?

St. Michel: I’m sure, commander.

Bromley: Airframe is holding, ECLSS is stable, ground tracking radar is stable, everyone remember your breathing exercises?

Douglass: As much as I can remember anything right now, Bromley!

Maksimov: Laurent, we’re 40km downrange from the landing site, 30km in altitude, we are on track if you can keep us within descent parameters-

Douglass: I’m getting downlink telemetry from Basecamp! No audio, data only, they have us on track, even without Marie Curie!

Bromley: 120 seconds to landing, I can see our landing site!

Douglass: My god, we’re almost there…

St. Michel: Getting a lot of vibration now, we’re really in the thickest part of the atmosphere, I’m struggling to keep her steady!

Bromley: We have a fault in the drive mechanism on airbrake 1C! It’s jammed! We run the risk of drifting in our descent trajectory!

Douglass: Laurent, the ascent stage RCS! We can keep the vehicle on attitude!

St. Michel: Commander, if we fire the RCS, we run the risk of issues on ascent, we have-

Douglass: Do it!

St. Michel: Firing RCS!

Maksimov: We risk scorching the TPS, please be careful!

St. Michel: I’ve got her, I’ve got her…

Bromley: 90 seconds! Moving to vertical flight!

Douglass: Brace yourselves for G-loading!

Ueno, CAPCOM: Zephyr, we see you on final, getting telemetry from your suits now, you’re doing just fine, keep breathing everyone, we'll work through these issues on the surface.

Douglass: Roger that basecamp! We’re dealing with a lot more atmospheric turbulence than we expected-

Bromley: 70 seconds!

Ueno, CAPCOM: We see you on track for your landing site- reading good engine data from the lander, ECLSS data looks nominal

Douglass: Basecamp, prepare to start uplinking data, boy have we got a fuckton for you!

Ueno, CAPCOM: Roger that Zephyr, we are standing by for your uplink! Trajectory still looking nominal for touchdown.

Bromley: 50 seconds! Coming up on outer engine shutdown!

St. Michel: Bracing for shutdown, get ready for some vibration-

Bromley: Good shutdown! We’re nearly down, 300 feet!

Douglass: We have a landing leg deployment alarm! Drive mechanism on three is failed!

Maksimov: Commander, drop it manually!

Bromley: 200 feet!

Douglass: Come on, lock you bastard! Triggering manual drop!

Maksimov: We have a green light! Leg is locked!

Bromley: 80 feet!

St. Michel: Translating, hang tight folks, I’m trying to get us into the ideal position for landing, kicking up a lot more dust than I thought...

Bromley: Guidance is looking good folks!

Douglass: Everyone brace for landing, we have a ten foot fall after engine cut! We are primed for Abort 3A at this time!

Bromley: 40 feet!

Maksimov: My god, the dust… it's everywhere...

Bromley: 10 feet

St. Michel: Prepare for engine shutdown, on my mark - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark! Good shutdown!

Bromley: Freefall!

Douglass: Contact!

Maksimov: We’re… we’re down…

Douglass: Basecamp, this is Zephyr, Tango Delta is nominal... We're safe on the surface of Mars.

 

[defconh3ck]

Interlude 2: Image Annex

Hi all, happy wednesday! This week, we're going to be recapping the really exciting sequence outlined in this week's Interlude, the landing of crew on the surface of Mars on Olympus 3! I really wanted this section to highlight kind of the raw emotions that go into the whole thing. I want to thank Jay for providing these amazing images of descent, and really capturing the raw emotion of the whole thing. I also want to thank Peter for providing some incredible stuff for the MSAV's abort modes, which he took the time to detail so well. I'll include the abort mode diagram at the end of the annex. Peter also did a great job coming up with the diffuser for the center engine, which allows us to minimize dust kick-up during descent and avoids creating a crater under the lander. I hope you all enjoy!

The Olympus 3 landing team depart from the MTV-Basecamp complex, ready to begin the adventure of a lifetime. The orbital team, lead by Yume Ueno, will monitor the crew during their descent and provide guidance.

Burning its LE-57M engines, Zephyr commits to descent, ready to meet the surface head on.
​

Zephyr begins atmospheric interface, scraping the tenuous atmosphere of the planet Mars. An entry burn shortly after would mitigate heating and enable the crew to arrest their horizontal velocity, key to translating to the surface.

Zephyr deploys her ballute, an inflatable drag balloon to help further arrest the horizontal velocity of the lander. The ballute helps to bring the lander under supersonic speeds, and is supported on the lander body by a specially designed bridle.

Zephyr breaks the cloud layer, continuing on her descent. The lander took damage during the descent, but pressed for the landing, not serious enough for the Pilot or Commander to call for an Abort.​

Zephyr has her target in her sights, and the crew can prepare to feel the embrace of the surface. Soon, the outboard engines will shut down and enable the LE-57MD "Sakura" filtered nozzle engine will carry the crew to a stop on the surface.
​

Nearly hovering over the surface, Zephyr prepares to land on the dusty plains of Elysium Planitia. The LE-57MD is the only engine burning now, ready to make contact with an alien world.
​

With touchdown nominal, Zephyr stands, triumphant and alone; ready to meet the world that awaits her on Mars. Humanity's longest voyage has just begun. As the night will fall, Zephyr will bathe her landing sight with her floodlights, ready to protect her occupants from the unknown.
​

The Zephyr class MSAV abort modes, indicating the required actions at each phase of flight. Modes 3 Alpha and 3 Charlie are the modes the engineers fear the most, even if they won't tell the astronauts...




​

 

[defconh3ck]

Hi everyone, happy Monday! I hope you all enjoyed our interlude last week, and are excited about what's to come. We're officially in the second half of Proxima now, that's so very exciting! I can't wait to bring so many more exciting stories to the forefront as we learn about the solar system. I wanted to thank two spectacular folks this week, Ben and Jay, who've delivered some amazing shots for us. I really can't wait to go even further. As for the way the story will be going, we'll definitely see an increase in missions, and return to some old friends who've not seen in quite some time!

I also wanted to include the first musical number for Proxima, also written by Ben, which you can listen to here. Headphones STRONGLY reccomended.

Chapter 21: The Red Planet

In the immediate hours after the landing, the crew would make contact once again with their colleagues on the Base Station, providing vital data about the descent, and steps to come. Despite the rather violent entry procedure, their intrepid ship had performed well, and all of the health checks would come back satisfactory. As they recovered from the strain of gravity, they’d remove their armored launch and entry suits and start to set up their home away from home. Their immediate priority would be the deployment of the Power Rover, a small, nuclear power plant that would trundle away from the vehicle, parking itself in a crater nearby to safely generate power for the crew, and isolate the crew from harsh radiation. On future long stay missions, this rover would be joined by modules already positioned on the ground, powering and supplying the whole base for the 500 days that the crew would remain on the surface. For now, and the Olympus 3 crew’s 41 day stay on the surface, this intrepid little rover would be all that they would require. The first day and a half would be spent letting the crew adjust to the lighter gravity of Mars, which for the first few hours, was brutal. Breathing hurt, climbing up and down the ladders of the hab deck was strenuous, and the crew was advised to take it easy. From their vantage point on the flight deck, the crew could look at the landscape that awaited them, and start to coordinate with the Base Station about their first EVA activities. The internal space of the lander was not the most roomy, but it would be comfortable for the time the crew spent on the surface. It was split into 3 decks, divided by bulkheads, and was designed for maximum utilization of space. The forward most deck was the flight deck, remarkably similar to the Shuttle flight deck in many aspects. Below this was the Hab/Lab, a combination living and working space, relatively spacious in volume, afforded by the 5m diameter of the stage. A deck lower than the Hab/Lab was the suit port deck, a split compartment, with 8 doors for the eventual full crew to the surface. Zephyr was many things, but a comfortable space for 8 crew members? Not exactly. The plan was, as it stood, to convert the LOX tank on the descent stage into a 7m habitat for the crew, a comfortable home away from home that could be augmented with additional modules for a stay of up to 500 days. For now, the volume of Zephyr would be more than enough to handle the job at hand.

On Sol 6 on the surface, the crew would make the journey down the internal ladders of the lander to the suitport deck, where they would begin the process of suiting up. First came the cooling garment, a strange contraption covered in hoses that would help to regulate the body temperature of the space walkers as they traversed the surface. In simulations, they had many anxious technicians to help them, scurrying around them like insects and inspecting every joint. Now, it was just them, alone on a planet, following the checklists those same technicians had left them. To break the tension of what they were doing, music filled their ears over the speakers of the lander, serenading them with classical music, a comforting reminder of the people back home. The final piece would be the Snoopy Cap, a device containing the headset and microphones needed for the crew to communicate. Flipping a switch on the bulkhead, the fans of the suit would come to life, and 4 of the 8 doors would open, revealing the complex mechanisms and padding of the suit inside. One by one, the crew of the landing team would climb into their suits, testing their uplinks with each other, and with the Base Station in orbit. Soon, the doors in their backpacks would swing closed, and the outer door would separate from the suits, allowing the crew to take their first steps in the ARES suits. The door of the suitport deck would soon slide open, and the crew could step onto the elevator, a cable hoisted platform deployed from the side of the lander in the days prior. Staring out over the horizon, the crew could take in the first vistas of Mars from the top of the lander, even making out the distant peak of Elysium Mons. The elevator would carry the crew down, slowly and carefully, and soon, the red dust of mars would be merely inches away. The crew could do not much more than stare, the world before them, an entire world for humanity to discover, sat beyond a minute threshold. There was, in their mission planning, a supposed order for how the crew members would step off the elevator, with Commander Douglass being the first human to step off the lander onto this terra nova. But, as they stood there, admiring the great expanse of this hostile world, they knew what to do. Filming from their helmet cams, the crew would grab each other's hand, and take the first steps for humanity together.

The first hour of the EVA consisted of mostly mundane tasks, walking around and checking out the lander, identifying potential issues with the landing site, and deploying equipment. One of the first pieces of equipment was a camera, a clunky setup to prevent degradation in the hostile environment of Mars. Unlike the bold lighting on the moon, the environment of Mars was not the most flattering. The crew members did not mind, their suits had identifying flags, and it became easy to see to the crew in orbit who was who. As they spent these first hours on the surface, they were able to familiarize themselves with the operation of the ARES suits, which featured new heads up displays to assist the spacewalkers with their operations. After two and a half hours, the crew could begin the flag planting ceremony, with each member of the crew assembling and planting their representative flag on the edge of a small crater that bordered the landing site. The flags of Australia, Canada, Russia and the United States stood proudly, the first markers of human origin on another world. The crew would make the trek back to the lander, fetching a special container. They would return to the flags, and take great care to open it. Within it, a small, black plaque, containing the inscription: In Memoriam, the crew of OF-19, the final flight of Valiant, In Aspera Ad Astra. The plaque would also contain the identifiers of their own flight, so that one day, hopefully, someone would take a moment to pause at this very spot. Commander Douglass would then turn the camera towards the crew and flags, and deliver her remarks to the world. “This is Commander Anna Douglass, speaking to you from Valiant’s Landing, Elysium Planitia, on October 16, 1997. We, as human beings from nations all over the world, have made the great voyage to Mars, not in the spirit of antagonism, but in the spirit of togetherness and cooperation. Not even 30 years ago, the countries of those who serve on this crew, who I consider some of my closest friends, were locked in a battle of ideology that kept us divided. Together, we have taken the steps to get here. It was not an easy road to get here, there are those we lost on the way, and who’s memories we will keep in our hearts in every step on the Martian surface. We honor them today in the naming of our landing site, and will carry them with us into the ever bolder future. Thank you.” This was followed by a moment of silence, as Maksimov and Bromley lay a folded flag next to the plaque, and the cameras were turned off for a private moment alone. As they stood there, on an alien world, Anna could not help but let a tear roll down her cheek. Soon, the fatigue of the spacewalk would start to eat away at the crew, and they would make their way back into the lander, nearly collapsing into their bunks as soon as they could. It had been a long and exhausting first day, but none of them could sleep, truly ecstatic with the prospect of the days to come.

Valiant's Landing - the first human landing site on the planet Mars... and hopefully the first of many to come.​

Sol 7 would see the crew venture outside once again, still sore from the previous day’s activities, and carefully begin to unpack their cargo. First, and most importantly, would be the six wheeled Mars Roving Vehicle. Built on the lessons learned from the Lunar Roving Vehicle before it, the vehicle would be an open top, robust exploration vehicle with a range of 60 km, far more than their EVA rules would allow. It had, more importantly, a trailer that would allow them to carry additional cargo. Assembly would take only an hour and a half, and the crew could begin driving the vehicle around the lander, eager to test their capabilities. The crew would report to the base station that the rover handled well, and the Martian gravity provided no difficulty in using the vehicle. Soon, the crew could set out to encounter the intrepid little explorer that had come before them, Marie Curie. The lander had spent her two years on the surface conducting weather observations, and communicating with the armada of spacecraft above her. It was a lonely existence, but one that afforded the crew a safe landing on the surface. The lander’s legs, as the crew approached after the 1.5km drive, had been covered in dust, easily blown away by bursts of compressed air carried by the crew. The lander’s door opened to reveal a plethora of cargo, science instruments and notes from the lander’s manufacturer. They would work quickly to bring the experiments back to the lander, and start to set up the Surface Command Station, a small platform where the crew could stage their scientific operations out of. Their first experiments would be a geological suite, a mineral analysis sensor, and weather monitoring station, designed to enable the crew to gather a full range of knowledge about their environment. The geology station would enable the crew of Olympus 3 to perform experiments regarding planetary scale physics, being the first of many such stations. In the following days, the crew would conduct geological expeditions, and begin the quest to identify signs of water and life on the planet’s surface. They would, themselves, act as guinea pigs for human habitation of the planet, as there was no reference to compare human experience. The crew would keep detailed logs, discussing their daily habits and feelings, as well as detailed measurements on their bodies. These had a certain degree of excitement to them, after all, they were the first medical logs on another world!

In orbit, the crew was preparing for an exciting set of operations of their own. Onboard their MTV, Minerva, they had brought with them a series of small probes and impactors designed to help answer questions about the Red Planet. The first probe to be deployed, the Mars Magnetospheric Observer, would use a small solid stage to power it into an eccentric, inclined orbit, to start mapping the planet’s magnetosphere; or lack thereof. Studies of the planet remained inconclusive, regarding the apparent lack of the planet’s magnetic shielding, and the geologically dead core. Questions still remained, when comparing Mars with the Earth, about how the planet came to be in its current state, and could its current condition hint at why the planet appeared dead, biologically. This probe would drift away from the MTV base station complex, cast into the growing ecosystem of robots around the Red Planet. The remaining probes had one destination in mind, the Martian surface. An EVA conducted by Shoemaker and Koch would remove the covers of the first impactor, the Mars Seismic Explorer, and work with the robotic arm to position it for deployment. After successful installation, the crew would move back inside, and cast the vehicle off from the complex. This vehicle had less in common with exploration vehicles, and more in common with nuclear missile warheads; the vehicle was essentially a simple kinetic impactor coupled to a small bus for maneuvering. After a series of maneuvers from reaction jets, the vehicle would perform a deorbit maneuver, before igniting a small solid motor, powering the vehicle towards the surface in hopes of generating a large impact crater, and a reading that could be measured by the crew. The vehicle would streak through the Martian sky, heading towards an impact with the planet. To no one’s ears, the vehicle would strike the surface with a deafening thump, leaving behind a fresh scar on the planet’s surface. Operations in orbit, for the month and a bit the crew was on the surface, were relatively similar to operations at Odyssey, with time spent taking care of their spacecraft, observing the world below them, and communicating with their away team. It was a quiet time, and the crew worked largely at their own pace, making sure to document their movements. They missed their colleagues on the ground, and a small part of them envied the task of landing on the surface, but they knew that there was a job to be done, and important work was still to come to get all of them home.

