Parking Asteroids in orbit

[GwynJHawke]

I was curious if there was anyone else out there like me who bother with grabbing asteroids and parking them into stable orbits for fuel sources. If so, at what altitude do you like to park them? I've played with LKOs of 80km, had a brief love affair of 600km for time warp purposes, but I'm wondering if anyone else has tried parking rocks into orbit on the edge of kerbin's SOI and if it's worth the initial ease of being able to park them out there.

[DChurchill]

I have a class C at 1M and a class A out past Minmus somewhere, but I haven't done a thing with them but park them. I've been meaning to mine them, but I haven't gotten around to it.

[Speadge]

i have a base on a classe E in in equatorial 500km orbit.

80km was lo low for me, since my bases are not below 300km.

Is it worth it compared to a base on minmus? well, its limited ressource-like, but its a nice "mission" and a "nice-to-have"-thing, istead of the casual "science-station". And its easier to reach since alignment in space is easier than on even minmus.

beside that: no.

[Callmedave]

I have only just got a class B asteroid in to Kerbin orbit. (my first ever yay!)

My next mission was to send up a miner and get what i can out of it. Then i was going to put it in Minmus orbit. 

once there Im sure il build some kind of station on it but haven't thought that far ahead yet.

[Blaarkies]

12 minutes ago, GwynJHawke said:

had a brief love affair of 600km for time warp purposes,

That is exactly why time warp altitude limits should be removed...they are even more frustrating at Gilly. The Time Control mod helps for this, but the newest update knocked all the mods upside down for a while.

Back on topic: I do the same, but only for the LKO station. If done correctly, it might be cheaper than to actually launch fuel from Kerbin. The only reason I do it, is to have a "cheap" fuel source to fill the interplanetary ships with just enough to reach Minmus. There they get filled to the brim by the surface base(the fuel shuttle takes fuel into orbit for the big ships).

From Minmus, you only need to slow down by 150m/s(?) for a Kerbin Per of 70km. Do this so that your ejection angle is correct, and you get to Duna for like 200m/s extra ? Anyway, the whole point of this is that those massive ship(with low thrust) did most of their burns while almost empty, which gives much better acceleration. The last ejection burn happens at full fuel, but is a smaller shorter burn....but then I could just aswell carry fuel back to LKO from Minmus, probably cheaper that hunter PotatoRoids

[suicidejunkie]

I believe a rechargeable (from Minmus) set of max size fuel tanks is much more useful as an LKO station than a one-shot asteroid mine.

As a fuel tank on a vehicle, however, I believe I've seen resource mass %ages significantly better than rocket fuel tanks, so they'd make good disposable middle stages.

[luizopiloto]

I like to park then at LKO and build stations around it... Fuel I cab grab at KSC... :3

[Just Jim]

Emiko Station, my class-E 3,700t asteroid base approx. 250km over Kerbin.  Roughly 80% ore... enough for years of refueling.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Just Jim

[Adelaar]

I've parked a few asteroids in orbit, but I've always felt that the cost of getting it into orbit outweigh the fuel benefits. How do you guys feel about that? 

[fourfa]

Sounds right. 

[johnsonwax]

The cost/benefit crossover is pretty high, so if you are trying to break-even on fuel, you need to chase class Es and you need to focus on minimizing TWR and maximizing ISP. If you can push it into orbit in counts in terms of minutes, you've overbuilt. If it takes hours or days, you're more on track.

Just Jims 3700t asteroid which is 80% ore will yield about 2,960t of ore or 5,920,000 units of lf+ox. An orange tank is 4t and 6400 lf+ox, so his asteroid should push out about 925 orange tanks of fuel. Even a low-efficiency rocket should be able to put that in orbit for no more than dozens of orange tanks. Move it with a few Nervs or even higher ISP engines and keep your ship down to no more than a few % of the size of the asteroid and it should be well profitable.

[Brownhair2]

I have a Class E asteroid and a Class D asteroid in orbit around Kerbin. Both are in highly eccentric, highly inclined orbits, but I don't care because I'm using them as artificial moonlets 

[Rune]

Basically, what johnsonwax said. My main fuel station on LKO is 'Tiny', a 2,400mT class E that I moved into position.. with a lot of patience. A lot.

And it was indeed profitable, since the tiny nuke tug+refinery modules I used to move it were both put up and brought down inside a Claymore's bay. Reusable asteroid catching! Might try for a tad higher TWR next time, tough.

 

Rune. It looks like a million bucks after investing a couple hours playing with KAS on it, gotta give it that.

[Xyphos]

1. build a puller-type because they're simple to build and easier to handle, just be sure to have enough distance between the engine exhaust and the asteroid; that shouldn't be a problem if you stick 3x Mk3 Liquid Fuselages end-to-end.
2. attach 6 or 8 nerva engines with radiators on the end opposite to the claw, pointed slightly outward.
3. after attaching to the asteroid and centering the claw, point radial-in and lower your PE to about 38km inside kerbins' atmosphere;
   directly altering your PE is more effective than just pointing retrograde and slowing down.
4. perform an aerocapture in kerbin's atmosphere while using the asteroid as a heat shield.
5. adjust your AP to about 255km (this enables 1000x time warp for faster refueling)
6. circulurize and enjoy.

please note that you'll need a Class-D or Class-E to make this profitable, anything smaller and you're just better off landing it on kerbin as a trophy or something.

