Big scale Kethane mining program

[StalinislavStalinovich]

Hello there! My space station has been in planning for a long time and I will soon get to building it. One of it's features will be an advanced refueling system (converting kethane into fuel and using that fuel to refuel) and for that I need a Kethane mining program. I am not an expert at this game, but I'm not a noob either. So this is what I have in mind:

1. Kethane mining vessel able to land, take off and randezvous in low Minmus orbit

This vessel would land on Minmus, mine Kethane to full capacity and then take off to randezvous with Kethane carrier in low orbit (it would also refuel there to be able to land again and take off later)

2.Kethane carrier

It would store all the Kethane delivered by mining vessel and then fly to the space station to transfer the fuel there, refuel and go back to Minmus orbit.

3.The station

I'm not sure about the station yet. I would prefer it to be in Kerbin's orbit. All the conversion will be done here.

That's it. Please tell me what do you think about this. Would it be efficient? Is it possible to make vessel capable of constantly travelling back between Kerbin and Minmus?

Edited September 14, 2013 by StalinislavStalinovich
answered

[Tydeth]

For the carrier, you will want LV-N Atomic Rocket Motors, for they are the most fuel-efficient space rockets ever. Their drawback is the low thrust that limits them to space/moon use. An alternative is Ion Engines, if you don't mind taking forever and a year to get anywhere.

If you're not using the refinery itself to refuel ships launched from Kerbin directly, the refining station doesn't have to be in Low Kerbin Orbit, so that can help with the fuel costs of transfering the Kethane and returning to Minmus. While moving the station out on a higher km orbit can make Minmus-Refinery travels easier, it will make Kerbin-Refinery travels need a bit more fuel to reach, so there's a balancing act to consider. Of course, using the refinery to convert Kethane to fuel for transfer to a separate Low-Kerbin Orbit gas station would also require a Low Kerbin Orbit fuel depot and a tanker to make those trips. Up to you whether the refinery will be the fuel depot or will fill fuel depots via tankers.

One extra step to consider, between the lander and the carrier, is a Kethane Storage Outpost over Minmus. The lander docks with it to offload the mined goods, the carrier docks and sucks all the Kethane up for a trip to the refinery, and the lander can continue to mine while the carrier is in transit. Currently, your lander would have to wait for the carrier to arrive in Minmus orbit to continue operations. This would make your mining more time-efficient, rendering fuel your only limiting factor.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Tydeth

[SkyRender]

This might suit you well.

It's not entirely to your spec, but it does do a great job of making mining Kethane a quick and mostly painless process.

The miner itself is very light for what it does, and has a Kerbal Attachment System "mouse" attached for Kerbal-free fuel transfer operations.

The fuel tug is nice and simple, and doesn't require a lot of work to fly.

The base of the whole lot of it is designed to be lugged up to Minmus with the miner and tug, and acts as a station with a single orange tank and CoT Sr. docking ports on either end for expansion purposes.

[Temstar]

Supposedly refining the kethane into fuel and then lifting them offworld is slightly more efficient than lifting crude kethane. The cost is of course raw kethane is more flexible since if the fuel is produced at the "point of sale" at orbital depots you can choose exactly how much bipropellant and monopropellant to make.

I went for the "surface refinery" approach back in 0.20:

First I established a surface kethane refinary/propellant depot, complete with a launch complex serviced by two crawler transports capable of handling compatible landed spacecrafts. When a spacecraft lands near the depot the crawlers sally forth and dock with the spacecraft, then carry it back to the depot for refuelling.

Shown above is a crew shuttle for transportation of workers, but the crawlers can of course handle larger crafts as well, such as this tanker designed to lift the refined product back into orbit:

Anyway with the depot established, next I established a wellhead at a nearby gas field and landed two tanker rovers to transport the crude kethane to the refinery:

Here we see two full tanker rovers approach the depot after a 50km drive across the Mun surface.

The tankers dock with the depot to offload the kethane then go back to the gas field...

The depot then go onto refining the crude kethane into fuel to refill its reservoirs.

[Talonsin]

I do almost this exact same thing but I placed my station in Minmus orbit and I refuel ships leaving the kerbal system. I did not want to haul kethane from Minmus to Kerbin and all my ships can get to Minmus pretty easily. My station is pictured in the show your station thread in the ship exchange forum. It is on page 72 of that thread.

[ArmchairGravy]

I did a rover/miner with a 4k tank and a small converter. Then a lander/orbiter with another 4k tank. The rover docks with this. The station has a 16k tank and a large converter. The miner feeds the orbiter which feeds the station. It works great.

[StalinislavStalinovich]

Thanks to everyone for answering! After reading these comments I decided to do the following. I'm still going to build my station in Kerbin orbit, but I'll build another one in Minmus orbit for refueling long-range missions. I'm going to send a rover that will mine Kethane and deliver it to Kethane storage/refinery. There it will be refined into fuel and then sent to the station by another vessel.

[Van Disaster]

I have a mobile-when-empty drilling rig and do all the Kethane moving with one other ship - it's pretty trivial to get to Minmus orbit and escape, but I'd rather not move all the drills all the time. I launch ships from Minmus also, so there is quite a bit of moving and landing to do, and varied fuel costs so I move the Kethane rather than refining first.

[Happybone]

This might suit you well.

Would you mind posting the .craft file of this ship so I could try it out please? Also, please list all of the mods needed to complete it. Thanks so much!