Let There Be Fire

[Borb]

The good news distraction is still brewing, but I made it and I should be ok for next time as well. If not I'll try to bring it up a little sooner if I can. Thanks to defconh3ck for some help with both Capella and ICE, the big modules/stations are some very fun ideas to work around with.

Chapter 34: The UCS Shuffle

As 2022 marched by, Capella took step after step in assembly operations, by now, a hole had been cut in the LOX and LH2 tank domes and they had been fitted with the buffer to prevent damage to suits, umbilicals, and liners. Additionally, a section of liner had been installed in this intertank tunnel for additional padding. The current step in progress was installing the metal struts the “floors” would be structurally supported by. To do this the astronauts worked from the bottom up to minimize work in confined spaces, starting at the aft of the LH2 tank and affixing the struts to the baffling on the tank walls. As they went, they installed round plastic hooks on the struts to eventually hold the liner in place. Absolute care was taken to prevent sharp edges from forming during the installation of the struts, which involved a relatively simple indicator. Both astronauts carried a few sheets of a flexible material made specially to cut when run over a surface with a specified jaggedness. It was a slow process, but each joint and corner received a spot check from the sheets. Removing a sharp edge was a whole other process, effectively involving a clear bag to catch shavings and a jumbo-ified file to fit the astronauts' gloves. Fortunately, these were, so far, few and far between.

Left in Capella’s wake at Michoud, the ICE core stage was finally almost done fighting through delays. Her saddlebag module lay at the ready and the stage finally slipped out of the assembly bay. ICE spent little time sitting around outside of the bay as she was loaded onto the Pegasus barge and floated up to trade places with Ursa at Stennis for a little bit in order to give her plumbing-filled crown module a thorough run through before departing for Florida. Ursa made her way back to Michoud for a pretty extensive dismantling. Though she had received maintenance at Michoud before, the inspections had been far less in-depth. With over a decade of continued service, even some of her highest cycle life components were beginning to push their luck a bit, the highest concern of which being her tanks, which had soldiered on since her implementation. The worry for these parts was great enough that it was so far undecided if she would even return to service or simply reassembled and retired. Her companions, the Earthbound boosters were in a similar position, having been recently pulled off their stand beside Ursa and placed in storage for the time being. The last of the original set was down too. Kite, had been sent back to Palmdale to be kept up in case another use came along for her, but as it stood, the chance was diminishing by the day. Their futures were currently uncertain, but in a press conference for ICE, NASA officials were adamant about not scrapping any of the original group.

Back with ICE, though, her service was only just beginning, but there would need to be more than just a core stage to achieve her purpose. The intended tankers to be built for Leviathan were still a while away and needed a testbed for temporary storage of cryogenics for the journey to ICE as a more permanent home. Given Phoenix’s experience handling cryogenic propellants with Firelight 4, a payload bay mounted tank would serve as this testbed and pave the way for full scale tanking operations. The tank modules were wrapping up construction themselves, aiming to beat ICE to orbit for a unloaded test flight to prove out the tanks themselves as well as the new APAS variant for cryogenic transfer produced in conjunction with Roscosmos. Ground tests were going well, as expected the main docking elements, shared with the conventional APAS, were operating just fine. The secondary elements, namely the connection and sealing of the cryogenic transfer lines were a bit more tricky, with sealing not occurring correctly on occasion, among other scattered issues. Unsurprisingly, these issues were borderline identical to those typically seen with launch pad umbilicals. Resultantly, the resolutions were also very similar, with most issues on the test stand being resolved by simply backing the lines away from each other and trying again. With this and the other transferable knowledge from pad umbilicals meshing well, the port was deemed ready for flight and would hopefully see their chance in the latter half of 2022, which was approaching quickly.

While Phoenix was stepping up to clear the way, the foundation work for Leviathan’s tanker was in swing as it waited. Several sub-scale mockups had appeared and the general design had mostly solidified. Original ideas would have a whole new tanker sent every time, but with several tankers expected per MTV fueling operation and two MTVs per Martian expedition, this was an extremely costly option. The revised plan was substantially more cost-friendly, but came with the usual penalty of complexity. There would be one tug, a self-propelled transfer element with a hollow cage, almost like a payload fairing half, consisting of attachment points and a radiator shell. So far, not all too different from the original plan for the tanker in appearance, but there was something missing, though, the fuel tank. This would be the expendable part, a sizable tank with only the most rudimentary of attitude control measures. This tank would be lofted by a cut-down version of Leviathan, missing its Firelight 8 upper stage and having the fairing and payload adapter placed directly on top of the nose cone barrel. Given its LEO destination this missing stage would not be necessary and would almost almost restore the expense of the original plan anyway. Once tossed into orbit, the core would return home, like always, dropping off its nose cone barrel in the process and the tug would need to approach the tank which was only able to hold its attitude steady, grab it, and take some fuel for itself. From there the plan was largely the same as the original: carry it to the depot, transfer fuel, and leave. From here the tug would toss the tank into a sub-orbital fall and return to a safe orbit where it would await the next tank. With the elimination of as many expendable elements as possible, only throwing away a nose cone barrel, fairing pair, and tank structure, this method would drive down costs to a much more comfortable level, making the journey to Mars that much more feasible.

 

[Borb]

Today has a sort of snippet-filled check in with Roscosmos and their more recent efforts for both themselves and Aurora. With Thanksgiving and some final presentations happening after the break this might or might not stay on track for next time so I'll try to update if something does wind up getting thrown out of whack. Also, thanks to defonh3ck for bearing with my intermittent and possibly goofy ideas over this one and some of the things that follow it.

Chapter 35: Across the Pond

As the U.S. was progressing at full bore towards MTV construction, Roscosmos pursued their own goals as they assisted in the Aurora program. At the top of their current list was Kliper, which had been silently, yet faithfully serving as a lifeboat for the ISS and enabling Phoenix to service long-duration expeditions to the station without the need to stick around for the duration. With multiple stays at the ISS under its belt, Roscosmos was beginning to look towards utilizing the spacecraft for their own crewed missions. The process needed for placing crew on the vehicle was effectively already done, as the vehicle was designed for crew already and the pad Kliper flew from had already been given an access arm for last minute inspections, cargo loading, and the previous expectation of crew launches. Additionally a mobile platform to get crew out soon after landing was a required piece of equipment for the spaceplane’s existing purpose. All was ready, it just came down to bureaucratic work, which was hopefully coming to a close. Soyuz was far from being on the chopping block, though, at least in the case of the Progress cargo capsules. These vessels would continue to service cargo for the station, but their primary reason for staying around was orbital raising as well as other maneuvering of the station as Kliper’s backwards docking arrangement left it ill suited to pick up this task. Fortunately, Kliper would still allow Roscosmos some down-mass ability in the crewed vehicle, much like it had already done during previous vehicle rotations. If that wasn't enough, Phoenix was able to take down anything large in the few cases that such a need arose and, given the frequency of that, this was of little concern to either party.

