Solar Panels, Antennas during Burns

[Serenity]

Hello, i was wondering during long burns should i retract the Panels and the Antennas?

Does it make some sense/realism/real life or its not something that they do?

Do they leave them open?

Without knowing i get the feeling that whatever is retractable is more safe during long burns, the g's and stuff, not sure if thats correct though.

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Boyster

[bewing]

IRL, it's extremely dangerous in a mission to ever retract anything. The motors and hinges that do extend/retract operations will often freeze up or fail. So, IRL, if you successfully manage to extend some gizmo then you never want to touch it again, because the process may never work again. So they usually don't even build anything to be retractable. It just extends and then locks into place.

 

[Streetwind]

As for ingame - there is no danger of leaving things extended during burns, unless the extended thing extends in front of the nozzle of one of your engines. Then yes, you should probably retract that before activating the engine.

Solar panels and antennas may snap off inside an atmosphere, but never in the vacuum of space.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Unless you’re aerobraking in a planet’s atmosphere, leave them deployed; they won’t get stuck as in real life and they won’t get damaged by acceleration, but it’s one more thing to forget to re-deploy and end up with no power or control. Obviously, you want to retract  everything you can if you’re in an atmosphere because otherwise they’ll get torn off by the air drag.

Edited August 23, 2020 by jimmymcgoochie