Build a space station

[PuddlesRex]

So, you probably clicked on this, expecting to be able to do a simple challenge, well, guess again.

Your challenge is to build a space station around Kerbin at a 100km orbit. "Wait a minute!" you may say, "that's still really easy!" Well, just wait a minute here.

The catch: Do it with one or fewer rocket launches.

Okay... But anyone can just put a ship with a docking port at a stable 100km orbit and call it a station. Well, the catch is that it must also be:

A) At least 20m across in all directions.

Able to have no fewer than eight ships (with width >= 2.5m) docked at any one time. Note: this does not mean that there has to constantly be eight ships docked to the station, it must simply have this capability.

C) Capable of refueling monopropellant, xenon, oxidizer, and liquid fuel.

D) Able to permanently house a crew of at least 16.

Just a quick thing: what defines a rocket?

For the sake of this challenge, I will be defining a rocket as: ship that takes off vertically, and uses its thrust alone as its source of lift.

That is, for the purpose of this challenge, rocket-powered space planes ARE NOT considered rockets, so long as they have wings as their primary source of lift. note: this does not exclude VTOLs from this challenge. Because, really, their wings are what is primarily used as their source of lift after they take off.

BONUS: All parts (including any transport ships) must be made of only stock parts.

Good luck, and have fun out there!

[jaddbo]

Do it with one or fewer rocket launches.

might want to clarify, 1 is the absolute minimum amount of rocket launches possible in ksp, might want to fix.

also, you should get bonus points if it is an ssto.

just some suggestions.

[Foxster]

Think this meets all the requirements...

[Norcalplanner]

I started a challenge back in 0.25, but it seemed to peter out. For some reason, station challenges just don't seem to get as much love.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100054-The-Grand-Orbital-Space-Station-Challenge

[Thnd3r]

I could have left the engine on, it still had fuel left over, but it doesn't look as pretty. So after disconnecting the engine it is not 20m high. Capacity for 20 docked ships, and 22 Kerbals.

Edit: I relaunched with some 2.5M docking ports cuz I missed that, and I've kept the engine attached, so it fully meets the requirements now.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Thnd3r

[Mr Tegu]

Does this chunk I launched before moving it to Laythe (single launch and no refuel...) count? it has 8 docking ports..

the whole thing took 5 launches.

[PuddlesRex]

These look good so far!

As for a response to the "one or fewer rocket launches" you could do it in zero rocket launches, because you could just bring the entire thing up in SSTO's

Edited February 19, 2015 by PuddlesRex

[sumrex]

Attached is my interplanetary space station. Throw it into a high orbit, refuel it, and fly farther. Width is a bit over 25m. Total Kerbs comes out to 35. Docking port is center line under the RCS tank, just progressively outfit it as desired.

Edited February 20, 2015 by sumrex

[dc4bs]

So, you probably clicked on this, expecting to be able to do a simple challenge, well, guess again.

Your challenge is to build a space station around Kerbin at a 100km orbit. "Wait a minute!" you may say, "that's still really easy!" Well, just wait a minute here.

The catch: Do it with one or fewer rocket launches.

Okay... But anyone can just put a ship with a docking port at a stable 100km orbit and call it a station. Well, the catch is that it must also be:

A) At least 20m across in all directions.

Looking at the old pics, I'm guestimating about 16 m across both directions. I think I'm OK on length though.

Able to have no fewer than eight ships (with width >= 2.5m) docked at any one time. Note: this does not mean that there has to constantly be eight ships docked to the station, it must simply have this capability.

Counting the 4 xenon powered, refuelable probes that launched with the station, It could have up to 13 "ships" attached. 4 mini ports in the middle, 8 normal ports (4 at each end) and a large port opposite the cupola.

C) Capable of refueling monopropellant, xenon, oxidizer, and liquid fuel.

Almost... Could refuel mono-propellant & xenon. The idea was to loft an orange tank and dock it to the "south" end large port as an oxidizer, and liquid fuel dump.

D) Able to permanently house a crew of at least 16.

Total kerbals that could fit in station "C" below = 57

But the station was only safety rated for 24 kerbals as that's the number of lifeboat seats...

Each of the 8 docking ports doubled as an ejectable, mono-propellant powered lifeboat for 3 kerbals.

8x3 = 24 (lifeboats can hold 3 kerbals each)

6x4 = 24 (central housing modules for 4 kerbals each)

1x1 = 1 (cupola at the "North" end)

8x1 = 8 (the crawl tubes I used were defined as being able to house 1 kerbal each (Why, I dunno. Have to ask their creator. )

Just a quick thing: what defines a rocket?

