KSI Launches it's first station!

[Hyomoto]

Hello everyone,

I reached an important milestone today, I managed to put together a space station in orbit! As a qualifier however, though it was assembled in orbit, it was a 'one-launch kit' since orbital rendezvous are still a bit sketchy. I have to start somewhere, eh? The goal was to make something that is sufficient by itself, can be disassembled, added to or rebuilt and could eventually be used for refueling ops. Here's what I came up with, (by the way, thanks to everyone who has ever posted screenshots. you encourage me to try harder). I made about a dozen mistakes on this device, but I think I definitely learned something from it. If you want to give it a try, I won't stop you but I really don't expect anyone to want to. Here's a craft file for anyone crazy enough though. It uses KSPX and KAS parts.

This rocket has enough delta-v to put the station components into a 70-80km orbit depending on how you fly it. Pressing 1 disables the outer thrusters. This rocket is actually for launching a deep space probe payload, so those boosters are actually detrimental to this setup (mistakes!).

So there's kind of debris, which I hadn't really considered in space, so you kind of have to get rid of it by hand. I won't be surprised if that causes a mishap later on.

I also screwed up the 'tug' because I ... didn't install ASAS. Putting this thing together was an absolute nightmare. I'm amazed it went together even remotely as well as it did.

Edited May 28, 2013 by Hyomoto
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[Rune]

Congrats! The first station is always the hardest. Now to refine those rendezvouses by flying refueling flights!

Rune. Hint: a spent upper stage make for a nice fuel depot tank.

[Hyomoto]

First orbital rendezvous and auxiliary component connection complete! I must give my thanks to Scott Manley for his docking video, I hadn't realized you must STILL CLICK ON THE TARGET to get the targeting mode to come up. Docking is easy and fun after that!

It turns out I like the tugs without ASAS better. It's nice to have that anti-rotation without it flipping out with my RCS. Anyways, I succeeded in adding fuel to the station as well as two tugs. One of them is a 'mobile charger' for probes that go dead for whatever reason but serves as a tug for micro-sized fixtures as well. Then the two tugs, one with ASAS and double RCS for big drags, and the smaller one for same sized pieces but smaller weights or as an auxiliary control tug.