Soon, the crew of Zephyr, tired and battered from their 41 days of operations on the surface, would climb into their ascent stage, seal the doors and don their armored launch and entry suits. The landing team, in an anxious state not felt since their departure from Earth, sat in silence as the countdown on their flight instruments moved towards zero. These moments, these last precious moments, would be the last in which the crew could view the relative safety of the Martian plains, so vast, yet somehow so familiar to the crew who had spent their time there. In the final few seconds, Commander Douglass would reach out and grip St. Michel’s hand, before securing herself in her seat. Amidst the great silence of the Martian Desert, the vacuum of noise which had been the dominant force for some thousands of years was no longer the champion. The panels which contained the ascent stage would be blown away by the force of the solid motors, kicking the vehicle into the air, settling their propellant for their upper stage engine to ignite. Their vehicle would cast off from the surface of the planet, their LE-57M powering them into orbit, pitching and rolling to the proper ascent attitude. It was a rough ride, the thrust of the engine pushing them into their seats. but the silence that greeted them when finally in orbit offered them a moment of peace. They were free from the pull of Mars’ gravity, and the Ascent Stage of the lander seemingly had more to give. The engine had performed better than expected, and the crew would make note of this additional performance. The coast and subsequent rendezvous would be swift, and soon, the crew of Olympus 3 would be whole once more. In what had felt like ages, would open the hatches between the Base Station and Zephyr, and like they had done on their departure from Earth, would silently embrace, happy to be one cohesive unit again. The lander's ascent stage, having done its job dutifully, would be cast away into the inky blackness of space, its mission completed for all of humankind. The remainder of their time in orbit around the Red Planet would be spent observing the moons of Phobos and Deimos, and deploying a small sample return mission. This mission, sponsored by the Russians, would see a small menagerie of spacecraft scuttling around the moon, eager to learn more about this strange rocky world.

Zephyr's ascent stage, having done its job, approaches the zenith port on the Mars Base Station, ready to complete the surface sortie and reunite the crew of Olympus 3. ​

Back on Earth, the reaction to the crewed landing, and the subsequent operations on and around Mars was astounding. As the first landing could not be televised live, the images and videos that came out of mission control would be relayed much later, allowing time for careful curation of the international effort. In Times Square, people gathered to watch the first steps, in European capitals across the continent, a moment of silence was held for the fallen astronauts onboard Valiant, and schoolchildren everywhere watched awestruck as science would be conducted on the surface. Olympus 3 was the calling of a generation, and what had happened earlier with the Shuttle program would happen again, scores of young minds eagerly approached the field of Aerospace and Engineering, to bring a new and even more prosperous tomorrow within their grasp. They were the Olympus Generation, and the impact of humanity on Mars was felt all over the world. Every downlink brought with it new excitement and anticipation, simply waiting for the wonders that Mars would show them. Countries and organizations all over the world were eager to join the program, to be part of something bigger. The success of the climb to orbit brought a great deal of excitement for those at NASA, the systems they had worked so hard on had worked, and worked well. Within the Olympus planning office, there was even more work to be done. The next several windows, including the planned Olympus 5V mission, would make use of the system as it existed now, with Olympus 7 being the first long stay mission in the roster. The long stay missions would see two logistics modules delivered to the surface well ahead of the crew, coupled with the Logistics Lander, which had already proven its worth to the crew. It was a daring endeavor, to be sure, and would rely on experimental conversion of a spacecraft designed to work on another world, but it was an important step into permanent habitation on the Red Planet.

 

[defconh3ck]

Chapter 21.5: Image Annex

Hi all, happy Wednesday! I'm really glad you all seemed to have enjoyed this week's chapter, as we look towards the future of operations on the surface of Mars. The roadmap for what we have to learn is in plain sight now and I cannot wait to explore more of what our Olympus missions will uncover. Right now, I've started to work on the next phase of our story, and we'll definitely see more operations from a broader point of view while still exploring the complex ways in which this architecture enables exploration. This week, we're gonna be taking a look at some art from Ben and Jay, who have once again shown their talent at designing and envisioning complex scenarios for this story. Make sure to please give them some love on twitter!

After careful review of the flight logs from the Mars Base Station, the crew of Olympus 3 makes a shocking discovery - the station's autonomous scanning equipment managed to image Zephyr as it descended through the atmosphere towards Elysium Planitia. This got mission planners thinking, could a smaller orbiter capture such an image?
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With the surface sortie of Olympus 3 over, the crew lifts off from the flatlands of Elysium Planitia, headed for a rendezvous in orbit with their waiting MTV and Base Station. The main engine of the upper stage has not yet ignited as the solid kick motors move the lander away from the descent stage.
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With her solid kick motors still burning, Zephyr's ascent engine lights, ready to power the crew towards their home away from home. Crews would describe this maneuver as feeling like "they'd been hit with a pickup truck."
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Her engine lit, Zephyr can continue the climb to orbit, her complex RCS system helping to assume the proper ascent attitude to minimize aerodynamic forces, and enable an efficient trajectory.
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Pushing ever closer to orbit, the ascent stage assumes a horizontal profile. The single LE-57M has to throttle carefully during this segment of flight to ensure G loading on the crew remains comfortable, while still enabling successful orbital insertion.

With weight at a premium, the choice to use solar arrays over fuel cells was ultimately deemed the right one. With the craft safely in orbit, the rather diminutive remains of Zephyr can begin a series of phasing burns to link up with the MTV-Base Station complex.
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In a combined effort, the MTV-Base Station complex and Zephyr begin to set themselves up for docking. The orbital crew would perform a visual inspection of the ascent stage at this time, looking for any damage that the vehicle may have incurred.
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Now only feet away, with the Soft Capture Ring extended, the crew of Olympus 3 can prepare to embrace their colleagues once more. The loiter in Mars orbit still remains, but soon, the crew can look forward to a homecoming unlike anything in history on their home planet.

​

 

[defconh3ck]

Good morning everyone, happy Monday! I'm super jazzed to get this chapter out for you this week, where we're going to be picking up the pace of operations, and start to fly further and faster. This week, we're going to take a look at the tail end of Olympus 3, the start of Olympus 4, and the future of operations in LEO. The year 1998 is a big one for spaceflight, and we're really starting to pick up the pace of our story. I want to thank Jay and Zarbon, who's artistic vision literally knows no bounds. They have once again shown that the sky is no longer the limit, and the dreams of humanity on Mars are close to reality in this timeline. Without further ado, let's get into it!

Chapter 22: The Long Way Home

In the early spring of 1998, space shuttle Discovery leapt off the pad at Kennedy Space Center, carrying with it the latest piece of space hardware for Odyssey, the Copernicus laboratory. Based on the design of the highly successful Multi Purpose Logistics Module, Copernicus would incorporate an external science platform and a new, smaller robotic arm to support external science experiments. It was an exciting time, Odyssey had begun its stand down from its operations as a shipyard and shifted its focus on long duration science, something the Olympus crews and life on Earth benefitted from greatly. The station had also recently received upgrades to their power facilities; a third solar array wing had been delivered to help augment the growing need for power when assembling spacecraft on and around the facility. Discovery would catch up with Odyssey after a several day chase, and the two great vehicles would become one, with the crew of Odyssey greeting the six Shuttle crew members, forming a cohesive unit of 12 in orbit. The work could begin on extracting Copernicus from the payload bay of the shuttle, the delicate handling manipulators working together to place the module on its CBM on station. The module, built by Thales Alenia space, was covered in external mounting points, designed to maximize potential science looking at both the Earth and space. Several experiments were already planned to make use of this space, through both government enterprise and private experiments. Copernicus would also contain the dedicated sleep station for European astronauts, who were eager to try new ideas and test new solutions for long term human residence in space. The station was in a strange era, transitioning between orbital birthplace and established science and research station. The work done at Odyssey, on the part of aggregation, had been fairly successful, but a problem had plagued the platform’s existence since its inception was crew and vehicle scheduling. The station partners were eager to keep the crew working on valuable science, and so, an idea had been floated. What if there was another station, one to remain at the ready to help assemble spacecraft, and distribute launches? The Odyssey Removable Cargo Shelter had been shown to work well, and could easily be fitted on this new platform. Early designs soon turned to work done by the Air Force on their short lived ODIN station, and prepared to extend olive branches in regards to collaboration with the Department of Defense. This new station would orbit in a lower inclination than the Grand Complexes already in orbit, more suited for missions outside of the Earth’s sphere of influence, and could potentially help expand Olympus missions as they prepared for longer stays on the surface. In a sense, this platform would become a gateway to other worlds, a stepping stone by which humanity could further explore the cosmos.

Discovery hangs below Odyssey, having grown in the approach to the new millenium. Copernicus' external rack was installed during the STS-121 mission. Now, the station was ready for even more science. New solar arrays would assist the station in enabling greater science return from the facility, and open the door for expansion.​

Shuttle flights would pick up in cadence once again as the fleet of ships in LEO were being prepared for their next great endeavor. Prometheus, dormant since her mission on Olympus 2, had been reactivated in preparation for the crew of Olympus 4 to arrive. The crew of Olympus 4, led by NASA veteran Mark Teller, would be another international display of unity, with Russian MTV pilot Dmitri Kovalev, mission surgeon Dr. Astrid Deinau of France, German mission specialist Mikkel Van Helt, Russian lander pilot Anastasiya Federova, Japanese mission specialist Takeshi Takeda, American Dr. Gabriel Herald, and orbital communications specialist Mitchell Coleman of Australia. Intrepid would lift off from Pad 39A after the Jupiter-OPAV fleet had finished their job of fueling both the MTV, and their lander, Corvus. The two vehicles hung in orbit, their crew only growing more excited as they approached the great spacecraft. They hung, ever so delicately, in the muddled blackness of Low Earth Orbit, awaiting the orbiter’s approach and embrace. The first few hours of flight had been rather uneventful, but this mundane nature was soon shattered as Dr. Herald had grown ill adjusting to orbit, suffering from a short but violent bout of Space Adaptation Syndrome. The crew would find themselves scrambling to help him adjust, and to ensure that any uncontained fluids did not interfere with the vehicle. The docking with Prometheus would be slow and steady, and the myriad of electronic eyes onboard the MTV would work to scan the incoming ship, measure its approach rate, and adjust accordingly. The spacecraft and shuttle would become one, with their docking mechanisms gently bringing the two great spacecraft together. Operations in orbit would last for about 8 days, as the crew of Intrepid assisted the Olympus 4 crew in moving cargo onto their MTV, ready to make humanity’s next foray into the unknown. It seemed almost routine now, to have Intrepid carry crews to their great ships, ready to cast off into the unknown, but it was an exciting time nonetheless. This crew would not fly with a journalist, like they had on Olympus 3, but the lessons learned from years of carrying cameras to space allowed the support crew to do their best at homemade documentary making. It was, as the support crew on Olympus 3 had called it, a truly humbling and sobering time. These days were full of joy, and anticipation. On July 21st, the orbiter would return home to Kennedy Space Center, her mission complete, and 5 days later, the movement of hundreds of tons of spacecraft could begin. Corvus would ignite the nuclear engines on her transfer element first, sending the vehicle on a trajectory out of the Earth-Moon system, and towards the Red Planet. Several hours later, Prometheus would light her engines, and cast the crew into the abyss, on a journey once again for the benefit of all humankind. The burn would take them across the dark side of the planet, city lights and vast expanses of darkness would meet the crew as their nuclear engines pushed them faster and faster still, their velocity vector moving further from the surface of their home planet. On the ground, the nuclear engines put on the light show, the vaguely red tinted exhaust emanating from a small point of light. Soon, the acceleration would cease, and the G indicator in the cabin would bump lazily against the flight deck instrumentation panel. They were at last free of the pull of their homeworld, racing through the Van Allen belts and further and further into the unknown. The crew would communicate with Earth as long as they could normally, and enjoy the view as their homeworld slipped away, so delicate in its orbit, hanging silently as the crew settled in for the long journey ahead of them.

The mission patch for Olympus 4, highlighting the vehicle, Prometheus, as it approached the planet Mars.
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Prometheus begins the journey into the unknown, moving further and further away from the blue green comfort of Earth. Her trajectory would enable for a marginally faster travel time than that of Olympus 3,
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At nearly the same instant, around the Red Planet, the crew of Olympus 3 was making their final preparations to return home. The last several days in orbit were spent preparing the Base Station for the long hibernation before she would see a crew again, and checking the health of the orbiters circling the planet, ensuring that the next crew would be met with greater success in their capture burn, and taking in the sweeping vistas of the planet below them. The samples from the planet, weighing in at 42 pounds, would be loaded into a secure container onboard Minerva, to be opened when the crew would return to Earth. It was, in many ways, a solemn moment, as they pondered their work done on the planet’s surface and in its orbit. It was theirs, for now, their world that they had explored in such intimate detail. Soon, it would be open for even more discovery, the planet still had secrets to give after all. The hatches between Minerva and the Base Station would be sealed on August 2nd, 1998, and the crew would don their flight suits, ready to face the coming voyage. At 12:50 PM, local time, the two great crafts would separate, not for the last time, but for now as the first human mission to the Red Planet would head for home. The crew would begin to secure the cabin as they drifted away from their home away from home, the station becoming a distant point of light on their monitors and windows. Soon, the time would come to strap in once more, ready to bear the brunt of acceleration as the nuclear engines pushed them towards home. The keys of the igniter panel, in storage for so many months, could now be pressed into the console once more, and turned in unison, as the crew exhaled gently to prepare themselves for the force of the engines coming to life. The reactors would come online, and the engines sparked to life, spitting fire and fury as the crew sank into their seats. Once again, the steady tick of the geiger counter brought comfort to the crew as they pushed ever further from the red rock they had called home. Racing behind the planet, the burn continued, pushing them further and further out of the sphere of influence. The planet which held them was no longer, and the vastness of space could once again fill their windows, empty until the crescent limb of Earth would be visible once more. Commander Douglass would take the time to reflect with her crew, and reflect on the time they had spent in orbit around the planet. She would make note of the challenges still to come, and the hopes and dreams of those left on the planet, remarking; "my fears of a woman changed for something sinister have not been realized, rather, I am met with the reflection of a woman no longer bound to Earth, no longer bound by terrestrial gravity, but only limited by the mind. Whoever comes next, whoever will set their feet on Mars, will return changed - and I believe it is for the betterment of all mankind."

