Wulfonce

I'm trying to build a simple space station to start researching the Mun. I want it to consist of: in this order... -Forward mounted "pulling" engines mounted onto fuel tanks -Mobile processing lab -Solar array/communications -Mun lander docking port My plan is to launch these sections in 4 pieces and assemble them in Kerbin orbit, before moving the whole thing toward the Mun under it's own power. So far I've built the engine section. This should be the heaviest piece of the station. I've had several unsuccessful attempts to get this section into kerbal orbit without burning around 80% of the fuel I intend to take with me to the Mun. I need this fuel for the lander. The obvious answer to this problem is to launch a few fuel transfer rockets, but I fear that might eat into my budget to much. I have a budget of 300k to make this happen, and I've already spent around 100k of that setting up a satellite network. I'm under the impression that my station is designed horribly wrong. I've done this once before and I don't recall it being this much of a challenge. Maybe I'm taking to much fuel? Maybe the stations engines are overkill? maybe I have to much Mono Propellant? Hell I don't know. I'm kind of a noob at this game. The station really only needs to be a working processing lab with fuel storage. Perhaps the Solar array section wouldn't even be necessary? I could probably just slap a bunch of panels to the outside of the lab? Bottom line is, this station will likely be abandoned after the fact, so I really don't want to throw a lot of money at it. However, if it's built to some kind of standard, I could use to to eventually explore Minmus as well. Here is the engine section. It consists of: -Liquid Fuel 360x4 tanks = 1440 (burning off about 80% of this before orbit) -Mono Propellant 100x3 = 300 -engines 2x200 thrust = 400 (overkill?) The bottom of the cross shape is a docking port that the processing lab will later attach to. The main engines are directally below the wide fuel tanks. Everything below the engines will be scrapped during the flight. Oh now that I think of it. Can you even transfer fuel through that scaffolding stuff? If I had a lander attached behind the processing lab, could I transfer fuel from the 2 main tanks at the front of the station, all the way to the back and into the lander? Any advice to make this work? "When in doubt, add more boosters" doesn't seem to apply here. I'm thinking it may just be a crappy design. and my satellite network, ready to go.

I'm running version 0.25.0.642 Also, I don't see an option to upgrade the launch pad. How is this done?

So I'm starting to build my Mun Space station and accidentally discover the exploding launch pad. I mean come on, how stupid is that? The kerbals can afford a space program but they cant afford to make a launch pad out of concrete? What did they use anyway? TNT encased in styrofoam? Honestly, the game is almost ruined for me now, its just so ridiculous. Is there a way to disable this feature?

Thanks for that link, It helped alot! So I got the launcher into 3/4s the orbit time of what I wanted the satellites to be at ignoring orbital height. Once I hit the assenting node I broke off a satellite and immediately maneuvered its desenting node to 1000km. Once I orbited half way around I did the same on the other end. I did the same for satellites 2, 3 and 4 every 3rd orbit. Sometimes I would have no contact with KSC so I had to wait another set of 3 orbits. Every third orbit would end up being 90 degrees (or close to it) away from the first satellite. The end result: -Every Satellite is 90 degrees (+/- 5 degrees) from the next. -All orbit times are +/- 0.2 sec from each other -All satellites are orbiting at 1000km +/- 200m It's not perfect, but it's way closer then I thought I'd get. Thanks for the help everyone.

Ok so I got the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod installed. If I'm launching 4 satellites into orbit how do I space them out? Lets say the orbit of my launcher ship is 2 hours. That would mean that each satellite would need to be on an 8 hour orbit to be spaced evenly when launching from the assenting node on each orbit of the launcher ship. How do I know how far out the launcher ships orbit needs to be to make the satellite orbits 8 hours each? I don't see how knowing this is possible without planning several maneuvers ahead along with a lot of trial and error. Unless this mod can do it, and I'm just a noob? This sounds like a good idea. Once there is uninterrupted connection in low Kerbin orbit, all I would need is satellites pointed at wherever I'm working.

So I'm about ready to start working on Muner contracts. I want to have a basic space station orbiting the Mun with a mobile processing lab, solar panels, and fuel reserves to service a small lunar lander which will collect the data from the surface. First things first, I need a satellite network. Here's the part where I don't know what the hell I'm doing... First off I'm fairly new to KSP, and have been playing on and off for a few months now. I tried KSP on normal difficulty but found it far to easy (had the entire tech tree unlocked in 3 days) so I'm running my career in Hard Mode. Money doesn't seem to be a huge issue yet. I have 290k in the bank which I'm hopping is enough to build a space station and satellite network. I would prefer to launch pieces of the station up remotely to avoid having a cluster F of pods all over the place (happened to me last time, probably just me being dumb again?). Now that I think about it, I could probably just launch the whole station up in one go? Naa, that's no fun! So first things first. To launch remotely, I need satellites. I would like to have 4 satellites orbiting around Kerbin, on the same orbital plane, forming a square shape. I'm thinking that should provide uninterrupted coverage? Stop me If I'm already off to a bad start... I came up with this contraption to get the job done. I figure I can get it into an oblong orbit and release a satellite every time I hit the assenting node. A solid plan? I'm not sure how to space the satellites out properly. The info is probably right there on the screen, but I'm either not seeing it, or don't understand the info. Onto the next problem, The Satellite itself. I'm struggling to understand signal distances and cone angles. Generally the Satellites close to Kerbin are meant to relay contact to the KSC from an outside source? Assuming I'm right about that, that means that any craft away from kerbin should have the strong cone dishes to pick up signals from KSC via the relay satellites orbiting Kerbin correct? If craft "A" has a very basic antenna with a 500km range, and craft "B" has a cone dish with a 90Mm range, Will they be connected so data can flow freely between them, or are they connected only in one direction because one has a very limited range, I'm confused. Lastly. With the above on the table, are my satellites even going to work? Specs: Reflectron DP-10 (500km) Communotron 16 (2.5Mm) (which I assume means 2500km?, oh god, I'm such a noob) Electric Storage (410) Drain rate (1.84 per sec) Charge rate (4 per sec, full sun) Satellites are also equipped with an LV-1 providing 4lbs of thrust and the smallest fuel tank I have (45 units)

