TestLite? More like TestSpite, am I TestRite?

Having received more contracts regarding film and biological sample opportunities, I decided to take stock of our options. From the selection available, it was clear that continuing rocketry missions would be more profitable at the current time than continuing with the Y-1 project. As a result, I'm shelving the Y-1 for now and focusing on the many rocket contracts available until we have some breakthroughs in our technology. Which leads us to...

Routine Mission (1953-10-11): Sent up an SR-2c payload to complete another downrange filming contract. About half way through the mission the rocket experienced thrust loss, meaning that it was impossible to complete the mission objectives. The engine then cut out entirely at around 90% of the burn. Naturally, this is the first failed mission of the project, as the universe spites us for going off piste. I did manage to recover a little bit of film data, but all in all, this was a wasted four months of engineering.

Despite this failure, I decided it would be best to press ahead with the same mission again. There's always a reasonable risk of failure, especially with these early rockets, even after plenty of field testing. At this point we are around seven months away from any major technological breakthroughs anyway.

Routine Mission (1954-02-16): Sent up an SR-2c payload to complete the same downrange filming contract. The mission was completely successful and managed a comfortable 660km downrange! Lots of science, lots of funds. Good stuff.

From here it's time to start planning our next research. With the funds from this mission plowed in to R&D, I think we can get orbital rockets just towards the end of 1956 even without further investment. The projected cost to unlock these rockets is huge however (175k!) so I need to start thinking early about the optimal way to retain the funds required for building my first orbital rocket. I could start saving now, but I suspect I'll still be better off investing in my engineering facilities to get more launches out and potentially unlock higher paying contracts.

On that note, we have another bio contract to fulfil:

Routine Mission (1954-06-13): Sent up an SR-2c payload to complete a biological capsule contract. Simple, routine, success.


Although we're not in the thick of the space race yet, the race to be the first to start it is rapidly approaching and the margins are quite thin. A few bad decisions and we fall behind, a few good ones and we might be ahead of both the USA and the USSR!

Next Post: Confidence is high. I repeat, confidence is high.

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