Boredom and perseverance have allowed the mighty
Huojin Space Exploration Agency to triumph over the lowly
CWestfall Space Agency and achieve the first recorded visit to another world.
The mighty
Angaraka I spacecraft. Named for one of the names of Mangala, Hindu astrological name for Mars, and meaning "one who is red in colour", this brave craft, with its nuclear engine, was launched into a 150km orbit of Kerbin by a hefty lift system before beginning its long voyage.
After waiting a gazillion years (read: something like 100 days?) for a launch window, the target of our exploration, Duna, finally shifted into place and the course was laid in. And we lit that candle and rode it all the way to another effin' planet.
Saying goodbye to Kerbin and the Mun. Seasoned KSP-ers will note that the ship is actually fairly small, and at the time I had no plans for returning this craft to Kerbin.
On a fly-by of Minmus, Kerbin's second, estranged moon, on the way out of the Kerbin system.
Having reached Kerbin escape velocity and finally broken free of the loving grasp of Kerbin's gravitation field and been grasped by Kerbol (the Sun), we look back to where Kerbin and co. are. The two bright-white dots above the top left solar panel are Kerbin and the Mun.
Amongst the first sightings of Duna on approach, in the top left. Closing in further, you can see Ike, Duna's moon, as well, as a large-ish grey dot just between Duna and the top left solar panel.
Our periapsis was something like 28 million metres from Duna's surface, so in order to slow ourselves from a Duna escape trajectory, we had to come to a virtual standstill at 27.7 m/s, which is less than 9 mph.
Closing in for the first time and after some fiddling with orbits, we get some solid images of Duna and Ike.
The rocket still has plenty of fuel left. Probably enough to return to Kerbin if I wanted to. But I don't really have any plans for that. It can't land and take off again from Duna, because it's not built for that. If I weren't flying stock-only and had MapSat, I'd probably shift over and take a gander at Ike too, I had about three orbital interactions during my braking burn to get into Duna orbit before I finally got a close-ish orbit, so it doesn't seem too tricky to get to. Probably no harder than reaching the Mun from Kerbin, at any rate.
As it stands, I'll probably deorbit the rocket, decouple the capsule and hope the atmosphere is thick enough that my parachute slows us down enough that Jeb doesn't get smeared on the ground, and then he can jump out and plant the flag for Kerbals everywhere. Still need to pick an interesting-ish feature though. It'll probably require closer orbital passes, but I find myself probing carefully to make sure I don't hit the atmosphere, since I didn't want to look up any information on Duna.
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