Docking with a makeshift "Space Station"

[kernimalcross]

DOCKING WITH A STATION CHALLENGE

What you\'ll need:

KSP v.14 or above.

The Objective

Get a station into orbit and then 'dock with it' and later land the docking craft back on Kerbin after orbiting once.

Points

Size of station: MAX. 30 Pts

Size of docking craft (station must be larger): MAX. 30 Pts

Mission Time (Each hour under 25 is 5 points): MAX. 25 Pts

Docking completed: 10 Pts

Landed Safely: 50 pts.

BONUS POINTS FOR:

Multiple craft docked at once: 10 per extra craft.

Small launch vehicles (Picture required to earn 5 pts.)

Entry requirements:

Photos of:

Launch of station

Launch of docking vehicle

Docking

Splashdown

Video (Optional)

Suggestions:

Use landing legs to 'clamp' onto station.

Warnings:Do not even attempt to launch one of your vehicles if:

There is more SAS than fuel (by weight)

JEB won\'t get in the capsule (O_O)

Good luck to all!

LEADERS

khyron42-66 Pts

[Tim_Barrett]

Docking more than one craft to a home space station would be worth alot more points you know... once docked, you cannot timewarp without completely destroying the connection, and if you resume while parts are glitched inside eachother, boom.

[kernimalcross]

True, but that is only like a quick backup type points. The real points is landing without incident.

[khyron42]

Well, I gave it a few tries. This most recent one did at least get a solid docking, so I\'ll post it. After I docked, my station decided it was named Gemini 8 (it began a rapidly accelerating spin that partially destroyed both craft.)

Points

Size of station: 26.9 Kerbal Tons

Size of docking craft (station must be larger): 3.9 Kerbal Tons

Mission Time (Each hour under 25 is 5 points): Spacelab III mission time to stable orbit: 27:56. Visitor I mission time to docking: 2:58:57. Visitor mission time at crash landing: 03:14:45. I guess we\'d call that 4 hours, so 25 points.

Docking completed: 10 Pts

Landed Safely: 50 0 pts.

I\'m not sure what would qualify as a 'small' launcher, so no bonus points for that.

Total points: If we call each ton of craft 1 point, and round up - 66 points.

Launch of station:

Extra photo - station in orbit. the issues I had may have been because my 'docking cage' at one end needed to be longer:

Launch of docking vehicle:

Docking:

Extra photo - Damage due to uncontrolled spin after docking. The lander was mostly intact, we only lost one landing leg and the parachute:

Splashdown Crash landing - they tried to pull it off with just RCS and landing legs:

Full image gallery has larger pics, and some shots during launches and deorbit.

[Guest meteorite 101]

YEAH good luck

[nerdboy64]

I\'ve worked out a safe landing system. I call it the HDPL (Hybrid Docking and Powered Landing) craft. It has an RCS tank directly on top of the command pod, with four legs for docking attached to it. On top of the tank is a parachute. Because the tank and legs make it too heavy for a parachute-only landing, I added a small tank and engine to the bottom of the lander. I fire the engine once the parachute opens at about 500m, and use it to slow my ascent enough to land on a set of four more landing legs. The parachute is useful because it cancels lateral motion. I haven\'t actually tried docking with it yet, but it looks promising. I\'ll post here again when I get a real entry for the challenge; I really posted this because people seemed to be having problems with the 'safe landing' part.