Short Part:
“We do not have enough delta-v with full tanks to enter Kerbin orbit,” Valentina shook her head as she ran the numbers.
“We could fly past the Mun to drag down a bit of speed,” Jebediah thought.
“Both Minmus and the Mun are at the wrong orientation for a gravity assist,” Valentina sighed.
“The solution is simpler than that,” Bob spoke up. “We can fill our tanks up every six hours thanks to ambient solar energy and being able to position our thermal panels mostly in the asteroid’s shadow.”
“Our orbit takes multiple days,” Valentina nodded in agreement. “We can make multiple burns.”
“Precisely,” Bob returned to his data gathering.
“OK,” Valentina mumbled as she worked through the orbital mechanics simulator. “A full burn on the way in, a day later a full burn at periapsis, finally a shorter burn on the way out for full gravity capture. That works!”*
* I don’t really even want to get into how much time I spent trying to figure out how to deorbit this asteroid when full tanks had so little delta-v available.
Previous Chapter: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1u5oq8k/icarus_program_start_of_chapter_37/
Start of Chapter 38: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1uugr7z/icarus_program_start_of_chapter_38/
Next Part: Planned for 8/2
Book 1 (Chapters 1-13) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RorA2AVwtXbQD-eTMeO2LiPXSDPM7qH6FVOykDnZ9FY/edit?usp=sharing
Book 2 (Chapters 14-23) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rhiIHBeXWqsw0H8TZgtxUdoJ1Y7IXhH3GtnL_qrTTmc/edit?usp=sharing
Book 3 (Chapters 24-35) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KcNSFL524vB4TgwY5oSOJ4kTAedf6sBVf_US8psbuIs/edit?usp=sharing
Book 4 (Chapters 36-) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nNJcsPYs_TAM4Gg9_zQuDmXosNgaBK3jbc7bdXvXvPU/edit?usp=sharing
The Icarus Program can also be found on the KSP forums: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/225730-the-icarus-program-chapter-38-part-61-short-part/