The Kahlawian Reporter

Last week, at the annual I.E.S. Gran Gala, the usual conference reserved some surprise to the assembled affiliates and press members. Among the classic interventions showing the past year's feats (great marvel was moved by the underwater photos of Mohsen Vaziri, taken using his state-of-the-art respirator), a somewhat unusual orator took the stand. Doctor Farzad Kordestani, Ordinary of Experimental Engineering at the Imperial Kansuran University, presented the assembly with strange notions of orbital mechanics and of other celestial matters. If the hearers looked not much interested by his words, all changed when he started showing the ways of further investigating this: paintings depicting flaming rockets, giant space stations and kerbs in futuristic dress strolling in Munar bases, reminding of Jerb Karter's world, lighted the immagination of the assembly, at the point that Doctor Kordestani was cheered as an old time hero. Higly interested and puzzled by his words, we managed to secure a meeting with him at his office in Limtes.

"You see, what we are doing here is pretty much speculative" told us while we toured the place "but still, is great leap forward. What we are doing is simply putting together lots of different researches and works, and to build something real out of them." This syntesis work is actually producing something real. Doctor Kordestani brought us to an external stand, where what looked like a trumpet surrounded by iced ducts hanged from an half burnt stand. While we watched from a safe distance, it bursted into flames, showing us all his power for nearly half a minute. "This is our first working liquid fueled rocket engine, the TO-2. It's very far from being a practical contraption, and has far less power that what is needed for our objectives, but still we are very proud of it."

As the Doctor explained us, the project is founded by the Exploration Society because of the fondamental adventurous character it has: "We can be cold scientist all the time we want, but when it comes to actually travelling in the celestial spheres, nothing's better that the ardimentous spirit of the Society members. They will surely support us, and I've already received over two hundred requests to become the first space travellers."

We can say that we are the most interested by this news, and that we'll support Doctor Kordestani's vision in every possible way.

Yesterday afternoon, in front of a few government officials and press members, the Imperial Exploration Society opened new worlds to reach of kerbalkind. Dr. Kordestani and his team, after weeks of work, rolled out today the first Nayazh-I vehicle for the first all up test of the design. Powered by 4 TO-5 engines, and directed by an ingenious mechanical guidance system, the vehicle took off from Ejahz Army Proving Ground, roaring to the sky, followed closely by observers eyes and the base radar system.

The Nayazh-I at takeoff:

The vehicle carried the ABA-1, an instrumentation package designed to register atmospheric pressure, temperature and other scientifical data. After engine burnout, the rocket continued to ascend reaching the maximum height of it's trajectory at 113 km, 4.30 minutes after takeoff. Here, the onboard camera took a photo, and transmitted it back on the ground via SSTV signal.

The first image ever from space:

After this pont, the rocket started his descent, reentering the atmosphere and impacting in the Sea of Veiid. Doctor Kordestani expressed his complete satisfaction for the performances of the rocket, and stated that, although plagued by some minor problem, the flight has been a totally unforeseen success, better than any expectation. A new launch is expected next week, to hopefully reach new unsetted records.

Segerline would like to congratulate all Kahlwhite and Segerlinen scientists and factory workers for our great achievement!

As preannunced last week, the I.E.S. team blasted another rocket into space, this time with a far more ambitious project in mind. The Nayazh-I used for this launch is virtually identical to the one we described last time, apart for the addition of a few solid fuel rockets on its top, in fact overgrown fireworks. Those rockets were needed to propel the instrumentation package housed under the fairings, officially known as ABA-2, but christened Masafr (Traveler) by the engineer team.

A photo of the vehicle during assembly:

After an upward flight identical to the one of ABA-1, the vehicle tilted to be parallel to the horizon, and at apoapsis the payload separated and fired its rockets in two stages. This accelerated the Masafr enough to put it in an orbit around the planet. The satellite now is in a 74x2191 km elliptical trajectory, that will assure its almost indefinite permanence in space. The instrumentation aboard are battery powered and power will be soon drained out, but in addition to the useful data gained by them, the optical tracking of the object will gave us important information about atmospheric drag in near space.

