Space Station Question

[CheftonUTD]

I'm building my first space station at the moment, it's mostly being made just for the sake of building one, but I'm also planning on using it as a fuel depot for future missions.

So far I have only been to Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus. I'm wondering where would be a good place for the station to be so it's useful to future exploration? I've got the Kethane mod and a small base on Minmus, so I can fuel the station from there, or I can fuel it from Kerbin.

Is Minmus a good staging point for futher travel, or should I keep it orbiting Kerbin?

Any tips or ideas would be welcome

Edited August 9, 2013 by CheftonUTD

[RocketPilot573]

I'd say a 200 Km orbit around Kerbin will be the best place for the station. As ships refueling there will be able to take advantage of the Oberth Effect and thus use less fuel when going to interplanetary space. If you put it at Minmus then well, here's a list of problems:

1) No Oberth effect (or at least the bad side of it)

2) If you exploration ships can get to Minmus, then they might as well continue to another planet

3) Minmus is in an inclined orbit

[CheftonUTD]

Ok thanks,

I currently have it orbiting Kerbin at 1,000km as I thought slower orbital speeds may make docking easier, or that Kerbins gravity influence would be less.

So a lower orbit would give my ships a higher velocity and require shorter burns if I understand it correctly then?

I like the logistics/resource creation aspects in games/mods like this, but it sounds like it would be better just to re-fuel the station with ships from Kerbin rather than Kethane refined from the Mun/Minmus.

Edited August 9, 2013 by CheftonUTD

[DMagic]

Yeah a lower orbit is better for interplanetary burns. Another reason to keep it orbiting Kerbin instead of Minmus, even if you refuel from Minmus, is that it's much easier to find windows for transfers to other planets. Being in orbit around Minmus really complicates this and I don't think it's worth the fuel that you could save by doing burns from Minmus.

[SDIR]

It would be much easier from Kerbin if you have a heavy lift rocket that can lift 32 tons of fuel at a time. It also saves time because you no longer have to fly a new space station to Minmus; as well as the fact that interplanetary transfers will ne loads easier.

[ansaman]

I built my station at about 115 k so there was a little room for error if anything went wrong. Apparently, KSP orbits do not decay like real world orbits. I have about 10,000 units of fuel, 12,000 units of oxidizer, and 4600 units of monopropellant on orbit.

[annallia]

One thing to remember if you keep your station in a lower orbit.

Your time warp is limited so if you have say, 90 days until your launch window for interplanetary launches you will be waiting a while. This is why I always put mine at least 100k out.

It is true that you use less fuel if it is closer to Kerbin, you can however have a tug drag your ship to a lower orbit when your launch window approaches, or there is a (I would call it a glitch...) where you can put another vessel on the launch pad and go into the highest time warp.

[Tripzter]

130-150km above kerban is best IMO. i say 130 mainly because of fuel savings. Its high enough so you can get into orbit at say 80-90km and still have enough of a distance difference so you dont have to adjust your orbit too much or wait too long to intercept the station. Also its high enough so you can use the 4th or 5th warp speed (forgot which one but the limit is 120km).

[sojourner]

Another reason to keep it at least above 150km: Less lag from rendering the planet above that height.

[ansaman]

Another reason to keep it at least above 150km: Less lag from rendering the planet above that height.

Good point.

[HeadHunter67]

Indeed, the 120km+ altitude is a good idea if you're waiting for transfer windows. Basically it cuts your wait time by a factor of 10 (if I remember the time-warp multiplier correctly).

[Pugspaceprogram]

Personally, I would go with the real ISS altitude, with is approximately 325 km. Here, you get the Oberth effect taking place, it moves in a slower orbit, and therefor making rendezvousing a tad easier. Also, note that you can move the station by using ion engines and a ton of xenon. This way, you can safely adjust the orbit to whatever suits you.

[Tripzter]

it moves in a slower orbit, and therefor making rendezvousing a tad easier.

How so? You still have to wait for it to get to the correct position and still have to burn to get the correct orbit. I dont see how its easier. IMO its worse due to the fact that you have to burn a lot more to even out your orbit.

Another reason to keep it at least above 150km: Less lag from rendering the planet above that height.

Hmm what are the km distance for rendering? You say 150km?

[HeadHunter67]

Not only that, but the ISS is at a 325km altitude over a world with a diameter ten times that of Kerbin. You can't expect the same results from the same altitudes in the game.

[CheftonUTD]

Thanks for all the good tips, thinking I'll probably bring it down to about 140-200km then.

Speaking of Xenon engines, how many of you find them useful? I'm just about to add my power/propulsion stage to my station, I was thinking about adding xenon engines but haven't got experience with them. It would seem (on paper at least) that their only benefit is great fuel economy, it looks like RCS does everything better than them and is more versatile.

Also could someone tell me what's happening below?

Under the four atomic engines I had four TR-18A's and then into another quad adapter like the one above the engines. When I attempted to separate the decouplers everything exploded. I tried it a few times, and found one of them that when decoupled on it's own would separate the ship without any disaster. This still left the engine 'casings' on all engines, as well as 3 decouplers. The only way I could get the decouplers off without losing the engines was to do a full burn until they got burned off.

I've never had a problem with decouplers before this, but I started to wonder maybe I've been puting them on the wrong way (or perhaps it just didn't like the quad setup?), does the arrow point at the part of the ship you want to keep, or the part you want to remove?

Sorry to keep asking so many newbie questions, just when I think I've got it figured out the game likes to surprise me with unexpected explosions haha.