How do you get fuel to your space station?

[faezo]

I am trying to find an efficient way to get fuel to my space station. I'm having difficulty getting a full orange tank to my station at about 135,000m.

[Morzak]

Since I started using Kethane I try to fill it from kethane I mined on the mun (transfer fuel in 1 or 2 tanks.) Else I'm able to get a full/Nearly full orange tank to around 100-120k. Fuel tank includes 2 Big RCS tanks and an Orange one and Docking ports. Launcher is an Orange Tank with a small one underneath it and 4 boosters with the same layout and asparagus staged. This is normally enougt to get it into orbit with all it's fuel left.

[tomf]

It would depend on whether you want efficient or simple in terms of flight plan and number of parts. a compromise between the two would be

If you aren't familiar with asparagus staging look under advanced rocket design on the wiki.

Payload - orange + rcs fuel +solar panels + probe core + docking port = 38t

Underneath = Orange tank and a mainsail

Asparagus stagea around the outside

3 * (2 * mainsail + 56 units of rockomax tanks)

That should give a delta-v of over 5000, you will probably have most of the final stage fuel left as well. Stick some sort of probe body on it and you can use the fuel to de-orbit the junk.

If you want to maximize efficiency I would replace the central mainsail with 4* lv-45 and use aerospike clusters on the asparagus stages but the rocket will be a lot more complicated.

[hyperformer]

Mozark! You said that you give methane to your stations and I find that a bit inefficient because methane takes much more space than liquidfuel. So I suggest that you refine it on the surface and than transport the liquid fuel to your station.

[astropapi1]

Mozark! You said that you give methane to your stations and I find that a bit inefficient because methane takes much more space than liquidfuel. So I suggest that you refine it on the surface and than transport the liquid fuel to your station.

*Kethane.

[dr_jt]

Nice ballistic flight.

Edited June 6, 2013 by dr_jt

[Tristavius]

I used to launch 5 orange tanks at a time as the payload (all arriving full) but man it was such a pain to dock them all and my lifter had a high kracken-attack rate.

Now for my Kerbin station I just launch 3 at a time which is nice and easy to dock and the lifting is a lot more reliable. My 3-tank design is a central core of Structural Fuselages with 3-way ports on each end and the 3 orange tanks mounted radially. Each tank can be detached using the radial decoupler and has docking ports on either end, so a ship can come along and carry one away to use as extra fuel. When bringing new fuel to my station I have the option of adding the new 3 onto the previous 3 or deorbiting the old 3 and replacing them.

My minmus station in theory receives kethane from the surface, but so far I installed Kethane when i found resources weren't coming next patch, landed a big kethane refinery and orbital lifter then have never used them.

My Laythe station I've recently began receives one orange tank at a time from the same design I use to rescue stranded crafts. I launch the tank with 4x FL-T800's radially mounted with a nuclear engine each. The side tanks allow it to get to most places without tapping the main tank, and with 4 engines I still get a decent burn time.

[Vanamonde]

This is my standard refuelling vehicle. It can reach 300,00m+ without calling upon the orange tank's own fuel.

You can download it here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25779-Orbital-refuelling-tanker

[faezo]

Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

[buffinator]

Since I started using Kethane I try to fill it from kethane I mined on the mun (transfer fuel in 1 or 2 tanks.) Else I'm able to get a full/Nearly full orange tank to around 100-120k. Fuel tank includes 2 Big RCS tanks and an Orange one and Docking ports. Launcher is an Orange Tank with a small one underneath it and 4 boosters with the same layout and asparagus staged. This is normally enougt to get it into orbit with all it's fuel left.

Hey, I'm a new player. Do you need to download a mod for resource harvesting?

[PaleoGamer]

For now, yes. The Kethane mod they are talking about is here.