How to splash down in the prime recovery zone from orbit!

[VincentMcConnell]

Many players and Kerbalnauts who spend hours upon hours trying to get Kerbal Space Program to work for them frequently end up landing back on Kerbin after a successful mission miles and miles from the launch site. I, for one, became annoyed with touching down on the hard ground and risking the safety of my Kerbs early on in my experience with this game. It wasn\'t until quite some time that I ended up working out a procedure for landing in the direct center of the prime recovery area (off the Eastern Coast of KSC) and tested my theories many different times. This same procedure is now clock work for returning missions from orbit.

The first thing with which we need to familiarize ourselves is what the prime recovery zone actually is. The prime recovery zone (PRZ) in this case is about 40% of the way across the ocean off the eastern coast of KSC. Here is a picture:

Now, obviously we know where we want to land, but how are we to ensure that it will be nice and bright for the recovery crews when we arrive? Simple. We pick what\'s called a “launch windowâ€. This is the time we are given to launch in order to complete our mission. For this guide, launch window will correspond directly to the daylight side of Kerbin at the moment of lift off. Here, we want sun rise to just be coming up on Kerbal Space Center. The planet rotates East, so even after several orbits, we will still be able to splash down safe and sound in not only daylight and ocean, but right where we want to. Here\'s a good idea of how the sunlit side should look when you take off:

Please excuse all that debris and ships!

Now, we can go ahead and launch into orbit. The ideal orbit for hitting this PRZ at the proper sun angle is about 150KM, but we can easily do the same thing at 100KM. The reason altitude matters is that it changes the angle at which we enter the atmosphere, thus changing our velocity and throwing off our recovery area slightly.

This is where you will fire your retro fire package engines to return. Right off the Western shore of this gulf area... here:

You\'re probably asking yourself... When do I shut the engines down? Well, that\'s very easy also. When your trajectory takes you on a course that ends right...here:

It\'s as simple as that. You should now smash through the atmosphere and land about 40% of the way across the eastern ocean.