KS-10 mission launches "space tether" into Low Kerbin Orbit

Year 16, Day 77

The KS-10 mission just completed and it was probably one of the KSA's strangest experiments in space of all time.

The experiment, officially dubbed ITSE (Ionosphere Tether Space Experiment), was meant to actually measure changes in the ionosphere of Kerbin, a layer of the atmosphere that is electrically charged for some reason. It's very high up and there's virtually no air up there, so a probe can orbit for some time before it falls down and burns up in the more dense atmosphere.

As for the probe itself, it's basically an extremely long conductive cable held in place by an enormous winch. It basically conducts electricity from all the charged particles in the ionosphere, and detects changes in the electrical flow and raw power. Basically a glorified strip of aluminum foil in orbit.

The launch of the shuttle itself was spectacular! No issues at all, same for the splashdown. That's right, this mission had to splash down in the ocean because of a small precision error, and thus, it didn't have enough glide power to glide to any piece of land or the KSC. Here is the footage:

And now, here's how the in-space part of the mission went.

When the tether finally unspooled to full length, everything looked normal. The readings were calm, steady, almost boring. Naturally, that lasted about five minutes.

The current running through the tether suddenly jumped way past the expected range. The whole line started twitching around wildly, and the orbiter got yanked a few meters off its hold point. The crew (Jeb, Bill, Bob, Valentina) reported a faint glow along the tether which, while very pretty, was definitely not on the checklist.

Before Mission Control could decide whether to panic or pretend everything was fine, the tether overloaded and snapped. No bang, no drama, just a clean break and a tiny little probe drifting away with that piece of tinfoil still strapped to it. It reentered not long after, turned into plasma, and that was that.

The Kerb-Shuttle Explorer itself made it home without a scratch, and ITSE still gave us a mountain of potentially exciting data. The science team is thrilled. The engineering team is still pretending they meant for that to happen.