Challenge: Create a massive space station (mod parts allowed) powered by a kraken drive once in orbit.

[Terminal Velocity]

Yes your mission is to launch an orbital station and get it to either eve,duna, or jool. It won’t be accepted if it not powered by a kraken drive. You must show me the kraken drive and explain how it works as well. I hope you enjoy this challenge which is my first.

[dnbattley]

There are a few tutorials out there for creating different types of Kraken drives, but for a massive object like a space station, the KAL thrust exploit is likely to be the most stable (the alternatives being zompi- which is typically too weak to achieve large acceleration on a massive vessel) and landing leg (which runs the risk of breaking if over-stressed). I'm happy to submit something to this challenge to exemplify that.

[dnbattley]

Mission update: as expected, the drive type is important here.

Now I did take your comment about "orbital station" literally, and download a ISS replica from Steam workshop and put it up with some kraken drives to power it. Inevitably, the chief problem was a) finding centre of mass and b) ensuring the whole station was sufficiently "strutted up" to avoid excessive flexing during the burn.

Here's what happened:

Spoiler

Here is the station. I did check the mass but appear to have forgotten to write it down. Something like 160T IIRC. You can just about see the tug I attached (in the VAB, before cheating the whole station into orbit) in the foreground.

The zompi drive worked, but with 0.1g thrust (generated by 24 docking ports) it would be a slow process getting anywhere. It was pretty stable, however.

The landing leg drive, to my surprise, worked absolutely fine (here there are two LY01 landing wheels under compression from two inflatable docking ports), accelerating the station to 0.345g. This would be fine for getting to Jool without losing too much of your life, and was mostly stable, although the screen does shake slightly disconcertingly for such a large, relatively floppy vessel.

Well... this got awkward. I had two vector engines tuned up via the KAL exploit. At the absolute minimum thrust it accelerated the station to 0.5g, but then I added another *miniscule* amount of throttle (see picture) and the engines took off and blasted straight through the station, cleaving it in half.

So... in summary a double landing leg drive seems to be fine for the purpose, but ensuring a strong enough connection to the core superstructure is the key challenge.

As to the second part of the challenge: to demonstrate how they are made, I'll direct you to my video on the topic:

 

[Terminal Velocity]

cool looks great. it looks like a great attempt. At least you made it to orbit!  In case you wonder why i came up with this challenge is it half-inspired by matt lownes kraken drive space plane and half inspired by large orbital stations.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Rocketry101

[dnbattley]

6 hours ago, Rocketry101 said:

In case you wonder why i came up with this challenge is it half-inspired by matt lownes kraken drive space plane...

You may be interested in this then:

https://youtu.be/HRNBOVkbNUo

 

But more seriously, moving a large object like an orbital station in a single flight is tricky (with or without Kraken drives) if it is not fundamentally built like a rocket with (mass-balanced) appendages.

[Terminal Velocity]

VTOL BOI 

[A Nicheling]

I’m currently trying to do this, but the k-drive is very difficult to control. I will need more practice to carry a large station.