Complex station at Ablate

[lajoswinkler]

This thread will be used for reporting ongoing effort to put a space station with reusable lander and a return ship in the orbit around Ablate.

Notable mods I'm using: Procedural Parts, Deadly Reentry, KSPX, Kosmos, KER, ALCOR.

My current vehicle has over 23 km/s of total delta-v, but I'm shooting for more.

Station will first be delivered unmanned, and then a manned ship with a lander will dock it.

Stay tuned for screenshots and reports.

[Geschosskopf]

Ablate is one of those mod planets, right? Skimming the sun IIRC. I imagine the dV required to get there is ridiculous

[lajoswinkler]

Yes, they are quite insane. Ablate is part of Krag's Planet Factory and, IMHO, something that should be included in KSP. It's a very unique planetary body.

My first project with Ablate is described here.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65568-Landing-on-Ablate

It was a tiny probe. Back then, I couldn't use large ships because of a poor computer. Now, with new Procedural Parts and a new GPU, I'll try to establish a proper station.

[lajoswinkler]

Here's an update. I've realized that launching insanely large rockets to get the station into LKO is pretty annoying job, so I've sent it empty and now I'm filling it with fuel. Several large launches are needed.

This setup will have over 25 km/s of delta-v in LKO, so it should reach Ablate, although it will be a painful process because of the initial poor TWR. There is one large NERVA engine.

I've dediced not to send a 3-Kerbal capsule and ALCOR to Ablate because that would mean I'd have to do all this at least one more time. Instead, I'll probably use Radish capsule for the ship, and a makeshift lander with external seats to save on weight.

[lajoswinkler]

The station is in orbit around Ablate, and I have noted delta-v data for future efforts of others.

I've started with more than 24 km/s in LKO, equatorial orbit. After several firings at periapsis, the station was able to free of Kerbin's influence.

First inclination correction took 808 m/s.

First periapsis lowering took 3917 m/s.

Inclination correction 43 m/s.

Second periapsis lowering 2000 m/s.

Inclination correction 10 m/s.

First apoapsis lowering took 2826 m/s.

Second apoapsis lowering 2294 m/s.

Third apoapsis lowering 2578 m/s.

Fourth apoapsis lowering 5091 m/s.

By this time, station was in approximately 700,000 km orbit around Kerbol, less than 50,000 km difference from Ablate. This is a must, otherwise you'll never catch it, and you'll be spending fuel chasing it around.

Lowering periapsis for rendezvous took 516 m/s.

Lowering apoapsis for capture took 532 m/s.

Correction of orbit to approx. 10 km took 67 m/s. No inclination correction was made.

Resulting inclination is around 45°.

Delta-v requirement in my case, from the edge of Kerbin's SOI, to an established 10 km orbit around Ablate is 20682 m/s.

Doing all this in one shot is next to impossible to me, so I've had to resort to building a station armed with huge amounts of fuel in LKO.

As you can see, the station has no large solar panels. It doesn't have to, being this close to Kerbol.

With 3211 m/s left, I could land and launch the whole station several times, but I'll use it for emergency rescue of Kerbals.

Now a returnable ship with a lander needs to be built. I don't think I'm up to that. With Deadly Reentry installed, I couldn't rely on aerocapture. Anything thrown at such incredible speeds at Kerbin would be vaporized.

I think I'll have to resort to Kethane, something I have zero experience with.