The future of the ISS was also beginning to become clearer, as the station showed age more and more by the day and the ROS was no exception. NASA and the other international partners were already trying to form their answer with Capella, but Roscosmos had yet to find theirs. They still had a spare laying around, Nauka, but its age was still present despite being unused. The preference, therefore, was a brand new set of modules, but this brought about the age-old issue, funding. This would take some time to sort out, if it could be sorted out, and Roscosmos's focus in the meantime was primarily on post-service operations for the existing ROS. The international side was throwing around ideas for recoveries and other wild ideas for their modules, but this luxury was mostly afforded by the shuttle and the fact that Phoenix carried a similar payload bay. The ROS was effectively forced to face a much more fiery end, with the possible exception of Rassvet, which was made to the shuttle’s standard.

Another destination for their existing funding was the Boreal engine, which was now starting to show progress worthy of its expense. Given the project’s publicity, great efforts were being made by Roscosmos to use the engine itself to get more funding for the agency. Display models practically littered Baikonur, among other locations for the express purpose of drawing more attention. It was working too, the realization that this engine was on its way to operation was spreading and the hesitance to spend money on a mere concept was fading away. The same effect was occurring in the U.S. as well, as funding for their half of the project was also steadily rising as the engine neared its first firing. For Roscosmos, though, it would only buy so much.

Despite the woes of funding Roscosmos also had interest in a few other areas, namely a large lifter of their own. As Aurora reached ever-higher, Roscosmos wanted to expand their role beyond ISS operations, engines, and docking ports. With the new ROS on the horizon, though, their budget was already running less than thin. To them, they felt almost forced to choose. A continued foothold in LEO, or expanding to higher ambitions. Where their budget fell short, however, could possibly be supplemented by outside suppliers. Given their position, Roscosmos was seeking external funding for both projects, weighing their options as they went. For their new lifter, they were also trying to sell to the military in addition to anyone else they could find, but whether or not their wide-cast nets would succeed was a question only time would tell.

 

[Borb]

I was correct, this week sucks and therefore I will see you all next Friday instead. Sorry for the delay, but I am currently reaping the many benefits of having most of my classes have final projects rather than final exams that still all happen on the same week as each other.

 

[Borb]

This week wasn't that much better as it turns out, but I do have something, short as it may be. Finals season is less than a week from over so hopefully we'll be back on the rails soon. Thanks to defconh3ck for help with the various telescope shenanigans that are/will be occurring.

In LEO, Hubble remained on watch, passing her thirty-second year in orbit. With her near-continuous servicing missions, she remained in good shape for the age, but the wear was still starting to settle in. While Phoenix was still perfectly able to replace reaction wheels and other failing subsystems, the problems were beginning to go deeper. Additionally, as Phoenix became more and more busy elsewhere, missions to service Hubble and keep her at a safe altitude were becoming increasingly difficult to find time for. Back on Earth, the promised Hubble Assist Module (HAM) was finally starting construction and it couldn’t come any sooner. One of the more recent troubles had been the observed failure of a brand new reaction wheel. The next servicing flight revealed that the wheel was doing fine, but further inspection showed that a controller further upstream was failing to command the wheel. This left the telescope down a wheel and this issue was deemed unresolvable on orbit, at least for now. Should failures like this continue and keep happening more often, it was likely Hubble would not be able to operate acceptably for much longer. HAM would solve many of NASA’s woes with the aging spacecraft, providing rotational control and orbital maneuvers, being occasionally refueled by a visiting Phoenix, but the 2025 completion date was still a long way away and would only be able to help point the telescope through a physical connection. If power or data transmission were to fail, HAM wouldn’t be able to do much as it stood now, but it was theoretically possible to handle both through HAM. In the meantime, NASA would have to use Phoenix to continue supporting Hubble and try to minimize further degradation of the orientation systems in any way they could.

While HAM tried its best not to fall into scope creep, another space telescope program, NGST, was practically drowning in it. The plan was still to have a 9.2 meter segmented primary mirror along with its other original intentions, but it was facing a great deal of additions to allow more serviceability. Ports were being thrown on for some theoretical uncrewed refueling tug, parts were being altered to have removable components, the mirror segments themselves were even becoming replaceable. Each addition brought further risk of delay and component failure and NASA was not very pleased by these changes, but they were brought on due to pressure from both congress and the scientific community. Both had long been promised a telescope operating on the bleeding edge and, from their perspectives, it better work for a long time. Fortunately, clean rooms were being set up, core components were now beginning to be manufactured, and nothing too impossible had been thrown on so far, but, at this point, by the time the original 2030 launch date came around it was hard to tell how ready the telescope would really be.

 

[Borb]

Hope you all are enjoying the holiday season, I'm out of college for the time being and I have free time again, so I certainly am. Speaking of which we should be back in gear for at least a couple more chapters and sorry again for pumping the brakes on the last couple. In any case, thanks to defconh3ck for previously bearing witness to the topic of this chapter and enjoy my method of celebrating graduation, which is apparently breaking something.

Chapter 37: Unfamiliar Skies

As July rolled to a close, Wayfarer took flight on one of the many, now innocuous, missions carrying various experiments both internally and in the payload bay as well a group of cubesats bound for high inclination orbits, which was somewhat unique for this flight. Now in her third day of a week-long trip, most of these experiments were underway, all of the cubesats had departed, and the crew were as busy as they could get with documentation on top of some housekeeping work. Most were floating free in the lower deck and with tablets in hand and music in the background, the crew made their way through the pile of work around them, while two were left to keep track of the flight deck. One of the two, Pilot Amy Bryant, was taking a small break to photograph the southern tip of Chile as it rolled over the horizon from the overhead windows. As she fixed her shot on the mountain range appearing in the distance she paused to note the moment around her. Most of the crew laughing at something from the lower deck and the not-very-good and under the breath singing along from Commander Matthew Coleman up front, who probably thought only he could hear himself. Just another great day at the office, but her blissful thoughts would be cut short by a sound like a gunshot right next to her. She acted on reflex, forcing eyes shut and turning away.

“What the hell was that,” she said as she opened her eyes, retaining a wincing expression, “one of the experiments?”

Coleman had leapt out of his seat and was now facing Bryant with a look of terror stricken across his face.

“Get away from that window,” Coleman said hurriedly before yelling down to the rest of the crew, “everyone get your suits on and get up here!”

Turning around Bryant quickly got the answer to her question, every pane in the starboard window she had been looking out of was now cracked and she soon became very aware of the subtle, high-pitched hissing sound that it was now emitting. Her mind was quickly ripped out of its denial by the sound of one of the leak detection alarms behind her. She quickly pushed away and began scrambling for her suit with the equally distressed Coleman. Both were followed shortly by the rest of the crew now discovering the source of the noise for themselves.

