Go big, or go home.

[electronicfox]

Now that asteroids are nicely in KSP, I decided to have a go at catching one. The first one I found was a class A midget rock, so I built a nice little unmanned probe to capture it.

Just after launching and getting ready to rendezvous with lil' rocky, a class E caught my eye, a 3000 tonne beauty. So plans changed, and I figured, if I can get that thing home, I can do anything, and its way bigger than the measly pebble I found before. Lets get this fat B*****d. So off I went to catch fat-rocky.

Soon after getting close to the rock, I realised the first problems. The main one being that nuclear engines dont do much to 3000 tonnes, and definately dont do enough to park in Kerbin orbit. Secondly, the claw is wobbly. It wobbles worse than docking ports. In the end, all I ended up doing here was slowly spinning the rock.

Then I had a plan. Realising that the rock would pass betwixt the Mun and Minmus, I figured it wouldnt be too difficult to catch in in Kerbins SOI, so I made a biger, better, manned grabby rocket.

Some time later, the rock was caught, and the wobbly claw struck again. (Getting the center of mass on these things is also a challenge, and controlling the rotation of these rocks is also quite the challenge). After much controlled-bursting of the engines, I managed to park this beauty in LKO. This is my first asteroid capture, and I love that rock. My next plan is to get this in LKO (about 100km or so) and use it to test new asteroid grabbers, or turn it into a space-base.

[Vanamonde]

This report of a mission moved to Mission Reports.

[Cydonian Monk]

Nice catch! I've got one of those E-class monsters on the way to Kerbin on an impact trajectory..... The plan at the moment is to divert and aerocapture.

After that... who knows. Mine it for science?

[electronicfox]

Mission update:

In an effort to control the rotation of this monster, and keep it stable enough to fly into LKO, I flew a set of probes, each laden with monopropelant, rcs thrusters and reaction wheels. These would be placed around the rock, and hopefully would be able to turn it manually.

Getting there was easy, and it took about 20 minutes to stick all the probes to the asteroid.

This does now rotate the asteroid to my whim, albeit slowly. But slowly is something! This mammoth is under my command!

Now I just need to refuel that engine and fly it closer to Kerbin...what could go wrong?

[electronicfox]

After a while, I decided that using only one claw on each module was dumb, and flimsy. So I came up with the 3-clawed docking system. Just line it up to the CoM, slam it into an asteroid and violla, you'll have a perfectly lined up dock for engines. Also works for building bases.

[-RanZ-]

I like the 3 claw tactic, I am building a similar vessel in orbit right now. The RCS pods are also a great idea!