Getting Smaller

Whilst preparing for the next big mission, set to Ceti, the Engineering department was shocked when it became obvious that there was one critical thing missing for a flight that length. Jeb already had landed on Iota without any electrical turning systems available because of the lacking power (empty). To combat this, Catarina and Malcolm quickly set up another mission, the "Gael Manned Craft II", basically an awkward-looking rocket out of some droptanks, three Thuds, because they were the only Engine justifying such a design, and a quite standard central core. Aditionally they prepared the first artificial satellite orbiting Gael permanently, the Gael Mapper.

Jeb, sitting again in the Cockpit, waited for the Launch command once again. But he only needed to wait a short time, and he could race up into the sky once again. Except he didn't race. The amount of thrust he had wasn't allowing him to do so, but he was happy anyways to sit in another spacecraft. A few minutes of controlling it, and he was in Orbit once again. With his second stage halfway filled, so he decided to go to Iota. He was at the right angle anyways.

After getting some Telescope and EVA Science, he managed to get a quite close Iota encounter, just about seven kilometres in periapsis. That was what he used to get even more science. After a Iota Capture Burn and, after one Orbit, an escape burn, he managed to get back to Kerbin without any issues, even without a heat shield. But, before going to Ceti, another mission was on the schedule: A Mapper, about eight point eight tons with the launcher.

It was a low resolution Gael mapping mission, steered by a low-tech probe compared to what they had achieved on Kerbin, the first stage being three Sounding-XL Boosters, followed by a lifting core out of four Spark engines and a total of seventeen 'Oscar-B' Tanks, after that four Sounding-S Boosters sequentially fired, and for the final Insertion and Orbital Maneuvers the 'Ant'. Two kilonewtons of thrust on the upper stage at an ISP of 315, but the total cost of the rocket, includuing payload, was with 12,611 funds low. Most of that was the Mapper (2,500 k) and the antennae (1,800 k for three of them), so the launcher itself was really cheap. It still managed to get the eight hundred kilograms of payload into a sub-orbital trajectory, even enogh to get into orbit with a really weak engine. Soon it was in a 492x499 km Orbit. And they could prepare for Ceti. And the following interplanetary missions...