Coleman was raising Houston before he even finished putting on his suit, but they had heard their own alarm and were already scrambling for the “panic binder” full of contingency plans. All quickly agreed, Wayfarer needed to be on the ground, now. With their orbital path, they would not be crossing the U.S. anytime soon, having just passed it a few orbits ago, but they were heading towards western Russia at the moment and Baikonur wasn’t too far out of their way. The information for a deorbit burn was quickly passed along to Wayfarer and Coleman and Bryant worked to input the burn while continuing to don their suits while a couple other crew members worked to cover the window with a patchwork of on-hand items. Already roughly orienting the orbiter by manual control, it wasn’t long before control was handed off to Wayfarer and the OMS engines were on, carefully ramping up towards full thrust to avoid shock to the window. With one last flip Wayfarer pointed her nose forwards and her crew prepared for the ride down. By this point the cabin had already lost enough pressure to notice on a dial and set off several more alarms, despite the attempted patch, which would hopefully still serve them well through reentry.

Soon, deceleration was registered and both Wayfarer’s crew and Houston were becoming steadily more restless, reaching a plateau as a communications blackout began. Minutes passed in dead silence as some controllers paced circles around their consoles while others simply rested their heads in their hands. It was starting to feel like too long to some of them. Sure, TDRS didn’t have a clear line of sight into the orbiter’s wake, but it’s never taken this long before, has it? The agonizing silence was broken only by a sliver of good news, aircraft sent out by Roscosmos to meet Wayfarer had eyes on a single reentry trail in the distance coming straight for them. With another moment of silence and all eyes now resting on the camera feed from Roscosmos, a crackling noise rang out in Houston giving way to Coleman’s voice and a torrent of good news. Wayfarer was through the worst of it and better yet, they were still on track, although Coleman noted that it felt a little warmer in the cabin than normal, whether that was by stress or the leak, he had no idea. Eventually, they dipped low enough to be reached by their unusual escort to Baikonur, which was approaching fast and bringing a new voice to the communications loop.

“Phoenix Wayfarer, this is Dimasya Saratova approaching you below from the east, five kilometers away, but I will have to circle around. I will escort you to touchdown at Baikonur once I am beside you, continue as planned until then.”

“Pleasure to meet you, I’m Commander Matthew Coleman and I can not tell you enough how happy we are to hear you. We’re new in town so we’ll follow your lead when you get here.”

It wasn’t long before two MiG-31’s were on either side of Wayfarer, guiding her down through the unfamiliar skies. The trio arrived over Baikonur a few minutes later, but they still had plenty of altitude to lose and so they began a steady spiral downwards. As they drifted lower and pressure started to rise, vents were opened to allow the air pressure to rise back up filling the minor deficit that had escaped, eventually getting back to equalized. With one final loop, Wayfarer headed off to line up for the isolated runway of Baikonur, where several vehicles were already hastily staged and waiting for their surprise guest. With one of the two accompanying jets separating off, Wayfarer and the remaining aircraft made their way down the final descent, easing her wheels down far from home and coming to a rest a long roll-out later. The somewhat ill-equipped entourage of vehicles and ground crews worked to get the medical staff to the crew and follow NASA’s instructions for securing the spacecraft. Despite not having the purpose-built equipment, they did quite well and didn’t take more than contingency plans had expected, soon getting Wayfarer’s crew outside, who were overjoyed to be standing on solid ground again.

Wayfarer nearing touchdown, with escort alongside.​

Houston was equally overjoyed, but now began the arguably just as difficult endeavor of retrieving the stranded orbiter and crew. A jet was already leaving the ground to retrieve the crew, but it was going to be a much longer way home for Wayfarer. One of NASA’s C-5 carrier aircraft, 988, was already being prepared to be loaded with a lifting jig, but physically reaching the orbiter was never the trouble.

 

[Borb]

Well, the holiday break is over and its time to be productive again, but for now it's ICE time. Thanks to defconh3ck for sharing in the fun with ICE among other ongoing shenanigans.

Chapter 38: Cold Restart

Wayfarer’s crew were quickly brought home and the tension was finally beginning to wear off. With time to think beyond the present, it became painfully apparent that what had happened to Wayfarer was more than just an “incident,” it was a near catastrophe. All of the topside window’s panes had cracked to the degree of allowing a pressure leak, any more and Wayfarer would have, at worst, potentially disintegrated after complete failure of the window and pressure vessel or, at best, returned autonomously as a flying tomb resulting from a leak faster than the suit donning procedures. The closer crews looked, the more fortunate Wayfarer’s return appeared. On that note, the damage was easily deemed unacceptable by NASA and the public, the windows were supposed to be strong enough to handle such an issue. Before Wayfarer had even returned, the launch cadence for Phoenix ground to a temporary halt and inspection crews began checking all of the windows on all of the orbiters with extreme scrutiny, even removing some to send off for further investigation. The result was that Wayfarer, as well as the other orbiters, had no defect, the panes appeared as designed. To some fortune, however, the forward flight deck windows were designed much stronger due to their position, narrowing down the issue to some degree. Adding further inconvenience, the halt had come right before the Phoenix tanker test flight and the launch of ICE, which was right on its heels. The windows would get a redesign, but to keep the temporary halt from becoming indefinite, a faster, intermediate solution was needed. With two weeks down, one such solution was brought forward in the form of a prototype, a plate that bore some slight resemblance to its inspiration, the remove before flight covers for the windows. The plate would instead be internal, made from steel thick enough to withstand impact, and seal against the window frame with a small inflatable bag around the edges. The plates would cover the topside and payload bay windows when not in use and could be easily removed by the crew. It was neither perfect nor ideal, but it was enough to start moving again.

With a few more weeks for a more polished device to be made and ICE slipping ever closer, immune to the halt as it carried no Phoenix, the tanker test finally made it to LC-39B aboard Voyager-Altair while ICE was being stacked in the VAB. Shaking off the dust from the grounding, crew, payload, and all returned to flight with success. The tanker module itself was already well into testing, its coolant loop running even before launch and was so far meeting expectations. Over its three-day stay on orbit, the cooling loop continued well, holding temperature with only some minor flow rate issues to speak of. The APAS did as well as expected too, granted there was very little to test of the port’s new hardware without another to attach to. Lastly, the covers appeared to work as intended, solidly anchoring to the window frames and holding pressure. With the payload bay packed away and a job completed, Voyager returned home to Florida, touching down at the SLF with ICE poised on LC-39A in the distance.

With a few days' wait, ICE was ready to go, carrying her four LRB’s in the same X pattern as Capella, a pair of fairings, and the new saddlebag riding on the side. ICE’s afternoon flight went to plan, casting away her boosters and shells before vanishing into the blue sky. Reaching her new home, ICE got to work setting up, but her luck was running thin. Her radiator unfolded well, as did one of the solar arrays, but the other remained stuck in its place and cameras onboard didn’t take long to show why. The launch restraints remained firmly attached, even despite further attempts to release the mechanisms. Eventually, teams decided to leave it be for now to avoid accidental damage, inconvenient and operation restricting as it was, it was likely an easy fix with an EVA. This was still problematic, though, as the release of the grounding meant the pileup of missions would have both the pads and the orbiters (of which they were already down a few) booked for quite some time. The best that could be done was likely months away, leaving ICE to wait as opposed to beginning work. To some fortune, she would have enough power to hold out in the meantime, but she would have to dump what was left of her launch propellant, initially planned for use in preliminary testing. The whole situation left ICE in a, hopefully temporary, deplorable state, no fuel for testing, an uncontrolled temperature in the fuel tanks, and months from rescue. It was a rough start, to be sure, but it was only the start.

