Trouble getting a station up in one piece.

[Edberg]

Hi

I've Been building spaceplanes for awhile but now i'm trying to get a spacestation into orbit.

My question is How ?

The station weighs in at about 80 to 90 tons and i want it up in one go.

Is it possible? What Should i consider?

Anyone got any rockets i could download and learn from?

I don't like the way stations look With all the dockingports when you break it up into smaler pieces.

I hope i can get some guidence.

Thanks for reading.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Edberg
Poorly describing title

[Nibb31]

I was picturing something else with that thread title...

It is possible, but you will need to learn how to big large launchers.

1) First of all, remove any unnecessary weight from your payload.

2) Take your payload, add a stage underneath it that should be capable of circularizing its orbit. This will be your upper stage. It doesn't need to have lots of thrust because you are only going to use it when you are out of the atmosphere.

3) Next, add another stage underneath it. This stage will probably have to be 3 or 4 times the size of your payload. It will need a lot of thrust to lift its own mass, plus the payload.

4) Next, add another stage underneath it. This stage will probably have to be 3 or 4 times the size of the previous stagepayload. It will need a lot of thrust to lift its own mass, plus the stage above it, and the payload.

5) Next, add another stage underneath it. This stage will probably have to be 3 or 4 times the size of the previous stagepayload. It will need a lot of thrust to lift its own mass, plus the stage above it, and the payload.

6) Next, add another stage underneath it. This stage will probably have to be 3 or 4 times the size of the previous stagepayload. It will need a lot of thrust to lift its own mass, plus the stage above it, and the payload.

...

And so on, until you have a rocket capable of lifting your payload to orbit.

[HoY]

Are you trying to launch a space PLANE or space STATION ?

if its a 90 tonne space station thats easy, very easy in fact.

If you want to launch that 90 Tonne space STATION with a space PLANE, thats an engineering challenge I have not attempted lol.

[lyndonguitar]

I don't think any kind spaceplane can launch a 90 ton space station unless you use insane sized parts from mods

It's best to use a rocket, Spaceplanes have never been good with huge payloads

[Edberg]

It's a station I'm trying to get up there with a rocket lifter. What engines would you use?

[Nibb31]

Typically, you want to use the biggest engines you have on the lower stages, and the smaller ones on the upper stages.

[HoY]

the Nova launcher by Temstar, its not a mod its a pre-built launcher designed to bring 105 tonnes to an 80km orbit. works flawlessly!

His thread containing all of his launchers is here, it Is recommended that you install Subassembly loader available here

Edited May 13, 2013 by HoY

[Jason Patterson]

A couple of caveats -

Your station will have to be roughly symmetrical. If not, it's going to be a nightmare putting rockets underneath it and actually getting it to orbit.

Your station will have to be fairly rigid. If not, it's going to flop over and fall apart en route. Unfortunately this usually means struts, which tend to look ugly in the end.

Your station will have to be sufficiently strong to support itself under acceleration.

Once you've got a suitable station, a relatively simple rocket can get it into orbit. You might be surprised at how few parts it takes.

Something like an LV-T45 attached to an X32 fuel tank makes a reasonable last stage. It will have far less delta-v than a similar stage using an LV-N, but the gain in TWR is nice if you have to use it to finish circularizing your orbit.

Around that, use 4 stacks of X32 fuel tanks with mainsails on the bottom. Add as much fuel as you can before you push the thrust to weight ratio very far below 2. Use fuel lines to connect the stacks of mainsails and the central stage, asparagus style.

Keep adding layers of X32/Mainsail stacks, using as much fuel as you can and keeping your TWR at around 2 for each stage. Connect it all to make an asparagus pattern and you're golden. You ought to be able to get sufficient delta-v to reach orbit with 3 layers of boosters without having to fly the thing perfectly.

[Klajan]

Yes these launchers are a save bet and will almost always work fine.

if you want to build your own launcher I reccomend Kerbal Engineer Redux. You need around 4500 dv to get into orbit, but I find 4800 better, so you have a margin for errors. Also try asparus-staging, this will keep your launchers relatively small and efficient. I also like to use clustered engines over mainsails, since they are more reliable (don´t overheat)(and look cool ).

[Scottiths]

Main sails don't overheat if you put the small grey tank between them and the orange tanks...

[Edberg]

Thanks all! I'll try these things.

About asparagus staging, how do you do it and still keep structural integrity? I tried it but they broke of during going up... And yes I did use struts... But perhaps not in the correct way, how would you do it?

[Slingshot]

I pretty much like using Jool stages in asparagus formations, have just shot up a Nautilus based ship using five Jool stage 2s, in a nice even burn with mj2 running.

[Scottiths]

Best way I have found to keep things from breaking is to put one strut at the top and one at the bottom of each asparagus piece and attach those struts to the core (or the next inner layer of boosters if you have a really big lifter)

[NeoMorph]

I can't get how so many people are still having problems even with so many tutorials out there. Once you master docking it's easy to put together a space station in parts. It's just learning a few basic rules is all. Once learned, it opens up a lot of "OHHHHHH, so THAT'S how you do it!" cases.

[Noticeably FAT]

Main sails don't overheat if you put the small grey tank between them and the orange tanks...

Sure they do, just not as bad. I think it might have to do with how close I have them, but on the lifter I use the most I can only run them at ~95% throttle.

I can't get how so many people are still having problems even with so many tutorials out there. Once you master docking it's easy to put together a space station in parts. It's just learning a few basic rules is all. Once learned, it opens up a lot of "OHHHHHH, so THAT'S how you do it!" cases.

Well, there's also the accomplishment of lifting large loads. If he's putting a station in orbit it's likely that he'll be doing plenty of docking, regardless of the number of parts on the station itself.

Having said that, to the OP I'd say that you still might want to make your station out of smaller parts. Not because it's easier to lift, but because it will then be modular and therefore editable. My station looks nothing like what I initially planned (not that I did a hell of a lot of planning) because I've been adding/removing/moving parts. If I hadn't made it modular I would have been stuck with the original design, which was ok, but doesn't work for what I want now.

ETA:

Here is my main lifter design (the nuke engines at the top of the pic are part of the payload), it'll get 80T to LKO. It's not the most efficient design, but it's pretty simple. It's pretty stable until the asparagus boosters drop off and I lose a lot of struts. Then it gets better once the center jumbo tank + mainsail is dropped.

You'll notice that there isn't a lot of struts holding things together, they are just strategically placed. The orange tanks are 'stitched' together at the joints, and there are struts at the top, center and bottom of the boosters. I also generally strut the payload to the boosters and some trusses at the top of the center stack. That doesn't help the lifter stability, but the connection between the lifter and payload tends to be weak, and that helps.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Noticeably FAT

[DerekL1963]

Anyone got any rockets i could download and learn from?

Use the forum search function to find Temstar's Zenith series boosters.

[magnemoe]

Thanks all! I'll try these things.

About asparagus staging, how do you do it and still keep structural integrity? I tried it but they broke of during going up... And yes I did use struts... But perhaps not in the correct way, how would you do it?

Struts, one one each side toward center stage, for an long stage I usually put one in middle to. Struts from top of booster to payload to keep it stable during launch. Use two or more struts between the lower gray tank and the orange one, if you get up to two orange tank lengths this pretty much required.

often one between the boosters at middle.

This work for two to six boosters. Put control surfaces at top of boosters. If they are long and you use six boosters use seperatrons at top to get them to seperate fast.