This time the launch attired a quite large crowd, that gathered outside the gates of the Ejahz base to watch the lift off. Surely interest in the matter is rising steadily in the country.

Once again our cooperation has lead us far. Soon, no object will be out of Kerbal kinds grasp. You will get a message soon by our scientist for ideas for our next step in space.

It's a news of few hours that the IKAF sent not one, but two kerbs in space, during a secret technology development project. The newly released informations and images show a winged vehicle, named Pāšnh Pā (Talon), clearly designed for extremely high speeds, propelled by a solid fuel engine. The plane is air launched by a modified T-15 cargo plane of the 3rd Strategic Airlift Squadron.
As stated by the military, the project is a collaboration with the Segerlinen government, that agreed to share knowledge about high speed aerodinamics.

The Pāšnh Pā detatching from the mothership during the test flight:

During the first test flight, the plane shattered the world speed record, reaching over mach 4.5 at 35000 meters altitude. The subsequent two flights were launched with a steeper angle, and reached 78 and 82 km apoapsis. The two pilots, Col. Asghar Anvari (IKAF) and Mjr. Heinrich Bardeman (SLR), are the first space travelers of kerbkind history.

A photo taken by Col. Anvari:

It's not clear who is the first of the two to have flown, since the IKAF didn't disclosed that information, but the two kerbs are both being received as heroes by the people. Unconfirmed news says that Col. Anvari will receive the Kahlaw Star directly from the Shahanshah.

Col. Anvari after his historical flight:

Sadly, the astronaut had a accident happen on his way home from the celebrations. A funeral will be held in the comming days.

The Shahanshah's Scientific Counselors Office opened yesterday an inquiry board, to evaluate the current progress of Kahlawian space exploration and development efforts.

The official motivation behind this act is still undisclosed, and our reporters have yet to find some clue on it. Doctor Kordestani, when called at his university office, has been found to be absent, and the IKAF refuses every comment on the question. Obviously, the board members themselves are completely unreachable.

We are the most puzzled by these events, and we'll report to you avery information we'll came across.

The Imperial Inquiring Commission presented yesterday in a press conference its report. We report it as is.

"This Commission has assembled to deliberate on the actual progress of the Kahlawian space exploration. We took into consideration all the evidences and the opinions of several experts, in addition to the advice of the Shahanshah.

"The facts are the following: the IKAF went well over their competences, turning an high speed plane research project into a space plane. Although succesful, it was a riskful action, with doubtful results, apart from prestige gains. We strongly believe that this was a move planned by IKAF to gain political support, to have all future space development contracts to them. The commission higly condemns it, and considers the IKAF unable to direct a national space program on its own.

"On the other hand, the I.E.S. team led by Doctor Kordestani performed superbly, and had excellent results. Nevertheless, Kahlawian developments in such a critical field can't be left in the hands of a group of dreamers following childhood fantasies.

"Considering those facts, we decided to give the Imperial Scientific Institute the full control over all space related issues, through a newly formed department, the Space Exploration and Aerospace Development Department. All launch facilities, orbiting assets and vehicles ongoing construction are now under their control, as are all development programs in the Empire."

After the amministrative problems of the last weeks, the Kahlawian space program returned to its usual launch routine. The two launches, a day apart from each other, used the new Nayazh-II booster, that sports a new upper stage. This is powered by 4 TO-6 vacuum engines, tested aboard Masafr-2.

Nayazh-II booster:

The TO-6, although capable to be fired in space, still lacks the capability to restart multiple times, capability that is needed to put a payload in a circular orbit. To counter this problem, the Nayazh-II fires the engines in two groups, two engines each. If more trust is needed, the engines would be fired all the same time.
The payloads delivered by the launches are the first two Rasūl satellites, intended to be part of a satellite communication network, using technologies tested again aboard Masafr-2.

Artist depiction of Rasūl sat separating from the upper stage:

Although tecnically still a I.E.S. started project, this launches are considered the first achievement of the newly founded S.E.A.D.D.

Last night, while on our way to the press party to celebrate the Imperial Jubilee, we were witnesses of a curious and preoccupating event. After hearing shouting in the street, we stopped to see a kerb in unusual dress, visibly alterated and in poor conditions, holding a cartel reading "THE END IS NIGH" in poorly handwritten letters. As soon as he saw us he put some sense in his words, and started telling us (or better, yelling in our faces at the top of his lungs) about the so called "Admins".

