The Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge [closed to new entries]

[Glaran K'erman]

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Not meant to be an entry as much as a little motivation for people to do some more cool stuff here. I made this station to demonstrate the capabilites of the new SpaceY Expanded 7.5m parts! Particularly the fairing, which allowed me to launch this station all in one piece.

Happy building!

Glaran

Edited September 13, 2015 by Glaran K'erman

[Norcalplanner]

http://imgur.com/a/xIJwc

Not meant to be an entry as much as a little motivation for people to do some more cool stuff here. I made this station to demonstrate to the capabilites of the new SpaceY Expanded 7.5m parts! Particularly the fairing' date=' which allowed me to launch this station all in one piece.

Happy building!

Glaran[/quote']

Nice station! I especially love image 10 in your album, which I'll post again here so it gets more exposure:

[TheXRuler]

Say norcal, would a couple hundred tons on the surface of the body of our choice count?

[Norcalplanner]

Say norcal, would a couple hundred tons on the surface of the body of our choice count?

TheXRuler,

I'm not sure I understand the question, as the challenge is for orbital space stations, not surface bases. Is the craft on the ground a dedicated shuttle or miner that normally lives attached to the station?

[TheXRuler]

Mhh not exactly, though all the base modules have orbital capability they are mainly science facilities. They are dedicated in the sense that they will only work in cooperation with the station, however the ferrying of fuel/resources and crew would be done by dedicated craft. I was just wondering since I think in the OP you stated that "any dedicated craft" would count towards the score what exactly dedicated means since in a way they could be counted as infrastructure, however as you said they are not really part of the station.

[Warzouz]

Here is my Moho prototype of my Salamander Exploration Space Station (fully detailed) This stations are designed to do extensive exploration o local planetary body.

This station has 2 parts (the station itself and the miner). The miner is the station engine section able to move it quite far if fully loaded. Obvisouly the weight of the Moho return vehicle is to high : the torque is not managable. But with the Jool variation, it can be mooved nicely. Here it is crossing Tylo SOI en route to Vall from Pol refuel pit stop.

For counting points :

- The station is 95 tons fully refueled with it's miner = 9500

- The weight on the launch pad was 355 tons to LKO + 1710 tons RR-400 launcher (306 tons recovered) = -4130 + 612 = -3518 (technically the launcher is a SSTO which I recover)

- The station is designed for 6 crew, even there is 10 crew capacity = 600 (after exploration, 2 stay there, 4 come back)

- There is 1 hitchhiker pod = 800

- A MPL = 500

- The miner + station ISRU can refuel from most bodies (except Eve, Tylo, Laythe and Duna) = 2000

= 9882 -> Moho x6 = 59292

The same station is around Eeloo, Dres, Vall (a sligly bigger one), Mun, Minmus.

PS : I'm not counting the lander and the return vehicle because they were brought with another flight and I don't recall the weights of all that (especially the launcher). I think it was

- 7 tons lander + 20 tons (at least) return ship = +2700

- 50tons(payload) + 169 tons (RR-50 SSTO launch stage) - 49tons recovered = -340

- no addtionnal crew or feature = 0

= 2360 points -> 14160 additionnal for Moho (if valid).

EDIT 1 : I forgot to take account for the dry mass of the SSTO stages recovered near of KSC. I fixed it

EDIT 2 : I noticed my Eeloo launch was fully integrated, so more points

- The station is 95 tons fully refueled with it's miner + 7 tons lander + 6 tons return = 10800

- The weight on the launch pad was 236 tons to LKO + 1294 tons RR-300 launcher - 232 tons recovered = -2596 (technically the launcher is a SSTO which I recover)

- The station is designed for 6 crew, even there is 10 crew capacity = 600 (after exploration, 2 stay there, 4 come back)

- There is 1 hitchhiker pod = +800

- A MPL = +500

- The station has a build in return vehicle = +1000

- The miner + station ISRU can refuel from most bodies (except Eve, Tylo, Laythe and Duna) = +2000

= 13104 -> Eeloo x5 = 65520 (which is better)

Capturing at Eeloo (after dumpint the interplanetary stage. The return vehicle is on the lander which is on top of the station. The inward (Moho) variant have solar panel there, I can't stick ship at that location, hence the separate mission.