For the sake of this challenge, I will be defining a rocket as: ship that takes off vertically, and uses its thrust alone as its source of lift.

That is, for the purpose of this challenge, rocket-powered space planes ARE NOT considered rockets, so long as they have wings as their primary source of lift. note: this does not exclude VTOLs from this challenge. Because, really, their wings are what is primarily used as their source of lift after they take off.

BONUS: All parts (including any transport ships) must be made of only stock parts.

Sorry, that is unlikely to happen from me. I have like 50 mods going and have no idea what parts come from where any more.

Good luck, and have fun out there!

Kind of a long story but I think worth it as the station I built (almost) fits this challenge.

Also, this was done in Alpha .20 I suppose I could try to rebuild it from memory and loft it again just a bit larger to fit the rules.

NOTE: originally posted July 29th, 2013 in the "Show off your awesome KSP pictures!" thread.

I was quite proud of these early stations... (apprently, I still am... )

Something changed with physics in Alpha .21 and I was entirely unable to get that last station relaunched though. That one ALWAYS broke up during launch. So I went back to assembling multiple smaller parts in orbit.

By the way, the final station ("C") was named "The Flying Dutchman".

Enjoy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found KSP through Steam so I have only experienced V0.20.* so far.

Once I figured most of the basic stuff out I started a program to build "A" space station as a stepping stone / refueling depot to get ships even further out. And then got a bit carried away...

My initial design using ioncross O2 scrubber and "pass-through docking/escape pods" using regular engines. But I didn't really like the idea of kerbals somehow "magically" being able to crawl through the engines to get in/out of the stations but I hadn't come up with anything better yet...

Station "A" 1st half in orbit with launch tug:

2nd 1/2 of the station is a mirror of the 1st with a simple ioncross O2 tank instead of the scrubber in the 2nd half.

Station "A" with 2nd half mated:

Then I downloaded KOSMOS and fell in love with the station struts and the monofuel engines

I eventually deleted all of the KOSMOS mod except for the 3 versions of the struts (only used the crawl tubes) and the mono-fuel engine parts for the escape pods. KOSMOS has a LOT of parts that I was not using, made the game take a lot longer to load on startup and cluttered up the parts lists in the VAB.

Station "B" 1st half on the pad:

This design pushed the docking ports further out and got rid of the need for regular fuel tanks for the escape pods as well. The escape pods became a crew module and an RCS tank with radially mounted mono-engines. This gives the station MUCH more RCS if needed during docking maneuvers, etc.

Still pushing it but much more believable as a "pass-through" docking port then design "A". Also added 4 quantum struts around the nose of each docking pod.

Station "B" 1st half on the way up:

Station "B" 1st half circularizing:

Station "B" 1st half parked near station "A":

With station "B" now well in progress, decided to move station "A" from 100 Km orbit to 150 Km:

And then sent up a tanker to refuel all station "A" tanks to 100% and also leave an additional RCS fuel pack as "A" had VERY little RCS in it's design.

Station "B" completed with lights off and on:

Around this time I was tired of the stations being wobbly in the middle so I finally said, "Heck, it can't be THAT hard..." and just lofted an entire station with room for 25 Kerbals plus 4 pre-docked space probes around the middle and 8x 3-Kerbal pass-through "lifeboat"/docking pods. I dunno the total tonnage but it was a LOT to get into orbit in one lift!!!

Total kerbals that can fit in station "C" = 49 + 8 (1 in each crawl tube) but the station is only safety rated for 24 kerbals as that's the number of lifeboat seats...

Early launch attempts had MANY structural failures and other mishaps and, of course, a number of rather large explosions when things didn't quite go according to plan. More space tape was needed among other things...

Station "C" on the launchpad:

Going up:

Circularizing:

And not QUITE having enough fuel...

After a bit more reworking of the lifter and the launch program sequence the final launch worked as follows:

Using MechJeb 2.0 and FAR:

Final stack on the launch pad was well over 750 parts... The 24 main SRBs, plus stage separators, plus support struts, etc. was easily 80-90 parts alone that dropped off at about 10 Km up.

Throttle set to no more than 20M/s acceleration in the MechJeb ascent module (more thrust caused parts to break off)

Used FAR to watch Mach numbers.

Launched with 24 SRBs wrapped around an asparagus core of 7 mainsails.

Once speed reached about Mach 0.95, MechJeb was throttled back further to 10-11 M/s until the SRBs expired at about 11 Km up.

Once the SRBs were staged off (all in one group) MechJeb was throttled back up to 20 M/s

The 1st asparagus stage finished and is dropped off about 10-15 seconds later.

at 15 Km, the gravity turn commenced and after a bit the 2nd asparagus stage was dropped.