According to him, he was from Heimsinsufund, and that he knew all. He spoke about a group of kerbs in white with strange tools that had inactivated and changed the people, and resetted the time to the 214.0, acting in name of "Charzy". He escaped them by a miracle, and warned us that we are all in peril, since this people can craft the world at their will, cancelling nation from the existance and changing people's mind.

After starting to hear this words, we called the attention of a policeman, that promptly called an ambulance. The kerb has been taken into custody by the medics, and has been brought to a place where he would be cured. While being transported away, he continued to shout about the Kretian civil war, and to beware Agria and his nonsensical interventionism.

S.E.A.D.D. announced today a new exploration effort for the agency, the Māh Program. The goal of this project is to expand our knowledge of the Mun, and to drive the development of new space hardware and techniques.

The first mission of the program, the Māh-1, has been a complete success. The probe, using the increased thrust from the simultaneous firing of the four engines of the Nayazh-II upper stage, was injected directlty into munar impact trajectory.

Artist impression of the probe flying towards thr mun:

The probe carried an array of sensors, including magnetometers and radiation measuring devices, plus a newly designed camera and a brand new radio transmission system. While the data received areof great scientific significance, the images sent back will be of great help in determinating the exact layout of Munar surface.

A sequence of some of the images:

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The S.E.A.D.D. announced that the Māh program will continue with at least another impactor mission, two orbiters and finally three soft landings in different locations.

The space program had highly mixed results at Ejahz this week: the test launch of the first Karman rocket, assembled with the two lower stages and a battleship upper stage, ended in failure, with the midair explosion of the rocket. The problem has been tracked down to a faulty electrical connection in the stage separation mechanism: due to his failure, the second stage ignited while still connected to the lower one, causing the rocket to veer off course, and forcing the termination of the flight.

The karman-TV moments before the explosion:

This incident delayed the launch of the second Karman, while engineers worked around the clock to track down the cause of the malfunction. After correcting the issue in the booster, the Māh-2 mission was greenlighted again.

Māh-2 on the launchpad:

After a flawless ascent, the the upper stage put the probe in munar interception orbit. While the G-2 engine is capable of restarting, for this flight was decided to fly it underpowered and making it perform a single burn. Performance were satisfactory, according to the S.E.A.D.D. press office. The probe braked itself in munar orbit, reaching a nearly polar orbit, at a mean altitude of 55 km from the surface. The instrumentation will imagine the Mun, finding sites worth of further exploration.

The Alizadeh velley, a hundred kilometer long feature on the dark side:

Letter to the press and key persons of many nations (forwarded to the Reporter):

The Empire of the Red Sun and many, many of the Citizens of the Empire are amazed at the feats of your space program. Space exploration is truly marvelous and to send an object of Kerbin so far is simply amazing!

The Red Sun salutes the people of your nation on these excellent achievements. Your officials and explorers are welcome to visit the Imperial Palaces in an exclusive audience at their convenience. The Emperor has decreed no luxury of the Empire will be spared for your stay.

With great admiration and blessings of the Sun,
Imperator Kinta Solton

In the first hour of the past day, Māh-3, the third Mun-bound Kahlawian probe, touched the surface regolith after a 6 minutes powered descent.
Apart from the undoubted feat of placing an object on another body, S.E.A.D.D. highlighted the scientifical and technical breakthroughs of this mission: During the almost vertical descent, the probe shooted some a hundred images with its three onboard cameras, composing an incredible high definition mosaic of the area of the low lying basin on the Munar near face. The images are currently being transmitted, and are expected to be fully received in 4 days. These images will help determining the exact topography of the area.

The first image received, taken during descent:

While on surface, the craft run some experiments on the regolith, using an extendable arm. Using it, it was possible to test the exact consistency of the gound, and to look at how it rected under stress. All this data will be of pivotal importance in future missions.

An image of the extendable arm:

According to S.E.A.D.D., the next missions will investigate the highlands in the northern latitudes, with a new impactor and a new lander to follow shortly.

