Getting Spare Fuel to Space Station

[Sanocon]

so i'm trying to make a fuel port for any space ships that go on long trips (like Duna or Eloo) but i have one problom:

how can i get the fuel-port up there. heres what the fuel model looks like:

note there is also a clamp-o-tron on the bottom of the craft.

so how do i get this in the air?

by the way, heres what the space station looks like so far, tell me what you think.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Sanocon

[stupid_chris]

Build a launcher under? Just as you would usually and strut it carefully. Or you can build a launcher around, it's up to you.

And you might want to add something to power this up if you don't want the RC unit to eat it's power and die.

[NoMrBond]

I don't see any solar/battery/rtg so your fuel depot might become orbital deadweight very quickly, it's got a lot of RCS, but without power to your remote unit you wouldn't be able to fire it.

Otherwise it looks like a pretty nicely shaped payload, you could probably use radial decouplers to attach the lifting parts to it in a normal parallel/asparagus fashion

[Sanocon]

sorry if i got anyone confused. this fuel port for the space station. the goal with this part is when spaceships come to the space station, the spaceships will be refueled via the part desplayed on the first image. i just need to know how to get it there. i tried putting this on top of a spaceship but it's either too wobboly or too heavy.

[stupid_chris]

sorry if i got anyone confused. this fuel port for the space station. the goal with this part is when spaceships come to the space station, the spaceships will be refueled via the part desplayed on the first image. i just need to know how to get it there. i tried putting this on top of a spaceship but it's either too wobboly or too heavy.

As I said, build your launcher around it instead. Stick some decouplers to the side of it and stick tanks and engines and yeah launch up.

[bobert577]

Attatch rockets to it radially, and do the same for the stage below the tank. And use struts to shore everything up of course. I like that design, only I won't be needing that much RCS fuel.

[troyn123]

I just finished my current KSP project (a Mun base), so I thought I'd give this a try... I started with your design, but added some power generation:

I like to work backwards from goal to ground, so next I added the stage to finalize and tune the orbit. When I got to a 100km orbit, this section had a bunch of fuel left, could have just used 1 tank, or shot for a way higher orbit:

Next up was a bunch of fuel and Mainsails, bind the "Toggle gimbal" on the Mainsails to action group "1". This was fairly heavy and slow at launch, so it spent a lot of time in atmo... I 100% guarantee there's better ways of handling it, but I've been playing with jet engines lately, so I put a bunch of turbo-jets on there to take advantage of the time in atmo with their ridiculously high ISP, get a bunch of boost for relatively little fuel, just because it's fun. While adding them, I also bound them to action group "5" so I could toggle them on and off at will. Also notice the Septatron on the big outside tanks... I've started using them to avoid random collisions when staging:

* Bind action group "2" to "decouple node" on the 4 central docking clamps AND "activate engine" on the Septatrons.

* Lock gimbals and spool up the jets first, THEN activate the stage that starts the Mainsails and disengages the clamps.

* Click on the "Resources" thing in the top right so it stays open. Keep an eye on the "Intake air". When it starts getting close to around 0.2 or so, press "5" to disable the turbo-jets. If you have an asymmetric flame-out, you're going to have a bad time.

* When the outer tanks run out, press "2" to decouple and fire up the separation engines, fire up your central stage.

* You might have to right click on that bottom docking clamp and "Disable crossfeed", depending on how your rocket is set up, to keep the main tank 100% full.

* I got it to a 100km orbit with a ton of fuel left:

When you're in your orbit, just decouple that last engine and you're good. Side note... If you are OK with ditching the nose cone on the bottom, it seemed to be a lot easier just to stick it on a fairly simple heavy booster:

[Johnno]

i just need to know how to get it there.

MOAR BOOSTERS!

i tried putting this on top of a spaceship but it's either too wobboly

MOAR SPACE TAPE!

or too heavy.

MOAR BOOSTERS!

Ps. Apologies to sensitive readers for using fine-control typing.

[stupid_chris]

I just finished my current KSP project (a Mun base), so I thought I'd give this a try... I started with your design, but added some power generation:

Honestly, this is probably one of the most over-engineered launchers I've seen to send 45t in LKO.

I did something much simpler:

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As I said, if a payload is too wobbly to send on top of a launcher, just go unconventionally and build your launcher around it. It tends to be far more stable. Just stick decouplers to the side and add your launcher symmetrically.

[Keome]

I tried a slightly different approach with great success.

The center orange tank I wanted to attach to my station had a fuel line running out to the second stage. The second stage itself was attached to a small tank that was kept full by the orange tank. That lowered the overall weight of the rocket. I got the orange tank to a 250km Kerbin orbit and attached to the station with about 90 percent of the fuel still in the orange tank.

To top off the station tank, I flewone of my Munar missions up and docked, transfered fuel to top off the station since I always seem to have way too much fuel when going to the Mun.

[draeath]

This got me all excited. I just found TAC and apparently it has a fuel-dump option...

So, my plan is to build a modest launch vehicle with a large tank up front that can be released - and dump the fuel at the launch pad. Then, I should be able to easily launch and position my nice new empty tank in orbit.

I can then use smaller launch vehicles over several missions to resupply the tank! (either via docking, or KAS)

I'll probably slap a probe core, solar panels, and some RCS on the empty tank just so I can maneuver it should I need (though I plan on building tugs for such things eventually)

[Sanocon]

so after some work i was able to get the thing up there.

Sall i used was a bunch of x200-32 fuel tanks and the fuel transfer system the Kerbal X has. and i had some fuel to spare. quick question though,

how do i crossfeed into other parts?

[stupid_chris]

how do i crossfeed into other parts?

When docked, you have to do it manually. Just alt+click the first tank and then alt+click the second tank, some "in" and "out" button will appear, just select them to transfer the fuel accordingly

[Sanocon]

sweet thanks. if anyone wants updates on how my progress on my space station let me know.

also since i'm still new at this forum, how do i change the 'unaswered' to 'answered'?

Edited July 18, 2013 by Sanocon

[stupid_chris]

sweet thanks. if anyone wants updates on how my progress on my space station let me know.

also since i'm still new at this forum, how do i change the 'unaswered' to 'answered'?

Edit the OP using the advanced editor, next to the title there should be a drop down menu where you can change it

[KerbMav]

I might be up to do this once - but I am actually not above using some kind of solar-power-to-fuel mod before "grinding" gets unnerving.

[draeath]

Just think of all the rendezvous practice you can get in assembling/supplying one of these

[troyn123]

Honestly, this is probably one of the most over-engineered launchers I've seen to send 45t in LKO.

I know, right? But until the parts cost money in a career mode, that's one of the fun parts for me, designing ridiculous solutions to fairly simple problems.

[SpeedDaemon]

I was using similar modules as fuel storage on my station. Keep in mind that it doesn't necessarily need to be FULL when it gets up there. You can always send smaller craft up to top it off later.

I used 8 asparagus-staged 1.25m stacks around the orange tank, and used (some of) the fuel in the orange tank during launch. The last two radial stages contained the mechjeb, power gen, etc., along with two of those tiny radial engines facing backwards, and were jettisoned and de-orbited after it was docked to the station.

Then you can send up some smaller, more manageable craft to top it off.