T-0 Disconnect!

[Dantassii]

We've disconnected from the Lunar Station and have officially begun SSTV-01 Mission #1.

All remaining tasks were completed as scheduled and the undocking occurred right at T-0. All systems are green and after a short station keeping period at the Lunar Station we will fire our reverse RCS thrusters for 30 seconds to move us away before our TEI burn.

All main and RCS engine burns will be calculated using software on board SSTV-01 with no help from ground control. All calculations will be sent to the Lunar Station for tracking purposes, but no calculations will be uploaded to our systems.

We're on our own.

Mission timeline is as follows:

• T+15 minutes Perform 30 second reverse RCS thruster burn to move away from the Lunar Station
• T+1 hour Complete calculations for the TEI burn and bring SSTV-01 around to burn attitude
• T+2 hours Perform TEI burn
• T+3 hours Bring SSTV-01 around to sun-facing attitude and stand down from 4 crew support and return to normal 2 crew on-duty schedule
• T+5 hours Activate minimum required Hydroponics and Life support modules for keep supplies fresh and minimum required cooling modules to support the additional load.
• T+10 hours MCC 1 if needed (not expected to be used at this time)
• T+24 hours First mission day complete
• T+30 hours MCC 2 if needed (expected to be used)
• T+2 days Calculate Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Injection burn parameters, shut down hydroponics, life support, and extra cooling modules, bring SSTV-01 to burn attitude, perform LEO Injection burn, complete standard orbital alignment and approach to ISS, and dock with ISS.
• T+3 days through T+15 days A total of 18 XR5 flights (from 6 XR5s) will be performed from various spaceports around the globe to bring up cargo modules and fuel.
• T+20 days 2 XR5s will launch and dock with SSTV-01 and our 36 passengers will be welcomed aboard.
• T+21 days Final engineering checks will be performed and go/no-go decision made for TJI.
• T+22 days After several hours of calculations for a minimum time trip to Jupiter, the TJI burn will be performed using only the EHEs.

 

[PeterRoss]

Are you playing it for real? I mean, have you actually integrated IT?

 

[Dantassii]

Are you playing it for real? I mean, have you actually integrated IT?

No, I haven't integrated it.

Actually, back in 1990 I wrote a short story about a manned trip to Jupiter using a futuristic spacecraft that had about 1Mm/s of delta V capability. It's never been published so I'm blogging this short story here modified where appropriate to use the SSTV-01 and its crew and capabilities as the ship in the story. As the SSTV has something like 10-20Mm/s of delta V capability it should do nicely for the ship in my story. So yes, you could say that I've been dreaming about building a HUMONGOUS IMS ship to take men to Jupiter since 1990....

One of my many (other!) hobbies is writing science-future and fantasy stories. Although I've never had any of my stories published as stand alone books, quite a few of my short stories have been published in fan-zines, blogs, and other environments including a series of short stories I wrote from the perspective of a Brown Dragon living with his rider on the planet of Pern and another that I wrote in 1983 that featured a US Navy Aircraft Carrier named the USS Ronald Reagan, about 20 years (or so) before they actually named one that name.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder