How efficient is your Minmus mining operation? Share your pics

[Khazar]

Wel things didn't went very well ...

Ofcourse Jab wasn't touched

[xendelaar]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454238113

This is my latest mining vessel. Isn't she a beauty?.. ok... i admit it is rather ugly. ..It's an all in one surface refinery, with a twr of 0.5 and delta v capacity of 6km/s.

I only use one drill because more seems like a waste of mass to me. Bill is leading this expedition to increase the ore extraction rate and to plant flags and stuff.

Minmus is only one of many destinations of this journey. I'm trying to perform a small grand tour with one vessel, without visiting eve tylo laythe and jool. First stop is the mun, followed by Minmus, gilly, moho, gilly , minmus, duna, ike, dres, pol, bop, vall and finally eelloo.

The mission is funded by contacts to make it more interesting.

I'm currently making my way back from moho to gilly without running into any major problems.

[Umlüx]

this is my hauler/refiner vessel: the UKS Orka

[Jesrad]

So the intercept from L2 to Kerbin's atmosphere turns out to not quite be 163 m/s, but a rather more bulky 343 m/s That's because from the depot I do not benefit from an Oberth effect like I would in LMinO. And because I forgot to count the ~180 m/s for launching into LMinO in the first place, d'uh... Sending bulk fuel directly from Minmus' surface to LKO would only save a mere 110-120 m/s, so I'll stick with having a L2 Depot, as it makes everything else much simpler and easier.

Flipside: the ascent from LKO to L2 is roughly 1000 m/s, as tested by the SpaceBus I have just added to the circuit for crew rotations.

So conservative tallies are:

Bulk fuel produced on Minmus -> L2-Depot costs 243+2x50 = 343 m/s

Bulk fuel delivered to LKO costs 343+60 for recircularization = 403 m/s

So total should be under 750 m/s, still a clear wide win against fueling up from Kerbin surface.

These costs correspond to relative amounts of fuel, whereas the costs for returning tankers to Minmus and Cislunar Tankers to L2 are pretty much fixed. I need to check the exact masses then I'll make a complete calculation of the fractions of fuel extracted/delivered/expended in the whole circuit. I'll be happy if I get any efficiency rate above 50%

[Unfawkable]

This is what I have made recently.

http://i.imgur.com/kJnHXZo.jpg

Its orbiting mun at the moment, I want to see If I will be able to land it on Mun, then I will go for minmus. Aside mining ore and converting it to fuel its supposed to finish various contracts as well (mostly built surface outpost/orbital station)

It has 4 mainsails and 18 LV-Ns. It's prototype and I havent attempted any landings yet so It still can turn out to be a huge failure

How the hell did you lift that thing from Kerbin?

[Khazar]

How the hell did you lift that thing from Kerbin?

This is my launch setup.

It has some touch of madness but it had been worse Still I had hell lot of FUN riding this thing upward and it's only just enough to get into orbit. Then I had to refuel it (It sucked dry entire tanker of previous design just to get into mun's orbit) than I had to refuel it once more to have enough fuel to land on mun's surface.

After 5 unsuccessful landing attempts, (last one was hilarious) I was finaly able to land this thing safely.

[Unfawkable]

God that seems so unstable. I can only imagine how many retries it took you. But if it looks stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid I guess xD

[Jesrad]

Last news from my L2 MinKerbin Fuel Circuit. Unexpected costs (LKO-L2 rotation is around 1500 m/s total deltaV, or double the figure I expected), a yet-bigger tanker (MOAR !) and a crew shuttle enter the rotation, and I make efficiency calculations at last. Plus, numbers and details of every craft in the circuit are included.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The total cost sunk into this infrastructure at the moment is 1,147,653 and is unlikely to increase - I have everything I need in place, I think. People interested only in fueling LKO and not in bootstrapping an interplanetary infrastructure (which is my reason for maintaining a depot in L2 of Kerbin-Minmus) can probably get away with using only the mining rig and a couple cislunar tankers for 1/4 of the cost.

I've done the actual maths:

My cislunar tankers bring 22.377 mtons of LFO and 3 mtons of monopropellant gas to LKO on each rotation for a cost of 9.622 mtons of LFO.

My Tanker Less brings 12.8 mtons of LFO and 1.1 mtons of monoprop gas on each rotation for a cost of 5.2 mtons of LFO. Hence why I hurried and built bigger tankers.

My Tanker More brings 58 mtons of LFO and 4.6 mtons of gas on each rotation for a cost of 15 mtons of LFO.

My Tanker Last is expected to bring 77 mtons of LFO and 2.9 mtons of gas on each rotation for a cost of 19.5 mtons of LFO.

