Early responses to the brave pioneers of the Rhode Space Program were mixed. Some thought they were fools, to others they were a nicely entertaining fad. There were a few hopeful fans though.

With every launch hopes soared with the rockets. Few became many, and with them came respect from the Corporations. C7, Rockomax, Tetragon. Once the ball got rolling, it seemed that nothing could stop them..

Welcome back to Kerbal Space Program: She’s Leaving Home, a Career Mode Screenshot Let’s Play of Gameslinx’s Beyond Home planet pack.

In our last episode, the nascent Rhode space program took their first steps towards reclaiming Kerbalkind’s place in the stars. Today however the space program has a new, much loftier goal. To visit Rhode’s small second moon Armstrong with sturdy robotic probes.

Precognitor Program: Precognitor 1

Mission: Perform Flyby of the moon Armstrong

The Precognitor probe line borrows a lot from our earlier Reclaimer missions in terms of launcher design, but differs in that it contains no pilot whatsoever, but is instead controlled remotely via radio waves. It features not one but two communications systems, a short range antenna stored below the nosecone and a pair of dish transceivers to be unfolded while in orbit.

Precognitor 1’s launch relies slightly more heavily on the uncontrolled adjustment booster to turn into an ascent profile and lacks a lot in the way of in-flight control systems that our kerballed missions have had up to this point, however the probe was able to make orbit with minimal unplanned tumbling.

Precognitor 1’s orbital performance has been more than satisfactory, however as we were soon to discover, it’s ability to reach Armstrong’s location was to be very much hindered by the limited transfer prediction software that mission control is, for the moment, stuck with.

Precognitor 1 does however make it out further than we’ve ever been before, high above Rhode

Undeterred, we decide to wait it out. Seeing as Precognitor 1 crosses Armstrong’s orbit, it seems possible that it might make it to Armstrong eventually, even if it runs out of charge long before then

Unfortunately this is not to be so, as we are interrupted by Rhode’s larger moon, Lua. Lua had been considered as a target for this mission but turned down, as it was unsure how its thin atmosphere would interact with the Precognitor probe’s communication system. Fortunately it does not seem to affect the probe this far from the surface, and we transmit some data from the scientific instruments on the probe body before Lua kicks Precognitor 1 into a polar orbit far removed from Armstrong.

We use the remainder of the Precognitor’s fuel to stabilise the orbit somewhat and leave it there to slowly die from power loss

Reclaimer Program: Precognitor 2

Mission: Perform Flyby of the moon Armstrong, Again.

Precognitor 2 is essentially identical to its predecessor and its launch goes about in quite the same manner

We do indeed manage a flyby before having our trajectory kicked down into what looks like a fiery death in Rhode’s atmosphere, however much to our surprise we get another flyby of Lua.

Lua launches us back towards Rhode and Precognitor 2 burns up in the Atmosphere…

Well… almost. As it happens a small part of the probe’s infrastructure survives our reentry and subsequent crash. The engineers seem quite happy about this.

Precognitor Program: Precognitor 3

Mission: Exit the Rhode system and transmit data from deep space around our suns

According to one of our mechanics Barory Kerman, sending a probe into deep space would be a, and I quote, “Big Flex”. The exact advantage of this is somewhat lost on us but as it was determined a lot easier to hit deep space than to perform a flyby of one of Rhode’s moons, we passed the idea along to PR to make as interesting as they could

The Precognitor 3 mission uses an upgraded version of the earlier missions’ rocket, with increased ascent stage fuel, increased control mechanisms and a more comprehensive science package. As a drawback however, it does burn through its battery reserves much quicker than earlier missions would.

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Precognitor 3 makes it out to the Tempus System and transmits some scientific data back before shutting down from power loss. Its sacrifice in the name of “flexing” will not be forgotten.

Precognitor Program: Precognitor 4

Mission: Crash or Land on the surface of Armstrong and transmit back data

It was suggested that the Precognitor 3 base could be used for landing on Armstrong. It’s a small moon, so it should work, right?

Well…

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Not as such, no. Precognitor 4 ends up missing the mark and some… less than optimal decisions leaves it dead in the water in a high orbit above Rhode, unlikely to ever hit anything.

Precognitor Program: Precognitor 5

Mission: Armstrong Landing Lua Flyby Deep Space Probe

With a few changes to our launch hardware to improve range, we launch one final Precognitor probe for this episode. This was intended to do the same mission as Precognitor 4 was supposed to… and it didn’t exactly work out doing that either. It did however perform a useful flyby of Lua, and after a gravity assist out of the system net some of the data from deep space that we weren’t able to capture on Precognitor 3 before it ran out of charge.

One thing’s for sure though, missions to the outer Rhode system will remain difficult until we can better predict the orbits of our vessels

Next Time: Orbital Rendezvous