Difference between revisions of "Aurora"

Latest revision as of 19:56, 29 April 2013

Built into the icy depths of the Saturn moon Pan, the Aurora station is the farthest known outpost completely owned by a Daneverse faction. The European Union and Japan started building the station in December 2017, making multiple supply runs with their fleet of Interplanetary Space Vehicles to bring hundreds of tons of cargo to Pan. ESA and Jaxa had decided to hire a the Catgirl Industries space station Jenga to support the astronauts, but the station itself was designed as a pure hardtech construction which could be used as a forward base around Saturn later without Fen involvement. But someone else had different plans.

On April 19th 2018 an unknown faction attacked the construction site with a powerful kinetic weapon system. While the attack was partly deflected by a shot from Jenga, it still injured many astronauts and damaged a lot of equipment. One astronaut, Ms. Sarah Meier, had to get an emergency biomod to be rescued. Still, with the help of the catgirls and a lot of improvisation, the station was finished in late 2018.

Helium-3 mining

Aurora is part of the European Union’s and Japan’s plan to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels and nuclear fission. It is the job of Aurora’s crew to gather Helium-3 in the atmosphere of Saturn and deliver it back home with the help of the ISVs.

The station is home of an aerodynamic spaceship that use a fusion powered ramjet to dive through the atmosphere of the gas giant and gather the precious gas in its tanks. The vehicle was assembled on the station during its construction time and gathered the first Helium-3 in late 2018, which was instantly transported back on the Ferdinand Magellan to Earth.

There is enough space for a second Saturn skimmer on Aurora and the station crew is already thinking about adding a second hangar to house two more of them.

The station

Aurora is a series of tubes deep under the ice of Pan. While the original plans had called a placement of the station at a depth of thirty to fifty meters, the attack on the station forced a modification of the original layout.

The main entrance tunnel is a steel clad cylinder that leads to the hangar for the Skimmers 60 meters below the ice. Another tunnel, not parallel to the first one to mitigate any potential accident, connects the hangar to the rest of the station another 60 meters deeper below the surface. All of Aurora’s infrastructure and living space is down there, fueled by its own fusion reactor. Together with the nearly infinite amount of ice to melt and process the station can hold out on its own for a long time on its stocks.

Aurora was designed to house 32 people permanently with up to 12 additional temporary guest. Because of the damage the equipment took during the attack on Pan, ESA and JAXA officially limited it to 30 people at the moment.

The station is equipped with the latest 3D rapid prototyping hardware Europe and Japan could built in 2017. With the large storage of raw metals they bought from the Fen, the station is able to repair and duplicate most of the technology on board. One part of the local science program is about finding ways to produce replacements for everything on board, including the 3D prototyping machine itself.

The only part of the station that is on the surface of Pan is a set of large communication antennas, which allow the astronauts to get a direct connection back to Earth via radio. A smaller second tunnel connects the communication and sensor array on the surface through a curved tube with the station below the ice.

Aurora 2

While the Aurora station does not contain any Handwavium, except for the biomodded Sarah Meier, the statement is a misdirection at best. Faced with a lot of damaged or even destroyed equipment during the construction of the station, its first leader Eric Hunt decided to choose a more drastic way than he could ask Earth for.

Aurora 2 is is single Module of the space station Jenga that has been buried alongside the Aurora station to be used as an independent second living space for the crew of Aurora. While most esoteric Fen-technology has been removed from the module, it is still capable of providing artificial gravity and life support for the whole crew. In addition to this it contains a small communication room that can be used by the crew to access the Interwave and get readouts from a series of sensor satellites in above and below the rings of Saturn near Pan.

Trivia

• Both tunnels from the surface to the station are normally closed by two large doors, one at the surface and one at the bottom. They also both point towards Saturn to make it impossible for long range bombardment to fire down the tunnel.
• The tunnels and the hangar space are not filled with an atmosphere, but the crew is discussing to add this feature to the hangar.
• Captain Eric Hunt, the commander of the station, is thinking about monetizing their access to their 3D printer by accepting orders from the Fen.
• The sensor satellites are on loan from Galactic Republic on Coruscant. As part of the agreement, they receive copies of all sensor data.

Stories

The Aurora Station is featured in the following stories:

• The Gas Station