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First off, it's not my first rodeo in KSP. However, I found that one of my greatest challenges for interplanetary missions is designing a ship that is aerodynamically stable while performing an aerocapture maneuver. The primary reason for this is that rockets are naturally bottom-heavy, especially when launched from KSC. So while one can easily place an inflatable heat shield between the launch abort system and the command module, the center of mass will be so far back that the ship will tend to flip unless you add a ton of drag to the back end, in the form of literally tons of fins or more creative means. That was my first instinct, and I ended up with various semi-successful designs including turbine-like fins and infernal robotics deployed drag-inducers (heat shields). This solution isn't consistent, so I started designing ships to aerobrake engine-side first. Designs, using KIS/KAS, included using winches to haul a massive heat shield in front of the engines, assembling a heat shield in situ, or robotic arms moving radial shields into a heat shield snow plow design. Then came my most successful design concept - separation. I started designing ships to separate into two equally massive halves and aerocapture separately. Then would then rendezvous and rejoin after they left the atmosphere. The two halves were always much more stable than attempting to aero break with my typical burj khalifa looking design. My question is: what have been your successful solutions? I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a more elegant one out there.

First off, it's not my first rodeo in KSP. However, I found that one of my greatest challenges for interplanetary missions is designing a ship that is aerodynamically stable while performing an aerocapture maneuver. The primary reason for this is that rockets are naturally bottom-heavy, especially when launched from KSC. So while one can easily place an inflatable heat shield between the launch abort system and the command module, the center of mass will be so far back that the ship will tend to flip unless you add a ton of drag to the back end, in the form of literally tons of fins or more creative means. That was my first instinct, and I ended up with various semi-successful designs including turbine-like fins and infernal robotics deployed drag-inducers (heat shields). This solution isn't consistent, so I started designing ships to aerobrake engine-side first. Designs, using KIS/KAS, included using winches to haul a massive heat shield in front of the engines, assembling a heat shield in situ, or robotic arms moving radial shields into a heat shield snow plow design. Then came my most successful design concept - separation. I started designing ships to separate into two equally massive halves and aerocapture separately. Then would then rendezvous and rejoin after they left the atmosphere. The two halves were always much more stable than attempting to aero break with my typical burj khalifa looking design. My question is: what have been your successful solutions? I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a more elegant one out there.

Okay so I've started playing KSP more seriously (tired of waiting for 1.1), but I'm wondering if this is on purpose or just plain out broken ? Last week, I make a ship to go to the Jool system, carrying a Vall Exploration Rover. I set-up aerobreaking @ Laythe. POOF... Okay I did not have a heatshield, but I was exploding 3 seconds after touching the outer layer. Thankfully, I had enough Delta-V (barely) to do a manual break using a close Tylo approach and coming back to Laythe. Quite expensive. Yesterday I decide to go to EVE. Learning from my Laythe experiences of last week, I put a 2,5m heatshield AND keep my fairing over the rover. Entering atmosphere... BOOM ! **again** and the heatshield got consumed/destroyed in about 1 sec. I mean fine that you need to build with a heatshield and all, it works really well on Duna and Kerbin (coming back from Mün and Minmus anyways). But having to drop re-entry heating to 20-40%, if not straight out kill it to 0% is kind of a bummer. I like the extra challenge but it's ridiculous now. Are there any fixes being done in 1.1 or is that the 'way it's gonna be' ? Because right now I have to budget a lot of dV to manually break entering a SoI