That converts to the following Useful Fuel / total fuel hauled fractions:

Cislunar Tankers: 70%

Tanker Less: 71%

Tanker More: 78%

Tanker Last: 80%

I think that's pretty efficient

[Jesrad]

It turns out my calculations were very conservative: I can do the L2->Minmus transit on 450 m/s, and Minmus->L2 on just 255 m/s (crazy!). Likewise, the Cislunar Tankers' aerocapture to LKO takes 458 m/s and not >560 like I thought. All in all, one more rotation in the Fuel Circuit has showed that the final efficiency numbers are really 73% for the Cislunar Tankers, 76% for Tanker Less, 82% for Tanker More and 84% for Tanker Last.

So my Kerbin Space efficiency is 60%, and Interplanetary Space efficiency 83%. I'm pleased

I'm retiring the Tanker Less, which really is too small to haul any useful amount of fuel, and just leaving the 'More and 'Last in the rotation. I'm repurposing it as a LKO-L2 tug.

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Last installment, I promise ! The Tanker Last managed to reach and crazy-suicide-burn-OMG land flawlessly with no refueling whatsoever since launch (with just 150 LFO left from its departing 19300), and connected to the Mining Rig for refill. My Crew Shuttle retrieved the rookies + Jeb from the Tanker More and is on its way to drop them to LKO through a fiery aerocapture. And Valentina is flying the Tanker More back to Minmus on a 5 m/s deltaV budget* !

* transit only. We're crazy, but not that brand of crazy.

[Jesrad]

Darn elusive maths. The transit from L2 to Minmus was really 65 m/s (135 LFO on near-dry Tanker More). So my final efficiency numbers are: Cislunar 73%, More 77%, Last 79%, Kerbin Space 57% and Interplanetary 78%.

[Khazar]

God that seems so unstable. I can only imagine how many retries it took you. But if it looks stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid I guess xD

Despite how it looks it was quite stable, but I had to go almost straight up until around 16k alt to keep it that way. And I had to reduce throttle because all those SRBs pushed quite a lot

[Jesrad]

Refueling my bigger tanker takes so much time, my other tanker did an entire round-trip to the depot and back in half as much time:

But then, I now have more fuel than needed for the next infrastructure echelon. I'm still divided between developing towards Eve, Duna or Jool. They all have easily mineable moons with low gravity to place a depot/refinery.

[Jesrad]

I finished fueling up all my tankers, and gathered all three of them at the L2 Depot:

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Soooo I'm pretty much done with my mining operation now.

[RocketBlam]

This isn't for Minmus, but it's an ISRU getup I've been working on. It's designed to work around the Joolian moons (Vall, Bop and Pol). It has the TWR to get off of Vall with full fuel and ore tanks. In that configuration it has about 2000 D/V, but of course once you're out of fuel you can process what's in the tanks and have about 3000 more. It also includes a tail tank, so you can leave some fuel in orbit somewhere. The tail tank has a couple of tiny engines for docking and if you really need to send it somewhere on it's own... full it has about 5400 D/V by itself.

With the tail tank attached. On the top is a small vehicle with enough D/V to get into a polar orbit, scan the planet, and return to the ship.

This is with the tail tank detached. It can drive around pretty well, it helps if your tanks are mostly empty. It handles moderate hills alright. It has enough solar to drill on Vall under full sunlight. You need to start up the attached fuel cell to convert the ore though, when out in the further reaches of the system.

The tail tank. It doesn't obstruct the engines.

Edited June 16, 2015 by RocketBlam

[Jesrad]

Neat idea, that tail tank thingie But it'd be just a tiny bit more useful if it could take off on its own from the landed, still-mining mothership I think. Or maybe make the whole mothership out of such detachable, self-propelled tanks, so that you can modulate how much fuel to land with, and how much to leave in orbit ?

[RocketBlam]

It's all a compromise between weight, how much docking you have to do, etc. I've made landers that could refuel another vehicle, which then took off, but I like the simplicity of having it mostly self-contained.

[georgTF]

I admit to and apologise for not having browsed the thread. Just saw the title and since i've recently established a gateway around Minmus to act as an interplanetary launchpad, here's the album with pics of the mining ops and orbital refinery.

I chose a fixed mining location harvested by a rover/rig with 2700 ore capacity. A 2700 ore cap lander/rover collects the goods then takes off for the orbital refinery. The refinery itself has no ore storage. The docked transporter acts as storage until it's emptied.

Currently, the station is incomplete and is missing the fuel storage + power generators. In my defense i squandered career funds and couldn't afford to lift it. ^^

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Not too happy with the transporter. The CoM moves when it's full so i must alter the thrust limit of one 909 engine. It's also not so great to have to use the small ore tanks, but for now it's good enough.

I plan to make similar operations at other mineable planets, currently looking at Eve and Duna.