 

[Borb]

Unfortunate news, I need to delay this week's chapter to next week. The start of this semester has been a continuous wild ride since last Monday and I'm getting moved back in on Friday, so to say I'm mentally and physically preoccupied is an incredible understatement. Sorry about the delay, but I'll be back, we've got and EVA to do, after all.

 

[Borb]

Back in business for me and Phoenix. Orbiters return home and to service while ICE finally gets the rescue it needed. Thanks to defconh3ck for encouraging my international antics this chapter, it made for some very fun art.

Chapter 39: Turbulent Return

As summer turned to fall, the Phoenix fleet consisted of only two operation orbiters carrying the workload while Drifter and Adventurer were both having their windows reinstalled and their pressure vessels re-qualified. The already limited fleet was further restricted to missions that could divert to the ISS if necessary as Traveler had to be pulled out of standby service to help Voyager keep the cadence, leaving nothing available for an impromptu rescue attempt. If this ordeal was as temporary as hoped, this shakeup would only delay one mission and merely inconvenience another.

Wayfarer, of course, was still down for the count to receive some extensive repairs. Her return turned out to be quite the ordeal, as there was a mountain of opposition towards the aircraft coming to retrieve her. Not just to NASA’s C-5, but also to her typical fighter escort supplied by the USAF. Neither Russia nor Kazakhstan wanted the jets in their airspace and the U.S. didn’t want anything too “high end” to be there either, leaving NASA stuck in the middle. Flying with no escort at all opened the aircraft to risk of unwanted companions, at best, and flying with a purely foreign escort was heavily opposed by the U.S. government. A pile of red tape, compromises, and arguments later, it was decided that Wayfarer had flown with foreign escort once and, for the most part, she’ll do it again. NASA’s 988, a tanker aircraft sent by the USAF at their demand that no refueling of the C-5 would occur at Baikonur, and single F-16 the USAF fought tooth-and-nail to keep in would leave most of their entourage behind as they exited Europe and were handed over to the same two aircraft that had led Wayfarer down. Much to NASA’s dismay this situation had turned into an occasion for both parties to fan their feathers at each other. While 988’s escort was rather meager itself, both NATO and Russian air forces were in overdrive patrolling their borders with just about whatever happened to be available at nearby airbases. NASA and Roscosmos, meanwhile, kept themselves focused and soon Wayfarer was lifted onto 988 at Baikonur and they rejoined their companions circling overhead before making a, thankfully quiet, exit and heading home.

Refueling of NASA 988 after departing Baikonur and heading for home.​

By November, everything was starting to settle back down, Drifter and Adventurer returned to service, Voyager had rotated into standby service and lifted the orbital restrictions, and normal launches had resumed. Wayfarer still resided at Palmdale, but had exited the analysis phase and the last pieces of repair work were wrapping up. ICE was still holding out, spending her time checking out her orbital maneuvering systems and waiting. The decision had been made to operate her cooling system in a limited capacity in order to reduce the extreme temperature swings from impacting her storage tanks as much as they could, but outside of verifying no leaks and preventing damage, there was little progress in doing so. With restrictions lifted and normal operations picking back up, though, help was finally on the way.

Drifter was put forward to visit ICE, carrying with her only an APAS to APAS adapter in her payload bay to provide spacing between ICE and the orbiter. Internally, however, she was well equipped for EVA’s carrying a third suit and equipment to aid in improvising if they became necessary. After a smooth launch, Drifter maneuvered and attached the adapter while she coasted towards ICE. By the next day the solitary core stage had appeared in the distance, growing ever larger as they approached with caution. Despite the time past since, thoughts of Skylab were on the minds of all involved. Rescuing ICE was not well designed for even if maintenance was and manually releasing the roll-out arrays of ICE was a dangerous process. There was a lot of stored energy in those collapsed tubes and absolute caution was to be used while attempting to release them. The EVA was started with the usual two astronauts, leaving a third astronaut mostly suited up inside and pre-breathing oxygen in case help was needed. The pair traversed across the adapter and onto the crown module of ICE before moving over to the array. The two restraints in question, one on either end, held onto the array and consisted of clamps which held down tabs from the central cylinder the array and its structural supports were wrapped around. These prevented the cylinder from moving away from the base and resultantly prevented rotation. They were intended to be released by providing power to an actuator, but clearly this had not worked and the tabs remained stuck.

The crew devised two plans, first they would attempt to pry the tabs free with some of their tools and if that failed they might attempt to partially disassemble either the mechanism holding the tabs down or the endcaps of the central cylinder. With the aid of a small pry bar, one astronaut got to work slowly wedging out the first tab. Eventually, the tab sprung free suddenly and let the central cylinder roll out a few inches in one end. Despite the expectation of this, both astronauts still recoiled on reflex, deciding now was a good time for a break and a glove check. Anxious laughter ensued with both astronauts claiming that they could still count ten fingers and soon they made their way over to the other side. Deciding this was likely to be a much more aggressive release, they did not wish to use the small pry bar with a hand that close to the release. Instead the pry bar was wedged under the tab and a spare tether was attached to the handle which would both allow force to be applied while also preventing the tether from flying away if the astronaut let go when the tab popped out. After a few test tugs, the tether was pulled carefully and soon the tab snapped free, the pry bar was ejected and caught by its own tether a few inches out, and the spare tether remained in the astronaut’s hand. The central cylinder once again lurched before the array began deploying as it should. After taking time to watch the array unroll, the astronauts conducted another glove check before putting away their tools and moving on to complete a couple of other small tasks that had been set while there was EVA already scheduled at ICE. Eventually their visit came to a close, the array was generating power and the other systems on their list were working as expected, so Drifter departed, slipping away into the distance, stowing the adapter and soon returning home with a job well done.

 

[Borb]

It may be a busy week in 2024, but it's time to wrap up 2022 for Aurora with some further steps in the journey. Thanks to defconh3ck for help with working out aspects of ICE, this little depot has a bright future ahead of it.