EDIT 3 : real weight is even higher, I didn't fill the oxydizer tanks (I took the travell mass : the fuel you need to take to go farther with the LVN, so I didn't count the reserve tank oxydizer + lander oxydizer + return vehicle oxydizer or various RCS tanks. This adds 16 tons for Eeloo (+8000) and 12 tons for Moho (+7200). But lets forget about that : the station is not meant to have full Ore and full Fuel/oxydizer at the same time. It can, but that doesn't make any sense. That's why I don't have those mass in my charts.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Warzouz

[Glaran K'erman]

Warzouz, very nice post! But you might get a little push-back on whether this post is detailed enough for a valid entry. Your pictures are nice but do not show the important steps of launch and orbital insertion. Also a pic in the VAB with some dV and tonnage figures would be very good as well. Basically just something to prove that it was launched and not put on orbit using Hyperedit.

EDIT: Didn't click link! Yea that's good nevermind. Got distracted by that first big picture lol.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Glaran K'erman

[TheGeekno72]

Awesome ! I like dis challenge ! I'll do a little space station for try (#ThanksGoogleTranslate)

[Warzouz]

The true fact is that all those stations were set in place few weeks ago. All missions are done, crew returned home leaving only a skeleton crew waiting for next crew rotation with return ship... I don't have much pictures, except those I used in the linked Salamander topic. But I still have craft files. I could at least relaunch them to LKO orbit to get more precise data/pictures.

I calculated mass from the Salamander stations charts, but Moho and Eeloo were prototypes (lets say RC's one ).

PS : the only gameplay change mod I used is "Kerbal Joints Reinforcements"

BTW : you can read about the fate of the Dres Salamander prototype here. It was the first one and let's say I miscalculated

Edited September 18, 2015 by Warzouz

[Warzouz]

OK, here is more data (from the real prototype, not the charts). I relaunched the mission to LKO then rechecked the fully fueled station.

- 101,8 tons fully refueled = +10180 pts

- 1071 tons on launch pad - 175 tons recovered = -1792pts (the launcher wasn't a RR-300 but a RR-200, which is lighter)

- 6 kerbals on the original mission = +600 pts

- 1 hitchhikers = +800 pts

- 1 lab = +500

- Lander is 1 seat = 0

- Intergrated return = +1000

- Miner ISRU = +2000

Total = 13288 x5 (Eeloo) = 66440 pts

VAB data

Launching

Orbital insertion and operations

Returning stage

Interplanetary ship

Station at Eeloo (from the real voyage)

[rudi1291]

I built an ISRU station around Minmus. Cute The station itself is 134.6t, but the mining hardware around it is... 759.09t. 893.69t in total.

There is:

3 mining units to harvest ore from Minmus (they double as landers)

1 ore vessel to carry ore to an ISRU capable station in Kerbin orbit

1 fuel vessel to carry fuel to my LKO Refuelling station

3 crew ships capable of returning all crew to Kerbin

1 small ore scanning probe

Points:

Mass: 893.69*100=89369

Penalty for all launches: -(6934.2*2)=-13868.4 (15 launches!)

8 Kerbals: 800

26 comfortable seats: 5200

Crewed sciense lab: 500

Landers: 1000

Kerbin return ships: 1000

Station can generate fuel: 1000

Station is around Minmus: x0.5

42500.5 ponts!

Only Mechjeb, KER, Kerbal Alarm Clock, NavHud and AntennaRange used. No Part mods.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited September 18, 2015 by rudi1291

[Norcalplanner]

Great entries, Warzouz and rudi1291. I'm busy all the rest of today, but will be able to give your entries my full attention tomorrow.

[Norcalplanner]

OK, here is more data (from the real prototype, not the charts). I relaunched the mission to LKO then rechecked the fully fueled station.

- 101,8 tons fully refueled = +10180 pts

- 1071 tons on launch pad - 175 tons recovered = -1792pts (the launcher wasn't a RR-300 but a RR-200, which is lighter)

- 6 kerbals on the original mission = +600 pts

- 1 hitchhikers = +800 pts

- 1 lab = +500

- Lander is 1 seat = 0

- Intergrated return = +1000

- Miner ISRU = +2000

Total = 13288 x5 (Eeloo) = 66440 pts

VAB data

http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/793ad31e-d9bc-4c8a-bcb4-5496462ff774.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/b102d162-48b8-44de-bd0f-63cf1e1afd06.jpg

Launching

http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/e83efeee-4539-487b-a17f-719013559307.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/2bf10267-d537-4f94-b659-3cfb6f96f1bb.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/3592a83f-80aa-47c2-966c-5ff29dd80aa6.jpg

