reentry blackouts

[antipro]

Hi,

"..reentry blackouts are caused by an envelope of ionized air around the craft, created by the heat from the compression of the atmosphere by the craft."

This is clear but I'd like to know: this "ion shield" has the same "interference value" in every place around the ship?
If I move the antennas back rather than in the front of the ship, do I gain signal power?

Edited July 2, 2017 by antipro

[Tex_NL]

As far as I know the re-entry interference is not modelled in detail in KSP. It's either on or off. Moving your antenna to a different section of your craft will not make a difference.

[Vanamonde]

There's a setting where you can turn this game feature off, but if it is on, then yes, the effect is binary. It's either happening or it's not, and antenna position is irrelevant. 

[DrLicor]

And for the sake of realism, in real life crafts also loose signal during re-entry. 
It doesn't matter if the antenne is placed in the front or in the back, the plasma goes way further than the top of the craft. 

[steuben]

To supplement the answer. The plasma generates radio noise. This radio noise will swamp out any radio signal being transmitted. The signal to noise ratio of a channel. The plasma raises the absolute amount of noise on all local radio channels. That leaves two options you can use clever encoding techniques that are tolerant of high levels of noise, or you can raise the amount of power used. At this point in time the need to have firm radio contact during that phase of decent hasn't been required. So clever encoding techniques haven't been develeoped. And the amount of raw power needed to burn through the radio noise... could be picked up clearly by the fillings of the folks in Moscow when the guys were coming back over California. Or could flash cook an egg in the chicken at 50 miles.

[Alshain]

5 hours ago, DrLicor said:

And for the sake of realism, in real life crafts also loose signal during re-entry. 
It doesn't matter if the antenne is placed in the front or in the back, the plasma goes way further than the top of the craft. 

That was not true in the case of the STS.  It's unique design allowed it to create a hole in the ionized gas.  The antennas were placed in various location on the top of the orbiter, away from the ionization, and then the signal was sent up to a satellite and back down to mission control.

[Weywot8]

Completely unrelated, @Alshain. Why Beta Aquilae?

Edit: Hah! Figured it out. 

Edited July 3, 2017 by Weywot8

[DrLicor]

@Alshain, partly right indeed. The early shuttles suffered from a blackout because there was a lack of relay. "The solution came about after NASA launched the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. The first satellite was launched in 1983, and the next two went into orbit in 1988 and 1989. (One TDRS satellite was lost in the 1986 Challenger accident.) The system was built to provide communications for all space flights, from launch to reentry."