New Kerb-Shuttle "Endurance" maiden mission claims the lives of seven Kerbonauts

Year 16, Day 102

Unfortunately, the maiden voyage of the newly built Kerb-Shuttle Endurance has failed and gone horribly wrong; it claimed the lives of seven Kerbonauts.
On Day 100 of this year, the Endurance Kerb-Shuttle was launched for the first time on its maiden voyage, mission KS-13. The mission itself was meant as just a science mission, mostly just studying zero-g and its effects on a bunch of different stuff. That part of the mission itself actually went well and we gained a lot of valuable scientific knowledge from it, but, the reentry of the shuttle was... not very good, to say the least.

The crew of KS-13 was as follows:
  • Mission Commander Rick Kerman
  • Pilot William Kerman
  • Mission Specialist Michael Kerman
  • Mission Specialist David M. Kerman
  • Mission Specialist Kalpana Kerman
  • Mission Specialist Laurel Kerman
  • Payload Specialist Ilan Kerman
Upon the launch of the shuttle on KS-13, camera operators noticed that a piece of what seemed to be insulation seemingly broke off from the EFT (External Fuel Tank) of Endurance and as it was falling down, it struck the left wing with force. Mission operators and the KSA said:
"Don't worry everyone, we did the calculations and, well, to say the least, it checks out; nothing bad is going to happen during the mission or upon reentry of the Endurance shuttle. The crew is safe. We've talked to them about this over comms."

The crew and everyone else trusted the KSA's assessment, because it's the KSA, and many Kerbals trust the KSA to be right most of the time.

However, it was thereby proven, due to the events of what happened during the shuttle's reentry, that the KSA's calculations, if they even did any at all, the calculations clearly missed some critical factors.

We will now go over the unfortunate events that happened during Endurance's reentry, because we think everyone deserves a clear answer.

TRIGGER WARNING: This next part is EXTREMELY detailed and tells the destruction of the shuttle as it reentered the atmosphere. Please, if you are squeamish about this kind of stuff, stop reading.

Upon the start of reentry, everything seemed okay. About 30 seconds or so into reentry, the shuttle began vibrating excessively. Now, the shuttle usually vibrates during reentry anyway, but this was exceedingly strong, past critical levels. The crew couldn't communicate with the KSC because of the heated plasma surrounding their spacecraft. All the crew could do was pray they'd live. Unfortunately, this was not the outcome they received.

About 1 minute into reentry, the cargo doors of the shuttle tore off as well as both orbital manuevering engines. Another 30 seconds after that, the left wing tore off, and seconds later, the orbiter capsule where the Kerbonauts were followed suit. The Kerbonauts were dead by this point. The remains of the shuttle spread across a wide area but fell both on land and in the Southern Ocean. Just hours later, Kerbals found pieces of debris from the shuttle strewn across land and even some washed up parts on beaches. The entirety of the shuttle has yet to be found.
This whole situation is extremely unfortunate, for both the KSA and space exploration in general. The KSA has halted shuttle operations until further notice.







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