Orbital insertion and operations

http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/baa53e4b-4048-49da-aba5-6ab659ebac73.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/e59bc867-217c-4a4f-9bb6-be6e2b42b22f.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/9d7e37eb-1c6d-4b30-81ab-8ca4516b166b.jpg

Returning stage

http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/1082bb09-cdbf-4c3d-ab74-04f900bb8bc0.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/8398bf74-bfb9-4237-891f-08aeed156505.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/d219c181-65c2-4ef3-b6e1-73bc442127d6.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/4b7053c4-93ed-415f-b17c-de3cf62edcac.jpg

Interplanetary ship

http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/160ad275-b12c-4a92-b8ac-994b9996e500.jpg

Station at Eeloo (from the real voyage)

http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/bed0d9ca-1299-4584-b1c1-611849fead44.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/e4402384-66b4-4982-9cff-b9ec6edb33ce.jpg http://tof.canardpc.com/preview/76ef3053-cb3e-4d6a-b428-9fcb013faee5.jpg

Congratulations, Warzouz! You have completed the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge with a Modded Division entry scoring 66,440 points!

I liked your entry a lot. It reminded me of my own entry for the Jool-5 Kethane challenge (click on pic in my sig for more info) in terms of the modular design of the craft, ability to refuel, and also using the lander as the main drive section. It's also impressive that you were able to get that into orbit with a recoverable rocket SSTO lifter! All in all, a very elegant yet practical entry. Feel free to add the badge to your sig. I'll add you to the leaderboard.

- - - Updated - - -

I built an ISRU station around Minmus. Cute The station itself is 134.6t, but the mining hardware around it is... 759.09t. 893.69t in total.

There is:

3 mining units to harvest ore from Minmus (they double as landers)

1 ore vessel to carry ore to an ISRU capable station in Kerbin orbit

1 fuel vessel to carry fuel to my LKO Refuelling station

3 crew ships capable of returning all crew to Kerbin

1 small ore scanning probe

Points:

Mass: 893.69*100=89369

Penalty for all launches: -(6934.2*2)=-13868.4 (15 launches!)

8 Kerbals: 800

26 comfortable seats: 5200

Crewed sciense lab: 500

Landers: 1000

Kerbin return ships: 1000

Station can generate fuel: 1000

Station is around Minmus: x0.5

42500.5 ponts!

Only Mechjeb, KER, Kerbal Alarm Clock, NavHud and AntennaRange used. No Part mods.

http://imgur.com/a/uTrpX

rudi1291,

That's a very impressive station and refueling operation. Before I can score it, I'll need a few more pictures showing the launch and assembly. As stated in the OP:

"Provide a brief description of your station, noting any mods used, along with screenshots documenting all significant steps in the launch, assembly, transit, and operation of your station. Try to take screenshots when the station is on the daytime side of the celestial body, unless you’re showing off the cool lighting or emissives on your station. Include screenshots of at least one shuttle/mining/harvesting run for any dedicated craft. Please provide data in the screen shots on a regular basis using MJ, KER, or by keeping the resource panel open. Be kind to everyone’s bandwidth and use an imgur album or other similar method for posting photos. Please tally up your points as part of your entry."

What I'm particularly looking for are shots showing the launch, assembly, and transit of the largest station components with either MJ or KER panels open showing TWR, current Delta V, etc. Right now we have a lot of pictures of vehicles on the launch pad, but there's no data for the craft and no images of the larger pieces getting put into orbit by their lifters, then assembled once in orbit. Many of the images also don't have data screens open, so there's no way for me to know current elapsed mission time, fuel use, etc. If you don't already have those sorts of images, feel free to load up a copy of that particular craft, then take pictures of its launch as a reenactment for the cameras.

[Warzouz]

I liked your entry a lot. It reminded me of my own entry for the Jool-5 Kethane challenge (click on pic in my sig for more info) in terms of the modular design of the craft, ability to refuel, and also using the lander as the main drive section. It's also impressive that you were able to get that into orbit with a recoverable rocket SSTO lifter! All in all, a very elegant yet practical entry. Feel free to add the badge to your sig. I'll add you to the leaderboard.

Thx. I like space stations a lot. I don't use them to refuel departing ships but to refuel landers. I like small optimized space stations (I played in science in Beta 0.9 and in career in 1.0).

Recoverable SSTO rockets LKO stage were a necessity in middle gmae when I decided launching my first space stations. They were very expensive for the funds I had back then and contacts payed very little for those. In late career game, I've so much cash I d'ont even care. Even though SSTO rockets are very easy to fly and I don't have to bother with building them. I just use one of my predefined sub-assemblies. I even have a 600 tons launcher and the Moho station was lifted by a 400 tons payload to LKO...