Minerva completes her trans-Earth injection burn, powering the first human crew away from the Red Planet. Minerva would deploy one final sub-satellite to monitor the departure of the MTV, and monitor the growing dust storms on the planet surface. ​

The first month of their journey was filled with much needed rest, and the crew would take this time to once again hone their skills at Dude Darts, make art, and write. Shoemaker, the resident painter, would use a small paintbrush set and depict the crew on the surface, walking in space, and together with their loved ones on Earth, a hopeful vision of what was to come. Several anthropologists on Earth had been interested in not just the material study of the crews, but of their produced work. Maksimov had written a good deal of poetry during his surface sortie, and eagerly entered it into the folder meant for the anthropologists on Earth. The majority of the cruise would also be dedicated to a new field of study for in space crews, psychological study. While their training had certainly hardened them mentally, there were of course variances that the mission planners could not account for. A set of repeated experiments, conducted in its first phase during training, and later on the outbound cruise, would be performed once again on the crews to assess their mental state. One key area of note was downtime - it had a huge impact in enabling the crews to rest between strenuous tasks and enjoy privacy. However, it was noted that communal activities, such as mealtimes and work on the ship itself were something the crew all looked forward to. It showcased the bond between crewmembers, and the need for the future of spaceflight to be cooperative and international. In the face of growing space powers, those in government would soon take the lessons learned to begin to extend feelers into new areas, hoping to invite collaboration and cooperation with new agencies, and bring the world onboard with Olympus.

At NASA headquarters, an urgent meeting between mission planners and industry professionals would take place. Olympus Planning Office personnel had identified a rare window to perform something that no one had done before, journey to a second planet, Venus. It was a difficult ask, with a good deal of potential risk, but the mission planners within the Olympus partners had been eager to test the MTV’s capabilities in ways not yet seen before. The goal was simple: send a reduced crew to Venus to observe the planet in orbit, and deploy a multitude of probes and landers, as demonstrated on Olympus 3 during their stay at Mars. This would take advantage of a unique modularity aspect for the MTV itself, the ability to stack four drop tanks instead of only two, which would have the delta-v requirements to push the whole stack to Venus in a 150 day transfer, with a 30 day stay in Low Venus Orbit, before a 280 day transfer back to Earth. It would however, require a doubling of the fueling operations done for a mission, and could potentially push the entire fueling system to its limit - but the mission designers felt it prudent to test the system to its absolute limit. Hera, having no flight time under her belt as of then, had been selected for this conversion, and moved into a lower orbit to prepare for assembly. It would require two additional drop tanks to be pulled from the production line, and readied in advance, additional Jupiter-OPAV flights, and the rapid training of a crew for a mission not originally envisioned for the program, but it could be done, and it was well within the interest of those in the Olympus partners to expand humanity’s reach even further.

Work on Hera’s conversion began almost immediately, as she was brought back near Odyssey one more time to begin the arduous process of outfitting her. While the ability to stack 4 tanks at Odyssey was technically possible, current module arrangement and the work to upgrade the space station’s power equipment would result in the MTV being refit in proximity, rather than on the station itself. The first flight of this outfitting campaign would see Endeavour depart from LC-39B, carrying with it a Spacelab pallet and a crew of 6. This crew, STS-RF1, would oversee installation of new radiation shielding and flight control hardware, as well as better thermal management systems to enable operations closer to the sun. The modifications would prove difficult, as the crew had to call off several objectives due to fatigue, and falling behind schedule due to issues with suits. It was an unfortunate start to the modification program. One key objective that was met was the unlocking of the docking mechanism on the tank’s belly and dorsal sides. It was a complex EVA, and very finicky on a good day. The crew was able to ensure that the brackets were open and ready to accept the tanks, due to fly on the next set of Jupiter-OPAV flights. OV-201, Adventure, would take to the skies, powering the empty MTV tank to orbit. Her job completed, the fleet leader would make the return to Earth, coming to a stop at last in the desert. This tank, originally meant for Minerva upon her return and refit, would come to rest at the nadir side of the vehicle, awaiting its twin. OV-204, Endurance, would roll to the pad soon after, and ride out a small tropical depression as she waited to bring the great structure into orbit. The OPAV pod would eventually need to be rolled back for protection as the storm intensified to a small hurricane, and would shelter in the cavernous safety of the VAB. Endurance would eventually pierce the skies, and bring with it the next piece required to bring humans to their long corrupted neighbor.

 

[defconh3ck]

Chapter 22.5: Image Annex

Good morning everyone, happy Wednesday! Hope you all have had a good week, and have enjoyed meeting our new crew in the latest post. Today we'll be looking at some more amazing images from Jay who has once again been so kind to provide us with such amazing storytelling elements. You should also go check out his work on his recreation of the Constellation program, which you can find links to on his twitter! Our next chapter is going to focus on the rotations of crew to and from Mars, as well as highlight Hera's historic mission to Venus, which will certainly be something to behold. That being said, let's take a look at some shots from this week in universe!

One of Odyssey's biggest upgrades, the addition of new solar panels, would enable the station to finally be free of power issues that had plagued it for years. Another set of robotic arms would help with construction and future aggregation efforts.
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The biggest addition to the habitable volume of the station would be the Copernicus laboratory, enabling more crew space to be used as well as adding an additional sleep station for European astronauts. An external pallet would enable crew interface with technologies being worked on outside of the station. Liberté "Haven" is docked to the lower forward port.

Equipment stored next to Copernicus for use by future astronauts on EVA, as well as a new telescope provided by the Canadian Space Agency for Deep Space Observation,

At Mars, the crew of Olympus 3 onboard Minerva departs the planet's sphere of influence, leaving behind a legacy of discovery, and bringing with them the hopes and dreams of a permanent presence in deep space.

Every passing hour, Mars grows smaller, and soon the features that the crew could gaze at from orbit would no longer be visible. Soon after their departure, dust storms would cover the planet, putting the instruments they left behind to the test.

Goodbye, Mars...

Breaking out of Earth orbit, Olympus 4 commanded by veteran Mark Teller heads towards the Red Planet to become the second human landing crew.

Her Valkyrie nuclear engines working overtime, Prometheus pushes onwards, ready for her date with destiny. On arrival at Mars, the crew will rendezvous with the Base Station and MSAV Corvus, ready to begin their sortie to the Martian Surface. ​

 

[defconh3ck]

Hi everyone, happy Monday! This week, space is very busy, and our various crews in orbit have a lot of work cut out for them. The return of Olympus 3, and the arrival at Mars of Olympus 4 is indicative of the ways in which our architecture is shifting towards sorties at Mars rather than one shot missions. It is, after all, the goal of this series to make space exploration sustainable. I wanna give a huge shoutout once again to Jay and Zarbon, who have done a huge amount of work on this project. They've really raised the bar, in my eyes, for this project. I couldn't do it without them! Anyway, let's get into it!

Chapter 23: A Fleet at Work

Mars would once again come into view, as the crew of Olympus 4 would sail into the sphere of influence of the planet, and begin the long fall as the year 1999 raised its head. Prometheus had performed exceptionally, the lessons learned from Minerva and her crew members had been invaluable in learning how to live and work in space. The first sighting of Mars, now far more expected, was marked with celebration, and a downlink packet from the crew would commemorate their arrival, the second in a series of great achievements for the Olympus Program. Commander Teller, making use of the new IMAX cameras, would showcase the long fall towards the planet, in a documentary being filmed in collaboration with National Geographic. The crew had also demonstrated several on the fly repair techniques, as two out of six life science racks experienced faults during cruise. This kind of maintenance, practiced onboard Odyssey, would come as second nature, and the crew were able to preserve the critical experiments onboard. After many months of transit, the planet Mars would loom large in their cupola window, and the Base Station would establish stable uplink and downlink rates. Orbital insertion would be certainly less eventful than it had on Olympus 3, the crew hoped. On March 27th, the crew would strap themselves into their acceleration couches, and prepare for the coming burn. Turning of the keys would once again light the Valkyries of Prometheus, bringing to life a great beast that had been quiescent for so long. The vehicle rattled and groaned as the force of acceleration pushed the astronauts further into their couches, and the solid tone of the flight computer would indicate a clean tank separation. The vehicle, now only on its core stage, would continue to break for orbit, the geiger counter onboard ticking ever so gently, a comforting reminder that all was well. The electronic eyes of the orbiter fleet would train their sensors on the incoming ship, waiting and watching, catching the glow of the spacecraft against the cold, lifeless background of the planet. The flight computer, detecting minor variations, would command the RCS to fire, keeping the engines and ships inline as they continued the last few moments of the burn. With a healthy tone from the spacecraft’s flight computer, the engines would shut off, and the OMS system would begin to pulse, correcting their orbit as they began to orbit the planet as a true satellite. It was a moment of triumph, humanity’s second crew now orbited the Red Planet, captured in a safe and secure orbit. Corvus, having also completed successful orbital insertion, would begin the task of lining up to dock with the Base Station, aggregating all of the components of Olympus 4 at their predestined positions. The Base Station and MTV would soon lock eyes with one another, and begin the process of docking. Humanity’s system for travel to the Red Planet, one of the most expensive projects of all time, worked in repetition, no longer the dream of science fiction writers. The crew, boarding their home away from home, would begin to make preparations for their landing at Isdis Planitia, scheduled for the Fall. The second expedition to the Red Planet was well and truly underway.

Prometheus completes her Mars Orbit Insertion Burn, bringing the crew of Olympus 4 close to their next objective, landing in Isdis Planitia. The next critical steps would be docking with the Base Station and rendezvousing with their lander, Corvus.​

The months of Olympus 3’s transit dragged on, but the image of Earth, filling their viewscreens and subsequently their window, was their allowed moment of respite, a moment to rest and a moment to weep. It had been a long road, getting here, and the time for joy could once again be felt, no longer was the crew surrounded by an air of tension that governed their actions. Home, once a distant point of light in the sky, now sat, blue and green and white in front of them. It was, in all respects, a homecoming unlike any had ever seen before. The spring in the Northern Hemisphere had turned to summer, and lush greens could be made out from their scopes. Soon, their arrival would loom large, and the tired crew would prepare the ship for the events that were coming. The arrival burn, a long, complicated endeavor, would push the vehicle to its limits on acceleration, with the fuel on the MTV running the lowest that it had during its entire service life. Preparations were also made, as they grew ever closer, to activate the Earth Return Lifeboat in the unlikely event that Minerva could not complete the burn, allowing the lifeboat to return the 8 crew members on a direct entry, while still slowing down as much as possible. It was a possibility they had trained for, but as the mission was planned, reuse of the MTV core was always the preferred option. Fatigue was starting to eat away at the crew, but the now more frequent communication with Mission Control brought some relief. They had done remarkably well at following their routine, exercising regularly to stave off bone density loss, and eating well. Still, the pull of Earth’s gravity would exhaust them after two and a half years in space, and medical teams on the ground were doing all they could to prepare for Olympus 3’s homecoming. Intrepid stood ready on the pad, preparing for the great leap into orbit as she waited to bring the crew home to Earth, ready to walk on the soil of their homeworld once more. Soon, the Earth would loom large in their windows, and the crew would make their way to the flight deck to prepare for orbital insertion.

Slipping across the terminator, Minerva and the crew of Olympus 3 would arrive home. Their historic mission drawing to a close, they would return to a hero's welcome, and a fundamentally changed planet Earth. ​

July 19th would see the crew, falling rapidly towards the planet Earth, make preparations to come home. For nearly 3 years, they had been in space, on another world, and most importantly, on the adventure of a lifetime. The journey, however, was not quite over. The crew, now strapped into their acceleration couches, would get ready to fire the Valkyrie engines one final time. The eyes of the world, now familiar with the great feeling of walking on other worlds, would watch once more, as the people in mission control milled about, counting down the hours until the final burn. Time seemed to pass much slower in these moments, as the world watched. Soon, the hours would turn to minutes, and the crew, tired from their journey, would turn the keys for the control drum actuators to move one final time. The Valkyrie’s response was immediate, pushing the crew into their seats with greater force than ever before as the vehicle used up what fuel remained. The vehicle, like the crew, seemed tired, and new noises accompanied the ever familiar click of the geiger counter as the Earth moved under their feet. Minerva continued to do what she always did, her job, and damn good job of it she did. The vehicle shuddered and groaned as the RCS and gyroscopes kept the ship in line, pressing the crew into their seats further and further. On their flight control screens, a familiar light: CAPTURE CONFIRM, but this was only one step of many. The Valkyries continued to push, and the reading on fuel levels continued to drop. Their apogee, for so long just a number on their flight instrumentation to ignore, was now dropping, bringing their orbit lower and lower, until finally, the engines would shut off for the final time, and the crew would be left in the silence of the moment. Unbuckling from their seats, they quickly moved to the windows of the great ship, observing the planet in all its majesty. Intrepid, poised for launch since Minerva’s entry into Earth’s sphere of influence, would finally leap off the pad, carrying its support crew to a rendezvous with the fatigued but victorious crew. The hatch opening, filmed from a camera mounted in the docking tunnel, was a moment of triumph. The Olympus 3 crew, wearing the jumpsuits they had departed in, would move through the hatch, colliding into embrace with their retrieval crew. The first human crew, fresh from the arms of the Red Planet, once again with their earthling compatriots. The Olympus 3 crew, as jovial as they looked, seemed tired, and knew that their period of readjustment on Earth would be one of many hurdles still to face them. Minerva and Intrepid would coast back to the orbital neighborhood of Odyssey, Zarya and Hera, still undergoing refit for its deployment to Venus later in the year. Soon, the crew of Olympus 3 would say goodbye to their great ship, ready to be embraced by the arms of loved ones on the planet below. Commander Douglass would be the last through Minerva’s hatch as they prepared the orbiter for departure, finally bringing to a close this epic voyage. In a last minute decision, she would remove her name tag from her flight suit, and slip it into a locker onboard the MTV, a piece of herself to always remain in space. Intrepid would come to a twilight stop at the Kennedy Space Center, bringing with it the first ever human crew to return from another planet - triumphant, exhausted, and captivating in the eyes of billions of people around the world. It was done, humans had walked on their second world, and Olympus 3 was only the beginning.

