Duna mining/refuel station

[strider3]

This thread will be about my Duna ore mining and orbital refueling station.

My philosophy: When I explore other celestial bodies for science I tend to go big...a lander and an orbiting refueler...and I gather all the science available with one "trip". This, of course, requires large amounts of fuel/LoX/Mono to keep the lander fed for landings on all biomes, and enough fuel to get the lander back to Kerbin with all that science. My tech tree is filled out so all science goes to Funds and I don't "transmit"...I bring it home. I have decided that I need an ore mining and processing facility on Duna to get my science gathering explorations out to the outer bodies, beyond Duna, with an orbiting fuel station. With that in mind...

Construction:

I will be using 5 vehicles to transport the mining facility (I call them the Good, Bad and Ugly...mostly ugly, LOL!)

The Duna orbiting fuel station is already in place from previous science exploration:

My Duna drill:

My Duna ISDU (with nuke electrical production):

You will notice that my ISDU and "Base" have rover wheels. My only other mining operation was on Minmus and it was easy to land the ISDU, Base and Drill close enough to connect them with my Engineer, due to the very low gravity. This will not be as easy on Duna, me thinks, so I made the ISDU and Base mobile.

The mining "base", with an Engineer for connecting the various parts and transferring fuel/ lOx/mono to the fuel hauler:

The Fuel Rover, for bringing the fuel/LoX/mono to the Fuel Hauler, which will bring these products to the orbiting refuel station.(Again, because it will be almost impossible to land the Fuel Hauler near the mining base on Duna with its gravity):

And the Fuel Hauler, which will bring the products up to the refueling station. It carries an Engineer to perform an EVA to reset the parachutes before returning to Duna surface.:

And, the last p[art, the already in place orbiting refuel station, for refueling expeditions to bodies beyond Duna:

Phase 2 upcoming...Kerbin launch and refueling at Mobil 1 space station.

[strider3]

Phase 2...Launch and refuel prior to Duna ejection burn.

The plan is this...I will launch all 5 required parts to the Duna mining station, from Kerbin, refuel each at my Mobil 1 refuel station at 350,000 meter orbit, and then do an ejection burn to Duna using the same maneuver node (with tweaks for each craft) generated by the Transfer Window Planner mod. This is my ISDU refueling from Mobil1 Station:

Next up: separation of all 5 units in orbit of Kerbin so all can use same maneuver node for ejection burn to Duna.

[Kerbalstar]

Looking good @Victor3! Eager for more!

[strider3]

Phase 2:

Put all the "birds" into Kerbin orbit and refueled, as necessary, from my Mobil1 station.

Duna fuel hauler refueling:

Orbital separation, prep for Duna departure using 1 copied maneuver node (with tweaks):

 

All vessels on the way:

The area I plan to set up the mining operation:

Duna drill orbital insertion, with the magical "sliding" shroud in evidence. This happens to me, occasionally.

Unloading excess fuel to the Duna fuel station:

All the excess fuel, not needed for landing, has been transferred to the Duna fuel station. Now the fun part...getting the mining base parts landed. I was originally going to land the drill unit first because it is not "ground mobile", but then I thought about how uneven the surface of Duna can be. Now I will land the Duna fuel rover first as it can drive around and find a relatively flat area to set up the mining operation on.

Next: Phase 3...landing and base set-up.

 

[strider3]

Phase 3.1 or, "I'd rather be lucky than good".

I chose my first area for the mining operation based on this criteria...it had to be on the Duna equator, directly or near the Duna fuel station orbit, to make it easy and economical to rendezvous the hauler with the fuel station...and back again. It had to have a good concentration of ore and it had to be relatively flat. Nailed it first try!

I decided to try this area first...not the highest concentration of ore but a huge target. You can see some higher ore concentrations in this shot...but they are very small areas.

Decoupled the last unneeded stage and started down. You can't see it here but I have a docking port on the top center of the rover to allow me to "control from here" and have the rover land correctly.

Getting this fuel rover to land on Minmus was easy...not so much on Duna. It took several attempts to get it down, wheels down, on Duna.

Here you can see where the rover ended up...directly under the Duna fuel station orbit:

A nice, flat area on the first try!

Next up: bringing the mining drill, ISDU and Base (with engineer) to this location.

 

[strider3]

Phase 3.2...

Time to bring the rest of the mining colony down and get them connected:

The ISDU getting ready to land:

Again, this definitely ain't Minmus! It was much harder to get the parts close to each other. Here's the final stationary part, the "base" unit with a couple of Kerbals, S-L-O-W-L-Y and carefully making its way to connect to the drill and ISDU. Another issue I hadn't given enough thought to, the increased gravity on Duna (compared to Minmus) made the rover wheels very weak...I had to pick my way around small hills to get to the colony.

Finally got all the parts connected and making fuel/Ox:

And the last part...the fuel transfer "hauler" in the background, to bring fuel to the orbiting Duna Station. Not nearly as close as I would have liked and I'm hoping the fuel rover will make it back to the mining operation, up the slight incline, when it is empty:

Edited January 25, 2019 by strider3

[strider3]

It is with great regret that the Duna Mining Company announces that it is halting all operations. The higher gravity on Duna makes the fuel mined/fuel used ratio, in bringing the fuel into orbit, extremely uneconomical. After consultation with experts that actually know what they are doing, we are reforming the organization as the Dres Mining Company (Sheesh!). We are being assured that the inclination of the Dres orbit will not hamper it's location as a mining and refueling station for exploration of the outer planets and that it's low gravity will make transferring of fuel into orbit very economical. Larger mining facilities will be used to increase the speed of production. The concerns of the SMWU have been addressed in this statement from the DMC CEO:

"The beatings WILL continue until moral improves!"

Look for future developments in a new thread.