The only station I don't use in my game is my Kerbin LKO station.

[G'th]

Figure I may as well share the stations from my ETS playthrough from before I lost the save, even though I'm currently rebuilding them. Spacelab got up nicely, and I swear I actually did get Freedom up as well, but I never grabbed any screenies from it.

[rudi1291]

What I'm particularly looking for are shots showing the launch, assembly, and transit of the largest station components with either MJ or KER panels open showing TWR, current Delta V, etc. Right now we have a lot of pictures of vehicles on the launch pad, but there's no data for the craft and no images of the larger pieces getting put into orbit by their lifters, then assembled once in orbit. Many of the images also don't have data screens open, so there's no way for me to know current elapsed mission time, fuel use, etc. If you don't already have those sorts of images, feel free to load up a copy of that particular craft, then take pictures of its launch as a reenactment for the cameras.

Alright, here are some more images:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Let me know if you need anything else.

[Norcalplanner]

I built an ISRU station around Minmus. Cute The station itself is 134.6t, but the mining hardware around it is... 759.09t. 893.69t in total.

There is:

3 mining units to harvest ore from Minmus (they double as landers)

1 ore vessel to carry ore to an ISRU capable station in Kerbin orbit

1 fuel vessel to carry fuel to my LKO Refuelling station

3 crew ships capable of returning all crew to Kerbin

1 small ore scanning probe

Points:

Mass: 893.69*100=89369

Penalty for all launches: -(6934.2*2)=-13868.4 (15 launches!)

8 Kerbals: 800

26 comfortable seats: 5200

Crewed sciense lab: 500

Landers: 1000

Kerbin return ships: 1000

Station can generate fuel: 1000

Station is around Minmus: x0.5

42500.5 ponts!

Only Mechjeb, KER, Kerbal Alarm Clock, NavHud and AntennaRange used. No Part mods.

http://imgur.com/a/uTrpX

Congratulations, rudi1291! You have completed the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge with a Stock(-ish) Division entry scoring 42,500 points!

Thanks for putting up the additional photos. Some of the Delta V figures seemed a little off, but I know from experience that sometimes KER or MJ gets confused by creative staging. A very impressive mining station, suitable for refueling a veritable armada of craft. I hope that you have some major colonization efforts going on to make good use of the setup. Feel free to add the badge to your sig. If you enjoyed the challenge, rep is always welcome. Adding you to the leaderboard...

[rudi1291]

Congratulations, rudi1291! You have completed the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge with a Stock(-ish) Division entry scoring 42,500 points!

Thank you for this challenge! I really enjoy building space stations in this game, its a bit of work to get it done but it just feels great if you´re done. Its something you can look at and say "I´ve done that". And if its actually useful for something, even better

[purpleivan]

I've made quite a few stations in the past, but never tried to make anything that was aesthetically pleasing, so I decided to go that route with my entry for this challenge... KOSTAR (Kerbal Orbital Station for Training And Research).

Javascript is disabled. View full album

This was launched in six section (core, 4x arms plus fuel storage) and assembled in Mun orbit.

I included a lander in the launch of the fuel section, but on arrival at the station realised that I'd put the large Clamp - O Tron Sr on it rather than the regular, medium size docking port, so it couldn't be attached at the same time as the other components. When I realised this I drained what fuels I could from it to the fuel section and dumped it

Everything except the core and fuel sections are recoverable on Kerbin, lots of parachutes hiding in the cargo bays as well as four mini landers that will each take single kerbal down to the Mun surface and return to the station, with most of the ascent being done on monopropellant.

All flying was manual, all parts are stock and no part clipping was required in the construction.

Ok... here's my points calculations.

Mass of station: 274.086 tons x 100 = +27408 points

Combined launch mass: (181.933 + 390.337 + 431.091 + 431.091 + 324.954) x 2 = -3518 points

Kerbals 260 x 100 = +26,000 points

Comfortable seats: 258 x 200 = +51600 points

Manned science lab = +500

Make it back to Kerbin = +1000

Total = (27408 - 3518 + 26000 + 51600 + 500 + 1000) * 0.75 = 77242.5

I thought I'd get a higher total than this, so I'm considering sending up a couple of fueling ships, firing up the two nukes on the central fuel section and pushing it to a more points attractive location, either Jool or Eeloo (no idea if this thing fully fueled is capable of getting to either, or if this is allowed in the rules).