Then shutdown and coast up to the circularizing burn.

At that point 2 more small SRBs were fired to help circularize the launch.

With all of that, I STILL managed to run out of fuel but at least had made an 85x240 Km wonky orbit so it would not crash again.

Sent up a nuke powered tug to fix the orbit issues:

And commenced several 10-20 minute burns to get the station nicely orbiting at 100x100Km.

So that was it for version 20...

I'm having all kinds of issues with the VAB in 21.1 - Once I get that ironed out I'll get back to building and launching improbable things into orbit.

-dc4bs

Edited February 23, 2015 by dc4bs

[dc4bs]

OK. After a few days of fiddling around I've built and launched this one:

The new larger, longer burning SRB's make launching big items much easier.

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The 68 crew capacity number is a bit misleading.

-8 for the crawl tubes (they support 1 kerbal each for some reason - I'm to lazy to edit the config file)

-4 for the 2 science research pods. They are work spaces, not accommodations.

-24 for the 8x lifeboat capsules (the max occupancy safety rating for the station is 24 total due to these)

Leaving 32 "beds" 4 kerbals in each of the 8 Hitchhiker units.

So only 3 kerbals need to be assigned to each hitchhiker as this is cushy station duty.

But in a disaster, the station could actually hold 60 for a short time while rescue passenger shuttles are sent up.

------

Launch notes:

Using FAR to monitor air speeds in mach as exceeding mach 1 below 10Km tends to rip off random parts...

Using MechJeb for max throttle limiting acceleration to 20 M/s

NOTE: If no crew is aboard, should enable 5 of the 8 antenna pointing them to geosynchronous comsat1-4 and 1 at KSC (leaving 3 unused/future use antenna) before launching.

(T,R)

set about 90% throttle

(stage) liftoff

(enable MechJeb autopilot)

Wait until speed shows mach .95 and change acceleration limit to 10

This causes the throttle drop to 0 and the stack will "coast" on the SRBs only for a while.

At 10k start a slow gravity turn.

As the SRBs finish and stage off (around 11.5Km), change the acceleration limiter back to 20 M/s.

The 1st asparagus pair will finish and stage off within a few seconds.

Continue through the gravity turn while the 2nd asparagus pair finishes and drops.

Part way through the 3rd asparagus pair, throttle to 0 for coast up to apoapsis at 100Km.

During circularization the 3rd asparagus pair and the nosecone stage off.

Once orbit is established, the last booster stage may be dropped (or kept attached for now if it still has a useful amount of fuel in it).

I could have easily added a battery, antenna and small controller to the last stage so it could de-orbit itself but I didn't think of that till the whole thing was already in space... I just cleaned it up from the tracking station.

[Jean Deaux]

Station launch successful, 100% stock. Single launch to orbit, room for 32 Kerbal's with another two in the upper/lower control towers, and room for another two in the science lab (max space station capacity = 36 Kerbals). 10 docking ports available, 2 Large, 2 medium, and 6 small ports with light kits for dark side docking. Includes long and short wave antenna's.

Station core in VAB for confirmation of required build sizes of at least 20m in each direction (MechJeb loaded for calculating fuel/thrust requirements while in VAB)

Fully assembled station on launch pad (MJ removed)

Station deployed at 100km circular orbit. Fully fueled and ready for servicing all fuel types with one launch.

[n.b.z.]

A few days ago, I tried to do my first challenge ("What can YOU build in half an hour?"). I didn't even bother to post in that thread, because I failed SO miserably: not only did I exceed the time limit, which was the whole point, but my contraption wasn't even able to leave the vicinity of the KSC, so I wasn't going to space that day.

Two days ago I saw this thread, and this time I'm posting something, because I feel I have something relevant to contribute. The main point of this challenge seems to be to fit something large (well spaced docking ports) into a package that's convenient for launching.

Since I'm "afraid" that the new aero for 1.0 will make it impractical to launch wide-ass industrial structures sideways through the air, I have been working on a technique to assemble said structures in orbit - especially around remote bodies - without the need for manually docking a dozen bits together, or requiring multiple flights. Using stock parts only.

I wanted this not only because it looks nice, but because I was actually concerned with the spacing of docking ports on stations that are supposed to be the orbital home for every vehicle deployed to a body. I came up with a solution that will become the cornerstone of my station building from now on. It is based on the idea that in zero gravity, even tiny forces are sufficient to move heavy things around with accuracy.

The station I now built has too many parts, but could in principle be made lighter. I just wanted to make it nice and big to explore (and now demonstrate here) the technique behind it. Then, I got carried away, as I saw beauty emerge. Damn, this is the most kerbal thing I ever made.

