EVE AND IKE DECLARE WAR ON OUR PROBES!

After the Horizon II probe left Kerbin for Eve, it dropped a lander into the atmosphere of our closest planetary neighbour to discover the surface. The probe was designed to last for several months. However, the contact was lost with the probe merely days after it made its pioneering landing onto the surface. The orbiter, however, is still working. And the staff at the KSC have recently released images that could possibly explain the cause of the loss lander.

'At first, we thought the high temperatures and pressures on Eve were to blame,' said a spokesman of the project. 'Then the orbiter sent us back images of the planet. As it turns out, Eve is currently going through a planetary-wide storm, and we are sure this is the cause. How a storm on this scale can even come about, we simply don't know. And we are unsure how long it will last or whether communication with the lander can be regained if and when the storm passes.'

The latest image from the Horizon II orbiter shows a planet-wide storm

on Eve that completely obscures the surface

Tree-huggers that have devoted their life to the supposedly spiritual nature of Eve have taken a different view:

'The majestic Eve is upset that she has been violated by this probe,' said one of the spiritual leaders. 'We are in communication with Eve, and she does not appreciate this intrusion. It's a sign to stay away. Admire from a far, not from within. She hints of death on her surface if we venture there.'

As if this wasn't enough, the Endeavor probe at Duna has suffered a similar fate. In fact, there are a few red faces from the team at the KSC. As it turns out, Duna's moon, Ike, has devoured the orbiting probe.

'You have to understand that Ike is a very large moon in comparison to Duna,' said one of the project leaders. 'This means that the gravity of the moon can grab the probe and pull it in quite easily. That is to say, it has a large sphere-of-influence. We already had to make one correction to the probes orbit so it would miss Ike, but in the end Ike caught us my surprise and it is thought to have crashed into it's surface.'

The last image taken by the Endeavor Probe shows Ike a 

little too close for comfort

The Endeavor probe was designed to operate in Duna's orbit for years to come. It was future proofed with a large fuel tank and a generous array of communication abilities so it can act as a relay for future missions once its primary goal had been served. However, Ike was apparently too impatient and hunger got the better of him before the orbiter even had a chance to complete it's primary task.

It didn't take long for the jokes to circle around:

We can only hope that the Aquarius project enjoys much better luck than the two latest interplanetary missions.