Chapter 40: Paving the Road Forward

The end of 2022 was soon upon NASA and the launch cadence was back at full strength, with current expectations placing the launch count at thirteen for Phoenix and the other UCS-LVs despite Phoenix’s temporary grounding. Lunar flights had resumed as well with early December seeing the second flight of JAXA’s cargo lander in service of Aurora after its successful debut on Aurora IV in 2021. This fourth crewed landing on the Lunar surface came with the announcement of Toyota’s involvement in the development of a rover for future missions on the lunar surface. This reveal came in the form of a miniature version of the rover placed in view of one of the cargo lander’s external cameras and was followed by a more formal press conference. It would be a few years down, but hopes were high that it would aid Japan’s footing on the Lunar surface and within Aurora. The U.S. counterpart, made in cooperation with Ford, was entering early ground testing and was slated for a Lunar delivery within the next year by Lockheed Martin’s skycrane, which was also preparing for flight and was now on the books for both of the Aurora missions planned for the new year. With their pallet-style delivery method, somewhat similar to JAXA’s, their system was gathering attention from several prospective rovers. Among them was the next step from Cantos, the creators of the Hyperion rover delivered on Anser’s first test flight. The performance of Hyperion had garnered more attention from NASA regarding the future construction of roadways and other structures after successfully demonstrating leveling and conditioning of regolith for roadways as well as making a viable concrete-like mix involving regolith in-situ. Their new system had received funding from NASA and was much larger, carrying more ambitious demonstrations to match. The pinnacle of the new rover’s tests was to create an approximate half-mile-long section of “viable” roadway spanning (or avoiding) a variety of terrain features, which was roughly defined as one that was flat and greatly reduced regolith being kicked by travel over the surface. How they planned to do this was split into a few possible methods, by first using the simplistic plowing and compacting methods demonstrated by Hyperion and then attempting to enhance it using a couple methods regarding heating the regolith to solidify grains together to prevent upheaval by passing rovers and deterioration. Construction had yet to begin, but Cantos was well underway with the preliminary tests using simulated regolith.

Also hitting its stride at the end of the year, ICE was finally ready to begin fulfilling its purpose. With both arrays fully deployed and producing full power, the slow and steady process of cooling the tanks down to cryo temperature had occurred and Adventurer was loaded with the propellant transport tank. Pre-launch carried on almost the same as a Firelight 4 launch would, with liquid oxygen being loaded through Adventurer’s plumbing. The launch itself went just as well too, sending Adventurer and her crew on course to reach ICE within the next day. Physical docking was as easy as usual, but the umbilicals took a few tries, just as they had in ground testing. Finally though, the seal was made and with a few flow tests with nitrogen gas, the plumbing in ICE’s crown was brought down to temperature to reduce losses in the transfer process. Adventurer then gave a few pulses of her thrusters, sending the duo into a slight spin and coercing the liquid oxygen to settle over the transport tank’s sump. After several double and triple checks, the pump started, but its first run would not last long. After slowly inching up to speed, the pump began experiencing minor cavitation and shut itself off. Crews made adjustments by lowering the pump’s rpm and tried again, with similar, though less severe, results. This cycle repeated a few times until they found a happy rpm for the pump. Afterwards the process of loading went on smoothly, though a little slower than hoped. Future attempts were likely to see a slightly higher spin rate as a result of this test, but there was little time to re-analyze stresses induced on the docking ports by doing so. Eventually, about an hour behind schedule, loading finished and cameras inside of Adventurer’s tank showed only a few tiny pockets of oxygen that were stubbornly hanging onto baffles around the sump. ICE’s internal cameras showed a particularly interesting view, with the combined center of mass being almost halfway up the LOX tank and to one side, the transferred oxygen was now sitting peacefully in two pools reaching along the wall towards each other at base and top of the LOX tank, with large waves slowly propagating around their surfaces. After sticking around for a few more hours and stopping the rotation, Adventurer readied herself for departure. The lines were closed off, allowed to return to ambient temperatures, and again flushed with nitrogen. The umbilicals were pulled away, releasing a few small frozen particles, then the ports released and Adventurer backed away, allowing ICE to fade into the blackness of orbital night.

ICE was now conducting her first study of cryogenic storage in microgravity. Taking advantage of the low level of her first delivery, the first test was storing the oxygen free-flying in the tank. This approach, to no surprise, took little time to find that this was less than ideal, with the high surface area provided by all of the floating pockets of liquid oxygen allowing for a great deal of evaporation. Afterwards, the station was placed into a slow spin, keeping the radiator veiled from the sun, which settled the oxygen into a pool at the top of the LOX tank. This was far from the pump inlet for the tank, but in the case of ICE, this was unlikely to be any issue as unloading wasn’t really in any plans for the depot. Future depots would use the same spinning method and simply through the sheer mass of the MTV’s keeping the combined center of mass well within their bounds, the propellant would pool in the correct end of the tanks. In any case, the pooled propellant was keeping far better than in free-flight and now began the long and arduous process of refining the practice. With the new year, ICE was prepared to begin breaking down one of the largest walls in the journey forwards.

 

[Borb]

I believe I'm going to stand down from this week because I have a lot that is going on this week on top of a midterm exam and being conscripted to help my department with an event this weekend so bear with me and I'll be back next Friday.

 

[EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE]

I believe I'm going to stand down from this week because I have a lot that is going on this week on top of a midterm exam and being conscripted to help my department with an event this weekend so bear with me and I'll be back next Friday.

That's fine we can wait

 

[defconh3ck]

Watching this timeline develop over the years we've been friends has been such a delight, so happy to see it continue to progress and all of the excitement to come out of it. Can't wait for more, as always!

 

[Borb]

Watching this timeline develop over the years we've been friends has been such a delight, so happy to see it continue to progress and all of the excitement to come out of it. Can't wait for more, as always!

It's been a blast to work on and has gotten me into writing as a hobby. I mean it when I say thanks every time, even if it's just as a sounding board, the help has really pushed this project along.

 

[Borb]

So it turns out this week was kind of a lot too, but I made it, even if it is a little short this week. I had a great schedule put together and then I got blindsided by project work, a class lab in addition to unrelated actual lab work, and a surprise take-home midterm that still hasn't been posted anywhere despite supposedly opening today. Thanks to defconh3ck for the early help with the Boreal engine and Hephaestus, both of which I plan to use for latter hijinks.

Chapter 41: Heating Up

With ICE settling in and beginning her work, other MTV aspects were getting ready to follow in her footsteps. Out in the Mojave, the first static fire test article for the Boreal engine was getting ready to clear its throat, starting down the long road of acceptance and duration testing. The painstaking incremental testing had shown excellent progress, improving confidence and only hitting minor speed bumps in the process. The project overall had been nothing short of remarkable, performing in complete spite of politics and being separated by half a world. With this said, the attitude leading up to this first short firing was beyond simply cautious. The engine had been fixed nozzle-up to a test stand above ground and surrounded by steel and concrete case. With the exception of an outlet for the exhaust, the engine was effectively entombed. Inside this case lay dozens of engineering cameras pointed at every valve, joint, and pump, not to mention the plethora of other sensors looking for everything from audio data all the way down to internal stress in various components. Further, all data was being distributed from the test stand both live to operators and to a “black box” that sat in a completely different league of physical protection than the engine and its surroundings. If anything was to go wrong, program leaders were dead-set on finding out what, how, and why. Eventually, though, the time came to find out whether all of this was truly necessary. Propellant was delivered, final checks were passed, and the site was vacated. With a whirring of the pumps as they spun up to speed, a plume and a cloud of exhaust and white smoke was sent skyward, dragging up a cloud of dust from the ground before the engine settled back down only a moment later. So far, so good was the initial result, to the great relief of the operators, gathered project leaders, and other dignitaries. The engine had successfully started, fired for a few seconds, and shut down all without trouble.

