Heat shield test

[maxie]

with the new inflatable heat shield in 1.1, it is time to test it.

The Challenge:

re-enter kerbin's atmospere, from interplanetary space or normal missions, with a velocity of 20km/s with a crew capsule and habitation modules, plus an attached service module for a parachute spalshdown.

tips; attach the service module at the top of the crew capsule/hab with the heat shield at the bottom.

Edited June 13, 2016 by maxie

[Firemetal]

Rules?

[Snowstorm]

The inflatable heat shield is not ablative, making it much less durable and tolerant than its ablative cousins- 20 km/s is just too fast, ESPECIALLY for the inflatable one.

 

Nice idea though

[Cunjo Carl]

   Hm. I've whacked into Kerbin with the new heat shield at 9200m/s (basically at a solar standstill), and it stood up fine. Er, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaYb5AiSY3M&t=10m13s . Pardon the music, I was having a bit too much fun making that video!

  The new heat shield has a ludicrous thermal mass and emissivity, so I've been surprised what it'll stand up to.  I've taken one into the sun's atmosphere after all . I'll bet properly spamming of thermal control systems could help, too. Alright. 20km/s it is. I'll give it a go, and see how fast I can get. Snowstorm may yet be proven correct, but there's an unknown frontier here, and I'm aiming to push it!

   Thanks for the challenge, Maxie! I agree, though, it would be good to formalize some rules. In the meantime, I'm planning to do the setup with hyperedit, because getting a heatshield up to 20km/sec would require turbopumped levels of crazy-huge rocket.

 

Edit: Huh. It turns out there's a lot more to this than meets the eye. I just tried a bare heatshield, at it barely survived a 4km/s reentry, as Snowstorm was saying. That said, my sun diver in the above video managed 9200m/s barely flinching! I wonder what factors are involved?

EditEdit: I reloaded the sundiving heatshield named 'Thermoset Iccarus", and it now barely manages 7500m/s. It seems like something has changed between 1.1 and 1.1.2, but I'm not sure what it would be. Disappointing, but there's still an improvement between this design and the bare heat shield, so perhaps there's still room to push in some more speed.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Cunjo Carl
Tried things real quick. Then tried them a bit slower.

[maxie]

Thanks for replying here! I hope that this discussion will enhance our experience of aerobraking and re-entry as well as a reminder of those who are new to the game.

[Cunjo Carl]

... With the same setup, I'm now barely managing 5000m/s. Something is making me backtrack, but I can't figure out what. Huh. I wonder if the amount of time the game is left running is making a difference? It used to way back in the day, but I suspect that's been fixed in the overhaul. I'll continue poking at this, but am no longer the spearhead I was a few days back!

[TheGuyNamedAlan]

<3 ur yt channel. it is actually so good

On 16/06/2016 at 11:21 AM, Cunjo Carl said:

   Hm. I've whacked into Kerbin with the new heat shield at 9200m/s (basically at a solar standstill), and it stood up fine. Er, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaYb5AiSY3M&t=10m13s . Pardon the music, I was having a bit too much fun making that video!

  The new heat shield has a ludicrous thermal mass and emissivity, so I've been surprised what it'll stand up to.  I've taken one into the sun's atmosphere after all . I'll bet properly spamming of thermal control systems could help, too. Alright. 20km/s it is. I'll give it a go, and see how fast I can get. Snowstorm may yet be proven correct, but there's an unknown frontier here, and I'm aiming to push it!

   Thanks for the challenge, Maxie! I agree, though, it would be good to formalize some rules. In the meantime, I'm planning to do the setup with hyperedit, because getting a heatshield up to 20km/sec would require turbopumped levels of crazy-huge rocket.

 

Edit: Huh. It turns out there's a lot more to this than meets the eye. I just tried a bare heatshield, at it barely survived a 4km/s reentry, as Snowstorm was saying. That said, my sun diver in the above video managed 9200m/s barely flinching! I wonder what factors are involved?

EditEdit: I reloaded the sundiving heatshield named 'Thermoset Iccarus", and it now barely manages 7500m/s. It seems like something has changed between 1.1 and 1.1.2, but I'm not sure what it would be. Disappointing, but there's still an improvement between this design and the bare heat shield, so perhaps there's still room to push in some more speed.

 

[Cunjo Carl]

Oh, gosh. Thanks! Save for the frigid speedrun, it was fun putting that stuff together, so I'm glad you like it!