Tutorial: Deep Impact

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Comets are time capsules that hold clues about the formation and evolution of the solar system. They are composed of ice, gas and dust, primitive debris from the solar system’s distant and coldest regions that formed 4.5 billion years ago. Deep Impact, a NASA Discovery Mission, is the first space mission to probe beneath the surface of a comet and reveal the secrets of its interior — Deep Impact Fact Sheet, NASA.

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In 2005 NASA crashed a 370kg probe into an comet and took pictures and science data from the probe and the flyby craft.

In this mission we will re-enact the flight and impact of the Deep Impact mission.

Optional Mods

These mods give you more science parts as the parts who where used in real, are not available in stock 0.9 KSP. This gives you more realism in KSP 0.9 for this mission!

• DMagic Science
• ScanSAT

Pre-Launch

Find an Asteroid in Kerbin Orbit and plan a flight to it.

Ship Setup

Originally a Delta II rocket brought the craft near the comet. In Kerbal we will use something similar to this:

• Third stage
  • 1x TR-18A Stack Decoupler
  • 1x FL-T800 Fuel Tank
  • 1x LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine
• Second stage
  • 1x TR-18A Stack Decoupler
  • 1x FL-R25 RCS Fuel Tank
  • 4x RV-105 RCS Thruster Block
  • 1x FL-T800 Fuel Tank
  • 1x LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine
• First stage
  • 4x TT-38K Radial Decoupler
  • 4x FL-T800 Fuel Tank
  • 4x Aerodynamic Nose Cone
  • 4x LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine

Flyby Setup (Fourth Stage)

It should have:

• 1x Magenotmeter Boom (if DMagic is used)
• 1x Space Telescope (if DMagic is used)
• 1x SCAN Radar (if ScanSAT is used)
• 1x SCAN Multispectral Sesnsor (if ScanSAT is used)
• 1x SCAN SAR (if ScanSAT is used)
• 1x Multi-Spectral Imaging Platform (if DMagic is used)
• 1x Probodobodyne HECS2 or RC-001S Remote Guidance Unit
• 1x Service Bay (1.25m) to store experiments (if using RC-001S Remote Guidance Unit)
• 4x RCS and Mono-propellant
• 4x Batteries
• 1x Communotron 88-88
• 1x Solar Array (a very big one)
• 1x Fuel Tank to reach the Asteroid
• 1x Liquid Fuel Engine

Impactor Setup (Payload)

• 1x Probodobodyne QBE
• 5x OX-STAT Photovoltaic Panels
• 1x FL-R25 RCS Fuel Tank
• 4x RV-105 RCS Thruster Block
• 1x Communotron 16
• 1x Batteries

As the impact of the probe will not generate dust who can be analyzed, like in the real world, by the flyby craft we need some more science instruments on the probe.

• 1x XRD Surface Analyzer (if DMagic is used)
• 1x Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (if DMagic is used)