Craft files:

Gateway Station - Built in the VAB in such a way that you can detach different pieces and launch them separately. Each "module" has it's own power, unmanned probe and RCS thrusters. This is to eliminate the need for tugs and allow easy re-configuring of the station. It increases part count though.

Mobile Mining Rig

Ore Transporter - It has a claw so remove that if you don't want it. It's there just in case, but isn't needed.

[Karpen]

http://i.imgur.com/Nvv68ui.jpg

http://puu.sh/hMji7/cbf99e4b48.jpg

What are those connections between your individual modules?

I just started building my fuel infrastructure, so my entire operation is somewhat puny

This is my Drill, very simple one. It does have a conversion unit do create the fuel that I need in order to change my position on Minmus, still trying to find the best spot to drill.

This my ore transporter which lands directly on top of the drill:

And my Orbiter with the refinery. Here I plan to fuel up my next Fuel Station and bring it to Duna or Eve.

I do have an engineer with me, but it does not seem to enhance the efficiency of the conversion unit. Is it enough for him to be docked, or does he have to be outside?

[Karpen]

http://i.imgur.com/Nvv68ui.jpg

http://puu.sh/hMji7/cbf99e4b48.jpg

What is this connecting your individual modules?

edit: sorry for the double post.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Karpen

[Tynrael]

A huge thanks to everyone who has participated in this thread! I have looked over quite a bit of it and will most likely be referring to it many times. I have been meaning to setup a mining operation but have not made it that far into my latest career.

-Tynrael

[Khazar]

What is this connecting your individual modules?

edit: sorry for the double post.

Those are pipes available via KAS mod : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92514-0-24-2-Kerbal-Attachment-System-%28KAS%29-0-4-8-Fixed-for-0-24-2-x86-x64-%29

[BlackAdder128]

I've also got a mining operation that grabs ore from the surface, mostly because there always seemed to be contracts available for moving ore to kerbin orbit. I took one of those miners and am doing some resupply before I send it off to Jool SOI. The mothership has the ISRU in a cargo bay. Putting the landers on dropped the delta-V a bit, though. I may have to build some larger extensions to put on the front. I don't know that the operation is that efficient, though.

The 3000 ore once converted can fill 3168/3520 fuel on the lander. I seem to use almost half the fuel getting to minmus and back because the lander is so much heavier on the return trip. Or put another way, it took 3 trips to net the ~5000 liquid fuel I had used on my mothership plus refuel the lander. So it's probably better (aside from cash missions) to build something a little heavier with the ISRU on it.

'

[jkool702]

Here are some Images of my Minimus orbital refinery / fuel depot and mining lander. I like to think its a pretty efficient setup All done on stock KSP - no mods of any kind were used.

http://imgur.com/oXqqZRM,3CSGHUQ,G2yg3aa

http://imgur.com/oXqqZRM,3CSGHUQ,G2yg3aa#1

http://imgur.com/oXqqZRM,3CSGHUQ,G2yg3aa#2

http://imgur.com/0fP2HLP,WxfJgBj#0

http://imgur.com/0fP2HLP,WxfJgBj#1

Exact resource amounts held can be seen in the pictures, but suffice it to say my refueling station when filled weighs about 920 tons (not including the lander, with lander attached its over 1200 tons). This roughly breaks down to: 580 tons of Liquid fuel and oxidizer, 20 tons of mono-propellant, 150 tons of ore storage, and 170 tons of other (i.e. the dry weight of the station). The station is in a nearly circular 50 km counter-equatorial orbit around minimus.

My lander is capable of hauling up 21,000 ore (210 tons). The fuel used in the lander's round trip equates to about 3,500 ore, making each round trip produce a net gain of about 17,500 ore. This allows me to fully replenish the station (including ore reserves) in 4-5 trips.

The total cost to get the station into Minimus Orbit was about 1.5 million, broken up into 2 launches costing about 750k each. The first launch got the station into ~100k Kerbin orbit (which took a number of tries due to the extremely un-aerodynamic shape of the station). The second launch took the lander up with some ore to rendezvous with it, and give it just barely enough fuel to achieve minimus orbit.

The only thing I dont like about it is the part count is kind of high (mainly due to the crazy number of struts needed to get the station launched), so its rather laggy whenever I actually use it

[Laie]

That's a little more than I bargained for... the rock being 50% heavier than expected gave me some trouble, but then again, it was on a good trajectory to begin with. I spent only ~200t of it in order to nudge it into LKO.

Yes, securing a huge asteroid is a bit of work, but from now on I can conveniently refuel in LKO without further ado. Translate that amount into large tanks and tell me how often you'd need to get back and forth to gather that much from Minmus -- I guess that supply will last me for a long, long time.

[The Yellow Dart]

Does anyone else think this is a weird thread to be sticky'd in the general KSP forum? Especially for several weeks?