Kahlawian football fans will surely be among the most fervid supporters of the S.E.A.D.D. after this launch. The Rasūl-5, orbiting Kerbin at 2868 km, will permit 24 hours signal coverage of radio, tv, and telephone signals over the whole emisphere. This certainly represents a great improvement over the Rasūl-A sats, since now, every kerb could sipmly point his antenna at a fixed point in space, and receive images from the overseas.

The Kahlawian government is installing several receiving equipments all over the nation to allow Kahlawians to watch live the Kerbin Cup half-finals.

Artist impression of the satellite:

After the IKAF suborbital flights, manned spaceflight has stopped in Kahlawia, or at least has stopped until now. Today, at a press conference in Kahiv, S.E.A.D.D. presented the new program that the agency will follow after the end of the Māh Program. The capsule, now publicly unveiled, has already undergone a series of abort and parachute landing tests, and has even flow into space unmanned, orbiting Kerbin once before succesfully reentering. The program is a collaboration with the National Oxuytharian Research Centers.

In an historical mission, the Māh-5 unlocked another series of space secrets for kerbality. The probe, launched atop a now throughtly tested Karman booster, landed some 600 meters away from Māh-3, and after 4 hours spent drilling and recoering a sample, launched back to Kerbin a return capsule, that succesfully landed in northern Kahlawia.

The transfer stage separating from the probe after orbital braking:

An image from the surface, showing the drilling equipment:

The return capsule during liftoff. The landing stage can also be seen:

In addition to this, the booster delivered to orbit two Oxuytharian test vehicles, designed to test rection control systems in an in space mission. The test were completely succesfull, and the two craft manouvered for 10 hours, before the batteries ended their charge.

The launch arrangement:

As Māh Program is stepped down from S.E.A.D.D. priorities, the light of a new Dawn shines over all kerbality: Major Zeynab Adineh, IKAF, become the first kerb to completely circle our planet aboard Valfajr-2, built with Oxuytharian help. Major Adineh was selected from a pool of canditates from both military personnel and the scientifical community to be the second Kahlawian in space.

Major Adineh before boarding the capsule:

The rocket at liftoff:

The capsule ascended without a problem on the well tested Karman booster, and reached a 79x93 km orbit. Ground control kept radio contact with Valfajr-2 all the time, thanks to the Rasūl relay sats. After half an orbit, the capsule manovered and engaged retrofire rockets, to slow down and reenter atmosphere. The reentry was a little off course, with Major Adineh landing some 60 km from the projected touchdown point, but he's found to be in perfect shape.

Major Adineh after being found by the recovery squads:

The Valfajr-2 capsule, identical to the other two crafts, lifted off from Ejahz carrying the 7th kerb to enter space, and making Oxuytar the fourth nation to have sent a citizen in a space mission. The mission tested the limits of the body resistance in orbit, and showed that long permanences in space are possible, while mantaining the capacity to operate and to work in microgravity.

Now the Dawn Program will focus on space presence and LKO exploration, with a redesigned capsule and other additional hardware.

While waiting for the phase 2 of Dawn Program to commence under the umbrella of the newly formed ASDI, the S.E.A.D.D. decided to continue with its tradition of scientifical breakthrough.

The Karman-L is built from Karman's stages two and four, already tested, and permits to bring to orbit lighter payloads without having to use a full Karman. It also represent an increase in payload capability on Najahz-II, the previous light duty launcher. It's probable that this on will be phased out soon, and replaced by the new design.

The payload for the mission, put in polar orbit, was a proof of concept navigational sat. Although the system's launch is not planned in the next cycles, R&D used this occasion to test the onboard equipment in space. Sadly, this failed to turn on, probably because of a short circuit. The craft, circling in a 70x128 km orbit, was then deorbited using the onboard maneuvering fuel, as was already planned after the system tests.

The rocket ready for liftoff:

Valfajr-4 mission will be surely remembered by many for the wonderful space daredevil stunts of Col. Rubin Mark, of the Oxuytaran Air Force. After a standard launch, he started routine tests of the orbital Manouvering system of the craft, and slowly drifted away from the spent upper stage, using this time to acclimate himself to the microgravity ambient.

