Season 5 is a modded single-player game in Science mode, and one goal of the season is that no kerbal dies. The save opens on Year 2, Day 20 with 47.0 science and eight flights in progress, including two uncrewed DockingWho3 rockets that met in orbit but never docked. This video puts kerbals aboard. A run of test flights sorts out how to drop the capsule's lower stage, two newly hired pilots fly up in separate rockets, and after a long chase around Kerbin the season's first docking finally happens.
A ship with a crew
The video opens with a theory from last time: "apparently you can't go into docking mode if you don't have people." So the DockingWho3 design gets reworked for a crew. A command pod goes on top of the tanks, with a heat shield and a separator under it, three parachutes, batteries tucked into a service bay, and the docking port on top. A small probe core squeezes in too. This ship has to come home: "we do have to re-enter, so let's also do stuff that's re-entering related."
Separators that will not separate
Before anyone climbs in, the design flies empty, "just in case there's something stupid." That turns out to be wise. On the first test the separator never lets go of the pod, and the rocket comes back down in flames with the pod still attached. "Well, this isn't a good thing we tested this."
The second test stays low and aims for the water. It goes so fast that it overheats. The Flight Results call it a Catastrophic Failure: the Clamp-O-Tron Docking Port exploded from the heat and the rocket broke apart.
A third try with two separators stacked together does no better, and the parachutes open by mistake. "Those are dumb and I'm sure I'm using them wrong." An ordinary decoupler goes in instead, and on the fourth flight the stages come apart. "So anyway, that worked."
Two new pilots
At the Astronaut Complex only Bill Kerman and Valentina Kerman are free, so two pilots are hired from the applicants, Lodlorf Kerman and Ludwell Kerman. "They will be our testers." Lodlorf goes first, aboard DockingWho4. The ship carries no extra supplies, and the life support window marks Lodlorf as starving with 14 days to spare, "so it'll be a short mission."
Ludwell follows in DockingWho5, flown up on a steeper path "just as like an experiment." It comes out about as efficient as the first climb, and both ships reach orbit around Kerbin with plenty of fuel.
The long chase
The two orbits start 1.5 degrees apart, and one burn brings that to zero. Lining up a close pass takes much longer. The first plan means waiting four days, the next one needs a burn long enough to risk the fuel, and then a tweak shrinks it to a two-second burn. "I'm so good at this game."
Inside 50 km the ship turns retrograde to kill its speed relative to the target, and the slow work begins: point at the other ship, nudge closer, drift past, turn around, slow down. "Okay, I've had a lot of practice, we can do this." The docking display from the tutorial is back on the left of the screen, now locked onto the other ship's Clamp-O-Tron Docking Port.
Then a discovery helps. With both ships set to point at each other and RCS on, they keep facing each other at normal speed: "both of them were actually changing. So that's awesome. It makes me really happy."
Docked
The last stretch goes at a few tenths of a meter per second, with long pauses to make sure the distance keeps falling. "Will this week end with a success?" The ports meet, and the two ships lock together. "Goal!"
Ludwell moves across into DockingWho4 with Lodlorf, and then the ships undock. "So now we have the tools, we have the knowledge, we have the experience, we can connect ships together in space. Not easily, not fast, but we can do it." The commentary is already thinking about space stations built from parts sent up one rocket at a time.
Where it ends
The video stops in orbit around Kerbin. DockingWho4 carries both pilots, with parachutes and fuel for the trip down, and landing them is left for next time. DockingWho5 floats nearby with no crew. The life support window still lists both pilots as starving, with 14 days left. DockingWho1, DockingWho2 and the two DockingWho3 rockets are still in orbit around Kerbin, Eureka2 still orbits the Mun, and no kerbal has been lost.