The Lumian Orbital Network

[ReuKinChe]

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While only tentative steps have been made to use space to its advantage so far, Lumia is continuing to expand it's agricultural, industrial, scientific and military capacity into the final frontier. Occupying space has proven to be a very profitable investment.

Currently, Lumia has two orbital farms, capable of providing enough crops to feed millions. The enormous spinning cylinders use centrifugal force to generate artificial gravity, and contain rows upon rows of perfect crops. The environmental controls are extremely precise, and so the crops are able to grow to their full potential. Each room is conditioned to a particular time of the year, allowing quality food to be transported back down to Earth, even when it isn't in season.

Lumia also controls 18 orbital sweepers, with 15 in orbit currently. These sweepers locate and capture space junk, before separating it into its constituent raw elements and compacting it. When a sweeper's capacity is filled, it travels back down to Earth, where the materials it has gathered are then recycled.

36 reconnaissance satellites are in orbit, each about the size of a person. These satellites are used to get advanced warning about visible military operations.

Three orbital bombardment satellites are currently in production. While the Lumian Space Station has its own orbital bombardment system, it is far preferable to separate a military installation from civilian sectors, so as to prevent civilian casualties in a war.

The Lumian Space Station (LSS) is the crown jewel of the Lumian Orbital Network (LON). With artificial gravity, small-scale farms, a gym, a population of about 5,000, beautiful views and more, you'll almost feel at home. The LSS is a hub for scientific research, and even boasts its own launch site, where it can act as a stepping stone for long voyages into the cosmos.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Reuben Cheuk

[Maelstrom Vortex]

The Lumians would detect a very large vessel flanked by boosters being driven into space from the Norfolk region of Virginia. The 4 boosters 2 per side being used were comparable to Thiokol SRBs used for the space shuttle. It was clearly very heavy. Once it reached an altitude where long term orbital altitude could be sustained it leveled out. Ironically it picked an orbit very close to the Lumian space station.  It flew the Dragon Empire's imperial flag. After it achieved its position, six wings extended out from the craft catching the sun in solar panels. On the sides of the craft two fairings deployed and used thrust to push into a sub-oribtal trajectory. It revealed two large bulbous arrays. Two of the solar panels looked, kind of bizarre, not made of normal silicates and appeared designed to capture a different type of energy. They were X-ray receivers for later use to minimize relay hops from possible extra-system power sources. More panels extended, but they looked like metal lattice meshes that would be ideal for heat distribution.  Not long after the panels were extended on the DE craft, the Lumian station would see a massive spike on Long Infra-Red spectrum from the ground and many lights on the craft adjacent their station would come on. In the next moment, a return spike was detected aimed back down to the earth's surface.

https://kerbalx.com/Maelstrom_Vortex/Power-Relay-Satellite-SR

They were seeing the setup of a global power infrastructure relay system taking advantage of the LR infrared window of Orbis. If output were measured on the beam at the surface it was putting out around 100 MW. The human tenants of power station one attempted to make coms contact with the Lumian station "nearby"(technically about 10 km behind in an approximating orbit). "Ignore us. We're not sticking around."



With power now supplied to the station from the ground station its xeon ion thrusters began to give it a gentle push, moving it higher above the Lumian station and slowly out towards a geostationary orbit. The satellite would serve two purposes, it was the first step in the power relay, but also had an array of antennas on each side of it to form a ring around the planet and establish a coms relay system as well. The dragons had skipped putting early satellites up as it would be inefficient, instead, opting to use multi-role systems to limit the impact on crowding in the planetary orbits. The plan was relatively simple:



With only one modification, they had intended the polar orbit stations to into the highest possible orbits of Orbis, in order to provide long hard x-ray band power to external planetary system craft.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Maelstrom Vortex

[ReuKinChe]

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The orbital bombardment platforms were completed and launched.

64 more reconnaissance satellites were launched.