The mission patch for Olympus 5V, the first crewed mission to the Veiled Planet. ​

In orbit, final preparations were being made to Hera in preparation for her mission to the veiled planet Venus. Fueling operations had taken double the time required for a Mars sortie, and assembly crews had their hands full in preparation for departure, securing the tanks and equipment to the exterior of the ship. The crew of Olympus 5V, moving as quickly as they could through their training, would soon enter final quarantine before launch, a slimmed down complement of astronauts from all across the Olympus Partnership. Their commander, George McMaster, was a former Valiant flier who had returned to NASA after originally training to fly onboard the shuttle in the mid-80s. The MTV pilot, Maxime Martel of ESA, had been a Dassault test pilot, his work critical to development of the Mirage series of fighter jets. Russia’s Gennady Morozov would act as the flight surgeon for this mission, having trained the previous flight surgeons before him. Hideki Yoshioka of NASDA would be the first mission specialist, and payload deployment officer onboard, helping to conduct experiments pertaining to planetary science and heliophysics. NASA’s Millie Laurence and Steven Chang Arnold would fly as Mission Specialists 2 and 3, enabling research and observation of this alien new world. Atlantis would launch the crew of Olympus 5V in September, as Intrepid entered a planned period of maintenance. They would dock with the MTV on November 7th, 1999, and prepared to move crew and cargo over from the orbiter. One of their first tasks was an EVA, to install 3 probes provided by the Russian State Space Agency, ESA, and NASA, to be deployed at Venus. The first, the Cytherean Lofted Ultralong-range Explorer, or CLUE, was a balloon probe built by NASA to explore the turbulent upper atmosphere of the planet. The Venus Infrared Scanning And Geology Explorer, VISAGE, was an ESA built orbiter with the aim of complementing work done by Magellan, to help decode the geological features on the planets surface. The Russian State Space Agency would contribute Venera-C1, a repurposed flight spare designed to make it to the surface of the planet. The three spacecraft, stored snug against the body of the MTV, would soon see their destination before their very eyes.

Under the thrust of her three Valkyrie engines, Olympus 5V breaks orbit and heads to the planet Venus, meeting a rare window to orbit this long misunderstood world. The Delta V requirements for this mission would necessitate a series of drop tanks and complex staging maneuvers.​

On Thanksgiving day, 1999, the crew of Olympus 5V would be pressed into their seats as the engines of the great spacecraft broke them free of Mars orbit, pushing them higher and faster, and closer to the sun than any human being before them. They would soon see the Earth begin to fall away from them, as their strange vehicle carried them ever closer to a veiled world. The transit of 150 days would be fast, much faster than the up to 7 month transfers of the outbound Mars missions. Since the age of Apollo, the idea of a Venus mission had captivated the space agencies of the world, and with the age of Olympus now in full swing it finally felt like the time. The goal of the mission, as they spent their 30 days in orbit of Venus, would be to gather as much information about the planet as possible, and examine the benefit of orbital campaigns to a planet whose surface was too inhospitable to land on. Hera herself would act as a testbed, experimenting with the utility of the MTV as a command center for uncrewed spacecraft, something the Olympus partners had been considering for asteroid exploration, as well as debuting upgraded life support and water recycling racks. Within the various NASA centers around the country, work was well underway on the next generation of space probes, missions that would push the boundaries of mission design and spaceflight as a whole. The latest flagship, known only as JOME - The Jovian Moon Explorer, would debut new technologies like multi mode propulsion to explore the mini solar system around the gargantuan world. Several small probes would be deployed from the vehicle to explore in great detail the microcosms of the moons of the planet. Planned for launch tentatively in 2005, this grand tour had a design life of nearly 20 years, and would complement the work already being done by Galileo. Cometary exploration had become a point of discussion for the European Space Agency, and their success with Giotto had inspired them to take the lead in planning their latest mission to 67P Churyumov/Gerasimenko, discovered in the 1960s by Ukrainian astronomers. Their mission, Persephone, would see an orbiter travel to the icy world in 2004, and deploy a sample return lander which would allow for cometary regolith to be brought back to Earth, stored in a closed loop cooling system to preserve ice from the comet. From Goddard Space Flight Center, in partnership with CNES, Solar Sentinel, or SolSen, was being developed to learn more about humanity’s star, the Sun using a unique shielded design. All of these missions, as well as the work done by the Olympus program, enabled humanity to learn more about the Solar System, and truly bring about a second renaissance of scientific understanding.

 

[defconh3ck]

Chapter 23.5: Image Annex

Hi everyone, I apologize for the delay in posting, I've been rather busy over the last few days and didn't have the time to sit down and curate this image annex for you, but the time has come! We've got some really amazing shots from Jay this week that I've been sitting on, really eager to showcase them for you all today and highlight how busy space has become. If my planning serves me correctly, this should be the maximum number of Olympus missions being active at once, but of course that could change in the future depending on how things go. Anyway, let's take a look!

Olympus 4 prepares for Martian Orbit Insertion, having completed the trek between the planets. All that is left is to align her in the correct attitude, and fire up the Valkyrie engines for the multi-minute maneuver.

​

Her drop tanks cleanly separating, Prometheus pushes on towards capture. The Valkyrie's engineering speaks volumes, showcasing their robust design and long mission life. The spent drop tanks would coast back into a heliocentric orbit.

The final seconds of the burn are always the most crucial, and Prometheus' crew is already looking at their shutdown procedures. Soon, the vehicle would coast through Martian orbit, and link up with the Base Station complex.​

Back at Earth, Minerva enters the final hours of her interplanetary journey, coasting towards her capture burn to bring her crew home. It has been a long voyage, and the sight of the Earth filling the windows of the ship brings great relief to the crew, but they are not out of the woods yet.​

Slipping into orbital night, the longest burn of the mission can take place, capturing the crew into a stable orbit around the Earth for retrieval by Space Shuttle Intrepid.​

At long last, the burn is over, and the first human crew on Mars can watch the Earth pass below them, just 250 miles away. Soon, Intrepid would rendezvous with the crew and retrieve them, bringing to a close the greatest Odyssey in human history.​

Elsewhere in LEO, a different beast was being born. Hera, in her four tank configuration, is seen here from Space Shuttle Atlantis as the two vehicles drifted away from each other, after delivering the crew of Olympus 5V​

Receiving the go from Mission Control, Hera lights her Valkyrie engines and pushes onwards to Venus, the first human crew to do so. Her 150 day transfer and smaller crew complement would enable maximum use of the MTV as a science platform.​

Hera ditches her first set of Drop Tanks in an eccentric Earth orbit, almost free of the gravity of the planet. These tanks would later be recovered and used on a future MTV, enabling potential full systems reuse in future generations of Transfer Vehicles.​

Finally free of the planet, Hera proceeds to Venus, ready to make history with Humanity's expansion into the solar system.​

 

[defconh3ck]

Hi everyone, happy Monday! I hope you all had a great week, and are looking forward to another chapter in our story. It's been an exciting time, and we've finally reached the year 2000! We're really making great strides into the unknown, and our human crews are feasting their eyes on sights as yet unseen. I'm really always eternally grateful to have the support of both Jay and Zarbon in these amazing images and mission patches, and we're gonna get some amazing art from some familiar and new faces next week! I absolutely cannot wait to show you, so let's get started and explore!


Chapter 24: Cytherean Dreaming

The new millennium had finally come, and across the global space industry, things were proceeding at a record pace. Odyssey’s expansion into a fully fledged laboratory had been monumental to see, and much of the work being done on station was in support of life on Earth and in space. The crews of the station would often remark at her creature comforts, and delight in the endless myriad of tasks that the station mission planners had for them. Onboard the station, and on the ground, preparations were underway for the debut of a new series of cargo systems: the Boeing Commercial Space Pegasus, based off of their formerly clandestine Transatmospheric Vehicle, and the upcoming Automated Transfer Vehicle, destined to debut on Ariane V in the next few years. Pegasus would be the first of these flights to debut, in its new uncrewed configuration, delivering 8 tons of cargo to the station. Staged from a newly constructed hangar and maintenance center off of the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, the vehicle soared east like something out of a science fiction film, the orbiter slung underneath it. Crowds had gathered from all over the country to view this magnificent beast rise from the runway, soaring into the crisp skies with its two crewmen onboard the carrier aircraft. After launch, there was not much to do except file out, back to their cars, and hope that the long range cameras would provide something good. The carrier aircraft would begin to climb under the power of its jet engines, before its single SSME-150 would ignite, lofting the craft further into the atmosphere on a tail of burning hydrogen. Soon, the SSME 150 of the orbiter would ignite, and the two vehicles would separate, the carrier aircraft performing the parabolic maneuver required to bring it back towards the landing site, while Excalibur powered on to orbit. The vehicle would find itself no longer held by the rigid tensions of the Earth’s atmosphere, and could shut down her engines and she slipped into orbit. Now, the chase towards Odyssey could begin. The first sighting of the craft by the Odyssey crew was about 2 days after launch, as the glint of her payload bay doors reflected sunlight. The vehicle would come to rest at the lower port on Odyssey, and the crew could begin to unpack the large cargo volume carried onboard. As the orbiter departed after two weeks on orbit, the crews on the ground and on Odyssey looked forward to a future in which perhaps 50% of future station resupply was handled by a fleet of winged vehicles. In many ways, Boeing hoped that Pegasus would assist station operations in a manner complimentary to Shuttle, but it would appear that was not quite the case. Pegasus had proved unwieldy to turn around, and even more difficult handling the payload integration. Crews were used to the long lead times of Shuttle, and would struggle in getting systems ready to fly in time. Instead of the 12 hour launch readiness promised by the original TAV concepts, it looked more along the lines of months of lead time. The Carrier Aircraft, Champion, would suffer from notorious teething problems, leading ultimately to the vehicle to be scheduled for flight only twice a year, as a result of necessary downtime to inspect and repair both components of the system after flights. It was, in some ways, a let down for the Odyssey operations crew, and even more so for Boeing Commercial Space. Pegasus would soon be joined in orbit by supplementary American spacecraft, the Orbital Sciences Cygnus was projected to begin flying by 2005 on the upcoming Atlas NG, in support roles for both Odyssey and MTV preparation for Olympus operations.

Hera's arrival at Venus, to begin a 30 day "fast stay" to investigate the stranger of Earth's neighbor planets. Her immediate priority upon arrival at Venus would be the deployment of the various sub-probes carried onboard.​

Venus loomed large in the windows of Hera as she sat in orbit of the planet, taking in the sweeping vistas of this alien world. Her transit had been quick compared to that of a Mars flight, and the crew spent most of their time performing observations of solar phenomenon. The smaller crew had done well on their outbound transit, and orbital insertion around the veiled planet had gone according to plan, separating the first two drop tanks, leaving the remaining two for departure back towards Earth. The planet sat as an eerily featureless orb in their windows, with the occasional aurora and flash of lightning greeting them as they passed to the planet’s night side. Hera’s crew would marvel at the world before them, and at the same time, feel moderately underwhelmed. The atmosphere of Venus would completely obscure their view, but they knew that the surface would not evade them for long. While not as exciting as Olympus 3, the crew would begin to deploy the series of probes meant to examine the origins of the planet and find out if the supporting chemistry for life was there. Venera C1 would be the first probe deployed from Hera, and the crew would watch as the probe streaked through the planet’s atmosphere, its instruments soon revealed after the jettison of the aeroshell and descent to the surface. VISAGE and CLUE would soon follow, streaking into orbit and the atmosphere, setting up a network of monitoring that would enable further discovery for many years to come. As soon as the crew had gotten comfortable in orbit around Venus, the return window for Earth would open and the six person crew would cast off again, expending their second set of drop tanks as they escaped the pull of the veiled planet. For some within the Human Spaceflight Office, the 30 days they had spent at Venus had not been enough, and some argued for a complementary program to Olympus, dedicated to Venus using a concept known only as HAVOC. HAVOC would add a human element to the exploration of the planet, sending crew on a wild ride through the atmosphere in an aeroshell, and exploring the planet in a dirigible. It was considered by many in the scientific community as, arguably, completely and utterly insane. Alas, the focus of human exploration for now would remain firmly on Mars, and as the crew of Olympus 5V returned home, they would once again encounter a world filled with color and vibrance. Now, only Olympus 4 remained in deep space, but it too would soon complete the long journey home before the year was out.

MSAV "Corvus" prepares to make her descent to the Martian Surface with Commander Teller, Pilot Anastasia Fyodorova and Mission Specialists Takeshi Takeda and Dr. Gabriel Herald, for Olympus 4's rotation on the surface.​

The surface sortie of Olympus 4 had been one of pushing boundaries, and improving on the lessons learned from Olympus 3. Descent had been one of the areas of great improvement, as Commander Teller furiously studied the notes made by Commander Douglass regarding entry descent and landing protocol. The issues during descent had been problematic to say the least, but pre-launch work on the MSAV of Olympus 4 had enabled an even smoother EDL sequence, and soon Teller, Fyodorova, Takeda and Herald would become the second crew to set foot on the planet Mars. The four crew members broke the record set by Olympus 3 on the surface, for a grand total of 47 days, which remains the longest unassisted surface sortie by an MSAV. The crew would assemble their own rover, and scuttle around the dusty plains of Isdis Planitia, searching for clues that could help explain the planet’s past. The American, Russian and Japanese crew members on the landing team would work together to scour their landing site, and sites of interest, for clues about the history of water and microbiology, as well as setting up a surface station. One of the most important observations of the mission was the observation of carbon dioxide frost, collecting along the surfaces of the lander descent stage, gave some indication that seasonal change was in fact in play on the planet’s surface. Mars had active weather, just like the homeworld. The mission team was overjoyed, and already the next wave of experiments to be sent to the planet was under review. Learning from their previous endeavors, the distance from the lander was pushed to 17 miles, allowing the crew to sample previously unknown areas. At the end of their sortie, they returned to Corvus, and would make the climb into orbit to rendezvous with the waiting fleet, eager to begin the long journey home, and be part of something historic. As the crew completed their transit, they reflected on their position as the second human crew on the Martian surface. While it had been a bit of a sting to immediately follow in the footsteps of the first human landing crew, they had done a good deal of work. Their ambitions were record setting, longest independent surface stay, longest traverse, and most scientific experiments deployed by a surface based EVA. To some, it may seem like a fairly innocuous position, a crew no one would remember on a mission that became commonplace, but these were merely the first steps into a much larger world. A foothold for humanity, learning to live and work off the land as they explored the planet. The Journey home was a long one, as was their outbound cruise, but the reception aboard Intrepid in the mid spring would make all of their efforts worth it. Now, as the Earth’s gravity well would once again embrace them, the crew could look forward to future expansion and upgrades to Olympus’ capability.

As part of Olympus operations, mission planners had looked to increase the overall time on Mars’ surface, to enable maximum scientific return. Getting all 8 crew members of an Olympus mission to the surface would also enable some recovery from the punishing effects of microgravity. In order to do this, two steps would have to be taken. The first would be advanced prestaging; like the logistics landers before them, these new modules would enable even greater cargo prepositioning on the surface. They were nearly identical, and derived from the Multi Purpose Logistics Modules that had seen considerable flight time to Odyssey, as well as in preparing the MTVs for departure. These vehicles would also be equipped with a robust entry descent and landing system, building off of the success of the landing and wayfinding technology incorporated on the Zephyr class MSAV. They would be helped to the surface by an aeroshell and landing skycrane, which would then deploy ruggedized wheels to enable docking to the landed and vented descent stage of the MSAV. This new stage would have special ports to allow these modules to plug in, and assist the crew in setting up a permanent base of operations for the 500 days they’d remain on the surface. This would enable the crew of future Olympus missions to remain on the surface for far longer. The second step would be the incorporation of a new upper stage with Jupiter-OPAV, the Boeing built Phaeton. Phaeton would be the key, enabling much larger cargo to be carried to the surface of the Red Planet, drastically improving the performance of the system. Two new orbiters would also be dispatched to join the fleet around the Red Planet, launched onboard Delta IIIs. The Solar Biological System, or SBS 1 and 2, would assist the ASTER program in monitoring solar weather around the planet. However, the mission would not be entirely successful. 4 months into their cruise, SBS 2 would enter a tumble, and lose its ability to point its solar panels at the sun. In a desperate attempt to recontact it, the Deep Space Network would transmit line after line of code, anxious to see the orbiter right itself, but there was no such luck. The probe had been lost to the sifting sands of interplanetary space, consumed by the great darkness. SBS 1 would arrive at Mars and settle into a comfortable elliptical orbit, ready to begin measuring the impact of cosmic and solar winds on the red sands below. Some of the mission scientists back on Earth could not help but wonder if the probe longed for its twin, no doubt slingshotting into heliocentric space by now.

