A Vision

With the Stellar Gateway complete and the entire Kerbolar System understood, Kerbelia beleived that travel beyond their home star was the next step for Kerbal Kind. Thus, a program was created by the Kerbelian Space Division to find possible contractors to carry out this mission. At first, Kerbal Mechanical Labs was out preforming NSP, as they already had a working prototype and working scientific intruments. However, NSP quickly drafted and produced their Neidon Venture, and Kerbal Mechanical Labs decided to incorperate their designs into it. Thus, the two once again won the contract, and plans for executing the mission were made. The mission, was to go interstellar and explore the nearby planet of Sera. This mission would require the use of "GravTech," and new technologies of control that was developed by Kerbal Mechanical Labs.

The Neidon Venture

The spacecraft used in Operation Sera Nevada was the Neidon Venture, and it primarily  takes the shape of a cylndrical shape with the top ended with a cone. It has two pairs of "Aero Guiders" that help stabalize the craft in an atmosphere. It is powered by a very advanced engine that is able to complete it's task very well, called the KA-75 "Falcon." Details regarding this engine are currently classified. Moving forward, it has Eight landing legs that are adaptable to all terrain, and a 5 meter wide - 5 meter long  - 15 meter tall payload bay, and has its avionics in the payload bay. This spacecraft is state of the art, and it exceeds capabilities of the Titan Sailor in many regions. However, the Titan Sailor is still able to carry larger payloads.

Interstellar Venture

When the launch window came, the Neidon Venture Vessel 1 launched off of Frost Gateway Pad 40 and made its way to orbit of Eeloo. Shortly after this, it continued its ascent to preform a Insterstellar injection maneuver using GravTech as a foundation. With this, the Neidon Venture made its way to the previously imaged Kcalbeloh system, specifically to the planet Sera. The process in which the craft made its way to Sera is currently classified, mainly to protect the factors of its unique process.

Complex Maneuvers

Now that the Neidon Venture was at the Sera System, it performed many conventional gravity assists to save on fuel to get into a Polar orbit of Sera. Once in this orbit, it performed science and scanned the surface of Sera for possible positions for outposts two were found, mainly near the North Pole where deposits of Water Ice existed, and near the equator next to some interestingly colored oceans. Scans indicate these oceans are made of literal crude oil, similar to Tekto. This has confused many scientists, as the atmosphere of Sera seemed to contradict this theory. Also, Sera has a similar appearance to Duna before it was terraformed, and it also has a system of rings that posses many rare materials, such as Gold, Diamonds, and Coal. Finally, the planet shares a similar size to Kerbin, with a surface gravity slightly weaker of Kerbin too. The Atmosphere of Sera seems to be half as thick of Kerbin's, and it ends at 50 kilometers, just like Duna. Perhaps the two share a lot in common.

Landing and Hopping

With orbital obersvations complete, Neidon Venture made its decent into Sera's atmosphere. At first, everything was going as planned, but then a heat tile ripped off of the Neidon Venture due to the craft going nearly 4 kilometers per second! That is fast. However, a redunant ablative heat sheild protected the craft from an inflight termination. As it decended down the atmosphere, it's speed dropped to 200 meters per second, which was its terminal velocity. The spacecraft slowly glided down and moved out of the way of mountains, then, the spacecraft performed its "Venture Flip," and came down in a nice flat spot. After performing Data and refueling via mining, it made its way to the equator from a region in the North Pole. At this region, more data was collected, and it was showed that Sera's atmosphere was mainly 95% Carbon Dioxide, with the last 5% being Nitrogen, Argon, and Carbon Monoxide. Furthermore, the average temperature is 60 degrees fahrenheit. This large number of Carbon Dioxide is huge, as this means that Sera could support life. This is also supported by the fact that the ground is rich in resources, and there is plenty of sun for photosynthesis. So, using the Ice caps for water, we could easily make oxygen abundant.

A Video of the Decsent can be found on the Offical Kerbin Wide Youtube Channel.

The Grand Return Home

Now that Sera was very well understood, the Neidon Venture refueled for the last time, and made its way to orbit of Sera and took many photos. The Neidon Venture performed the same maneuver it did to get to where it was, and it soon arrived back at the Kerbolar System. It then made its way back to the Saranus System, specifically Tekto. At 5 Kilometers per second, the Neidon Venture hit Tekto's thick atmosphere and quickly slowed down. Many scientists thought it wouldn't survive re-entry due to the tile that flew off, but there was still enough ablative material for the craft to return safely. So, it followed its regular decent path, and eventually landed back at Corosive Coridor, where the Data of the mission would be recovered and transported to research stations all across the Kerbolar System. This mission opened the door for further space travel, and propelled Kerbal Kind into a type 2 civilization.