The Southern Cross Orbital Habitat

CREW CAPACITY:

24 (4 in core module, 5 in each of four satellite compartments)

In addition, one cupola module for the view

PROPULSION / CONTROL:

OMS:

- 120 kN (6 x Rockomax 24-77, no access to station supply)

- LF: 270

- OX: 330

Remote controllable

Full attitude control (even when fully deployed)

No translation, no RCS

SUPPLY:

LF: 1890 (excluding OMS fuel)

OX: 2310 (excluding OMS fuel)

MP: 1950

XE: 8400 (that must be a different unit!...)

DOCKING PORTS:

Large: 1

Medium: 8

Small: 28

In addition, one small docking port for each of the five crew compartments

Spacing: sufficient

SPECIFICATIONS:

100% STOCK PARTS

93.33 t in orbit, fully supplied

919 parts in orbit (ouch!)

(don't ask about specs on the pad, I forgot to look)

Automatic self assembly through staging only

A few technical points regarding this challenge and the flight performed to place the station in orbit:

The giant fairing is actually a structural element, designed to hold the insanely fragile and complex contraption together during the stresses of launch. I jettisoned it before circularizing, which left the stack prone to wobbling and requiring great care on the trottle.

The torque is not too impressive while the lifter stage is still attached. (To say it in much nicer vocabulary than what I used while trying to line up for the circ burn.)

The orbit is not precisely 100 km. Instead, it is currently 100.947 x 99.911 km. I overshot by 14 km on the ascent, and was too lazy to perfectly tune it yet.

While the development of the station required countless hyperedits into orbit to test The Mechanism, the lifter was quickly slapped together for this challenge with the main goal of looking sufficiently cool for its payload. It worked flawlessly on the first attempt and after correcting the 14 km overshooting on ascent, had just enough juice left to deorbit itself.

Ladies and gentlemen - it is now showtime.

It seems that any time I really want to do something big, I start out by destroying the pad. Bad sandbox habits...

Getting rid of that huge fairing before circularization, to prevent orbital debris. The nose cone was already fragmented and jettisoned. At the circ burn, I will thankfully leave behind 80 parts or so.

After arriving at the destination orbit and deorbiting the lifter, the unfolding process starts. This works using only staging - and an insane level of careful sepatron charge tuning.

The first construction stage separates the satellite crew compartments. These are attached to really long, hinged beams. Four sepatrons at the station's center blow the beams outward. On each beam, this is supported by a short, strong sepatron burst outward, while another sepatron fires a weak, but sustained retro burn, which gradually slows the crew compartments again to a very slow speed until they have unfolded about three quarters of the way.

Shortly before snapping into position, the docking ports will forcefully accelerate the beams again. To prevent too high stresses, the beams run against a suspension. You are looking at hinges made from cubic octagonal struts - both the axis and the bearings.

On this beam type, the docking port is on the same axis as the beam. However, the hinge center is offset from the beam.

The second construction stage: unfolding the docking port array. These beams are lighter and shorter than the cabin beams. They are only driven out by four sepatrons in the station center, and move at constant speed until they snap into their mounts. Again, a suspension is used.

On this beam type, the hinge is centered on the beam, but the docking port is offset. A hinge axis is made of two cubic octagonal struts inside each other, one of them rotated by 45°.

Both types of beams keep oscillating for a while at their respective frequencies. For the next construction stage we need this movement to have stopped, otherwise the third and last construction stage may literally be derailed.

While waiting for the movement to subside, the communications devices and solar arrays have been deployed.

The third and last construction stage: radial telescopic extension of the docking port beams. For the third time, the station splits itself into 5 pieces, accelerates four of them towards their intended position, and assembles itself back together.

This time, the outer part of each beam slides radially away from the station center, driven by a pair of weak sepatrons. These fire much longer than required for a regular transition, in case one of the beam parts gets slowed or bounces back due to remaining oscillations.

Passing over the KSC for the first time, all debris has already deorbited and the station is fully assembled and ready for its first inhabitants, before it ever managed to complete a full orbit.

There, PuddlesRex, have your assortment of docking ports.

All of this was assembled by pressing space a few times. It should now be obvious how to quickly put together a large space station in some place more remote than a 100 km Kerbin orbit.

This station is not designed to fold itself back up again. But using liquid fuel engines instead of sepatrons, there is no reason why a hinged mechanism couldn't retract itself again. It should be easy to fold beams out of, and back into, cargo bays. The possibilities seem endless.

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Edited March 7, 2015 by n.b.z.
Diverse corrections, formatting, and some words

[Jiine]

Sounds awesome! Will try and post the pics below!