Olympus 6's mission patch, the first mission to leave for Mars in the new millennium. The design language of the patch represented a modern and refreshed take on mission iconography, and was an instant favorite among patch collectors.​

The buildup and aggregation period around Olympus 6 would see one of the largest fleets depart for Mars in the entire history of the Olympus program. Some of the first launches in preparation for this mission would be the fueling tankers, lofted by the four Jupiter OPAV vehicles within NASA’s fleet, as well as demoing refueling capabilities from European and Japanese partners, launching smaller but still highly capable vehicles to rendezvous with and fuel the transfer elements and MTV. Olympus 6 would be Minerva’s second flight to the Red Planet, an achievement not even considered during the Apollo-era of Mars planning. The first departure of the window would be the twin Augmentation Landers for Olympus 7, dispatching well ahead of the Olympus 6 fleet in preparation for the planned longer stays on the planet’s surface. These two modules, with their beefed up aeroshells and positioning systems, would depart for Mars, ready to debut their experimental skycrane landing system. The twin modules, nicknamed “Bert” and “Ernie”, would soon be away, and the crew of Olympus 6 would get ready to ride Intrepid into orbit. Commanding this mission would be the UK’s Sharon Kensworth, a veteran of flights to Odyssey and Zarya, and commander of the latter station. She would be the second woman to command an Olympus mission, and the first commander not from the US. Joining her would be MTV Pilot Frederick “Fred” Williams, a NASA astronaut and two time shuttle pilot. The mission’s flight surgeon would be an Olympus 1 veteran, Doctor Yevgeniy Volkov, once again boarding Minerva for a flight into the unknown. The Mission Specialists consisted of a diverse and international crew; Maria Di Firenze of Italy, Dr. Richard Trinh of NASA, Germany’s Vance Detrik, Japan’s Akihiro Matsumoto and Kayla St. John of Australia. After a flawless ascent into orbit, they would soon come to port at Minerva’s forward docking port, and their support crew would help them to load the last of the cargo they required into the fleet leading spacecraft. Their lander, Draco, had just finished fueling operations, and stood ready to bring the great fleet onwards to Mars. As the time for their own departure arrived, Intrepid would undock and return home, wishing the 6th Olympus crew well as they sunk into the atmosphere once again. The CDAs on the Transfer Element, as well as on Minerva would move into place, pushing the final elements of the Martian fleet onwards, ringing in the first year of the new millennium as one of discovery and grand voyages. Soon, when the conclusion of Olympus 6 would come, the age of Flags and Footprints on Mars would end, and the start of permanent operations on the planet would commence, setting up for the future of exploration across the Solar System.

 

[defconh3ck]

Chapter 24.5: Image Annex

Hi everyone, I really don't have too much to say today other than giving a huge shoutout to Jay for the images he gave us last week, and how excited and grateful I am for his continued support of Proxima. Next week, as I said in the prelude to Chapter 24, we've got some familiar and new faces supporting the project who I'm super grateful for and I can't wait to showcase what they've got. Now, this week I've got something really special for you, the absolute majesty of Venus in all of its glory. While missions to Venus in real life may seem kind of off the table for now, they've long been discussed when thinking about the next steps of human exploration, as far back as the Apollo program. The Apollo Venus flyby mission was one such proposal, using a wet workshop S-IVB to support 3 astronauts on this journey. In Proxima, the utilization of NTR enables us to do much more, and have the MTV (or in this case, VTV) act as a scientific platform for the deployment and observation of spacecraft in orbit of another world.

Hera begins to orient herself for Venus orbit insertion, having completed the relatively short transit from Earth.

Lighting her 3 Valkyrie engines, the great craft slows down, bringing with her the first human crew to observe the Veiled Planet directly.​

Completing the final few seconds of the burn, Hera prepares to settle into a comfortable low orbit around the planet, ready to begin a 30 day observation campaign.

Her maneuvers over, Hera can re-orient herself with the cupola facing the planet, revealing... not a whole lot. The variety of sub-probes deployed from the ship would provide more data than just the eyes of the crew.​

Hera would also use her own instruments to analyze the planet, including a radar suite and magnetometer cluster. These readings would help to determine the physical composition of the planet, and look for any active geological processes.


​

 

[defconh3ck]

Hi all, happy Monday! I'm so very excited to showcase what we have in store this week, which will be an exploration of a space program we haven't really touched on yet - China. Writing about the Chinese space program is often difficult because so much of the engineering and history is not readily accessible, but I will do the best I can with what information I can find. We're also gonna be trying out some footnote stuff, which might help folks understand what's happening a little better. I wanna thank 3 wonderful people this week who've helped me get some beautiful images your way: Steven, Jay and Ben, who have given us a view into the universe of Proxima as a whole. Please make sure to check out their other work!

Chapter 25: Perseverance

The Gobi Desert was not as it once was - a great force had shifted the sands of the once still plain, and a thundering crack pierced the tranquility. Rising over the horizon on the morning of January 25, 2001, a white and blue vehicle thundered skywards, carrying with it the hope of a nation. Shenzhou 5, the long awaited first crewed flight of China’s human spaceflight program, rose higher and higher into the morning sky, on the back of the Long March 2F rocket [1]. The vehicle, much like the Soyuz vehicle that would inspire a majority of its design, would soon shed its boosters and proceed on its core stage, thundering into the ever blackening sky. Onboard, there was one crew member, astronaut Yang Liwei. Yang was a People’s Liberation Army Air Force veteran, and one of the most senior pilots in China’s military. The rocket he rode was emblematic of the rapid pace of technological advancement that China had taken on to bring their own astronauts to orbit. Soon, the second stage of the Long March rocket would shut down, and the Shenzhou capsule would be floating free, coasting towards the horizon. The success of earlier flights enabled the planning groups within the China National Space Administration to push forward with their own crewed flight, becoming the third agency globally to do so. In orbit, Yang would record videos, perform experiments in the rather cramped capsule, fly the United Nations and Chinese flag, and address the world. In his historic speech, he would extend an olive branch: “I have come here, in this divine ship, to advance our species’ understanding of the stars. I invite all of those who wish to participate in joining hands and taking this journey together. We, the people of China, are ready to enter the age of space.” The leaders of space faring nations were equal parts impressed and stunned. Rumors of a potential flight of Shenzhou had persisted, and satellite intelligence had not predicted a crewed flight so soon. Yang would complete 16 orbits in his capsule, transmitting telemetry about the operations of the spacecraft, and his personal wellbeing. Soon, the mission would come to a close, and like the Soyuz that came before it, the descent module would plunge through the atmosphere, and come to a stop on the plains of Mongolia. Leadership from around the world would soon congratulate their new, orbital comrades. The speed at which the Chinese program had advanced both concerned and intrigued agencies across the planet, and soon, curious programs would begin to extend their feelers to gauge the interest of CNSA in collaboration.

Spreading her wings, Shenzhou 5 makes history, making China the third independent nation to launch crew after Russia and the United States. With her, she carries the dreams of the Chinese people, looking towards a bold future in the cosmos.​

Olympus 6 would catch sight of Mars in mid spring, and the pull of the planet would guide Minerva ever further towards her destination, the Red Planet. Well ahead of her, the two logistics modules for Olympus 7 hurtled towards their destination, casting off their cruise stages as they passed within the orbit of Phobos. Soon, the ionization of the atmosphere would lick at their heat shields, aiming for a landing in Chryse Planitia, an area rich in geological interest and rumors of water. The crew onboard Minerva could only watch as these two vehicles streaked towards their landing site, being imaged from as many orbiters as possible. The twin landers would streak through the Martian sky, their heat shields forcing the Martian atmosphere out of the way. Soon, their supersonic parachutes would deploy, yanking the twin modules out of their bioshells, and exposing the strange landing apparatus for the first time. These vehicles were about to become the second heaviest objects ever landed on the planet Mars, and did they look strange. The 3 chutes would continue to slow the craft, and the pumps on landing engines would soon begin to spin up, ready to set the vehicle down on the surface. The six landing engines, arranged like an insect’s legs around the module, would soon roar to life, stabilizing the whole assembly with mechanical precision. The vehicles would stabilize themselves and begin to look together for their landing site, a safe place to set both vehicles down [2]. Mechanical eyes and all looking radar would enable a precise landing on the unforgiving Martian terrain. After a roughly 2 minute period of powered flight, the winches onboard the sky cranes would start to unfurl, as the vehicle lowered their delicate cargo to the surface, engineering cameras capturing every moment of this historic and unusual landing. Soon, the wheels of the mobile logistics vehicles would make contact with the ground. Their onboard sensors working overtime, the landers would fire pyros onboard, separating the bridles that connected them to their payloads. This went off nearly perfectly, with one of the load bearing cables snapping and striking Logistics Module 2. This was documented on the engineering cameras in only three frames, not nearly enough for the teams back on Earth to make a judgement call. The atmospheric sensors onboard the module immediately took readings, looking for a leak. With the sky cranes now rocketing away towards their demise, it would be up to the Olympus 7 crew when they arrived a little over two years from now to determine whether or not the structures were safe for use.

As for Olympus 6, the crew would soon settle into their initial orbit, and subsequently come to a comfortable berth at the Mars Base Station. Some of their initial tasks would be to outfit the station with additional sensors internally and externally - and prepare for the first expansion planned for no earlier than 2005. This expansion would see a new node added to enable docking of multiple ships, and the addition of more solar power. It would be a slow conversion process, but the overall conversion would be deemed crucial for the continued and expanded use of the facility as an integral component of architecture. Olympus 6’s lander, Draco, would soon dock to the station, and the crew could prepare for the third and final short stay as part of the Olympus program. The short stays, while good first steps towards a future on Mars, still relied heavily on the crew in orbit for problem solving, and a whole crew expedition would test their ability to work independently from Earth. Draco, on arrival at Mars, had shown some signs of MMOD [3] damage to the hull, so the landing was pushed back a week while the crew ventured outside to inspect the vehicle. Some of the thermal blankets had experienced minor pitting, but was not a major risk for the ultimate goal of landing on the surface. Soon, the time for their surface sortie would come, and the landing team would take their seats in the cockpit, ready to take the next great steps for humanity. Kensworth, Trinh, Detrik and Matsumoto would soon begin their descent to Amazonis Planitia, a bold new world for humanity to explore. Descent would begin about 2 hours after separation from the Base Station complex, as the atmosphere began to lick at their lander. Navigating through the early phase of descent, Draco’s landing software began to look for its landing site and logistics lander, Henrietta Lacks. The turbulence of the atmosphere would soon shake the crew’s bones, as the RCS and air brakes worked to steer the vehicle towards its landing site. And then, blackout. The crew onboard the station could only track the lander to the best of their ability with the onboard scopes, calling hopefully for the lander and its crew. Every second that passed by was another source of anxiety for the crew on the station, a reminder that not everything would go to plan in spaceflight. Then, the time of AOS would come and go. The crew on station, full of tension, would thumb the red tabs on their checklists, desperate to not have to open that part of their binders. The possibilities of what had happened filled their minds, images of a crew unable to communicate, a fearful last few moments… Soon, a crackle. A voice from the planet below, albeit an electronic one. The lander was there, sitting pretty on the surface, scanning its environment around it with its electronic eyes. But still, no voice from the crew. Seconds turned to minutes, as the crew on station would attempt to raise their comrades. Soon, a crackly transmission from Kensworth, barely audible, but there: “Basecamp, this is Draco… I apologize for the communications delay, we’re working some issues with our antenna... We’ve made it safely to Amazonis Planitia, and we’re ready to start the next phase of discovery. Preparing for data uplink.” Both crews were elated, the third human landing on Mars had proved that this was not only possible, but repeatable, and set the stage for the future of long duration stays on the surface. Amazonis Planitia was not the most beautiful of landing sites, a vast desert ruled by the patterns of dust storms. However, it was not entirely bleak. The crew would voyage to Medusa Fossae, a vast geological feature visible from orbit, and collect some of the first samples of what appeared to be water weathered rock formations. During their time on the surface, they’d explore the variety of geological sites, and practice techniques for the upcoming transition to long stay architecture. To some, Olympus 6 was the last experimental flight of the program, the inefficient 40 day stay thrown out in favor of long duration. But to those who flew on them, they were the beginning of a new age of humankind, one where humans could walk on other worlds and truly call themselves multi-planetary.

Draco makes her descent to the planet's surface under her ballute, carrying with her the crew of Olympus 6, the last short stay crew on the Martian surface. Following in her footsteps would be the long duration missions that the Olympus program was ultimately building towards.​

In orbit of the Earth, a Phaeton upper stage separated from the core of a Jupiter-OPAV stack, sending 2 communications satellites on their way to geostationary orbit. The core stage, its job done, would separate from OV-202, Perseverance, and begin to ready itself for entry. But something wasn’t quite right. During ascent, ice from the external tank had been seen falling and impacting the lifting body engine pod, but the immediate damage was not quite clear. Cameras on the tank were not angled correctly to image the underbody of the vehicle. Tension had been high in mission control, issues like this had been addressed in the Shuttle program, with foam strikes all those years ago, but Jupiter-OPAV was a whole different beast. Anxiously, the crews in mission control moved around the room, desperate to assess what they could. Perseverance was in a low orbit, by design, and could not remain there long if they wanted to attempt to make the landing site. They had about 90 minutes, as the stack coasted towards the entry corridor. With word from Rockwell, the flight control team would make the call: Perseverance would proceed with her scheduled landing at White Sands. The teams of flight controllers would glue themselves to the console, gathering as much data as possible, and the fleet of WB-57s in service with NASA would take to the skies, pointing their heat seeking eyes at the heavens, ready to attempt to catch the pod as it headed back towards Earth. The first sighting of the vehicle would come on these heat seeking scopes, showing OV-202 screaming through the atmosphere, with something going considerably wrong. The heat shield, an upgraded form of the silica tiles found on the space shuttle orbiters, had been damaged, but the extent of the damage was not yet clear. Flames seemed to be licking at the exposed guts of the pod, and as the plasma blackout came to an end, alarms would trip across mission control. The vehicle was damaged, but core flight systems were still functional, they were nearly through the worst of it. The vehicle would begin to turn towards the launch site and get ready to deploy its parafoil, enabling the vehicle to come to a stop. High quality cameras could begin to image the vehicle, and the damage was clear. About 6 tiles had been removed completely, and the undercarriage of the pod risked damage. It was not clear if this was caused by the impact, or the shearing forces of entry. Soon, the pyros of the parafoil would fire, blowing the cover for the chute off the vehicle. The engineers breathed a sigh of relief as the vehicle turned lazily, heading for the runway in the gypsum sands. As the vehicle crossed through 200, and then 100 feet, the engineering team felt they could relax. The gear deployed, and at the moment that they felt as though they were in the clear, a line in the parafoil assembly snapped. The vehicle dipped to the left, its body starting to scrape against the sand, and beginning to tumble. The lines of the parafoil tangled around the vehicle, ripping and tearing as the vehicle kicked up a cloud of dust. In mission control, engineers stood at their consoles, astonished at what just happened. Perseverance came to a stop, tangled and smoking, as the sands around the vehicle turned to glass from the sheer heat of the vehicle. A long scar in the snow-like soil and a twisted wreck would be the only thing that would remain of the second OPAV pod off the line.

