How do I make Asteroid Intercepters?

[polan]

There's a C class asteroid that's going to crash into Kerbin, and I wanna stop it. I know how to intercept an asteroid, just match planes and rendezvous. But I'm not too sure how to make an interceptor that can stop can asteroid from crashing into Kerbin.. I know engines are a big thing, but just recommend the properties of engines that make intercepting possible, because I have many mods like B9 and Near Future Technologies installed. Also, is aerobreaking with asteroids practical?

Also, I want to venture into really stupid uses for asteroids. Like putting the asteroid on my Mun base... heh.

One more thing: I want to start using mods such as Advanced Mining Technologies and Asteroid Recycling Technologies to make asteroids useful. I don't have mods like Tac Life Support installed, but I do have Karbonite installed, so if you could describe uses for dem asteroids that'd be great

Cheers!

Edited February 18, 2015 by polan

[LordFjord]

A class C asteroid is quite massive, the wiki says 42.5 ~ 190.6 tons. Just build a rocket that can haul a comparable payload and tweak the engines / dV to your needs.

If you have lots of time, then nukes work well (but will need loooooong burns), otherwise use some poddles, skippers, maybe mainsails if time is short and the rock is about to crash "soon".

Aerobraking is perfectly possible with an asteroid, I also have heard that a large number of chutes works fine to land them

Make sure to add some docking port to your grabber, in case you need to refuel it. That helped me to move some asteroids after catching them.

The hardest part of catching asteroids is the capture itself, align orbits, good timing, ... once you have it grabbed its more or less just orbital maneuvers.

[polan]

Awesome, thanks for the help! The asteroid, right now, is 40000000 meters away from Kerbin. Gonna try using nuclear reactors from Near Future Technologies and some other engines :3

[polan]

I just built a simple asteroid mover with about 10000 DV total including launch stages. It has lots of RCS ports for maneuvering. I'll add reaction wheels.

[capi3101]

This tutorial will give you some good general guidelines for catching rocks, though in your case if it's really only 40,000k from Kerbin then it's already in Kerbin's SOI and you've got comparatively very little time left with which to affect an intercept. The mass of a Class C rock indeed ranges from between 42-190 tonnes, with ninety tonnes a good figure for planning purposes (for reference the mass formula for rocks is e^(1.5x), where x=1 on average for Class A (it ranges from 0.5 to 1.5), 2 for Class B, 3 for Class C, 4 for Class D and 5 for Class E). The dinky little probe that Claw uses in the tutorial can easily catch a Class A or B on its own; I've delivered it to LKO before via spaceplane (it is a case where replacing the 909 with an LV-N gets you more thrust and more delta-V, incidentally). C is a little bit out of the range of that simple craft, but not much.

You could still attempt an intercept in Kerbin's SOI in the manner indicated in the tutorial I've linked you to, though since you're closer to the body that both your craft and the rock are orbiting (i.e. Kerbin), you'd have to book it and not miss on the first attempt - otherwise the rock would likely get away from you and ultimately land and tear up somebody's fender.

Since you asked, aerobraking is possible with rocks - you just treat them like any other craft. Since you're using B9, and assuming you've got the latest version, you're also using FAR, with which I'm not familiar (been thinking about switching but haven't done it yet). That wide, irregular surface is going to generate a fair amount of drag, so I'd recommend orienting the rock so that your capture probe can push it prograde during the aerobraking process. Just in case; like I said, I don't really know enough about FAR to give sound advice there.

Edited February 18, 2015 by capi3101

[polan]

Just in case; like I said, I don't really know enough about FAR to give sound advice there.

I'm actually using NEAR because I think FAR is a little much for a noobzor like me, so NEAR might be more familiar to you.

[thadisjones]

A good idea for moving around the larger rocks is to anchor a separate RCS drone opposite to your main tug, so instead of trying to wrench the asteroid around, you can use thrusters to rotate it easily around a common axis. I've found this method to be ideal for rotating the class C's without bugging out the Klaw or torquing it off, or snapping my spacecraft in half, or spinning out of control.

[Foxster]

Just be careful if you do land it on the Mun or elsewhere. They are weirdly unstable and shift around on their own, crushing anything nearby.

[polan]

[FlyingPete]

Put it in orbit around Kerbin and turn it into a space station/base. Would look great with various modules all stuck to it at funny angles like a shanty town

[polan]

An E-Class would be good for Asteroid Bases. Though Asteroid Rendezvous is quite a heartache for me.

Also, when I was trying to land at the space center, quicksaving and loading, sometimes the physics was weird and it tore off the parachutes several times. Those funky physics also destroyed my ISS, but thank god I quicksaved.

[polan]

Maybe it was the Gyro Kraken.

[wibou]

If it is still relevant, I had to do the exact same thing recently :

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/108563-Landing-an-asteroid-on-collision-course?p=1707003&viewfull=1#post1707003