Drag on non-focused vessels

[Probus]

Is there a mod or a setting that will slowly deorbit non focused vessels that venture into the atmosphere but don't dip down to the minimum altitude?  I would like to use something like this for recovery of stages. 

[Guest]

I don’t think there’s one from orbit. There are a couple that can do booster recovery not sure if they can be adapted to your requirements. 

If you check on google for “KSP recover stages” there are a few videos and discussions that list the best options.

A non-mod alternative would be to stick a probe on the part so it doesn’t get automatically deleted but not sure how it entering atmosphere on it’s own would be handled by the game.

[somnambulist]

There was a mod called Orbital Decay but it's out of date and doesn't work on the current version of KSP. Linuxgurugamer released a few betas that would work in KSP 1.10.x but abandoned the project -- sounds like a mix of spaghetti code and a poor implementation of the model for orbital decay so getting it fully working would basically be a rewrite. 

Edited April 21, 2021 by somnambulist