Her tumultuous journey completed, Perseverance lays in the dust at White Sands. Her APU burning, the immediate steps would be to extinguish the fire and recover the black box, before beginning the painstaking steps of securing the vehicle.​

In the weeks that followed, a committee was formed to determine the cause of the accident. Olympus operations hung in the balance once again, fearfully awaiting an answer. Reviewing the prelaunch footage, an anomaly was immediately detected. Icing was forming on the external tank where it hadn’t been observed before, and the crews immediately looked to investigate. Something had been leaking, very minutely from the external tank, and forming ice along the intertank section. How this had gone unnoticed remained a question, and the attention of the investigation turned to prelaunch operations. At Rockwell, Perseverance was brought back and the painstaking process of reassembling the vehicle could begin. The impact in the sand had warped the airframe, and all but destroyed the SSMEs onboard. The APU fire made the process of reconstruction toxic and difficult. It was to say the least, a crushing sight. The investigative committee, after 3 months of work, had determined that pressure to turn the Jupiter-OPAV system around fast enough to support not only Olympus and other NASA led operations, but commercial payloads, had lead to gaps in ground handling procedures and stacking operations. Due to mishandling of the External Tank, cryogenic fluids had been allowed to leak slightly and build up in areas where they absolutely should not have, and ultimately struck the vehicle during ascent. The heat that the vehicle dealt with during descent resulted in massive internal damage, and failure of the parafoil lines. Several members of the ground handling teams would be severely disciplined, and engineers quietly felt relief that something like this hadn't occurred on a shuttle flight. Ultimately, new safety procedures were put into place, including additional oversight of pad operations, and launches of the Jupiter-OPAV system could continue after a five and a half months stand down. Additionally, the upgrade program for the Jupiter-OPAV system would be accelerated, with the aim of flying higher performance engines and lighter solid rocket motors. Ultimately, Rockwell would donate OV-202 to the Smithsonian, rebuilt with stand-in components and display it in front of Space Shuttle Enterprise at the Udvar Hazy Center. Rockwell would immediately begin work on converting a structural test article for the OPAV system into a fully fledged member of the fleet, and promised to deliver OV-205 Tenacity by 2003 at the earliest.

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[1] This vehicle is largely unmodified in this timeline, save for the solar arrays mounted on the orbital module. Tests of the free flying orbital module were not conducted unlike in the real world. Our flight is also conducted approximately 2 years earlier than the real life Shenzhou 5.

​

[2] This technology is a scaled up version of Skycrane landing technology, developed for MSL Curiosity and used on M2020 Perseverance, with further applications planned on the upcoming Mars Sample Return architecture. Enables adequate ground clearance and low risk of local contamination due to hypergolic propellants.

[3] MMOD - Micro Meteoroid Orbital Debris, is both natural and artificial debris and can impact spacecraft in a variety of ways. MMOD risk is present in nearly every aspect of spaceflight.

 

[defconh3ck]

Chapter 25.5: Image Annex

Hi all, good morning! I hope you enjoyed our chapter from Monday, and are stoked for the images I've got for you all this week. Today, we're gonna be looking in detail at the 3 missions we conducted, and taking a further look at what's coming up. A lot of my inspiration for this accident came from a timeline I read several years ago dealing with landing a shuttle orbiter autonomously, and what that might look like. Again, I'd really like to thank Steven, Jay and Ben who have been absolute legends in getting amazing imagery out there for us, and I am so grateful to have them on my team for this project. One thing I love about Proxima is that it's a story that shows what's going on not only in text but in images, and I think that works out really nicely for us. Now, let's take a look at what we have in store!

Shenzhou 5 would be a dramatic achievement for China, showing to the world that they were just as capable a space power as those that came before them. Their next steps would showcase their tremendous speed with which they would proceed through the goalposts of human spaceflight.

One notable feature of Shenzhou 5 was the deployment of a small camera from the ship, enabling images of the craft to be broadcast to the world. Such a feat would soon become common for the Chinese Space Program, and result in tremendous images unmatched by other agencies.​

In orbit of Mars, Olympus 6's MSAV Draco casts off from the MTV-Basecamp Complex, ready to begin her sortie to the Red Planet - the final Block 1 short duration stay of the program as a whole. ​

Now in her descent orbit, the crew, commanded by the UK's Sharon Kensworth, can prepare for what's coming at Amazonis Planitia, one of the great plains of Mars. All that stands between them and the surface is 7 minutes of terror.​

Her ballute having served its purpose, Draco begins the propulsive phase of descent. Steering for this portion of descent is conducted by her 5 LE-57M engines, RCS and airbrakes mounted on the interstage.​

In the final moments of arresting her horizontal velocity, Draco and Olympus 6 prepare to become the 3rd human crew to walk on the Red Planet.​

Despite a myriad of communication issues, Draco would touch down successfully, bringing the next four humans to walk on the Red Planet. Their stay would see a multitude of scientific experiments conducted in support of the program's goal of discovering the past life of Mars.​

With her sortie on the planet completed, the last Short Stay crew would take off, and return to their other four crew members waiting on the Base Station in orbit. The next human crew to walk on Mars would do so for well over an Earth year, and push the boundaries of human exploration.​

After a nominal ascent to orbit, Olympus 6's activity on the planet draws to a close, ready to begin the next phase of human exploration.​

As the investigation around Perseverance continued, it became clear that the damage to the vehicle could have been much worse, potentially not allowing it to survive re-entry. This image taken from a WB-57 showcases the extent of the damage to the pod as it maneuvered its way through the atmosphere, awaiting its fate in the desert.​

 

[defconh3ck]

Hi everyone, happy Monday! I hope you've all had a pleasant week, and are looking forward to our next chapter. This week, things are getting interesting, as we cycle out Mars crews, and are reminded of the sheer power of the Solar System - Something that perhaps our crews have taken for granted so far. I have a lot of people to thank today, all familiar faces who I'm super excited to have on this project - Ben, Tracker, Zarbon and Jay, who have all provided really incredible content for us today. The trend of footnotes will continue, and I'll make sure to keep doing that in the future as we go forward.

Chapter 26: An Aggressor From Other Worlds

An explosion had happened somewhere on the moon, and all of the international astronomy community knew it. The night of April 15th, 2002 had been quiet for telescopes all across the world, broken only by an alarm from asteroid detection arrays, something was crossing into the Earth-Moon system, and fast. Electronic eyes all across the planet turned to attempt to catch the object and as it streaked through the gravity well of the Earth and Moon. It was just past four in the morning when the alarm was triggered, and the subsequent movement of the telescopes was not quite fast enough to capture what would come next. A plume of dust, rising off of the lunar surface, would glint and tumble, and the astronomers on the ground would take stock of what they had just witnessed: the largest impact directly observed on a planetary body. The next few hours saw arrays across the world scan the skies, looking for any potential impactors that could follow along, and objects on trajectories that would impact Earth. Their search found no additional hazards, and residual impacts continued on the lunar surface as debris from the event found its way to the surface. The Apollo seismic experiments, long dormant, would continue to pick up impact after impact as the lunar surface would be bombarded with debris. The rest of the world would react in shock: something had truly snuck up on the Earth-Moon system, and packed the kinetic power of thousands of pounds of TNT. To those in astronomy, this had been something on the radar for a long time, and close calls had been reported on before. Congress would immediately convene, to begin to take steps on advising NASA on their next steps [1]. Once the world could begin to communicate on the issue, telescopes all over began to scan the lunar surface. The impactor had struck Mare Imbrium, and as the dust began to settle, the extent of the damage became clear. A massive scar now lurked on the lunar surface, a menacing reminder of the power the solar system contained. Several years ago, an asteroid hunting program had been stripped from the budget in order to keep Olympus on track when it looked as though the original nuclear engines were struggling. Now, in light of this event, many felt that a restart of an international effort could be useful in underscoring the importance of planetary defense. NASA and their partners would soon begin to get to work on a new wave of mission plans, designed to help ensure safety for planet Earth, while doing cutting edge research to understand the origins of our solar system.

An artists rendition of the impact, showcasing the immense plume that became visible from Earth in the following hours. This impact would be one of the most violent impacts recorded in inner solar system history.​

The first probe launched as part of the newly formed Planetary Defense Program was not originally assembled and planned for it. JPL had been planning a study of the short period comet Encke for some time, and now the Cometary System Analysis Mission, or CSAM, was being prepared for launch aboard a Delta III. The probe consisted of multiple parts - the Orbiter, which would act as a mothership for the variety of internationally provided microprobes. The CSAM Orbiter would hang back from comet Encke as the variety of other, smaller probes got closer to the relatively active icy world, and would act as a relay [2]. The first microprobe would be PlumeDiver, a shielded spacecraft that would dive into the cometary tail to collect images of the close up plume action. The probe was a CalTech build, and contained a chip containing the names of all who worked on her. The next probe was the Experimental Comet Rover, a small cold gas powered vehicle that aimed to bounce around the low gravity world and discover what the system had to offer. The probe would depart from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and soon be on its way to the icy world, ready to help humanity categorize these types of small bodies. On Earth, the formation of the new Planetary Defense Program would soon bear fruit - signatures would come from ESA, NASDA and CSA, reaffirming their commitment to defense of Planet Earth. The program would soon begin to look at early plans for an interceptor mission, and categorization missions that could enable early detection and test deflection technologies as part of an effort to keep the planet safe. One such concept involved targeting a binary asteroid and quite literally smacking the probe into it to test deflection techniques, a strategy not yet before tried. Whatever the final outcome was in the Planetary Defense Program, the people of Earth were determined to protect their home world, whatever it took.

The creation of the Planetary Defense Program, using Delta, Shuttle, and the upcoming next generation Atlas vehicle, would enable cooperation to seek out and assess threats to Earth with years of advance knowledge.​

In LEO, a plethora of activity was taking place. Despite the resonating uneasiness that the Impactor Event on the moon had generated, work on Olympus and other activities would continue. Odyssey had been one of the first assets in space to turn their attention to the moon - human eyes. Images from the station would circulate around the world, and help scientists better categorize what exactly had happened. The Russian station Zarya had long performed its function as a testing ground for activity that would later be carried out in deep space. Cobbled together from components originally planned for a station known as Mir, but would form the backbone for training astronauts in how to live and work in space for extended periods of time. While not as expansive as the facilities onboard Odyssey, the station would prove vital in training astronauts and cosmonauts with how to deal with problems. The European Space Agency had long wanted to extend their cooperation with the former Soviet Union, as they retained a special closeness in their relationship since the days of the Paris Agreement. In the spring of 1999, European representatives had approached their Russian colleagues about a proposal, and laid out a roadmap for the future of Russo-European relationships in space. The Russians, having not participated in Odyssey, were eager to expand their relationships and build bridges with the West. Europe, looking also for additional research opportunities, would soon reach a deal. Their plan was to launch a European built node with an additional PMA and Russian probe and drogue port onboard an Ariane V, and dock it to the station, setting up for the future expansion of the station, and eventual servicing by an upgraded Liberté vehicle. On August 1, 2002, the Donatello node was lofted to the station by an Ariane V, along with a new robotic element - the European Robotic Manipulator. The module would come to rest at Zarya, and the small tug that shepherded it there would commit to a deorbit burn. Work would start almost immediately on commissioning the module, with the Russo-French crew on station working to outfit the new module. Initial work would be done to establish connections to the module, and secure it for long term station operations. The next task, and arguably the most arduous one, would be the activation of the station’s robotic arm. The arm, derived from one of Odyssey’s Canadarms, would be used to support new modules and logistics vehicles to the station, and help the station prepare for potential expansion. One such idea called for a new Russian deep space telescope to be staged out of Zarya, and brought in to service it once every four years. This, however, would not come to fruition, at least at Zarya, as the station’s age and relatively limited docking space would limit them from fully expanding the station into as strong of an aggregation platform as her larger sister - Odyssey.

Zarya stands in her newly upgraded configuration, ready to begin a new age of European cooperation in space. The Donatello node would allow for expansion and further cooperation from European partners, and could even support American modules.​

Olympus 7’s crew would be lofted into space close to the end of the year, as the window for Mars opened. The first 8 person landing, they had a considerable amount on their minds as they prepared for their departure. The successful return of Olympus 6 earlier in the year, the last short stay mission of the program as a whole, had given the crew much hope for a successful mission to the Red Planet. After Draco’s successful operation on the surface and the loiter in Martian orbit, the crew of Minerva had made the voyage back to Earth, weathering a minor solar flare on the way. Their quick thinking ensured their safety, and proved that the storm shelter onboard the MTVs was up to snuff. Minerva had proved herself as the fleet leader, with not a single problem cropping up on the cruise back. During their return to Planet Earth, they were fortunate enough to conduct a flyby of the Moon, a unique opportunity to image the impact site that had been generated by the bolide that had struck it. What the crew found was shocking - Mare Imbrium was changed, a deep scar exposed the dark volcanic rock below the surface, and a new layer of dust had settled around the planet. Images from the mission, as well as orbiters around the moon confirmed the settlement of a layer of regolith in new areas. The crew, under Commander Sharon Kensworth’s command, completed Earth orbit insertion and were retrieved by Intrepid, bringing with them samples and experiments that had been conducted during their stay in space. On Earth, upgrades to the MSAV system, designed to enable wet workshop operations of the second stage, had proceeded on schedule, enabling the Olympus planners to confidently fly Olympus 7 as the first long stay mission. The cargo landers for Olympus 8 had also been dispatched, launching on dual Jupiter-OPAV flights towards the landing site at Jezero. The mission’s lander, Scorpius, sat attached to its transfer stage alongside Hera - recently out of a refit from her mission to Venus. The mission’s commander, NASA’s Michael “Mitch” Diaz, had been with the agency since missions to Mars had begun, and now had the opportunity to command a whole new breed of mission. The MTV pilot, NASA’s Gabriel Foust, had taken advantage of new virtual reality training to prepare for operations onboard Hera, and upgrades during her refit would allow for uncrewed operations in Martian orbit. The mission’s surgeon, Dr. Luca Bianchi from ESA, would finally get to put his training to the test, having practiced wilderness medicine north of the Arctic Circle. Russia’s Tekla Soloyova and ESA’s Catarina Hammond of the Netherlands were the mission’s Hab technicians, responsible for assembling and integrating the two logistics modules already on the surface. John Ryder of NASA, Misa Takahashi of NASDA and Mikkel Fischer of ESA would be in charge of surface operations once the crew had landed and set up their home away from home.