Edited July 5, 2016 by Xyphos

[magnemoe]

On 1.7.2016 at 1:16 AM, suicidejunkie said:

I believe a rechargeable (from Minmus) set of max size fuel tanks is much more useful as an LKO station than a one-shot asteroid mine.

As a fuel tank on a vehicle, however, I believe I've seen resource mass %ages significantly better than rocket fuel tanks, so they'd make good disposable middle stages.

Missions to put them in orbit around other planets on the other hand are nice, Have one in orbit around Mun and one around Duna, 
The one around gilly ended up empty so I will land it on gilly rather than putting it in eve orbit. 

[Alpha 360]

How about this, use asteroids as "motherships". Grab a bunch and put them into low kerbin orbit then send up mission to attach to them. You would have the highest payload size possible. In a 200 ton to LKO rocket, all of that two-hundred tons is your base or whatever you are going to send to Jool for example. You attach the base to the asteroid and then you send up a mining rig with a bunch of docking ports on it and engines and empty fuel tanks and boom, you got a mothership that could go on for a very long time. When it drops its payload to wherever, it can return to kerbin a stock up again, kinda like a cycler. 

[Rune]

2 hours ago, Alpha 360 said:

How about this, use asteroids as "motherships". Grab a bunch and put them into low kerbin orbit then send up mission to attach to them. You would have the highest payload size possible. In a 200 ton to LKO rocket, all of that two-hundred tons is your base or whatever you are going to send to Jool for example. You attach the base to the asteroid and then you send up a mining rig with a bunch of docking ports on it and engines and empty fuel tanks and boom, you got a mothership that could go on for a very long time. When it drops its payload to wherever, it can return to kerbin a stock up again, kinda like a cycler. 

Mmm... I'm afraid that wouldn't be a good idea, because mass ratio, mostly. While asteroids have decent "tankage ratios", it still takes a lot of their mass to move them around. Rather, it's easier to use their fuel to fuel other things, and then you save the hundreds of tons of dead weight the non-minable part of the asteroid is. In fact, the other day I worked out a very economic way of putting tankage up. SSTOing it with a reusable engine pod! ULA would be proud of me.

 

Rune. The tyranny of the rocket equation.

[Speeding Mullet]

14 hours ago, Rune said:

Rune. It looks like a million bucks after investing a couple hours playing with KAS on it, gotta give it that.

I presume KAS is what has allowed you to mount docking ports flush on the surface of the potato?  That's swish, must obtain and emulate!

SM

Edited July 5, 2016 by Speeding Mullet

[Rune]

27 minutes ago, Speeding Mullet said:

I presume KAS is what has allowed you to mount docking ports flush on the surface of the potato?  That's swish, must obtain and emulate!

SM

Yup, it's awesome. Just note that you can only surface-attach things that are surface-attachable, so those Sr. ports actually sit on radial attachment points. Finally, a use for those!

Also, it's a bit tricky to move big things around, when they don't fit either in the kerbal's backpack or one of the KIS boxes, and they can float away if you just drop them. Takes practice to place them, move a bit, grab them again and place them further.

 

Rune. But it's totally worth it. Did you notice the solar panel sign?

Edited July 5, 2016 by Rune

[Madrias]

I've got a save somewhere that has a couple asteroids floating around in parking orbits, but not as fuel stations.  I was trying to smash a couple big space rocks together, but never got around to finishing orbital corrections to actually put them on proper collision courses.

[Guest]

On 01/07/2016 at 2:28 PM, Adelaar said:

I've parked a few asteroids in orbit, but I've always felt that the cost of getting it into orbit outweigh the fuel benefits. How do you guys feel about that? 

Totally correct; but the cost of getting it into orbit is far outweighed by how cool asteroid bases are. >:3

 

EDIT: I might be a little out of touch. Did they alter the amount of fuel you can produce from an asteroid? Last time I checked they weren't worth the fuel it takes to get them into orbit..?

Edited July 5, 2016 by JHadden123

[sardia]

5 hours ago, Rune said:

Yup, it's awesome. Just note that you can only surface-attach things that are surface-attachable, so those Sr. ports actually sit on radial attachment points. Finally, a use for those!

Also, it's a bit tricky to move big things around, when they don't fit either in the kerbal's backpack or one of the KIS boxes, and they can float away if you just drop them. Takes practice to place them, move a bit, grab them again and place them further.

 

Rune. But it's totally worth it. Did you notice the solar panel sign?

Try editing the settings for kas/KIS , and increase the volume the kerbals can carry. 

[Dfthu]

I have 1 class A in a 250KM orbit and a class E in a weird orbit, but stable.

[Speeding Mullet]

9 hours ago, Rune said:

But it's totally worth it. Did you notice the solar panel sign?

Haha yep that was a nice touch!  Looks like I'm going 'roid hunting this weekend and playing around with KAS.  I've only really played around with Class C's before, but your pet rock as well as the Emiko Station have got me thinking of plans grand.

SM