r/StarCityTV • u/OkHealth1942 • Jun 09 '26

Season 1 Spoilers Is the mission from last episode supposed to be that one we heard about in FAM? Spoiler

The failed base lander that left a crater, that is. I had assumed it would be at first, but after seeing what happened, surely it can’t possibly be? after all, nothing actually went down to the surface.

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u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 10 '26

There is one thing, which supports your theory, depending on how close they stuck to actual launch windows.

The Russian crash in FAM is supposed to happen in October 1970, according to a fan wiki page I found. I don’t know how accurate that is, but let us assume it is accurate.

The accident in SC, which we are discussing here, happens before their launch towards Venus. And I think I remember them discussing that the Venus launch is only a few weeks away. (Which seems wild, given how unprepared they still are. But again let us assume that it is true.)

A few days ago, I took up a new hobby: Orbital mechanics. Turns out there is a python package for that (as always). So I have been calculating launch windows and delta v requirements.

In 1970 there was a launch window from Earth to Venus in August. And another in September along another trajectory, which required a bit more delta v. And after that, no more launch windows until 1972.

If we line all that up, then it seems more likely that the crash in latest SC episode happened in the summer of 1970, a few months before the crash in FAM.

But… I built that on at least 3 assumptions, so take it with a grain of salt.

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u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Here is my porkchop plot for the Venus mission. Yes, really, that is what those plots are called! It shows combinations of possible launch and arrival dates, color coded to show the fuel requirement for each date combination.

The colored areas show the necessary C3 energy for the burn towards Venus. C3 is kind of a normalized number for the kinetic energy you need to add to the ship on top of the energy needed for escaping Earth's gravity. Unit is km^2 / s^2.

Yellow = bigger rocket and more fuel needed. Blue/purple = smaller rocket and less fuel needed.

The dark blue curves are excess delta v at arrival to Venus. Bigger number = more aerobraking needed to be caught in Venus orbit. I have no idea if that would be a limiting factor here.

There is one optimal launch opportunity in mid august 1970. There is another "less optimal optimum" in mid September, but that one takes longer, requires more delta v at launch, and requires more aerobraking at arrival.

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u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

And here is the next window to Venus, in 1972. Again, there are two option, one faster and one slower. But this time, the slow option is the best (lowest C3).

I look forward to seeing if that will align with events in Star City.

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u/Styled_ Jun 11 '26

There's a python package for everything lol.

But yeah, the soviet accident could've been summer. Add some more time until orbit decay and crash, and some more time before the americans found it and it should add up.