High altitude parachutes

[Nich]

 Can someone explain to me why parachutes do not work at high altitude? In theory as long as the dynamic pressure is low enough the force on parachutes should be extremely low. I can see  that if you open parachutes before PE you could theoretically have too much dynamic pressure  as the orbit decays and speed increases as you get closer to kerbin and into denser atmosphere. My big problem are parachutes on duna. With 20 times less atmospheric pressure at the surface you should be able to open parachutes when you're going  Square root of 20 times faster yes it gets more complicated when you are going supersonic but I couldn't imagine it's that much of a difference

[Hcube]

Well i think there is a minimum pressure/airflow required for the parachute to open... Have you tried right-clicking it and modifying the opening values ?

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Does the game physically not let you? Or does it just not recommend it? Because opening them at high altitude isn't the best idea. It won't slow you down enough for them to not break once they get into thicker atmosphere.

[Nich]

 Sorry guess I should've said the ability to open parachutes without destroying them. 

[Alshain]

Parachutes on Duna are bugged.  They do not behave consistently for a planet with the thinnest atmosphere in the game.  I believe we are expecting a fix in 1.1

[Tfin]

3 hours ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

Does the game physically not let you? Or does it just not recommend it? Because opening them at high altitude isn't the best idea. It won't slow you down enough for them to not break once they get into thicker atmosphere.

I used them at 60km+ shortly after reentry heating was introduced, and they worked then. Then I found the Inline Ballutes mod.

[NathanKell]

@Alshain is correct that mach-based shredding should take density into account. It will in 1.1.

[tranenturm]

Good to hear.  Has t NASA used high altitude parachutes for Mars (I almost wrote Duna). Or was that just a proposal? 

[Landge]

Curiosity most certainly did. Watch 7 minutes of Terror:

 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2016 by Landge