Duna Orbital Station Expand
This contract is relatively easy but will put us to a challenge! We currently have an orbital station around Duna that supports 5 kerbals. The contracts wants us to expand it to 15 kerbals and 2000 units of ore.
Adding 10 seats is quite easy. Adding 2000 units of ore is something else. We’ll be mining it from ike but it’s quite heavy and will require us two trips there. The refiller has enough Δv to go from the station to Ike, refuel itself, get some ore, get back to the station and go back to Ike.
The lander being heavier at its base, it will be put upside down in the fairing.
The second payload embarks some fuel, a large ore tank and the new crew quarters.
All those boosters aren’t that necessary. We ended up having ~700m/s left after rendez-vous with the Orbital Station.
After having waited for the transfer window, let’s go to Duna!
In orbit around Kerbin, time to create a maneuver node for an ejection burn off to Duna.
And here we are, in orbit!
The lander doesn’t need to accompany us, it can go directly to Ike.
Meanwhile, the ship heads to the Orbital Station with a careful rendez-vous maneuver.
And docked! Now we need some ore. Let’s go back to our lander.
The lander needs to pick an ore-rich spot to be able to mine. The surface has an ore concentration of ~11%, the minimum required being 2.5% with this drill.
Fuel, monoprop and ore to the max, it’s time to go back in orbit!
Circularized around Ike, let’s plan the rendez-vous.
Ejection burn to Duna. An Hohmann transfer will get us the rendez-vous we need.
Time to dock!
The ore is transfered to the station. With so much weight laid off, we go from 800m/s to ~3000m/s, more than enough to go back to Ike.
Mining again, everything refueled.
Burning on ascent to get an apoapsis of ~14m, safely above all mountains.
Docked again!
Contract completed :) This orbital station could be of some use in the future in case we need some ore or refuel mission in the Duna system.