Launching, Rendevous, and Docking of Caravan Missions 1-4

AH-001 Fuel Lighter

 So, even with the collapse of the Demeter-Hermes mission it was decided to go ahead with Yondalla - after all, there's only so many times per Kerbin year that you can transfer from Kerbin's orbit to the Duna-Ike system. While it's going to be a joke to launch Demeter II, we needed to fuel the Yondalla tug NOW and so I constructed and deployed an ad-hoc fuel lighter, designed simply to get into orbit, offload the vast majority of its remaining fuel into the tug, and then turn around retrograde and burn whatever was left, destroying itself with re-entry heating. Quick, simple, dirty, and a ten-minute mission.

Re-Entry Glow. We're going to see lots of this.

After that, it was time to get some actual astronauts involved.

Kerbal genetics are nice and flat, I reckon, and 50-odd individuals aught to be a sustainable number for a colonial population. A self-sustaining colony is also going to need more equipment than I can deliver in one shot, too, so I've split the project into three transfer missions.

Caravan Habitation Lander Mk3, Model I

Yondolla I, our current mission, is going to involve 24 kerbins on 4 spacecraft each, their habitation modules, and some bare-bones infrastructural equipment. Once they've left Kerbin orbit they'll be effectively out of range of physical help of anyone on Kerbin, and once the Tug Module has left Duna orbit on return, they'll be out of communications range except for some pretty narrow windows. Not to mention, of course, that their dietary options are going to be fairly limited to semolina and synthetic flavourings.

Iterative phasing of docking angles.

An unnamed cargo lander module.

We actually went through three different redesigns of the lander/habitat module craft, since the first two designs wound up not being able to dock to one another for reasons that are still unclear. The addition of a few cubic struts to space the engines made all the difference, and in short order, we had all four modules - a complement of 24 kerbins all lead by the famous Bob Kerman himself - docked to the tug. I used an alternating phasing angle when docking them, mostly for looks, but also to ensure that the engines were all clear of one another.

After that, all we had to do was send up a few minor supplies - mostly lights to be attached to the hab modules after landing, and a few scientific instruments - and dock them to the tail of the train, after which ORB floated around the back of the craft just to balance the load.

The Assembled Yondalla I Mission

With all the extra strain on the solar panels it was time to deploy the other arrays - we had enough usage now that waste heat wasn't going to be a problem anymore, and let the boys and girls chill out in orbit until their window opened, two weeks after the craft's completion.

And then, disaster! When we fired up the engines to send them off to Duna, the damn things threatened to tear off of the craft! I'm not really sure what the problem is, beyond thinking that the docking ports used to hold the T-junction together are just too weak. Fortunately, this is an easy fix, and we'll be sending up an extra round of entertainment and luxury rations along with some struts to solidify things in the next episode.

No no no no no!