The Plymouth Plane and Probe Station

[intidragon]

Hey guys. I'm excited to present to you, my very first attempt at making a single-launch space station. The Rocket itself is made by the very talented mr. Mulbin, creator of incredible ships such as the Space Station Kit Mk.2, the Munbug VI Lander, and the Duna LK-1. His works gave me a sudden urge to do the same as his. . . since he uses a narrower range of parts, but uses them in way you'd never think were possible. . . which was a big eye-opener for me. I'm also glad he let me use his Jool V rocket system. . . or as I call it, "The Mulbinar Lifting System", which was instrumental in the execution of this project. And even though my station looks a bit bigger, it actually uses fewer parts, and will still have enough fuel for the core rocket to de-orbit itself and not be labelled as debris. But enough of that, let's get on with the show, and get this over with.

NOTE: Although this is labeled as a stock ship, I chose to label it that way was because the mods are minimal, and in my opinion, are used widely by many KSP players.

Mods used:

KWRocketry (For the external, replaceable fuel and RCS tank, and the RCS thrusters as well)

Deep Space Mission Pack (I used it's 2.5m to truss adapter, I thought it'd look nice. )

NFJ Truss Pack (Since they give a touch more flexibility with more parts to use, and they add another shade of color )

B9 Aerospace pack (The only thing I used from this pack were the different lights included, again. . . to make the thing look cool )

FROM THE GROUND-UP, LITERALLY

Seconds after liftoff (It lifts slowly. . . but it will get into orbit, don't worry. )

Removal of the mainsail stage. At first you'd think it'll drop, but trust me it won't. I made my gravity turn at 8.5km up, and slowly went prograde 'till it read at 70km Apoapsis. I just went pure prograde from there. I know there's a more efficient way. . . I was just so excited to get this thing into orbit.

Separation of the core lifter at our 101.3km orbit. Nothing much to say here, although the remaining fuel inside it is more than enough to get it to de-orbit. Very nice piece of rocketry mr. Mulbin.

And finally. . . TADAAAA~! The ejection of the fairings of the space station. The other fairings collided and destroyed each other, which was nice since there will be less debris around. XD But the problem was. . . it also had just enough force to knock out two solar arrays. So. . . I had no choice but to restart from there.

After our mishap with the solar arrays. . . here we got a nice view of the 1-man station, but of course capable of carrying and maintaining 4 extra kerbs. and as you can see at the bottom. . . the aft of the re-fuel tank is left bare. I deliberately did this for you guys to decide what to use to close that hole up; be it another large docking port, to extend the fuel capacity, effectively making it a gas station, or perhaps make it liable for interplanetary travel by re-launching a 2 or 3-engine nuclear drive system, a lander and return vehicle to the regular docking ports, and attach probes to the clamp-o-tron juniors. The choice is yours, and since I haven't tried doing it yet, place your modded Station-turned-ships here

A very nice view, if I do say so myself. . . of the little green planet Jebediah calls "home". I don't know who made this 2.5m lander command pod for our .20 version. . . but it really is a great part. I think I might use these pods more often.

A nice, last look at the darkening horizon of the Kerbin surface as we head on to the dark side of the planet.

A frontal view of the space station at night, showing it's lights at the back. At least our kerbs will know where they're floating/grabbing around on if they ever run out of helmet light batteries.

And, for our final pic. . . a good look of the station's minor details, using the lights it has. For me, this is one of my favorite shots, as you can see the ladder running the length of the main truss. It's still got a few problems though, since the ladder is too angled at some points, making the kerbals stop as they get to those said locations. But still, making them walk down then letting go to skip over those parts. . . isn't so bad either, right?

Final Words:

Sorry if the pictures are a little fuzzy, my computer can handle only so much modular parts before crashing.

This project took a little over 4 hours, since I had permission from mr. Mulbin to use his rocket system. Again, I can't stress enough how thankful I am for letting me use your uberly-epic Jool V/Mulbinar Lifting System. If it weren't for your rocket, I wouldn't be able to do it. I'll make sure to dive in and learn more on how the fuel flow was posible, it really made me go "WHOA~! :0.0:" when I saw your rocket. It was sheer beauty. I hope you like this too. . . since I also felt that this might be a more "New user-friendly" craft. I tried the Kit. . . it was both a joy and a pain to build. )

The download to the station is here:

http://www./download/2xoxpby50py52sm/Plymouth_Station.craft

And I hope guys will enjoy it.

- END OF TRANSMISSION -

Edited June 1, 2013 by intidragon

[Comrade Jenkens]

Love every bit of it Especially how the shell decouples.

Though i'd question naming it after Plymouth

[intidragon]

Ahaha, thanks a lot for your feedback. The unbelievable shell size was also from another Spacecraft engineer. . . I just reverse-engineered it into my system huehuehue.

The main reason why I named it Plymouth was due to a mod that I downloaded, which was Lionhead Aerospace Inc. They make probes, space telescopes, and a lot more. One thing included in their file from a recent download was that they had a flag of the European Union, aside from the built-in flag icons for KSP. And since my dad's from the UK, I suddenly decided that the space station be named based on his hometown. . . Plymouth.

[Blipser]

Looks really cool, especially with the way the top just sits above the fairing and The way it was launched by a Saturn V replica and how it lost the solar panels really reminded me of Skylab.

[intidragon]

thanks man. I think the reason why the solar arrays were hit was because I hesitated quite a bit before releasing the fairing. But at my 2nd launch, when I released it immediately after the core stage, the fairings cleared out of the way pretty good. I forgot to take another screenie then, which was my mistake though.

[Mulbin]

Glad to see my rocket is so popular!... and an aptly named ship as I created the Jool V from my home in Plymouth

[Comrade Jenkens]

Glad to see my rocket is so popular!... and an aptly named ship as I created the Jool V from my home in Plymouth

Wow theres tons of us plymouth ppl round this thread

How many parts is that btw?

[intidragon]

Oh wow! I didn't know that you're from plymouth too! ahaha, let' see if we'll ever cross paths there.

[intidragon]

Wow theres tons of us plymouth ppl round this thread

How many parts is that btw?

If i remember correctly, it's 584 parts