Can not for the life of me get this to orbit to dock with my station

[Yibbachester]

http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad244/yibbadoggie/2013-09-06_00001.jpg

http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad244/yibbadoggie/2013-09-06_00002.jpg

i can't seem to get this in orbit, or even past 100km. It will need a lot of fuel due to the high orbit of the space center I will dock it to.

[Johnno]

Doesn't look very heavy, beyond you failing to build a launcher I feel like pointing out a few flaws. The 6-way hub (can't remember its name) as such is just a connection part weighing 1.5 tons, you need to attach docking ports to it to be able to use it as a real docking hub (or other bits to make it useful). As such it's less useful than just another "structural fuselage".

Other than that, fuel tank but no engine nor docking ports, it's meaningless (apart from looks).

To launch it into orbit wouldn't be too hard, it doesn't look too heavy masswise. As a 'benchmark' two orange tanks + ½ orange tank (double white tank - 32) with a mainsail can get a small payload to orbit, so you'd need to attach enough tanks/thrust to lift it, with about 4500 m/s delta-v.

You can look at Kerbal X, a stock craft, to find a launcher. It's asparagus staged and somewhat ok. Other than that, orange tanks + mainsails, bunch of them, will lift anything if you add enough.

[Stone Blue]

Yup, just throw "moar fuel, and moar struts" on it...moar is ALWAYS better!!...lol...j/k

If you are at least getting it up to around 75K, and CLOSE to a full orbit, you might want to try adjusting your gravity turn, and also seeing if you can adjust throttle down a bit at certain times during the ascnet to stretch out what fuel you HAVE, before throwing on moar tanks, or moar/bigger engines....OR, maybe send up a separate refueling payload to rendevous with, so it can then make it up to 100k...??

But, yeah, doesnt seem like that should be too heavy of a payload to get into orbit...

[capi3101]

I'm coming up with 13.58 tonnes for a Cupola, an FL-T800 tank, a hunk of structural fuselage, a Rockomax Hubmax Multi-Point Connector, 4 communotron 88-88s, both a large ASAS module and an Inline Reaction Wheel, 4 Z-400 batts, 4 Gigantor solar panels and eight RCS blocks. I can't identify that bit above the large ASAS below the Cupola.

No, that's not heavy at all; one of Temstar's Zenith-II boosters could lift that to orbit easily.

Some serious structural issues, though. For starters, Johnno's already pointed out the problem with the hubmax; if you're going to use it to dock things, you still have to add ports. Also, having both the large ASAS and the Reaction Wheel is redundant; the way new SAS is written in the game, they both do the same thing (so you can ditch one and save some weight). And I should point out that those RCS blocks aren't going to do you a lick of good without some monopropellant tanks. I'm also curious as to why you have a fuel tank down on the bottom; it'd make a little bit of sense if you were using that bit as a booster to get the rest of it into the orbit you want but by itself it's not going to do anything.

What's your desired orbit?

[Vanamonde]

Sometimes I like to build things for people, just as a project. So this improbable-looking launch vehicle will get your station hub as high as you want it to go.

Craft file:

http://www./download/hdaup3gxxqos74b/X_Ship.craft

I had to take some liberties with your design, for reasons such as making sure nothing blocked the door, but I tried to keep it as close to your pics as I could. Hope it works for you.

[Yibbachester]

Tank you for the answers, I must also ask, is it possible to have ONE section jetty from multiple decouplers? i can only seem to have a whole built section connect to one, and if i build it from the decouplers it wont connect to the other sections of a rocket

[Yibbachester]

also, it is very unstable at the top, so it is possible to decouple struts?

[TheDarkStar]

1. No, since KSP saves rockets in a tree-like format (with parent and child parts).

2. Yes, struts can be decoupled.

[sojourner]

amendment to #2: struts decouple automatically between stages that have been decoupled.