jonmo

I'm having problems with the latest update. I can't seem to be able to get a pod to survive a reentry from a free return trajectory of the mun. I am using a conical 2.5m heat shield from http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91920-0-24-2-Oblivion-Aerospace-Pack-New-heat-shields-for-DRE!-(v0-1-3-2014-09-18) . If I enter at a shallow angle I burn up all my ablative resource in even the most gentle aerobrake. If I go for a normal entry I get a lot of explosions. It also seems like radially attached parts which are only just covered now get vapourised unless I can keep the pod pointing perfectly retrograde (which I can't). This actually feels more realistic, however it means you need a 3.75m heat shield for a 2.5m craft since there are no shields that are in-between those sizes. My spaceplanes don't work any more as I used to re-enter with 0 AoA pointing directly prograde, and only pulling up to manage the descent rate. I think now I would have to develop a plane to re-enter at about 40 degrees which presents a far more significant problem keeping something naturally stable at such an angle. So I am not sure if the rise in difficulty is a bug or intended behavior.

Good idea for backing up the save file Sirine. I keep my save files on Dropbox so I can continue my games between my PC and my Mac and I took a backup under your guidance. Kashua I did what you said and it went really well. Here is what I did for anyone else with a similar problem. 1. I launched into orbit, and circularised. 2. I set my target as one of the two ships I wanted to rendezvous with. 3. At the descending node I burned normal to match the orbital inclination. I also burned prograde at this point to intersect the paths. I couldn't do it any later because I would have missed my time sensitive window. 4. At the intersect point I burned Radial-in to match my course. I did this instead of burning prograde as I needed to be travelling slower than the ships behind me. 5. As the ships approached me I burned to match speed as close as possible, at the nearest point. 6. At this point it was a normal rendezvous. 7. I switched to the other ship and EVA'd the crew member over. 8. I did the same as 5-7 to get my other crew member. 9. I then burned retrograde until I would be caught by kerbin, I then continued burning retrograde until my periapsis would be at 30km. After accomplishing that final burn I still had about 20% fuel remaining in my big orange "service module". And I still had my final stage (with a full x32 can) to spare! Many thanks everyone, this game is amazing!

Thankyou for the responses guys, I'm going to give this a try now and see how I get on

Unfortunately they are both now in a trajectory that slingshots around kerbal and out into space! I don't think their EVA fuel would be enough to fix it. I'll keep it in mind for next time though!

I haven't lost a man in space yet, and I don't want to start today The situation. I'm in the sandbox so I have access to everything btw. I had a kerbol stranded in orbit around the mun, the ship ran out of all propellant and it didn't have a docking port. At this stage I didn't realise I could do an EVA to rescue him. So I sent another ship to help. Since I couldn't dock I painstakingly nudged the ship with my other one. Unfortunately due to how hard this was I couldn't plan the maneuver and I sent both ships into a trajectory that slingshots them both around kerbal and out into space! https://www.dropbox.com/s/ws613g7950alqr9/map1.png On this picture they are travelling to the left and then down. https://www.dropbox.com/s/cw6od1egzy4s6e2/map%20side.jpg Here it is from the side, here they will be exiting at the bottom of the screen. I have an asparagus staged rocket, with a capsule with space for the two stranded kerbols. Here is the question. What burns will I need to do to get me close to an intercept (once i'm close I know I can get too them and EVA them over). From that position (which I assume will also have the rescue ship heading out of the system) how would I get them all back, assuming the delta-v required to recover from this trajectory with a direct return will be too high. Please help, loving the game so far.