We are ready to again go to the Moon, and do the other things.
Through hard lessons we have we learned how to get to the Moon. Since we have practiced extensively on Earth I am more optimistic about the landing, too.
With a bit of luck we may even make it back, although that is new ground.
We have liftoff.
Kapollo leaves Earth, only 300.000 km to go.
Separation of the first stage.
A final burn that will bring us into Earth orbit.
One of the nicer orbits.
Mission time 1:35
After one Earth orbit and the trans lunar burn, we are on a elliptical orbit to the Moon.
As we are getting into the gravitational field of the Moon, it turns out that the course was accurate enough.
After another braking maneuvre. We are now in Lunar Orbit!
Circling the Moon.
Still circling in lunar orbit, looking for the right time to slow down, and a good landing site.
We slow down and will see where we hit the surface.
This should do. We are now on a descent arc to the lunar surface. The terrain at the landing spot could be a bit rough.
Theoretically we could have tried to land in one of the big craters (darker). Tempting, but this shalll be reserved for our later, scientific missions.
Slowing down at a constant rate of ~65 m/s
Terrain looks ok, at least from up here.
3.000m
Separation of the second stage. It did well, and saved us a lot of fuel for the landing maneuvre.
Stage comes down below us. With our luck we will probably land directly on top of it ..
Terrain still looking good from up here.
The final moments.
The descent engine behaves much better this time, as our scientists have predicted.
In the smaller lunar gravity we can control our descent rate nicely, between 0 and 5 m/s.
And in the final moments of the lunar landing this is crucial.
Cutoff the engine and .. touchdown!
It was so smooth that I hardly noticed a thing.
The ship had hardly any lateral movement, just settled on the ground like a feather.
Also note that we touched down at 275m, not on 0.
A ground radar would have been nice. This could have been one of the reasons for the previous failures.
9:31.56
First successful landing on the Moon.
Turns out that we alighted on a slope and the ship is slowly skidding down.
All the time I was afraid that it would tip over, but it was never critcal, and after ~50m it finally came to a rest
First scientific result: The Moon is grey and boring!
This is our landing spot. It should be nicely situated for the flight back to Earth.
Mission time 9:40. Go for the ascent from the Moon.
Liftoff!!
We directly aim at the Earth and are now on a direct course home. We will not attempt orbits or anything, just brake with our remaining fuel, hit the athmosphere and let it slow us down, then make a splash down somewhere.
One last look back.
Our "collision" course with the home planet.
As the ship enters the athmosphere like a cannonball it becomes clear that I miscalculated the reentry.
We are still going at 2.600 m/s and because of the low thrust of the engine, it will take a long time time to slow down. While we still have enough fuel we began the brake meneuvre much too late. At this speed there it will not be enough time to slow down completely!!
23.000m and only seconds before we hit the ground. The only chance is to jettision everything, and see if the retro pack and the chute can slow us down. I think we may lose the crew, but decide to give it a try.
The retro pack fired and the chute is out, but will it open?
the reentry has slowed us down, we might make it. C'mon.
The parachute opens. We made it!!
The reentry was critical, but we were lucky this time.
Slowly coming down.
We are slowly gliding down on the parachute. I don't think anything can go wrong now.
Splashdown in the ocean!!
The helicopters will pick us up in a few minutes.
Mission statistics. We hit 22G during rentry!!
Mission success!!
While this mission was extremely hazardous and daring, we achieved all important milestones. We landed on the Moon and returned safely to Earth.