As the crew got their ship ready in orbit, and Intrepid backed away for departure, the time for analysis came. The crew knew that a cable had struck their habitat Augmentation Module, and the pressure vessel’s condition was uncertain. The last measurements had indicated all was well, but the crew would not be able to assess the situation until they got to the surface and investigated. In the event that the pressure vessel had indeed been compromised, they would board their lander and return to the Base Station-MTV complex, and perform their mission at Mars in orbit. It would be, to many, a great disappointment - knowing they had come so close to making great strides on the planet only to be limited by technical issues. Nevertheless, contingency plans were well underway by the time their lander had committed to departure. Lighting the single Valkyrie on her transfer stage, Scorpius would cast herself towards the red planet, with the crew of Hera preparing to do the same. Strapping into their seats, the crew would tackle their pre-departure checklist, aligning the moving parts on the outside of the spacecraft. Soon, they would be go to commit to trans Mars injection, propelling the crew towards a future on the Red Planet. As the engines lit, and the crew felt the force of the three Valkyrie engines pushing them into their seat, the geiger counter ticking away. There had been some discussion of removing the geiger counter on upcoming flights, now that the safety of the MTVs had been accurately assessed, but crews had protested, citing their psychological benefits. The tick of the geiger counter would fade as the engines shut down, and the crew could begin their coast phase. Much as the crew of Olympus 6 had, the crew of Olympus 7 would take the time to observe the moon, and take in the majesty of Earth’s celestial neighbor, still freshly scarred from impact. It was a solemn sight for the crew, something seemingly so cosmically massive taking such a blow, but it underscored for the crew the reasons why they would push so hard to go to Mars, to go to and discover what lay out there, and what other threats Earth faced.

Slipping between the Earth and the Moon, the Olympus 7 crew would catch a glimpse of the scarred lunar surface, documenting with human eyes one of the most violent impacts in recent memory, a reminder of the sheer power of the solar system.​

The first two months of cruise were uneventful, and communications with Earth would soon drop to uplink and downlink. The crew would take this time to relax, and prepare themselves for the coming expedition. Routine governed the crew’s day to day, and Hera threw no major issues their way during the outbound journey. Careful choreography was the name of the game, ensuring that the crew would not be left in a place of boredom. Boredom was the enemy here. On flight day 90, as the crew were getting ready to eat dinner, an alarm on the flight deck sounded: FLARE WARNING. SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. The crew left their dinner, and worked to prepare the cabin for shielding operations. Learning from experience on Olympus 6, which was a much smaller flare, the crew donned their dosimeters, shielded vests, and moved into the storm shelter, a water shielded compartment in the aft of the spacecraft, and positioned the vehicle so the hydrogen tanks of the vehicle could provide some protection. Donning their radiation vests, the crew sealed the compartment, getting cozy with one another as the klaxon would continue for another 40 minutes. The alarm finally would come to a stop, and the crew could exit their cocoon and begin to inspect their ship, and get them back in the correct attitude for cruise. The storm on Olympus 6 had been nowhere near this intense, and the crew began to take stock of the damage done. Communications had survived, and Hera was still transmitting health data, but internal electronics had been damaged. Several experiment racks were completely offline, and personal equipment was fried. The radiation hardening of the ship had helped somewhat, but personal computers would need to be taken apart and replaced, and electronic equipment would need to be reset. Over the next few days, the crew would work to slowly reboot the ship’s systems, and figure out the status of their lander, Scorpius. The MSAV vehicle would have assumed the same attitude, and a general health check showed that Scorpius was in good condition to continue the mission. For now, they were safe - able to proceed with their mission and make the landing site, but it served as a reminder to the harsh reality of space as a whole. The crew were shaken, understandably so, and the uncertainty of their habitat’s condition on the surface sat in the back of their minds - but they were on their way, determined to finish their task at hand and do what they needed to do.

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[1] While we had no impactor, Congress did advise NASA on the creation of Planetary Protection programs, which resulted in a dedicated funding line that went to probes like DART, the Double Asteroid Redirect Test, and NEO Surveyor.

[2] Comet Encke was the target of the ill fated CONTOUR mission, which broke up during a phasing burn out of Earth orbit.

 

[defconh3ck]

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!

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. ​

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.​

 

[defconh3ck]

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.

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.

 

[defconh3ck]

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.

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.

 

[defconh3ck]

Chapter 28.5: Image Annex

Hi all, happy Wednesday! I want to dive in today and showcase some of the amazing parts of our journey this week, talk about some changes I made vs. real life, and discuss some scheduling! Let's get the business of logistics out of the way first - I am actually graduating from undergrad this weekend! I was part of the class of 2020, but due to world events I wasn't able to have my graduation in person. This weekend we're being honored with a ceremony out of state, so I may be a little busy - Chapter 29 if it doesn't go up on Monday will certainly go on Tuesday! I also wanted to take a moment to talk about Cassini - it looks a little different right? My logic is that design changes over time will almost certainly take place, so that's why the orbiter looks a tad bit different. Let's get on with the show, and showcase some incredible work from Steven and Jay!

Cassini swings wide around the planet Saturn, having completed its first orbit. For the foreseeable future, she will observe the ringed giant in all its glory, advancing human knowledge about the mystery world.
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The European Huygens probe was an early star of the mission, conducting the first outer solar system landing on Saturn's veiled moon - Titan. Information gathered from Titan would inform decades of Solar System exploration planning and development.
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Their time on the surface over, the crew of Scorpius Base prepares to depart, heading back to their MTV and the Base Station, loitering in Martian orbit.
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The solid kick motors expended, Scorpius ignites its twin LE-57M engines, an upgrade from the previous single engine of the Block I landers. These will carry the vehicle all the way to orbit, humanity's second SSTO after the Apollo LM ascent stage.
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Powering through ascent, the crew of Olympus 7 takes one final look at their surface base, and reflects on the immense triumph of their mission.
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With Scorpius now docked to the Base Station, the 8 person crew can prepare for their transfer back home, another monumental victory for the Olympus program as a whole.
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Farewell, from the crew of Olympus 7...
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... And hello from the crew of Olympus 8, heading uphill to rendezvous with MTV-02, Prometheus, and prepare for their sortie to the Red Planet.
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For a moment, at main engine cutoff, there is peace, but there is much work yet to be done for our brave crew.​

 

[defconh3ck]

Hi all, happy Tuesday. I did it! I walked for my much delayed graduation! Taking a small break was definitely a good move, and I'm back and even more excited than ever to get started and explore this amazing world with you. This week, we're exploring more of the surface of Mars, and planning for our future in Low Earth Orbit, something we haven't really touched on in a while. I'm super grateful as always to have such amazing collaborators, and I want to thank Jay for being such a wonderful contributor to this project. Next week might also be a little bit of an iffy schedule, but I should have a really wonderful chapter for you all to enjoy. Let's get on with the show!

Chapter 29: The Great Unknown

The crew of Shenzhou 8, in the last few minutes of their free flight, would approach their target - the Tiangong 1 station hanging in low Earth orbit. It had been a fast rendezvous, the fastest done by any Chinese crew thus far, setting a record at 6 hours. The crew of Shenzhou 7 had shown the world that China was ready to take the steps into orbital construction and expansion, and now, test resupply. 3 days after docking with the small complex, a second Long March 2F would be rolled out to Launch Area 4. Atop this vehicle sat a vehicle not too dissimilar from the station itself, a modified pressure vessel and bus that would carry cargo to the upcoming space station. As the crew passed over the launch site, they would watch as the vehicle soared skywards, casting off its boosters and stages, and waited patiently as the Tianzhou vehicle made its approach. Lining itself up on the aft docking port, a pulse of its RCS would place the two vehicles firmly together, nose to tail. Over the next several hours, the crew would work at opening the hatches, preparing to move into the cargo spacecraft and unload supplies, as well as set up experiments delivered to them aboard this experimental vehicle. Their stay would end up lasting 4 months, setting a new record for Chinese operations in space. During this time, they would complete a number of activities, including practicing orbital maintenance, EVAs, and modular assembly of internal spacecraft components. However, the crew of Shenzhou 8 would be the last to visit the nascent space complex. After their undocking, the cargo ship that remained attached would push the station into a lower orbit, letting the station fall into the grip of the atmosphere. Tiangong-1, the first in hopefully a long line of Chinese achievements, was no more, but at the Wenchang Launch Center, preparations were already underway to launch its successor in the coming years, Tianhe.

Elsewhere on the ground, plans for the next generation of stations were starting to take shape. Odyssey had been a shining example of the work crews could do when they had direct access to a spacecraft, but the idea of combining a lab and a servicing facility was running into issues. Payloads in the laboratory modules were sensitive to vibrations, and had to be switched off when work was being done on the truss or on spacecraft docked to the station itself. Odyssey was also limited in its size, and the unusual arrangement for assembling MTVs had its drawbacks. As the station aged, engineers began working on plans to construct not one, but two new stations to meet the needs of the Olympus partners. The first element of this plan would be a smaller, more function-forward station known as the Gateway Platform. Made up of 3-5 modules, as well as a solar power truss, it would be considerably smaller than the station it would be partially replacing. Unlike Odyssey, this station would not be permanently crewed in continued rotations, rather, it would be crewed when humans were required - in such instances as working on an MTV or repairing a spacecraft. For simpler operations, such as refueling and aggregation, a new breed of robotic arms would adorn the complex, servicing spacecraft and performing repairs. Joining the Gateway Platform would be a new set of tugs, known as OMVs, which would move through orbits to collect and service satellites. The station itself was also mobile, utilizing newly refined ion engines to maneuver to different orbits. With enough lead time, this could enable the station to perform inclination changes and service a variety of satellites. The second, and further down the road element of this plan would be the Large Diameter Core Modular Station. During the construction of Odyssey, Jupiter-OPAV had not been available to launch outsized modules into orbit, ultimately limiting the size of modules to what could be carried in the cargo bay of the shuttle. That would change with the LDCMS, with the central module taking full advantage of the 8.4 meter diameter of the Jupiter-OPAV External Tank. This massive structure would be flanked on the forward and aft ends by European node modules, connecting to partner modules and allowing for visiting spacecraft to dock. Above it, a massive truss would connect to the 4 powerful solar arrays, and contain such experiments as an alpha magnetic spectrometer and climate change monitoring radar. The central module would contain all of the propulsion elements, core life support, and habitation for the planned 12-16 crew members, and be serviced by the Shuttle and other available crew vehicles. These new stations would herald a monumental change in operations in LEO, further democratizing space and opening the cosmos up for all humankind - a core philosophy for all those who worked on the program.

The crew of Olympus 8 make their arrival burn onboard Prometheus at the Red Planet, ready to make history as humanity's second long stay crew. ​

For the crew of Olympus 8, settling into their operations on Mars had been a piece of cake. Their arrival had coincided with the tail end of dust storm season, so the choice was made to hold off on the landing for a few weeks until the storms would calm, and the crew could make the descent to the landing site in peace. Their arrival at Jezero would be the ultimate test of the landing technologies used to make these missions possible, targeting ever narrowing landing ellipses to put them down precisely where they needed to be. Their landing was flawless, with their lander, Lynx, carrying the crew to within half a mile of their pre-positioned supplies. Dust storm season saw a layer of fine powder deposited atop their supplies, and the crews made sure to clean them off before they began the journey back to outfit their lander for the long stay. The first few months would see the crew sticking relatively close to their lander, performing scientific analysis of the dry lakebed they had landed on. As they began to venture further and further out, the scientific objectives only got more interesting. A series of sedimentary outcroppings were some of the first sites the crew visited, walking along the rim of the crater. The crew would then trek, by rover and foot, to an outflow, leading out of the basin and into the hilly, cratered region beyond. It would only be when, as they were scaling this slope, Mission Specialist Ikuta would slip, and put his hands out in front of him to brace his fall. He landed uninjured, but his impact onto the surface revealed something hidden below a layer of dirt, something glinting in the midday sun - water ice. The crew immediately dropped what they were doing, and rather ungracefully, shoved Ikuta out of the way. Mensen would transmit back to the crew at their basecamp, some of the most historic words said on Mars: “At the price of a stumble, we may have secured humanity’s next giant leap!” The crew would get to work in this region, identifying any other sources of water ice and looking for potential aquifers, signs that the planet may still have flowing water in some way shape or form. It seemed, at least in this region, that the ice would force its way out of the ground with pressure alone, indicating that some kind of process remained active below the planet’s surface. Ice samples were also brought back to the habitat for further analysis, working in very carefully sealed biosafety environments. There was a moment, as they poked and prodded and melted these ice samples, where the crew felt it necessary to prepare themselves for the possibility of finding something alive, something wriggling around in this water that no one had previously considered. Their analysis would bring back no definitive results, but it did lead to further clues about the nature of water on the planet during its past.

Numerous materials science, planetary science and physics experiments were carried out by the crew, eager to uncover more of the planet's past. Experiments left running outside provided a unique view of the day-night cycles on the surface.​

Activities on the planet’s surface would continue in the form of the establishment of an experimental construction site, not far from the crew’s habitat. As space agencies looked towards the future of human exploration, the consideration of how to build more permanent homes on the planet had to be considered. For the crew hab, part of their work was insulating the whole system with water bags and equipment, a quick option that allowed for their water storage to not take up space and protect them from radiation they would experience on the surface. Several ideas for a more permanent solution, in the interest of outpost building, had been discussed and would be demonstrated on upcoming Olympus missions. The first, and arguably most experimental test, would be dubbed Operation Sandcastle, the assembly of a model village to test systems for the future of humans on the planet. On sol 231, they would unpack a small equipment kit, including a rover affectionately named “Trunks” (named for a flexible proboscis used to print structures), who would create a series of structures out of the dusty regolith. By combining the soil with a small amount of setting agent, they were able to create a durable concrete like material that could hold up well to the erosive winds of the planet. As Trunks worked, the crew would place dosimeters inside each of the designs, aiming to measure the effect of this new rad shielding. To their surprise, the 3D printed shelters would prove even more resilient than expected, shielding the dosimeters well with very little setup. As news of this discovery broke to those on the ground, mission planners could only begin to start planning what a more permanent facility on the planet would look like. The inflatable habitats launched onboard the MTVs, having been tested extensively in space, looked to be a solution to base building. While not much lighter than conventional modules, they could be arranged in more complex shapes, and delivered flat packed to landing sites by cargo landers. Prestaged robotic teams, perhaps upgraded forms of Trunks, would be used to cover the modules in this regolith concrete. It would not be the most glamorous process, but it helped to ensure the astronaut’s safety on the surface - the end goal of every mission planner. For the crew, they could not be in better spirits. Such promising results proved that their endeavors were worth the while. Humanity could indeed adapt to another world, a push in the right direction.

