Equestrian Aerospace

Planetshine yelled at the other ponies, 'When are we going back home, I'm getting a bit moonsick.'

Bon Bon was also getting a bit moonsick, but Luna wasn't, she loved the moon as she was the princess of the moon. 'Me too,' Bon Bon replied, 'We should get going back home.'

'Ehh, I guess we should get going, I like this place, but if you guys want to go, then I think we should go,' Luna said.

'Great,' Planetshine replied to Luna, 'Firing engines in 3, 2, 1.'

The Terrier engine had more than enough TWR to get into a lunar orbit and get back home with about an extra 100m/s delta-V to spare, just in case there was an error with the calculations and they had to do extra burns to get back home. Planetshine thought that it was a little to overengineered, but she thought it was pretty reasonable because these things can happen, and it’s always better to be prepared to face any problems.

Once they lifted off, Planetshine decided that a low pas of the edge of a ledge would be a great way to scare off the other two ponies, especially Luna. Planetshine had to fine tune the low pass a lot of times, as one small error would make the low pass not low enough or it could crash into the Lunar surface, which would mean that the ponies would get stranded on the surface of the moon, which would be extremely disastrous.

Once the fine-tuning was all complete, Planetshine let the lander coast along. The other ponies didn't know about this extremely dangerous stunt and felt relaxed that they would get home, but Planetshine was double checking the trajectory so that nopony would get stranded on the moon.

The lander coasted along the space above the moon, the ponies waiting for the low pass. Bon Bon was the first pony to realise that the lander would go on a low pass, but to her, it was more like it would smash into the ledge. She started to panic, which grabbed Luna's attention. She also got worried and started panicking too.

'Planetshine, make the lander go up higher, we are going to smash into that ledge over there, Planetshine!' Luna yelled.

Planetshine instead of listening, she ignored even Luna shouting at her and her orders, which was something that nopony dared to do, except Planetshine. Luna and Bon Bon screamed at Planetshine and begged her to try to clear the ledge, but Planetshine ignored them and instead turned the lander radial out and pretended to do something.

Once the lander was right near the ledge, Planetshine turned the lander prograde to give more clearance, and the lander just missed the ledge, its scanners detecting that the lander was just a bit more than 1m away from the surface. Once that was complete, Planetshine said to the other ponies, which were extremely relieved that they didn't crash, 'Princess Luna, Bon Bon, did you like it?'

'That was amazing but scary though, Luna is still shivering from that. How did you pull that off?' Bon Bon replied.

'Oh, it's actually pretty simple, just calculate it, plus, it passed closer than I expected it to, just a bit more than 1m.'

'Nice, I can never pull that off ever in my whole life.'

The lander's apoapsis was about 30000m above the moon's surface which meant that they wouldn't be crashing into the surface anymore. Once it reached its apoapsis, Planetshine performed a good old circularisation burn. Once the circularisation burn was complete, all three ponies went on a spacewalk.

Planetshine was the first one to get out of the lander, Bon Bon next and Luna last. They then took a few selfies with the camera they had, and kept onto that photo, sending it to the astronaut complex as well. 'Let's get back into the lander which is in orbit and is not really a lander now that I think of it.'

Once the ponies entered the lander, Planetshine initiated the engines again, this time accelerating to lunar escape velocity so that they could get back home. The lander's TWR was pretty high compared to when it started, so the burn only took a short time.

The burn was finally completed, and all the ponies in the command pod were getting hungry, and there was a limited amount of food stored in the command pod, so they had to sort out rations for themselves, but going back home only would take about an hour so it wasn't really a problem. Planetshine was also given a ration, but after eating it, she started doing more recreational snacking with the snacks stored in a monopropellant tank.

Planetshine chowed down the snacks, but she did leave some leftovers for reentry and after landing. The ponies then took a quick 45-minute nap to pass the time instead of just talking to each other to pass the time. This time, Planetshine thought it would be a good idea to squish into the bottom level of the command pod, which was definitely not the best idea.

After the squishy 45 minute nap, the lander was going to enter the atmosphere of Equestria. Planetshine had to get to her place in the command pod, but she stumbled a bit when she wanted to get on her level, but she managed to do it just in time. The lander's reentry velocity was about 3km/s, which meant that the other parts of the lander had to be decoupled in order for the ponies to survive.

Planetshine quickly decoupled the lander stage, and all that was left was the command pod. Once the lander stage hit about 40000m into the atmosphere, it instantly disintegrated, while the command pod was fine, the heat shield glowing white hot, but it was nothing for the heat shield, not even using one-quarter of ablator.

Once the command pod reached about 5000m, Planetshine deployed the Mk16 XL parachute attached on top of the command pod. Then, the ponies in the command pod waited for touchdown. The touchdown place was a bit unusual, it was in Cloudsdale, which was made of pure clouds, and things like command pods shouldn't be able to land on clouds.

Planetshine was the first one to jump out of the command pod. She was greeted by a lot of ponies from Cloudsdale, which were very excited to see her come back. Luna was casting a spell for Bon Bon to be able to walk on clouds. The next pony that jumped out was Bon Bon. Some of the pegasi were thinking how in Equestria an earth pony was able to walk on clouds.

The last one that jumped out was Luna. The ponies in Cloudsdate bowed to her and were extremely excited to see her. The administration at Equestrian Aerospace decided to recover the command pod so that they could study the heat shield. The heat shield could be glowing white hot, but it only used about 1/4 of ablator and how it could resist so much heat is a mystery to be solved.

Data gained: 102
Data value: 3.4
Science earned:346.8