I want to see your Asteroid Tugs!

[mhoram]

I am going to try out this puller design with Class E asteroids

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[Xaiier]

Pulling is substantially more stable than pushing and the necessary engine clearance isn't as much as you might think. This is a 250t D.

[Overfloater]

Here's a VIDEO of Venera & Katherine!!! xD

I don't care if pulling is more effective/proper or not, I did it because it's freaking cool xD

U see it in all sorts of silly sci-fi... it happened in Lexx, in Invader Zim, Space Truckers... and probably many more!

And I see this fashion is catching up, huh...

[Whirligig Girl]

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Here's my tug. She captured a B-class asteroid on my first try!

[WhiteWeasel]

Here is my pusher, remove the docking ports on a later version to make it more stable. Can handle A-C, but could tackle a D or E if so.

(E-Class)

[biohazard15]

My first E-class attempt.

This is the Phoenix II, reusable nuclear interplanetary tug. Parts are from NovaPunch (fuel tanks, radial decouplers and NERVAs), AIES (solar panels and antennas) and KW (RCS thrusters). It weighs 329 tons when fueled at 100%, and has about 10500 m\s dV without cargo. The ship is very maneuverable for its size, thanks to two huge SAS rings and lots of RCS thrusters (mix between normal and 45-degree angled).

Thing is, it was designed and launched a week before 0.23.5 update. I just designed a Klaw Grabber Unit (Sentinel I is a rocket that launched it - I just forgot to fix the name).

The mission was a total success. 1800-ton boulder was located and intercepted between Kerbin and Duna, then maneuvered to Kerbin. I've got really lucky with aerobraking - 300km Ap on the first try, made a good circular (although slightly inclined) orbit.

Some bits:

- Puller design are far more stable and maneuverable than pusher, especially if you lined it perfectly with asteroid CoM.

- "Dock small probe, then dock a tug to it" is a completely viable and stable design, you just have to be very careful with physics. Everytime I exited timewarp, the entire contraption started wobblying dangerously. The best fix for it - F5, then F9. You won't lose your nodes (since they are persistent now), and won't lose your ship to Kraken. Also, be careful with your thrust.

[kola2DONO]

Well this is not a tug, more of a base.

I recently found a 3700 tonnes asteroid in a nearly circular kerbin orbit (don't know if that is a glitch or not)

And sat a little spacecraft on it.

Bill is currently inside the spacecraft waiting for more modules to arrive.

[musketeer]

I've made a super-heavy asteroid tug, kind of like the Seigfried Space Zeppelins on Iron Sky. It's probably massively overdone, with too much fuel, but it will never need to be refueled!

http://imgur.com/a/FuXgS

It has 2 small drone tugs on the side for smaller calss A and class B asteroids.

Edited April 6, 2014 by musketeer

[Technical Ben]

My asteroid tug is doing a fine job so far.

http://i.imgur.com/wKDpzll.png

http://i.imgur.com/IhaEslJ.png

I named her Katherine. She's a C

;-)

Headed for a Kerbin aerobrake...

Wait, that scene was in Airplane, right?

[robogungt8]

I challenge someone to do it with the new ion engines...

[Mr. Speed]

These are some pictures of my redirector x1 and x2. the x1 was quite successful for a prototype. I mounted engines on the sides because I was concerned about the turn rate once clamped on. This worked pretty well for medium sized asteroids but wasn't enough for my second asteroid of about 200tonnes. So I upgraded it with four small claw pods with each RCS control and a reaction wheel. I also downsized the side engines and added a few fuel tanks and a crew (and named it creatively the x2). It has much better control over the asteroid, so I think this is how I am gonna grab a big fat E class asteroid next.( but I'll probably have to double the size first).

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[RedDwarfIV]

Asteroid Interceptor 01 Typhoon and Asteroid Interceptor 02 Oscelot, in that order.

I prefer the Typhoon. It looks better, and doesn't have a pointless cargo bay on it.

[O-Doc]

Here's mine. It'll deal with any size but D & E class roids need some aerobraking for capture. I made a few ARM crafts before this one. This one has 10K dV so, it's not just a big tank of gas. It's a solid long range craft in it's own right.

[Mr.Rocket]

I just downloaded the update today(i was a bit busy) and caught an A-class asteroid just as a test. Landed it too!

Some of the pictures may not be in the right order though.