While one engine was paving the way out in the Mojave, its successor had arrived in Virginia for final assembly ahead of its historic first flight. Provided that the future static fires didn’t throw up any red flags, there was hope for a test flight by the end of the year. Atlas V was still providing the ride uphill as one of its final acts, which, for ULA, was also going to be one of the most challenging. Part of their responsibility for the test flight was to modify the mobile launcher and five-meter payload fairing to allow loading of hydrogen to the Boreal engine’s fuel tank. This was all a hassle under normal circumstances, but in the midst of Vulcan’s rise to power, it was, unfortunately, even more disruptive. Thankfully, they had dodged the far worse disruption of NASA’s initial idea, which was to alter the Centaur upper stage by stretching the LH2 tank and modifying the plumbing to supply fuel for the Boreal engine in addition to its own RL-10. Even with the new plan, the Centaur would not go completely untouched, however, as the Boreal engine and its own independent fuel tank would remain hard-mounted to the upper stage for the mission’s duration and it would act partially as the bridge of the vehicle, handling communications, issuing commands to the test hardware, and would even supply the disposal into solar orbit if the Boreal engine was non-functional upon reaching the initial orbit. Over the alternative option, which still included these functions, this was far easier to do and still able to reasonably guarantee success.

Meanwhile, at General Dynamics, Hephaestus was preparing for flight after missing the opportunity in 2022. Ground testing, which had included one of NASA’s vacuum chambers, raised confidence in the unit’s next steps in orbit. Despite the continued cautionary attitude of NASA and the already faced delays slowing the process, Hephaestus and the accompanying pallets had arrived in Florida to meet their respective rides to orbit, Traveler and Voyager, for integration and final preparations. The test box beam structure itself would be fairly small, measuring a meager forty feet with its four beam segments and sixteen total panels, but it would more than display the ability of Hephaestus’s successors to produce the longer beams needed by the MTVs. The mission would also feature a new tool in Phoenix’s arsenal, the Deorbit Assist Unit (DAU), now provided by Northrop Grumman after their acquisition of Orbital ATK, the original contractor. Significantly behind schedule and almost thrown out completely, the initial set of the little vehicles had finally arrived for service and the first one’s task would be pushing the test beam into a controlled reentry into the Pacific. Additionally, pending a successful demonstration, NASA was working with GD to fly Hephaestus again, this time to the ISS in order to produce another small beam which would become a testbed for outfitting experiments, potentially paving the way for future endeavors in space station construction in addition to the technology’s MTV origins.

 

[Borb]

Alright, I hate to do this twice in a row, but I'm going to call another rain check on this week. I expected to be able to get one out this week since it was spring break and all, but instead I've spent the entire week so far running errands and there is still so much to do.

 

[Borb]

Sorry I'm late, I spent a little more of my day working than I had originally intended, but I made it. This week, it is finally time for some space welding to happen! Thanks to defconh3ck for the help with Hephaestus and for its name, I have a lot more planned for this "small" prototype beam builder.

Chapter 42: Sparks Fly

Passing by a fairly quiet January, which hosted a routine ISS flight carrying general supplies and more material for Capella, which was just now beginning to have her internal structure assembled after copious EVA work and cleaning of the tanks, Hephaestus was ready for its February flight. Traveler was set up to handle the large beam builder and the DAU and would be uncrewed for her side of the mission. Voyager, on the other hand, would carry the mission’s crew along with the sixteen shortened steel panels. In a calm Florida evening, Voyager took to the skies first, illuminating Traveler as it waited below. With her own clock hitting zero thirty seconds after her companion’s, Traveler raced off of her perch at LC-39C in pursuit of the distant light. With all eight LRBs dropped and slowly raining into the Atlantic in their further separated forms, the two beacons of light soon vanished over the horizon. Soon after, their UCSs went silent followed by their own RS-25Es and the orbiters parted ways with the mammoth stages before conducting their circularization burn and finally beginning to approach each other. Traveler approached a short distance before entering a passive state, allowing the crewed Voyager to continue the approach. The pair of UCSs, Vega and Altair reentered on one another’s heels, providing quite the sight to states on the Gulf Coast and Central America, finally coming to a rest one at a time at their respective complexes.

Once positioned at a safe distance, Voyager’s crew began preparing for an EVA while Traveler began to grapple Hephaestus by the command of ground controllers. By the time the two spacewalkers of Voyager’s crew were ready to step outside, Traveler had successfully pulled Hephaestus into its operating position, raised at arm’s length over the payload bay by the orbiters dual RMSs, which were operating from the base points located at the front and back left of the payload bay, to help prevent damage in case of a failure of the unit. With EVA crew now waiting just outside of the airlock, Voyager inched closer, eventually using both of her own RMSs to grapple Traveler by the base points on the opposite side before both orbiters disengaged their attitude control systems to protect the arms now holding them together. Finally getting the go ahead, the two astronauts crossed over using the arms as bridges and began inspecting the setup, providing their own input in combination with video feeds to operators ground to ensure Hephaestus and Traveler were configured correctly. With a good checkout of the unit as well as Traveler, including successful motion of the welding heads and panel feeding mechanisms, the astronauts climbed back down the arms and across to Voyager, this time seeking shelter inside of the airlock. Now one of Voyager’s arms released Traveler and reached for one of the four small pallets of panels, disconnecting it from the payload bay and lifted it towards Hephaestus at a painfully slow rate, which soon slowed even further when conservation of angular momentum had a little more to say about the current arrangement than anticipated. This prompted controllers to tell Voyager to go ahead and bring the two EVA astronauts back inside until they were needed again rather than wait the few hours this might now take outside.

One at a time and about an hour-and-a-half behind schedule, all four pallets were finally in position and Voyager fully released Traveler and backed away to their observation distance before the two astronauts stepped back outside to be ready to support if necessary. All four of the pallets successfully loaded their first panels and Hephaestus moved them into final position, just as they all had in ground testing and, at long last, the four welding heads came to life, slowly creeping down the length of the new beam segment. After they came to a stop at the end of the beam segment, they were backed off and Hephaestus was brought to a halt. Operators back on the ground had spotted several items that weren’t exactly like what they had in mind, namely some temperature readings they were receiving, which were returning to “ambient” levels much slower than desired. After safing the unit, Voyager once again drifted closer, tentatively grabbing Traveler with only one arm and the crew made their way across. While not expected nor observed, they were cautioned against many possible issues including coolant leaks before they made their way up. To their good fortune, no such hazards presented themselves, though this, rather unfortunately, helped to quickly eliminate equipment failure from the list of possibilities. After completing another thorough look-around, the consensus rested on lower than expected cooling performance and with the rest of the issues deemed negligible, the two astronauts made their way back over to Voyager. Even though it took much longer than hoped to do so, Hephaestus did still return to a perfectly acceptable starting temperature, so, in conjunction with mission controllers in Houston, operators decided they would continue, even if they did have to wait a while between segments. With this augmented plan, Hephaestus successfully made it through the remaining panels in a bit over three hours, somewhat aided by the shade provided by orbital night.