On Pads 39A, a Jupiter-OPAV, with the fleet leading Adventure mounted to the stack, sat ready to make history. Atop its great height sat a small spacecraft, seemingly silly for the size of the rocket that would be launching it, but would be the first to orbit a world that had long evaded humanity - Pluto. The Tombaugh Pluto - Charon System Explorer, or just Tombaugh, consisted of not one, but 3 spacecraft that would enable the exploration of this small and icy system. The first, and primary spacecraft, would be the Pluto Orbiter. This small spacecraft would be delivered by the nuclear electric Braking Element, powered by four RTGs, which would capture into the Pluto - Charon system and enable the chemical propulsion system of the Orbiter to take over. The third and final spacecraft would be Wanderer, a Charon flyby spacecraft that would proceed into interstellar space. This small craft, powered by batteries, would only function for a couple of months as it coasted by Charon and the other small moons of Pluto, only to be lost to the sands of time. The mission had been in the works for some time, part of NASA’s goal to explore every world, and Clyde Tombaugh himself had been part of the team planning the operations of the vehicle once it arrived. His death in 1997 would see the probe renamed to honor his legacy, and would also see his ashes orbiting the icy world, the ultimate tribute. Pluto had remained unexplored during the Grand Tour mission of the Voyager probes, and now, it had a dedicated mission headed its way. For those who worked on this mission, the launch would be the start of a long road to discovery - with orbital insertion planned for 2015, a whole 10 years away. A sticky valve had prevented an earlier launch attempt, and the threat of bad weather loomed over the launch site, but Adventure would behave herself, and get the mission on its way. After separation from the core stage, and releasing the OPAV pod for her return to Earth, the Phaeton upper stage would begin its burn to send the intrepid spacecraft on its way. Its twin RL60 engines once again rattled the probe as they broke free of the Earth’s gravitational pull, moving faster and faster still. Soon, the upper stage would burn out, and a small kick motor would deliver the last push the probe needed, the first time that a Jupiter OPAV vehicle had flown with a third stage. After a short burn, the probe would separate, and unfurl its magnetometers and antennas, beginning the long voyage to the cold, distant Pluto.

 

[defconh3ck]

Chapter 29.5: Image Annex

Good afternoon everyone, happy Thursday! I've had a little bit of a crazy week, so I'm happy I could sit down and get some stuff out to you for the latter half of this week to keep you all happy until our chapter next Monday. This week, we're taking a look at the operations of Olympus 8 as they perform the second long duration stay on the planet, courtesy of our good friend Jay, and some new probe action from a new contributor, Valerie! Valerie has been making some kick-ass probes recently, and I'm so excited to get to feature her work with Tombaugh! Let's get the ball rolling!

Nearly there, the crew of Olympus 8 prepares their ship for their arrival burn - practiced many times by crews and infrastructure before them, but arduous none the less. All that stands between them and Mars orbit is ignition of the Valkyrie engines.
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Her engines lit, Prometheus works to slow the ship down for arrival at Mars, pushing the crew into their seats.
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With successful drop tank separation, they're nearly there, in the home stretch of the push towards humanity's second long stay on the Red Planet.
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Unfurling her instruments, Tombaugh sets sail for Pluto, one of the most complicated outer planets probes ever assembled. Her multiple stages would enable capture around Pluto 10 years from now.
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Tombaugh and Wanderer turn to look back at Earth a final time - for soon she will be out of view forever. Mission controllers would be eager to test the probe's camera functions with a calibration shot at Earth, before the long sleep...​

 

[defconh3ck]

Good morning everyone, happy Monday! I hope you are all having a great day, and have been looking forward to today's installation. Can you believe it's been 30 whole chapters? I certainly can't, and I must say, I'm very proud of my resolve in working through this project, and I absolutely could not have done this without the amazing folks doing all the different media which helps bring the universe to life. Today, Jay has been kind enough to provide us with images, and I'm as always super blown away. Next week will be our third interlude before we continue onwards with our story... very exciting stuff ahead!

Chapter 30: Rise of the Titans

In the early morning of March 3, 2006, a new behemoth, born from the ashes of the past, was rolling to the pad at Launch Complex 41. Atlas, once one of the giants of the space program, had been on hiatus since the early 90s, as the new Delta III and Helios vehicles began to dominate the launch market. Quietly, the Lockheed team had been hard at work refining and developing a new vehicle that could soon dominate the industry, a vehicle so powerful that it could do even more to unlock the secrets of space. Atlas-NextGen was a 5m vehicle, equipped with the latest in American rocketry, the Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-1. This engine had been under accelerated development, borrowing from technology in the former Soviet Union. Atlas-NextGen would be a uniquely modular vehicle, able to fly in both a 2 or 3 engine configuration using a recoverable engine pod, much like Boeing’s Helios. It would also return to its roots in a unique way, using the center engine as a sustainer to push the vehicle further when operating in the 3 engine configuration. This would serve to lessen G-forces on payloads, and ultimately, potential crew applications. Joining Atlas would be an upgrade to the venerable Centaur upper stage - Centaur Evolved. The 5m cryogenic stage would be powered by two newly upgraded RL10s, using the RL10C-X. This stage was a stretched and widened stage that, apart from the twin RL10 arrangement, had very little commonality with the Centaurs of old. Atop this vehicle would be a new cargo vehicle for Odyssey, the Orbital Sciences Cygnus. This vehicle, equipped with a modular cargo container, would be used to ferry large cargo components and supplies up to the station, and could even function as a free flying laboratory or tug. The first config to fly would see Cygnus fly with a 4.3m cargo section, about half the length of an MPLM. This configuration would be especially useful in transferring and installing new racks in the variety of modules onboard Odyssey. Early in the morning, Atlas would ignite its three main engines, and begin the climb into orbit. Rolling into its ascent attitude, the vehicle would slip into the early morning sky, dropping its two booster engines, and throttling up the center AR-1. The vehicle would press on, soon exhausting its fuel, and separating Centaur for the remaining climb to orbit. Centaur did its job dutifully, placing the cargo vehicle on a trajectory to rendezvous with the space station the following day. Atlas had risen to the occasion, and was more than ready to make history.

In NASA’s Space Station Office, the plans for the Orbital Logistics and Servicing Station, known publicly as Gateway, were being finalized. The first module, a combination node and power element, was already under construction by Boeing, but there was a problem. The node element, a leftover from the inception of Odyssey, had failed its checkout twice - forcing the whole station to slip behind schedule as a result. NASA and other space agencies involved in the station had quietly begun to meet and discuss other potential options for proceeding with the project, with or without the original contractors. Boeing, one of the prime contractors for Odyssey, had recently aimed to produce the several other modules required for this new facility. Thales Alenia, backed by the European Space Agency, had also recently debuted new manufacturing capabilities, and aimed to compete for the contract to produce this station. The two companies were locked in fierce legal competition, and feared the potential repercussions of not securing a foothold in the new game of orbital servicing. Soon, the legal dust would settle, and the arrangement of the modules and their manufacturers would become clear. Boeing would proceed with the Power and Utility Node, while Europe would manufacture the Airlock and Workshop, a derivative of Multi Purpose Logistics Modules to support work on whatever components would necessitate being brought inside. The Canadian Space Agency would provide the Servicing Platform, an external rack containing a variety of ORCs platforms, and a new upgraded Canadarm, Canadarm3S. The new arm would contain a variety of features that would enable fine motor control, absolutely necessary for autonomous servicing operations. Japan would provide their Power and Thermal Control tower, mounted on a mast to be assembled by shuttle crews as they constructed the station. Assured crew return was to be provided by Liberté, although the station was not intended to be permanently crewed. Discussions within Europe had also pointed at the growing movement to launch Liberté onboard their own orbital spacecraft. Early conversations with Ukrainian rocket builders had hinted at a potential crew rating of the Zenit vehicle, which would enter into the ideal weight class to launch such a craft as Liberté. Work had begun quietly on an upgraded orbital module for the lifting body vehicle, enabling free flight after being placed in orbit - finally freeing Europe from the constraints of launching onboard Shuttle. Gateway, in the eyes of the NASA planning office, was seen as the correct next step, freeing Odyssey from the constraints of aggregate work until the next generation space laboratory came online.

Prometheus heads home, a triumphant mission of discovery and adventure now at its end. The Olympus 8 mission will be remembered for decades as a pivotal moment in human exploration of the Red Planet.​

In the early summer of 2006, the three nuclear engines of Prometheus would light as the crew of Olympus 8 made their return to planet Earth. Their mission had been a resounding success, both in terms of records set and science objectives met. Their cruise back from the Red Planet had been met with very few difficulties, and overall their mental and physical health seemed well. They were in good spirits, having enjoyed their time on the surface, but deeply longed to be home. Their retrieval by Intrepid was swift and efficient, and as the crew very carefully was escorted down the steps at the Shuttle landing facility, mission planners began to look to their next missions, and wonder how far the program could go. One key remark by several of the crews had pointed to the need, for eventual science return, to go further from the lander. Largely, crews were limited by their life support equipment and their own bodies. In doing so, mission planners would begin to consider how additional cargo could be brought with the crew. Soon, an idea for their order of operations would come into focus, and development completed for the next generation of long stay missions. Olympus 9 was to be a standard long stay mission, as the previous two would be, focusing on local science in the region with an emphasis on bio-geological investigations, while the unofficial motto for Olympus 10 and 11 would be “Follow the Water” - a program aimed at walking through the potential route of water on the planet’s surface. To do so, the crew would split up, and a 3 crew expedition would use a new pressurized rover, delivered by a second Energia launch and skycrane landing system, to explore further fields of the region. The rover would be equipped with autonomous terrain navigation, and be able to plug into the two logistics modules already present for the Olympus 10 crew’s stay. Their trek would take them through regions which were potentially too dangerous to land the crew in, and through terrain not yet explored. The rover would be equipped with all they needed, a bathroom, bunks, science stations, and a large series of windows to enable maximum visibility as they traversed the landscape. At the end of the Olympus 10 mission, the rover would enter the next phase of operations - autonomous wayfinding to the next landing site. During this journey of potentially thousands of kilometers, the vehicle would deploy experiments, collect samples, and investigate the landscape. This rover, named Argonaut, would be launched with the Olympus 10 prestaging equipment at the opening of the Mars transfer window, setting the stage for the next great leap in human exploration and mobility on the planet’s surface.

As the future of Martian operations becoming permanent loomed in NASA’s mind, the Olympus partners would expand their cadre, hiring more astronauts and expanding the potential roles that astronauts would take. It was the hope that many from all over the world could not only experience spaceflight, but be a part of the transformative experience of walking on another world. The crew of Olympus 9 would arrive at Kennedy Space Center roughly a month ahead of their departure date in the fall, ready to make history. They were a fine crew, a representation of the bold vision for diversity and equity found among the Olympus Cadre astronauts. Leading the mission would be Sergei Ivanov, the first Russian commander of an Olympus expedition to Mars. There had been considerable fanfare when Ivanov was picked, and a great deal of national pride. Training for the mission had been delayed by two weeks, as Ivanov was paraded around his country. He brought a considerable degree of worry with him, the pressure of being first was never easy. Commander Douglass, in a quiet moment with Ivanov, would reassure him, and remind him that despite the road that lay ahead, that his mind was in the correct place. His second in command, NASA’s Maxwell Knowles, was a seasoned Shuttle pilot, having flown twice to Odyssey, and once on a deployment flight for TDRS. Their flight surgeon, ESA’s Dr. Nicolas Delon, was a doctor and professor at Cambridge, having left his home country of France to explore medicine with the space agency. Mission Specialist 1, Suzu Ayase, was a robotics expert from JAXA, would be testing new autonomous aircraft technologies on the planet, flying payloads sponsored by a number of universities in Japan. The Lander Pilot for Olympus 9, NASA’s Christopher Taylor, was a submariner and diving expert, well adapted to operating under pressure. His work on cryogenic cooling systems for applications in submarines had earned him favor at NASA, and construction work on Odyssey had only made him more eligible for a flight. Originally, he had been assigned to the Olympus 8 crew, but ultimately was shuffled with Mike Jones due to an injury sustained while riding his motorcycle. Now, fully healed and ready, he looked forward to piloting the crew’s lander, Orion, to Gusev crater. Mission Specialists 3 and 4, Freya Robinson of the UK and Timothy Small of Australia, would be the habitat specialists. In training, the two had operated as an inseparable pair, and some had hinted at a romance blossoming between them. In the end, it would come down to an amazing degree of communication, pure skill and dedication to the task at hand. The final member of the crew, Canada’s Elliot Weir, had been another last minute addition to the training program. Originally trained in medicine, Weir had later applied his skills to military aviation, studying the systems of the human body in extreme stress situations. Taylor and Weir had grown close during training, as the two late entries to the mission, and would often spend time reviewing procedures and protocol together. As the date of their launch approached, it was clear to the public that the team was cohesive, ready to tackle the challenges of living on another world. The crew would once again become household names, another solid victory for the program as a whole.

Intrepid floats free once again, ready to spread her wings and deliver the crew of Olympus 9 to their waiting MTV. The 9th crewed Olympus mission, and the 6th Martian landing awaits!​

Under a twilight sky, Intrepid would once again reach for the heavens, carrying the crew of Olympus 9 skyward. Shedding her solid rocket motors, she would roll to the heads up wings level position, making contact with the fleet of TDRSS birds hanging in geostationary orbit. After 8 ½ minutes, she would cast her external tank off, and complete the push to orbit, unfolding her radiators and payload bay doors. The initial approach to Hera had been pushed back a day, as the crew worked on a few issues onboard Intrepid. Their MTV, and their lander, Orion, waited patiently for them, lingering silently in orbit. Soon, they would catch sight of their great ships, and with a cry of “Tally-Ho” begin their approach to the great ship. Since her rotation on Olympus 7, Hera had been refit, and equipped with a new lifeboat, the 4th module off the line. The approach and rendezvous to the ship had been slow and meticulous, as always, but Hera’s electronic eyes and other sensory organs would soon have the shuttle right on the money. The two great ships would embrace, and soon the crew of Olympus 9 could get to work unloading cargo and supplies, assisted by the 3 person crew of the shuttle. They would spend two days unpacking, with Commander Ivanov giving a press conference with members of international media. He spoke fondly of his heroes, of Yuri Gagarin and Alexi Leonov, and how they shaped his vision for a future that was not combative, but cooperative, one in which humans of all nations, races, genders, socioeconomic classes and more could work together to achieve such a monumental dream. As he put down the microphone, he wondered quietly: could they all see how nervous I was? He tried to remember all that Douglass had told him, of humility and respect for the mission at hand. He envied that about her, her ability to always seem calm and collected. Perhaps, some day, he would embody her confidence. As Intrepid slipped within the bonds of the atmosphere, and Orion made the push out of orbit, the crew would make their final preparations to leave home. The next day, Hera would ignite her 3 nuclear engines, pushing further and faster, ready to bring the sixth crew to the Martian surface. As the crew settled in, and prepared for the world that awaited them, Ivanov would find himself looking back at planet Earth, and wondering if he had made the right choice.