[purpleivan]

I thought I'd get a higher total than this, so I'm considering sending up a couple of fueling ships, firing up the two nukes on the central fuel section and pushing it to a more points attractive location, either Jool or Eeloo (no idea if this thing fully fueled is capable of getting to either, or if this is allowed in the rules).

I flew up a refueller ship to KOSTAR, equipped with four "outboard motors" (nuke engines behind Rockomax X200 tanks) that I'd planned to detach from the refueller and then dock them with the ports at the end of each arm to give the station greater and more evenly distributed thrust. However once I'd offloaded all the fuel (even from the X-200's) and undocked the refueller, along with the outboard motors, there was only 1900m/s in the station, so not enough to get anywhere really interesting points wise, so I'm going to leave it in Mun orbit.

The trip did provide some nice picture opportunities though:)

[Norcalplanner]

Purpleivan,

Just glancing at things, this looks good. Due to RL commitments, it may be a day or two before I can review your entry in detail.

And just to clarify, it's fine to move your station elsewhere to obtain a higher score. The majority of my stations have enough tankage and engines to move around a fair bit.

[Norcalplanner]

I've made quite a few stations in the past, but never tried to make anything that was aesthetically pleasing, so I decided to go that route with my entry for this challenge... KOSTAR (Kerbal Orbital Station for Training And Research).

http://imgur.com/a/c3DKL

This was launched in six section (core, 4x arms plus fuel storage) and assembled in Mun orbit.

I included a lander in the launch of the fuel section, but on arrival at the station realised that I'd put the large Clamp - O Tron Sr on it rather than the regular, medium size docking port, so it couldn't be attached at the same time as the other components. When I realised this I drained what fuels I could from it to the fuel section and dumped it

Everything except the core and fuel sections are recoverable on Kerbin, lots of parachutes hiding in the cargo bays as well as four mini landers that will each take single kerbal down to the Mun surface and return to the station, with most of the ascent being done on monopropellant.

All flying was manual, all parts are stock and no part clipping was required in the construction.

Ok... here's my points calculations.

Mass of station: 274.086 tons x 100 = +27408 points

Combined launch mass: (181.933 + 390.337 + 431.091 + 431.091 + 324.954) x 2 = -3518 points

Kerbals 260 x 100 = +26,000 points

Comfortable seats: 258 x 200 = +51600 points

Manned science lab = +500

Make it back to Kerbin = +1000

Total = (27408 - 3518 + 26000 + 51600 + 500 + 1000) * 0.75 = 77242.5

I thought I'd get a higher total than this, so I'm considering sending up a couple of fueling ships, firing up the two nukes on the central fuel section and pushing it to a more points attractive location, either Jool or Eeloo (no idea if this thing fully fueled is capable of getting to either, or if this is allowed in the rules).

Congratulations, purpleivan! You have completed the Grand Orbital Space Station Challenge with an entry scoring 77,243 points!

A very nice-looking station with some tasteful lighting shown off in a lot of well-composed photos. Efficient use of the Mk3 parts for maximum Kerbal count with minimal part count, although your homemade extra-powerful RCS block probably pushed the part count up a bit. And I like how each module can detach and still make it back to Kerbin with the heat shield and all the parachutes. The only question in my mind is what category to put it in - it looks fairly stock, but the strut count is a bit low without using KJR, which would push you into the modded division. Please let me know if you used KJR, part welder, or any other mods which would push your entry out of the stock(-ish) division. Feel free to add the badge to your sig, and thanks for participating in the challenge!

[Norcalplanner]

As indicated in the OP, RL time pressures and family health issues require that I curtail my KSP time. I'll still be around, but it will be on a irregular basis. So that people won't have to wait for a week for an answer regarding a rule or to get their entry scored, Glaran K'erman has graciously volunteered to keep the challenge running in my absence. Please direct all routine inquiries to him. Thanks Glaran!

[purpleivan]

I can confirm that KOSTAR is entirely stock, no use of KJR or other construction mods (just aesthetic ones).

On a slightly different topic, I've just completed Part 1. of a cinematic video that's a "dramatic re-imagining" of KOSTAR.

Part 2. will follow when I get the time, hopefully next weekend.

... and all of this started out with putting a station in Mun orbit for a challenge. KSP getting out of hand again

Edited October 1, 2015 by purpleivan

[Bev7787]

wonder if i can do this in rss... oh well might as well attempt anyway