With Hephaestus safed once again, Voyager made one last venture to Traveler’s side, grappling again with one arm. The astronauts made their way up to the newly formed forty-foot beam, even climbing out onto it to give operators a closer look at the welds. After a while of looking around, all involved expressed a great deal of satisfaction with Hephaestus’s performance. Once done, both the inside and outside members of Voyager’s crew worked to grab and position the DAU onto the far end of the beam, which posed only minor trouble getting its agnostic connector to latch securely onto the beam. After wrangling the connector for a few minutes and a subsequent glove check, crews were finally satisfied with the connection and returned to Voyager. With the RMS still attached to the DAU, Hephaestus released the beam and Voyager slowly maneuvered it a short distance away before releasing it and letting it drift off. Voyager then released Traveler as well, which then stowed Hephaestus back in her payload bay.

With all of the crew safely back inside Voyager, both orbiters began their preparations for return. The beam would go first, however, and with a light appearing in the distance, the DAU gave the subtle push to send the beam down towards the Pacific, showing up to the crew one last time a little under an hour later as a streak of light far below. With all of the delays added up, controllers opted not to try and rush a descent in the couple orbits that remained before their targeted landing site, Edwards AFB, passed below and advised Voyager to pivot to the backup plan of loitering in orbit for another day and configured Traveler for the same plan. Eventually, Traveler went first, touching down in the marked flats at Edwards followed an orbit later by Voyager which came to rest on one of the paved runways, bringing the historic mission to its successful close.

 

[Borb]

Its a week with approximately 4-trillion deadlines so we've got a little baby chapter today. Conveniently, this chapter covers some more minor aspects that I couldn't think to fit elsewhere so this is probably the best place anyway. Thanks to defconh3ck, who was exposed to the insanity that is the sixteen-Mars-lander Leviathan payload adapter as well as the MRN stuff this week.

Chapter 43: Trailblazers

As work continued progressing technological readiness for the MTVs, the supporting architecture was approaching its own readiness. Namely, two systems, the Trailblazer probes and the MRN were nearing their respective debuts. The Trailblazer probes and their passengers, the MARLA aircraft, had passed their design various reviews and were now entering construction. This operation, headed by Lockheed Martin, was a truly herculean task. Manufacturing the incredible number of probes involved had led NASA to use this opportunity to explore several new methods for handling contracts like this. Primarily, there was now more tolerance for risk. The ever-present tradeoff of quality for quantity rested heavily over the program and while success was still critical, the hope was that one probe lost every so often would be of little consequence. This spurred the subsequent debate over spending so much money while somewhat expecting a certain failure rate. To this end, there was some consolation to be found in the low unit cost of these probes. This was especially true in the case of the accompanying MARLA aircraft, whose cost was extremely minimal compared to the data it could provide. The launch of these spacecraft would come in bulk, with sixteen of these scouts hitching a ride on Leviathan at a time, though the gap between these flights was likely over a year. Before that could happen, though, two Trailblazers would ride a Vulcan-Centaur to Mars as a test run in the last quarter of the year as a final test before the multitude of landers would be built.

For only these first two probes, the MRO would be enough to handle the communications for the two landers, but with the numbers that were on the way, more communications infrastructure needed to exist in Martian orbit. The MRN, now affectionately called the “Red Planet Express,” was also entering construction. The system would start with the polar relay that would funnel all MRN in and out through the existing DSN antennas on Earth and a pathfinder for the aerostationary relays that would deal directly with landed spacecraft. Both spacecraft would be trial running more laser based communications in two ways. Firstly, for local communications between relays as well as with other Martian spacecraft. This would help significantly with enabling the aerostationary orbiters to quickly handle all of the communications in their given region while also not occupying the polar relay for extended amounts of time. Secondly, the polar relay, in its highly eccentric orbit, would further attempt to use laser communications to ferry information to and from the DSN, which was significantly more ambitious. There was little doubt this relay would be able to receive light from the powerful ground based emitters, but, as for going the other way, there wasn’t a great deal of certainty that its own emitter would be able to send anything back to Earth. If this was the case, it wouldn’t be too much trouble, the lasers were still more of an experiment than anything, after all, even if they had the potential to be upgraded to operational hardware. These relays would travel together aboard a Leviathan using a separator provided by Europe and derived from Ariane 5’s Sylda before routing to their respective orbits along the way. Being significantly more complicated, of course, these would lag behind the first Trailblazers, targeting mid-2024, for their departure for Mars.

These supporting systems were set to further aid the start Aurora’s Martian expeditions, scouting and conducting research to set the landing sites and establish infrastructure for the crews that would travel in their wake.

 

[Borb]

Everyone's getting an upgrade today. If all goes well, I'll be here again as usual next time, but it will be finals week, so this is fair warning in case I decide otherwise. Thanks to defconh3ck for observing some of these early, these upgrades and new things are only going to get more fun.

Chapter 44: Pick Up the Pace

As Phoenix continued its ever-accelerating launch cadence, it was becoming evident existing systems were becoming strained as NASA attempted to squeeze out every bit of speed they reasonably could. For example, the LRB’s were rapidly approaching their theoretical minimum turn around times, a great feat, to be certain, but with the schedule becoming increasingly dense, the limit was about to get in the way. Further, the reappearance of Leviathan and its need for two LRB groups per launch was guaranteed to further push the limits. To combat this, the LRBs were set for some improvements. First on the list were some semi-new engines. While the engines had been replaced a few times in their up to a decade of service, the time had arrived for a new model, Cobra-B. Building on the success of the, newly suffixed, Cobra-A, the engine had been upgraded for better performance as well as better clearances for easier inspection and part replacement. The second defense was simply to build more, with another new yet-to-be-named set entering production. This set was likely to enter service by the end of the year and there were already discussions about another set potentially starting on its heels.