Thanks for the info. It appears that "normal" is far to easy so I started a new game on "hard". Only options I enabled is quick loading and reverting flights. We'll see how it goes

***edited***

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to play around with space planes alot more. I'm finding the extra challenge very enjoyable.

Just a few questions I can't seem to find answers for: Spaceplanes: 1) why do my turbojet engines start to shoot out sparks and eventually fail soon after takeoff? 2) are you suppose to use rockets to boost you the rest of the way into orbit once in the upper atmosphere? 3) is it practical to lift parts of a spacestation or rovers into orbit using a plane? Spacestations: 1) when designing a spacestation, should the engines be in the front? (I'm having stability issues with rear mounted engines, it acts like a blade of grass in a strong wind when under throttle) Contracts: 1) Will the contracts become more challenging and require some thought and planning? (for example, explore areas of the Mun or other planets, which would probably require a space station?). 2) If a contract expires without accepting it, does it ever come back? That's all I can think of for now. Thanks in advance for any answers. ***EDIT*** More questions. I downloaded the Remote Tech mod, and I really like it. I want to put my first satellite into orbit around Kerbin, however I'm really confused about the many dish options available. I'm seeing 3 different units of mesurment, Gm, Mm, and Km. I don't really know the differance between them (Kilometers seems obvious). Which leads into my next question... I understand the concept of satellites (sending and receiving data to and from Kerbin). For my first satellite I assume the dish with the longest signal range would be the best? However the cone angle is the smallest. Would this mean it would hardly ever be able to receive a signal while orbiting kerbin? Maybe something without a dish would be better? Do the satellites or the dishes turn automatically to send/receive signals? So I'm only into day 3, and I've already got the entire tech tree researched (way to easy imo). Should I be using my science points for Rep and or Money from now on? What does rep even do?

Thanks for the info. How am I going to get it there? Don't the thruster blocks stabilize it during flight, or is it going to spin out of control? Edit: having just tested the thrust, I grossly underestimated the amount of thrust needed to move the station. It's estimating 3 days of thrust! lol. It appears to be stable but that could just be because there's almost no thrust. I'll have to replace the engine section and try again.

Ah! thanks!

I'm quite new to KSP. I have a basic understanding of the dynamics of the game but that's probably not saying much. I've run 3 missions to the Mun so far and one to Minmus, all with returns to Kerbin. I would like to build a small space station over Kerbin and send it off to orbit the Mun. This will act as an orbital science station, that's the theory anyway. The problem is I really don't know how to go about it. I've got a few pieces stuck together so far but I'm questioning if it'll even work in the end. Perhaps you guys could look it over before I waste my time on a failed project. The middle of the station is a Mobile Processing Lab. There's a power generating module on the bottom, and up top we have an engine with a fuel tank. The back side of the Processing Lab has another docking port which I'll attach a small Munar probe, this will be used to travel between the station and the Munar surface. There's 4 additional docking ports on the engine that I'll have to attach some sort of communication equipment to later on. How does the Processing Lab work? Would I send the probe down to collect samples, then back up to the Processing Lab, which then processes the data and sends it back to Kerbin via Radio? I probably should have figured this out before I started building. So am I on the right track, or leading to an inevitable failure? This is my first attempt at a station, I have no idea what I'm doing. Also, I was expecting to see an option to transfer fuel from my 2 tanks on the solar panel section, to the tank with the engine. How would I go about doing that? The tank with the engine is nearly out of fuel, the other 2 are full.

Mission success!!! -The liftoff was nearly a disaster due to severe instability, I throttled back several times to avoid catastrophic failure. -Burned off the last of the main tank entering orbit, and separated. -after 10min of playing around with the maneuvers I get lucky. -the last of the 6 kerbals boards the rescue craft -Collision course set -One final burn and separation -coming in hot! -touchdown!!! I sort of have a grasp on the idea of intersecting and docking now. It's not as hard as I originally thought. With more practice It shouldn't be as difficult. Thanks for all the help everyone!

I no longer have the exact build but it looked pretty close to this (keep in mind there's also an abomination of a craft lifting this into orbit). Note the lack of solar panels or batteries, oops. And why it handles so badly, as you said, is probably the lack of reaction wheels. I've never used those before. I waited because I couldn't see well enough on the dark side. Then the wait drained all my electricity and I was dead in the water (no solar panels) Here is the nature of the problem... and here is the craft I'm using to get them back. It has a generous amount of fuel left over once it gets into orbit. Those videos helped. I was able to dock with the stranded science bay and transfer my 2 kerbals over to safety. I then knocked it out of orbit and reentered safely. The way I docked seemed really inefficient but with practice I think I can clean it up a bit. It had a "stayputnic" attached to it which I removed because I thought I didn't need it. lol. So I assume this means that every space station needs at least 1 command module? One last thing. How long does it take till my posts no longer need mod approval?