While Equestrian Aerospace was planning out a lunar landing mission, the Equestrian Astronomical Society discovered a new moon of Equestria. It was named Minmus because of its small size. It looked like a minty ball that had darker patches that seemed to be flat but the overall geography of Minmus was mountainous, with plateaus and a lot of slopes. It was also located a lot further away from Equestria than the moon, but it looked better to visit.

Once Equestrian Aerospace heard news about Minmus, they quickly canceled their lunar landing mission in favour of Minmus. They thought that it would be much interesting than the moon, with its minty surface and extremely low gravity.

At the administration building, Wernher von Braun held a meeting with Gus Kerman, Gene Kerman, and Planetshine. Wernher said, ‘Planetshine, are you up for this mission? We know you are the best pilot of all but are you up for it? Dr. Whooves volunteered, so I presume you would be up for this mission.’

Planetshine replied, ‘Yes, I am up for this mission.’

Wernher replied, ‘Ok. Gus, do you think that the rocket that has been planned get to Minmus and back?’

Gus said. ‘I’m sure, you know me, every operation I do turns out fine.’

Wernher replied to Gus, ‘Ok, you two ponies can go, I will be talking to Gene about much more important things.

The two ponies trotted out the administration building. Plantshine went to the astronaut complex while Gus went to the VAB.

Planetshine met up with Dr. Whooves in the astronaut complex. 'Dr. Whooves, are you excited for this? Well, I think you are definitely excited.'

Dr. Whooves replied, ' It's just a moon that looks like a huge mint ball. Anyways, I am obviously excited for this, I mean, how am I not excited, its a newly discovered planet, nopony knew about it until now.

'Great!' Planetshine said excitedly, 'I'll prepare snacks for the mission and I'll check its database in the tracking station.'

While Planetshine prepared snacks for the mission, Gus was instructing every pony in the VAB to start constructing the Minmus lander.

The Minmus lander was a lander like nothing else. It was designed to be able to be rendezvous with a refueller which was put into Minmus orbit. The refueller was build to be the transfer stage to Minmus and be able to refuel the lander once and be able to get back to Equestria. The lander would be able to do a direct ascent back home instead of docking and using the refueller to get back home.

'Lyra!' Planetshine shouted across the astronaut complex, 'Get the backup snacks, I don't think there are enough snacks for me and Dr. Whooves for a Minmus mission.'

Lyra responded, 'Ok, but don't eat too many snacks, they are unhealthy for you. I'll make you some homemade food tonight, like dandelion sandwiches, carrots and a bunch of hay.'

'Thanks Lyra,' Planetshine replied. 'One other thing, where's Bon Bon?'

'Bon Bon's going to join us when she completes astronaut training, which according to my memory, should be in 3 days. Why do you ask?' Lyra said.

'Just curious.' Planetshine replied.

The rocket finished construction the next day. Planetshine and Dr. Whooves climbed into two separate command pods. Dr. Whooves was in the lander while Planetshine was in the refueller. Then, the rocket was transported outside the VAB. It was a rocket that was larger than any rocket Equestrian Aerospace has ever built.

It had 4 side boosters using the LV-TX87 'Bobcat' engine with a Mainsail engine as the main booster. The Mainsail engine was a beast of its own kind. It was effective at all altitudes and to top it off, it had a staggering 1500kN of thrust. The rocket also had a trick up its sleeve with the staging. It used a type of staging called onion staging, which the side boosters would feed fuel into the main booster which meant when the side boosters decoupled, the main booster would be full of fuel instead of being half empty.

At mission control, Gene started the countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and liftoff!

The rocket accelerated very quickly, reaching a supersonic speed 10 seconds after liftoff. Planetshine was ok with the acceleration, but for Dr. Whooves, it was another story. Dr. Whooves was sitting upside down, which meant he had to hang on to his seatbelt, which was very uncomfortable for him.

Dr. Whooves asked Planetshine, 'Why am I in the more uncomfortable seat?'

Planetshine responded, 'What about me, I don't get the chance to set hooves on Minmus.'

'True,' Dr. Whooves replied.

Right after the conversation, Planetshine initiated a gravity turn. The gravity turn was not very aggressive, though it felt like the rocket did an extremely aggressive gravity turn. When it reached about 10000m above sea level, Planetshine got more aggressive with the gravity turn, tilting to a 45-degree angle and when the rocket reached 30000m, she decoupled the side boosters and tilted the rocket nearly facing horizontally. The side boosters flawlessly decoupled and she burnt with the main booster and the main booster kept on going.

The main booster then shut off after the rocket's apoapsis reached above the Karman line or 70000m above sea level, and Planetshine left it to coast it's way into space. 'Dr. Whooves,' Planetshine said, 'Do you want some snacks. I have a ton of snacks I snuck in before boarding when nopony was looking.'

'Sure, that would be nice. Anyways, Lyra told me that she prepared food for us to eat during the mission.' Dr. Whooves replied.

Planetshine opened her snack packet and handed one to Dr. Whooves via a docking port which also doubled as an airlock or passageway along the two command pods. She then realised that she forgot to deploy the fairings of the rocket so she deployed them. The fairings deployed in a clamshell way. It wasn't like one of the fairing tests she saw, which had them deployed like confetti.

Once they were at apoapsis, Planetshine throttled up the engine to get them into a circular orbit around Equestria. The burn took a short while to do and then she realised something. She had way too much fuel left than intended. She contacted Gene and asked him, 'Uhh, Gene, is it ok if I use the Mainsail engines as the transfer stage, There is still a lot of fuel in this stage.'

Gene quickly replied, 'Well, according to our readings on the fuel level, there should be enough delta-V to get to Minmus, but I am not too sure about that. Anyways, you would have hard times trying to manoeuver it, the reaction wheels in your command pods would have pretty much no effect on the whole rocket. But I think you should burn using the Mainsail stage.'

Author's Note

Well, that's part of the Minmus mission. What happened during the flight was what actually happened to me during my first Minmus mission.
Also if you want, you can give me some feedback on this story.