Artist impression of the capsule:

After an hour spent in space, he started orbital maneuvers, under ground control direction, to meet again with the Karman upper stage. After a succesful rendezvous, he was to start station keeping with the object. But, confident in the craft and his capabilities, he started dancing around the object, all of this while live on tv. Altough he's been reprised for this act, we are sure that ASDI's PR office will largely justificate him.

The images of the upper stage, taken from a camera inside the cockpit:

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While the world was watching those efforts, S.E.A.D.D. announced the success of the Shlāġ plane first test run. The vehicle, powered by a new generation jet engine, showed exceptional speed and altitude capabilities, reaching mach 2 in level flight at 15000 meters. Col. Asghar Anvari, former test pilot in the Pāšnh Pā program, praised the handling capabilities of the craft in supersonic flight.

S.E.A.D.D. is confident that those performance are vastly improvable, and has planned a new series of tests to stress the limits of the craft.

The Shlāġ on the runway:

An image taken from the cockpit:

In yet another success of international cooperation, ASDI kerbonauts managed in what was a necessary step to procede with space exploration efforts. The two Dawn capsules, launched 98 minutes apart each, met and docked while orbiting at over 2 km/s, overflying the Deassic Sea.
The two pilots were Mjr. Parviz Shahbazi, of the IKAF, and Centurion Dolgron, Sun Legion Engineering Corps, the first RSE citizen to fight into space. Dolgron went up first with Valfajr-5, and waited for Mjr. Shahbazi, while enjoing the view. Then he manevered over the course of three obits, approaching  Valfajr-6 at a range of 200 meters. There Shahbazi, still fresh, performed the delicate final approach, mating the two docking collars and joining the two craft.

Valfajr-6, imaged by Dolgron:

Artist rendition of the two craft docked in orbit:

The two pilots then rested for another 6 orbits, while Mjr. Shahbazi prepared for the next step of the mission. He depressurized the capsule, and opened the hatch, looking directly into space as no one ever did before. While peaking out of the hatch with his head and chest, still firmly secured to the seat, he took some photos of the surrounding space and of the mated crafts. This brief visit of a kerb to the extern of a capsule is just the first step towards a new, somehow strange and exciting space exploration tecnique: spacewalking.

"Together Above":

Those achievement will surely result pivotal in all future space efforts: the demonstration that two spacecrafts can be firmly manevered and docked in orbit will open whole new possibilities for the future of space exploration. Now the IKSS, and the permanent kerbal presence in space is a step closer.

After the recent exploits in spaceflight, the Dawn program is willing to focus on kerbal's reactions to the prolonger permanence in microgravity. To start this study, the FK-1 orbital habitat has been launched. It will me the home of Mjr. Mehdi Shakibaee, that reached it aboard Valfajr-6; he'll orbit Kerbin for a whole week, setting an endurance record. In addition to collect medical data, he'll perform experiments and planetary observations, testing out equipment to be used in planetary exploration missions.

The FK-1 and the Valfajr-6:

Bahrām-1, after a 106 days flight from Kerbin, flownby the Red Planet and its moon returning incredible images. The flyby happened at an incredible close range, 127 km from Ike's surface and 165 from Duna's. This enabled the onboard cameras to catch highly detailed glimpses of the southern emispheres of the two bodies.

Ike, the biggest natural satellite of kerbolar system in rapport to its parent body, resembles closely our Mun, sporting what seems to be darker low liyng lava flooded regions and a large number of craters. Also, the south pole shows an interesting feature, a pointy mountain, almost white in appearence.

Ike from afar. visible is the quajar sea, in the upper left, and the south pole feature:

The proper Duna flyby imaged some half of the southern emisphere, showing the increbly extended ice cover and some impact feature. From the images, the atmosphere has been estimated being only a fraction of Kerbin's, and mainly composed by carbon dioxide. If life exists on Duna, is not in a form we expected.

A view of the red planet:

Flyby images:

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Dunian sunset, used also to abtain spectrographic analysis:

The atmospheric entry probe, deflected by Ike's encounter, entered the atmosphere at much steeper angle that planned, and burned up at around 7000 meters. It returned two heavily corrupted images, though.

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