The biggest alteration coming to the LRBs, though, had to do with its time returning to Earth. As successful as the parachute trips back into the Atlantic had been, it had not come with the simplest or fastest of recovery procedures across the UCS-LV family of components. To help “pick up the pace,” there was to be a new addition to the parachute system, paragliders. After separation and subsequently crossing its maximum altitude, stabilizing chutes would position the booster aerodynamically before two massive paragliders, one forward and one aft, would deploy and carry the entire booster for a considerable distance from its apogee back towards the Floridian coastline. While far from targeting a runaway at the Cape, they would bring the LRBs substantially closer to land and in a closer grouping than simply drifting down spread out in all directions, allowing for greatly reduced return time as well as moving recovery operations to calmer waters. Final splashdown would still occur in the separated engine unit and tankage sections under the same chutes that had been previously used, but their deployment would be much later on in flight, of course. Another bonus would be the ability to significantly reduce the hazard zones for both aircraft and marine vessels by making the LRBs’ descent much more controllable. The boosters were currently very susceptible to wind carrying them great distances in any given direction and this already frustrated recovery operations and local traffic at the current launch rate.

While the last of these changes came as somewhat of a surprise to most of the public, it wasn’t exactly a sudden decision. For about a year out in the Mojave, helicopter drop tests of scaled LRBs had been occurring using paragliders with high rates of success only having one test go off course and no unintended deployment failures. The worry of these failures were low from the start, much like the parachutes, paragliders were well understood and automated control was of little difficulty. The latter was further aided by the lack of need for an overly complex guidance system in the first place, as rough GPS proved more than enough for the necessary accuracy. Returning to the case of a deployment failure, the drop tests proved what all had assumed would work, if one or both of the paragliders didn't deploy correctly, simply cut them loose and let the mains out. This would obviously extend recovery time significantly, but it beat the alternative by a landslide. Following these tests and the retrofitted design onto the active fleet of boosters, the next step was installation. This would be a fairly slow, but non-disruptive shift. Including the engine unit changes, the LRBs would receive their upgrades upon their next scheduled return to Michoud for what would typically be their most in-depth inspections.

The UCSs would also receive more than their regular inspection upon their next visit to Michoud as they were due their own upgrade. TUFROC, the upgraded heat shield tile that got a very limited test run aboard Phoenix during the first tandem flight, was taking its next and final step towards operational use. In the same, small-sections-at-a-time, method, the UCS Tauri had been trialing the tiles. With the data collected and showing excellent performance, Tauri was now set to be the first of the core stages to receive a full replacement of her heat shield with the new tiles. They brought with them the promise of larger individual tiles with lighter overall weight and easier serviceability, though the latter was mostly only for the core stages due to their uniform, cylindrical shape. In the case of the UCS, they were expected to more than halve the number of tiles present, but if and when the tiles proceeded to Phoenix, they would likely maintain the same size as the previous version in an attempt to maintain more uniform tiles despite its complex shape. As of now, Tauri’s flight schedule meant that she was due this makeover by the middle of 2023.

While Phoenix was mostly spared from any major upgrades, there was still about to be something of note. With the first Boreal engine finally entering static testing, the first flight was now on the radar. This, of course, was still aboard an Atlas V, but the first vehicle to feature the engine as a regular component was the Deep Space Orbiter. With the metaphorical hurricane of delays slowly subsiding as well as size and performance characteristics becoming more-or-less finalized, the first of these orbiters was ready to be built. After a long wait, Palmdale was preparing to bring forward a new member of the Phoenix fleet. Targeting the end of 2025 under ideal circumstances, construction of the initial frame of the orbiter was now beginning. The testing plan was already loaded for the, so far unnamed, orbiter, going from humble beginnings cruising around in LEO all the way up to becoming the first Phoenix to venture, if only briefly, into heliocentric orbit.

 

[Borb]

That sure was a finals week and I have, in fact, decided otherwise. I will return next week.

 

[Borb]

We've got a shorter one this week. I'll spare the details, but I messed up my right thumb a bit and typing is not my favorite thing to do right now resultantly. It may have been a while, but thanks to defconh3ck for helping with the creation of these landers and the larger Mars architecture in general, I can't wait for these landers to be operational.

Chapter 45: The First Giants

As the hundreds of teams on the ground were working diligently to increase NASA’s flight cadence, operations in LEO continued to demonstrate the necessity of this work. At the forefront of this was ICE, ready to receive more propellant for continued research. The first round of LOX had already completed many experiments and, so far, the equipment onboard was performing as expected despite the rough start. Drifter would visit this time after a fairly calm launch arriving at the depot the next day. The first task was a quick fly-around of ICE, with a keen focus on the depot’s insulation. This inspection yielded nothing of concern, though close inspection provided by an astronaut with a camera spotted several possible MMOD impact sites in the harm foam exterior. Satisfied with the shape the depot was in, Houston gave the all-clear to approach and Drifter began closing in on the top port of ICE and was soon attached to the depot. Much faster than previously, the crew stepped through the procedure to get the umbilicals attached. While this process was improving, this still took a few tries, but the seals eventually passed the leak checks and the operation proceeded to send the pair into a slow spin. Starting with a more refined spin rate and pump speed, the LOX transfer began and would only have to stop once for a slight adjustment after near the halfway point. Parameters were still not perfect, it seemed, but this was certainly an improvement. Once the remainder of the LOX had been pushed across, the lines were flushed with nitrogen and, with no remaining business with ICE, Drifter parted from the structure and headed for home, returning just short of three days after launch.

With Capella developing IVA construction and UCS refitting procedures, ICE demonstrating orbital fueling and propellant storage, Hephaestus paving the way for orbital beam builders, and the Boreal engine beginning its static fire campaign, the construction of the first MTV was visibly on the horizon. More specifically, design work for the cargo variant was nearing finalization and plans were beginning to be made for construction to start in 2025, though program officials noted this would be no quick project. The bottleneck was suspected to be GD’s full size beam builder as it would be needed near the start and it was the only piece of equipment that wasn’t already present in one way or another. With some fortune on their side, NASA believed the MTV’s first test, a quick visit to the Moon, was possible before 2030, but this quick visit would almost certainly lack any cargo.

The missing cargo in question was, of course, the crew and habitat landers for the program, which were not quite as close to reality. Of the two, the habitat was considered the best off, as more and more advanced mockups were being made, some of which took advantage of VR and AR technology to accelerate the iteration rate for the internal layout. Additionally, with the pressure vessel and floor spacing finalized, Thales Alenia had been chosen to construct the habitats and work was now underway to prepare the tooling and other specialized equipment to build and transport the structure along with a boilerplate version to test that equipment. The descent stage, which was shared by both landers, was slowly making progress in the background, falling under JPL, while an engine development program running under the working title of Mars Descent Engine (MDE). Very little was known about the engine or its progress other than that it was a cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen engine that Aerojet Rocketdyne was developing and space was being made for a dedicated test stand at Stennis. The crew ascent vehicle was in a similar place, currently in the hands of Lockheed Martin, also with some preliminary mockups emerging. Lastly, the aeroshell heat shield and backshell that would protect the landers on the journey to Mars and through atmospheric entry were also placed in the hands of JPL and Boeing, the latter of whom now had exceptional experience in entry vehicles of that shape and size courtesy of the UCS, though Martian atmosphere was destined to be a new challenge altogether. In all, the pieces were coming together and the realization was settling in that the grand journey was now closer than ever.