Equestrian Aerospace

'Planetshine, Derpy, you ponies are up for the next space shuttle,' Gene said to them as he entered the astronaut complex, 'It's in 2 hours so you two should get going.'

Derpy didn't respond but Planetshine responded quite quickly, 'Alright, Gene, I'm putting on my orange suit, Derpy is still sleeping.'

Gene was a bit angry at Derpy from what Planetshine said, and ran into her room, shouting at her to wake her up. 'DERPY, WAKE UP, YOU ARE UP FOR A MISSION IN TWO HOURS, TWO HOURS!' he yelled at Derpy. Derpy woke up instantly and then asked Gene what was going on.

Gene had to explain the mission again to her, and then helped her put on her orange suit which she still had problems putting on. Planetshine then burst into the room without knocking, 'Gene, why is this a space shuttle mission again?'

'Because the shuttle itself is reusable and that it is much easier for us to do than an SSTO,' Gene answered.

Once Derpy finally put on her orange suit, Bon Bon also burst into the room and asked if she could go on the space shuttle mission too with Planetshine and Derpy. Gene, basically not thinking anything at all, said, 'There is one more seat, so why not.'

Bon Bon got extremely happy when she could fly in a space shuttle, something that has never ever been done before. 'Thank you, thank you so much!' she replied extremely happily.

Once all the ponies were done with the preparations, they were called to report to the launchpad. The three ponies this time got the luxury of a ride to the launchpad instead of trotting there because the space center was conducting research on rovers. The rover they rode was not particularly big, but it had enough space to hold all three ponies.

The rover wasn't very stable, and it looked like it would flip sometimes, but it didn't, at least for now. Once they were at the launchpad, Planetshine got off first, then Bon Bon and then Derpy. Derpy tripped when getting off and fell flat on her face, something that really hurt for her, but she was alright, only having a little bruise on her left cheek.

The ponies climbed the ladder that would get them onto the space shuttle, and then, they embarked on the space shuttle. Bon Bon had a few difficulties getting in her seat because she couldn't fly and that the shuttle was mounted vertically instead of horizontally, but she finally was able to get in after help from Planetshine.

Once they were finally in their seats, Bon Bon and Planetshine performed some checks to see if the shuttle's controls were all correct and functional, while Derpy was playing around in her seat, curiously looking at some switches that were mounted on the sides of her seat.

The shuttle was going to launch in 1 minute, and the ponies, finishing their checks, were waiting for their launch. It seemed like years for that 1 minute to pass, but soon, the engines of the shuttle and the SRBs were ignited. Planetshine throttled up the engines, and then the launch clamps unclamped the shuttle. This time, the shuttle contained a solar panel array, communication arm which also contained some habitation modules, and a docking arm.

The shuttle this time was lighter than the last time, which meant that it had a higher TWR, meaning that it would launch faster and get into orbit quicker, but it would only be a tiny bit faster. Once the clamps were all unclamped, Planetshine realised that the shuttle was not in the orientation that she liked it to be, so she turned it so that the gravity turn would make the shuttle be facing upside down.

The shuttle would be much more stable if it was facing upside down for the gravity turn, just like it would if it would be the right side up, but Planetshine thought it would be more fun to put it upside down. She initiated the gravity turn early, just like the last time she flew a space shuttle.

Once the SRBs were out of fuel, she quickly decoupled it, firing up the Sepratrons right before decoupling. When the SRBs were decoupled, she relaxed a while and made the shuttle's miniature computer point it in the prograde vector, gradually turning the shuttle until it was horizontal. When she was relaxing, she thought it would be a good time to eat some snacks, and took out some that she packed a few hours ago.

Once the apoapsis was at about the right height, Planetshine stopped the engines, and then let the shuttle coast along into space. Once she was near space, she set the other space shuttle cargo, the space station core, the target, and started to make a manoeuver to get there. The large fuel tank had enough delta-V to do a part of the burn, so she used it instead of wasting all the remaining fuel in it.

When the fuel tank's fuel was all gone, she decoupled it, sending it on a suborbital trajectory so that there were no orbital debris to be found. When she decoupled the fuel tank, she did the remaining 63m/s using the shuttle itself. The intersect with the previous shuttle's cargo, which was a space station core deployed by the exact same shuttle, was only about 30m apart, pretty good rendezvous.

Planetshine then let the shuttle coast along to its target, the space station core, which the ponies on board had to wait about 12 minutes for. Planetshine told the other two ponies that they could get out of their seats and go relax. Bon Bon got out some snacks and with Planetshine, ate together, talking about what they would be doing in their holiday when they finished this mission. Derpy, on the other hoof, was just lying on her chair, taking a nap.

After waiting that time, Bon Bon could see the space station core, and then Planetshine quickly fired up the engines of the shuttle to cancel out the 25m/s difference in speed. Once the difference in speed was at an absolute zero, Bon Bon told Derpy to wake up and then go on an EVA. Planetshine would stay in the shuttle taking a nap when the other ponies were assembling the space station with the shuttle's cargo.

Bon Bon opened up the cargo bay from outside while Derpy was playing around with her jetpack, having problems with coordination. The cargo bay this time was modified by a little bit from the last time, having smaller 1.25m wide Clamp-O-Trons instead of the senior versions, so that it could house all the cargo onboard, which had monopropellant tanks and RCS thrusters to top it all off.

Bon Bon then jetpacked over to Derpy and then helped her get back to the shuttle, ready to assemble the space shuttle. Bon Bon decoupled the solar arm from the cargo bay while Derpy decoupled the communications/habitation module. Derpy quickly docked her module while Bon Bon struggled a little bit. From Bon Bon's perspective, she thought that Derpy was born to do this.

She had a few hiccups here and there, but she finally finished with docking the solar arm to the core itself, while Derpy was trying to decouple the docking arm. She tried to decouple it, but she had a lot of difficulties in doing so, so Bon Bon helped her do it. Derpy then started to dock the docking arm to the space station core, quickly doing it in a very short amount of time, having a perfect alignment.

Now that the space station was all assembled, the ponies were ready to head back home. Bon Bon and Derpy went into the space shuttle, this time Bon Bon doing the airlock business instead of Derpy, who last time forgot to close the outside door before opening the airlock. 'Planetshine, Bon Bon called out, 'Done with the space station thing.'

'Done already? That was fast,' Planetshine replied, 'Oh well, now go back to your chairs and put on your seatbelts, time to go back home.'

The space shuttle was in a pretty optimal place to do a retrograde burn to get back to the space center, so Planetshine initiated the engines. Once they were done the engine burning, they coasted along space until they were below the Karman line, which Planetshine tilted the nose of the shuttle 40 degrees up.

When the shuttle entered the thicker parts was where the air resistance really kicked in, slowing down the shuttle immensely, so much that Planetshine was going to undershoot the space center. She then angled the space shuttle to the prograde direction to reduce drag and gain some speed, so that she could try to glide all the way to the space center.

She tried to pitch up the nose to glide a bit, but soon she realised that she didn't have enough speed to glide all the way back to the space center, so instead of gliding all the way, she activated the shuttle's turbofan engine. The turbofan engine proved to be an extremely useful utility, being able to correct any pilot error when landing.

Planetshine had to do some adjustments, as she wasn't perfectly aligned with the runway, but other than that, it was all good. She then landed it quite softly, deploying the drogue chute upon touchdown and turning on the brakes on the wheels.

Once the shuttle landed, they were greeted only with the other astronauts instead of everypony in the space center. Now that the mission was complete and the space station assembled, there was only one thing to do, and that was to have ponies live in the space station, performing research and studying outer space.