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[MichaelVonBraun]

Meet FeCuIr, The new member of Kerbin's companions.

My Asteroid tug, LaurAm, is a VASMIR vehicle.

FeCuIr is a Class A asteroid, snatched from space and placed into an ecuatorial, retrograde orbit between Kerbin and the Mun.

The two man research party is on its way!

[MichaelVonBraun]

Done, (though my save got deleted), With 4 Ion thrusters, two big SPanels and two Generators, I snatched a Class A asteroid and placed it between the Mun and Minmus (not ecuatorial though...)

[RedDwarfIV]

My E-class Asteroid Interceptor, 03 Axolotl. I should mention that none of my tugs have actually caught an asteroid yet, but come on, the thing's huuuge. How can it not work?

Anyway, they're all puller designs for the stability.

It carries a lab because it might get reused for interplanetary missions.

[EDIT] OKAY, A WARNING FOR EVERYONE ABOUT PULLER-DESIGNS

If you put your engines right in front of the asteroid... you won't go anywhere. I got more change in velocity out of my RCS thrusters than I did from my main engines.

My attempt at an interceptor that wouldn't be affected by the above problem; the Asteroid Interceptor 04 Thunder:

Yes, I managed to get it into orbit with two ascent boosters still attached. Currently sending it to intercept asteroid FAT-674.

Edited April 8, 2014 by RedDwarfIV

[Jouni]

This is the Asteroid Wheel, named for its unfortunate tendency to rotate at an accelerating pace during launch. I can't really control the inclination of the initial orbit, but the ship is big and has a lot of delta-v, so it really doesn't matter. It's designed to intercept Class E asteroids and to haul smaller asteroids to other planets.

[kola2DONO]

This beauty is still experimental but works great :

[Cuel]

All stock

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Edited April 9, 2014 by Cuel

[Rune]

I massively overbuilt my first asteroid rendezvous. Especially considering the redirect to aerobrake took 5m/s (I caught it 15 days out). Then again, a twin of this SEP tug is going after a C class, this one just happened to be the one closest to spawn. I'm still watching for a big E, but so far no luck:

Rune. I've got 8km/s to move it around... yeah, just a bit overbuilt.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Rune

[RogueMason]

Despite a horrendously inefficient manoeuvre, I just captured my first pet rock, a class B.

I was in an orbit of the same inclination as the asteroid, but going around Kerbin the other way. My plan was to fly straight at it then kill relative velocity and move in, which I did. I had fuel to spare too, but I bet if I snook up behind the space rock, it would have been easier.

The moment of truth.

We have it. I shall name him Styx.

Fortunately, the little thing had a mass similar to the tug (~20 tonnes), plus it almost had an orbit anyway, so pushing it just a little further wasn't hard in the slightest.

I'm going to refuel the tug to put it on an equatorial orbit, then the IEV Libra is going to go and poke around.

[Trann]

I thought modular might be the best approach -- create a hub and add to it for larger class asteroids -- but on the way to high orbit with my first design, things seemed less than stable.

So I decided to try a double-dock: this is a "wing" moving to mate with a center hub and another "wing"...

I wasn't sure both would sync but after mating, I checked each dock and both offered 'undock' options so I'm thinking this is going to be pretty solid.

Now... another pair of wings, a fuel top-off, and I'm off to find an E-class.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I made a Near Future-powered asteroid catcher SSTO spaceplane.

It ain't no armageddon preventer, and it hasn't really been tested yet, but its VASIMR thruster and argon supply should allow it to intercept and capture class A and B asteroids for scientific purposes.

(hm, does anybody know what happened to spoiler tags on this forum?)

(edit: ah, it appears they need a text assigned. Strange setup, but oh well.)

Edited April 11, 2014 by Sean Mirrsen

[128MB]

My first attempt at catching an asteroid went wrong twice

I set on a really ambitious try in my only half tech tree enabled career mode to try and capture a small one.

An A-class came had a encounter in a few months so i launched a nuked powered tug and waited till it came closer.

After not carefully time accelerating I then saw that its periapse was within 2 days at only 5000kM

I switched back to the Tug and it was DEAD, i forgot about opening the solarpanels ...

So i rushed Jeb in his rocket and send him out to fix it.

Then lauched the tug but it ran out of fuel at a periapse of only 700km i forgot about the docking port fuel flow... and all the tugs fuel went to the lower stage.

On the + side of things, i now learned to get really quick rendezvous!!