No heatshield - risky?

[Hcube]

About to do a Minmus flyby and i haven't unlocked a heatshield for my Mk1-2 (3seats) capsule. If i do multiple passes and follow a shallow enough re-entry profile, can i make it back to Kerbin ?

[Reddeyfish]

yes; multiple passes will work.

Also, you can survive quite well without doing multiple passes by using your final stage's engine and fuel tanks as a heat shield. (although you might want to still ditch the final stage once the re-entry effects stop so that you don't tip over when landing)

[Hcube]

Thank you, gonna try it tomorrow

[DJK]

The default command pods are extremely effective at managing heat during re-entry. At 120% settings re-entering from LKO with any possible angle i have come up with did never hit the capsule alone (no heat shield) above 600 deg. Since then i've tweaked the physics to make re-entry way harder.. but with default settings you can do it pretty easy. Probably in one go as well, without multiple passes.

[DoToH]

test with a pod form the edge of Kerbin's SOI and PE 4,5Km. NO heatshield needed.

[Motokid600]

Wow. So heatshields are completely worthless.

[DoToH]

Wow. So heatshields are completely worthless.

True. (10 char)

[Alshain]

If you get yourself into a 75k by 45k orbit around Kerbin, heat shield is completely unnecessary for just a pod.

Wow. So heatshields are completely worthless.

They aren't worthless, the heating mechanic that was added is to give you a challenge with unprotected parts and coming in from interplanetary space. If you head straight into Kerbin atmosphere on a return trip from Jool, you better have a heat shield. If you are trying to bring back anything other than a pod, you better have a heat shield. The pods are resilient, the rest not so much. Even the pods won't last a high speed impact from outside Kerbin's SOI.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Alshain

[Anquietas314]

If you head straight into Kerbin atmosphere on a return trip from Jool, you better have a heat shield.

I've just ran a test where I slammed a mk1 capsule unprotected into kerbin's atmosphere at 4.5km/s straight down. The pod survived just fine, not getting even close to the temperature limit of 2400. Running further tests at higher speeds, will edit when done.

EDIT: second test at 7km/s: capsule flipped partially nose-first, STILL survived with extreme ease. The parachute partially overheated but did not explode. Safe to say reentry heat is more than a little underpowered...

EDIT2: third test at 10km/s: capsule flipped, chute exploded, but the pod still survived the heat (although it was close). fourth test, still 10km/s but this time with a periapsis of 1.5km: pod did NOT flip, and survived the reentry with similar ease to the 7km straight down test.

This is all at the standard 100% reentry heat setting btw.

Initial conditions (used infinite fuel to get the craft into position, no other cheats besides the thermal debug info):

Hitting the dense part of the atmosphere:

Peak temperature:

And just to show Jeb made it through in one piece:

Edited May 3, 2015 by armagheddonsgw

[DoToH]

If you head straight into Kerbin atmosphere on a return trip from Jool, you better have a heat shield. If you are trying to bring back anything other than a pod, you better have a heat shield.

Nope. Tested.

From Jool to Kerbin without heatshield. Also tested from Jool to Eve. No heatshield needed, no overheat warning.

[Hcube]

Thanks for the answers, the pod did totally fine !

I too agree that heatshields are pretty useless. I never felt that i needed one : every time i had one it barely ablated...

[Bobylein]

I lost so far two parachutes that weren't deployed due to a flipping pod and they overheated quite fast, funny thing was that the pod still survived tge impact on water.

Otherwise I use heatshields to protect my materials bay for example, so it's far from useless for me.

[GrimKaos]

Heatshield not a big need for your mission .

[RebelCid]

If your pod is flipping with a heat shield attached, then a quick fix to the module is needed to fix the physics aspect of the heat shield. (Note: not my fix, all props and credit goes to Flowerchild)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/3490-How-to-fix-those-heatshields!-%28get-rid-of-command-pod-flipping-into-the-heat!%29

[Anquietas314]

If your pod is flipping with a heat shield attached, then a quick fix to the module is needed to fix the physics aspect of the heat shield. (Note: not my fix, all props and credit goes to Flowerchild)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/3490-How-to-fix-those-heatshields!-%28get-rid-of-command-pod-flipping-into-the-heat!%29

This was already fixed in 1.0.1. The flipping in my tests was likely due to the extreme forces involved, and the capsule flipped sort of sideways rather than directly nose-first.