Hmm, I'm going to need some help to fix this.
Could you post a screen shot of the crash (or does Factorio crash to desktop ?!? )
I've never played that mod, so I tried, using Creative Mod to see if I could reproduce it. I launched a satellite rocket and a cargo rocket to another planet, did the 'view surface' thing for another planet, put down an assembler, and brought up the Max Rate tool. It worked fine. The Max Rate tool seems to be ok in empty space, and in the solar system view (with no assemblers there it does nothing, but doesn't crash).