Rescue or Salvage?!

[jonathonF]

So I was adding the habitation module of my Minmus Mining Station, currently in LMO, to the station core. I had just gotten the module, with 16 brave kerbals onboard, to LMO, and (yes, I use mechjeb to rendevous) I set mechjeb to rendevous with the Station Core. It was on auto-warp, but was still doing nothing. I thought that maybe the engine was turned off, so I staged it. Which separated the booster from the module itself. 16 brave kerbals are now stranded in Minmus orbit. I had a plan to rescue them with an SSTO, but then I thought 'Well, we're so close to the end of the mission, maybe I can just bring another booster. I play in sandbox mode, so money is not a problem. Any ideas on how to rescue Lizzie, Molie and the rest of the Minmus Station gang?

[Cavscout74]

Either plan works (rescue crew or attach new stage), so it comes down to what you have to work with. 

Does the hab module have docking ports on both ends?   If it does, launching a new stage will be easy.  If it doesn't, it becomes more difficult in stock since the only option is the Klaw. 

If you don't have docking ports on both ends, do you use KIS & KAS mods?   If you do, adding a new stage is still easy since you can either add a docking port or just have an engineer directly attach the new stage - although adding the docking port is the more flexible option.

If you don't have KAS & only have a single docking port to dock with the station, your only option to salvage the mission will be docking to the hab module with a klaw equipped craft - and then alignment becomes an issue unless you dock perfectly centered & lined up.

For me at least, I prefer to salvage the existing mission if possible.   And if adding a new stage doesn't work, you can always launch a rescue craft later.

 

[Geonovast]

Greetings, @jonathonF, and welcome to the forum!

First off, you don't actually need to stage an engine to activate it.  You can right click on the engine, and activate it using the menu that comes up.  It's also not a bad idea to tap F5 before staging if you're unsure what's going to happen.

Unfortunately it's difficult to give  advice in this situation without seeing exactly what you have going on.  Would you mind showing us some screenshots?    If you don't know how to insert pictures into your post, give this a looksie.

 

[bewing]

There is a very common question that comes up in stock KSP. "Oh crap, my rocket in space is missing a part/broken/disabled/etc., what can I do?"

The answer is always to use the Klaw. It is fussy to use (you have to touch your target at very close to a 90 degree angle), but you can pretty much use it to fix any problem. So yes, I'd say launch a spacetug with a Klaw on the front. Fly it to Minmus, grab the hab module, complete the docking, and complete the mission. Then you will have the added benefit of having a spare spacetug for future use -- it's hard to have too many spacetugs.

 

[jonathonF]

Wow! So many responses! I will try to answer them all. The hab module has a docking port. My idea for the salvage mission was to dock a booster, get about 50m away from the station, undock the booster, then dock. No, I don't have KIS or KAS mods. Yes @Geonovast, I should have just right clicked the engine! Quicksaving when you are unsure is also a good idea. I am a relatively new player, I have only played for a few months, and any bit of advice I get helps. Thanks! @bewing that's a great idea! There are 5 normal docking ports on the hab, so I could use the spacetug in the future. The photos of my situation are below:

This is my Minmus at the moment. The green orbit is the Hab module, and the gray orbit is the station.

This is the Hab module overall (note the docking port on the back, almost covered by monopropellant tanks)

Thanks everyone for giving me some advice on my options!

[Fierce Wolf]

Sounds like the sort of problem a giantic sky-crane with a Klaw could fix.

Just make sure to give a cool name to it before launching

[Zhetaan]

On 9/20/2019 at 7:51 PM, jonathonF said:

Any ideas on how to rescue Lizzie, Molie and the rest of the Minmus Station gang?

Hello and welcome!

I've had this exact problem, though I daresay that my situation was worse than yours; I can see what appears to be a Cupola Module on the end of your vessel, which gives you control; my own mistake involved a vessel that lacked even a probe core.

My solution was to send a booster that was docked (you can use docking ports as decouplers, albeit without the force and the explosion) to a payload consisting of a probe core, battery and power supply, reaction wheel, monopropellant tank, RCS thrusters, and docking ports on both ends (I tend to use the Sr. ports for main modules and the standard-sized ports for extension arms).  I was able to dock to the rear port of the module and use the booster to correct the orbit for rendezvous with the larger station, then undock the booster from the monopropellant drone, move the drone to one of the middle docking ports (your module is so like mine it's uncanny), and then use RCS in fine control mode (press caps lock) to assemble it all.  I saved the mission and additionally got a convenient docking drone that doubles as a size adaptor and triples as a supplemental monopropellant tank.

It worked so well that I now send one as standard equipment on all of my stations.  It saves a lot of cost.  Though I know that is not a concern for you, perhaps in the future you will like the idea of not needing to pay to add RCS and extra reaction wheels to all of your boosters and modules, and instead let a solution designed for docking do all of the docking.