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Some rentry advice


Emperoreddy

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So I just completed my first Mun flyby. Was able to do a free return trajectory, and brought up a Science Jr. service bay with some science parts and the command module. 

Only needed minor course adjustments on the way to avoid hitting the Mun itself, and plenty of fuel for course corrections on the return. 

The return was the trickiest part. I was having a lot of trouble getting the craft back in one piece. Too steep and the science junior kept blowing up at around 30K, and too shallow would keep be from deorbiting at all. I imagine I would have still gotten down on the shallow passes, but since this was just Mun trio I wanted to do it in one shot (Apollo didn’t need a bunch of aero brake orbits damn it!!!) 

so I found 31K PE was able to do the trick, but I am not sure if it was just luck or the correct idea. Everything seemed to hit critical on the heat meters and I even began to gain altitude at around 30K, but after that I was able to safely land. 

My question is was this the right idea, or just luck? What do you guys do to successfully return from Mun and further with a science payload? 

For Minmis and other planets would it be more prudent to bring fuel to try and slow down on multiple orbits, or come in extra shallow for multiple orbits?

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Yeah, the apollo systems just returned in a *very* heat resistant capsule. If you take a scientist with you, he can grab the information out of the experiments, and store them in that capsule; which is essentially what they did in real life - they didn't bring back a massive "tank" full of "science", they just packed the rocks in the return pod with them.

Come to think of it, even pilots and engineers can *take* data from experiments, so you don't even need a scientist, unless you need him to reset it and do another one - which is actually very lucrative and profitable if you can manage it.

Edited by surge
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