Heat shield contract (1.25 m) rockets speed too lesss

[Rockettoblackhole]

I am a new player. I have a heat shield contract to be tested at 18,000 - 30,000 m  at 2060 m/s - 3,300 m/s speed. But my bloody rocket is too slow. Max it can reach is 1500. Both upwards and downwards. What to do?

Edited August 18, 2022 by Rockettoblackhole

[Curveball Anders]

Moved to Gameplay Questions, hopefully easier to get some wise advice.

[Fraktal]

Try a <0 km periapse reentry from the Mun. If that doesn't work, try it from Minmus.

[king of nowhere]

30 minutes ago, Rockettoblackhole said:

I am a new player. I have a heat shield contract to be tested at 18,000 - 30,000 m  at 2060 m/s - 3,300 m/s speed. But my bloody rocket is too slow. Max it can reach is 1500. Both upwards and downwards. What to do?

make a different rocket, obviously.

can't really say without specifics. that's quite a difficult contract to fulfill.

[Vanamonde]

Could you go above the required height and then dive under thrust? Or maybe you could put the heat shield inside a fairing to reduce the drag it generates? The contract would not know if it was exposed to the airflow or not. 

[Kryxal]

Looks simple enough, make a rocket with a heat shield on the capsule, capable of reaching orbit and returning.  Maybe a 75km circular orbit, then reduce periapsis to 25 km and detach the rest of the rocket.  Set up test conditions.  If that's not sufficient (and it really should be), adjust your burn to be more radial-in so as to increase apoapsis while you decrease periapsis.