so you wanna land at the space center like a boss?

[invision]

landing at the space center is rather easy honestly once you got the timing now, this doesnt require math or much thinking and doesnt need much engine power.

okay first thing we want to do is zero out inclination and have orbit no higher than 100k, any  higher and we may over shoot due from lack of drag.

we want to start the burn right about here, it may help to place an object to reference at the end of the run way somewhere it wont get smashed into.

we bring our line over the runway but not past the island with the older KSC

as we come down we will bleed off any excess speed just by coming into the atmosphere

this pod has a bit of flight capability so i can turn it around and precise land it, but its all the same regardless of spaceship or plane.

 

and thats all there is to it.

its will take a small bit of practice to get the burn correct for the crafts you use depending how much drag is causes but this is a solid way to get your space crafts in the area of the space center.

hope this helps as ive seen many people say they dont know how to go about landing at the space center.

[harrisjosh2711]

The trajectories mod is a god send when it comes to this.

[Spricigo]

Nice guide,  but think some small improvements can be done.

On 04/10/2017 at 5:13 PM, invision said:

start the burn right about here,

Do you mean 'within 1degree of this position' or 'this side of the planet' ? What if I'm at different altitude? 

A bit more info about the trajectory after the burn would be good too.

On 04/10/2017 at 5:13 PM, invision said:

but its all the same regardless of spaceship or plane

Err, how it can be so? Different crafts will suffer different amounts of drag and have different mass. That profile may be fairly consistent for a large range of craft but is less likely to also work for a particularly [massive and sleak] or [light and draggy] craft. 

And even assuming it works for 'most crafts, it may exist a better (or just different)  profile for some craft.

Finally you may try to make more evident why you think people should try it. (I know it's pretty obvious in this case, just as general rule.

[invision]

1 hour ago, Spricigo said:

Nice guide,  but think some small improvements can be done.

Do you mean 'within 1degree of this position' or 'this side of the planet' ? What if I'm at different altitude? 

A bit more info about the trajectory after the burn would be good too.

Err, how it can be so? Different crafts will suffer different amounts of drag and have different mass. That profile may be fairly consistent for a large range of craft but is less likely to also work for a particularly [massive and sleak] or [light and draggy] craft. 

And even assuming it works for 'most crafts, it may exist a better (or just different)  profile for some craft.

Finally you may try to make more evident why you think people should try it. (I know it's pretty obvious in this case, just as general rule.

if you have a craft that is huge or kills speed fast you still want to burn there no matter, what you do in that situation is bring your landing line towards the island or further than the island to compensate the speed loss. the start position works because small engines have enough time to do the burn and big engines will just do the burn faster. 

why i think people try this is just to hone your landing skills, impress yourself, and get 99% of money back career mode. when you land right on the launch pad from space you feel like you just did the impossible.

on the altitude this only works if you have fuel to burn, otherwise this guide will not work. landing back at the space center using just aero brakes is hard to explain and more a visual thing...for me.....because i have no knowledge of proper space mechanics i can only show you how its done.

[invision]

same spot but using a big shuttle.

this time we come out more towards the island because we know this thing is fat and slow

starting position 86k alt+f12

bring burn to the island. we slow down pretty quick so this compensates

shuttles like to enter at 45 degrees, i dont know why its just what nasa told me

how well done do you like your kerbals?

okay true story........

this was the point i was thinking "hmmm ya knows we are still smoking through the last bit of this, maybe some landing gear to  for some drag"

so yeah about that....

well you see, i should have better paid attention when it said "shuttle in progress" in the save files........

so yeah

and then it happened LOL

 

but you get the basic idea of it now i hope

[Spricigo]

15 hours ago, invision said:

shuttles like to enter at 45 degrees, i dont know why its just what nasa told me

well, close enough to the 40°AoA during the landing of the NASA Space Shuttle.

[AeroGav]

40 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

well, close enough to the 40°AoA during the landing of the NASA Space Shuttle.

Because in real hypersonic aerodynamics this is a few degrees below stall  - it is close to "Max Lift".      The shuttle is staying up in the thin air as long as it can, which limits the heating rate.   Unless you have Ferram Aerospace (FAR) installed,  I'd recommend coming in at 25 degrees instead, because stock aero stalls at 30 degrees regardless of mach number.    If your wings have incidence,  knock another 5 degrees off (assuming 5 degrees of incidence).

Actually if you have an inline cockpit,  you don't need to stay at max lift AoA the whole way down to avoid burnup.    You can actually adjust your AoA during re-entry depending on whether you're undershooting or overshooting.

Undershooting - lower the AoA to nearer 5 degrees (or zero if you have wing incidence angle) as that's the best lift/drag ratio/glide ratio.    If you watch your trajectory, you'll find it moving downrange.   Overshooting, use a higher AoA where lift/drag ratio is worse (but heating is less) and you'll find your impact point moving closer.

I made  a video on this actually,  just make sure annotations are enabled as there's no speech, but some captions explaining what's going on - 

These days I nearly always hit the space centre even on maiden flights of prototype aircraft (actually, most of my aircraft are prototypes since i get bored flying the same one to orbit twice).             Here's me parking a shuttle-alike in front of the hangar doors from a high, inclined orbit

 

RIP,  Sherfy Kerman

[Thorn_Ike]

god I can't even land on short final

[Hotel26]

Webster's Dictionary defines:

rocket n. "something not meant to be airborne with rocket engines strapped to it"

airplane n. "something not meant to be airborne with wings strapped to it and then engines strapped to those"

So I had to have a crack at this!  My first "Dart" didn't work so well without wings (although it *was* on the green), so second attempt (at night, of course!).  I built it backwards, specialized for rear entry.

(Can't see it, but it has a chute in the nose.)

 

Spoiler

 

 

Don't pay any attention to the others: I thought your instructions were fine, or actually a bit over-complicated.

"Just fly it by the seat of your pants and it will all work out in the end", would have been good enough.  For a Kerbal... 

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by Hotel26