Refueling station placement at Laythe

[Warzouz]

Hi,

I'm in a mission to Jool, some Jool-5 of my own (thus I do multiple travel flight that meet in Laythe SOI. My goal is to build a space station capable of refueling several mission to each of Jool moon.

The flotilla is composed of :

- 1 space station core leaded by the well known engineer Bill Kerman (hope he won't wreack every thing...)

- 1 ferry for the Bop and Tylo SSTO landers (both landers are crewed during travel)

- 1 ferry for the Pol and Vall SSTO landers (both landers are crewed during travel)

- 1 tug for Tylo carring an alternative staged lander (not crewed during traval)

- 1 tug for Tylo carring an airbreathing SSTO Laythe lander (not crewed during traval)

- 1 RCS tank with a mini station tug for easy movins stuff around (not crewed)

- 6 self propelled orange tanks for refueling (not crewed)

- 1 crew tranport for the reste of the team. (not usefull but RP)

- A 6 probe carrier for polar orbit (not meant to meet at Laythe though)

All those missions are powered by an overfueled 2 stage laucher designed for 40T payload to Jool without aerobraking.

I manned the passeneger and station launch but let MechJeb to the ascending for the rest... All ships were launched with a mostly 20 minutes delay. I planned all nodes manually (except for the 6 fuel tanks for which MechJeb did a loosy job, i had to correct with 500dv)

Hopefully, after the long travel, the 14 ships where spanned on 300 day in the second year, so I could managed them in sequence for aerobeaking at Jool (target 115 to 120km), then Laythe (target 22 to 23km, or a bit less). I've already collected 5 of the 13 ships and my space station is now in an elipic orbit around Laythe.

The station has enough fuel to manage a least 4 trips to each moons (one more for tylo with the non reusable lander). This is the objective : create a space base I can use to visite Jool moon whenever I want without waiting for the launch windows and the tedious travel.

I'd planned to stick the space station à 70 or 80km. But now I hesitate between 70, 100 or 500km. What do you suggest for the altitude of such a space station ?

PS : I've chosed Laythe beause it's a nice place !

[Warzouz]

No insight about placement of a station for outward flights around Laythe ?

I've read that elliptic orbits are neat, but I want MechJeb to do only what I'm capable of doing, so I prefer circular orbits.

[NASAHireMe]

It ultimately doesn't matter all that much. Not for what you intend. You've got so many parts and so much fuel that the fuel savings from a slightly higher or lower orbit are not that much.

I'd personally pick an altitude that allows a higher timewarp and reduces Laythe surface rendering. This boosts framerate, reduces the load on your CPU and computer (a major problem for me because I play on a laptop that can overheat), and makes life more convenient when you can access 100x acceleration. That altitude is 120km.

Like Warzouz, I'd also prefer a circular rather than an elliptical orbit for my station. The additional dV you have to expend to leave Laythe's orbit when starting from a circular rather than elliptical is more than compensated by the frustration you avoid by not having to worry about aligning arguments of periapsis.

Note: you still have to worry about launch windows from LAYTHE to whichever moon of Jool you wish to visit. Of course, the time between launch windows are not nearly as long as the Kerbin-->Jool window.

[Starhawk]

A Laythe orbit higher than 480 km will allow 10 000x time warp. That might make rendezvous operations quicker in real time.

Happy landings!

p.s. Laythe is also very pretty.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Starhawk

[Warzouz]

I finally opted for 500km. The view is beautiful... I'm assembling the station now...

[Warzouz]

OK, Done !

Well, a 1000 parts space station is finally not a very good idea...

[tsotha]

OK, Done !

Well, a 1000 parts space station is finally not a very good idea...

Not unless you have a lot of time on your hands, no.