Help! Mk 16 parachute always overheats on reentry

[RobH]

Hi

I'm a novice, so please bear with me. I have progressed to the point where I can get into orbit (albeit in an inefficient, non-circular orbit with a high apoapsis - still trying to work out how to get into a near circular LEO of about 100km). However, no matter how shallow my re-entry, the mk16 parachiute always overheats and is destroyed on re-entry.

How do I renter successfully with just a mk16, which is all that's available to me at present?

[InterCity]

Hello, and welcome to KSP

Open it just as you slow down to 300 m/s. Otherwise you'll explode. Also, it helps if you lower your apoapsis before reentering (by burning against the direction you're going).

[RobH]

Tks for that - I am aware of the 300 m/s limit, but that's not my problem. The unopened Mk16 parachute fails BEFORE I slow enough to use it!!!

[Streetwind]

If the parachute is destroyed when you try to deploy it, JebKerboom has your solution.

If the parachute overheats and gets destroyed even before you attempt to stage it, then that's very odd because it usually shouldn't happen unless you are reentering nose-first

Do you carry a heatshield? If not, I recommend you try one. Also, make sure the parachute isn't in the airstream. Reenter butt-first and turn SAS off, let the capsule orient itself.

[Reactordrone]

If you right click on the chute it will indicate whether it is safe to deploy or not. All of the chutes have been made very fragile and can't be deployed reliably above 260m/s or 500m/s for drogue chutes. If you've accidentally deployed the chute in space or in the upper atmosphere right click on the chute and set the pressure to above 0.5 atmospheres and it should deploy when you're low and slow.

[Sharpy]

...and actually, KSP lies about 'the parachute destroyed due to heat' - it's all about speed, the rest doesn't matter. If you drop a 4kg probe core on the huge parachute and open it at 400m/s, it will get destroyed too, even though there's no way for this kind of weight to destroy it in real life.

[RobH]

Tks for that - I am aware of the 300 m/s limit, but that's not my problem. The unopened Mk16 parachute fails BEFORE I slow enough to use it!!!

Poking around, I've finally realised the chute is AUTOMATIC - whereas the chute's in earlier versions were manual. Ive now got it set reasonably and I have recovered my first orbital flight! Perhaps the "default" setting for parachutes should be more reasonable so newbies don;t get caught by this so much!

[Sharpy]

Unless you use some weird mods, there are no automatic chutes in KSP. You must have placed them somewhere too early in staging sequence.

True the chutes have their own settings of pressure which means when they are released (then altitude for deployment) but they will NOT be released unless activated through staging or rightclick... or mods.

[Wemb]

Unless you use some weird mods, there are no automatic chutes in KSP...

I'm wondering if the OP has mucked up his staging and has managed to deploy his parachute while in orbit - in which case, yes, you're doomed and the parachute will be destroyed.

Like others have said, unless you're coming in parachute first, then it won't burn up.

If you're flying just a Mk 1 Capsule and a Mk16 parachute, then you don't need SAS on reentry - the weight of the capsule will keep you orientated in the right direction and you should be able to make it back safely without steering at all.

Wemb

- - - Updated - - -

BTW, to circularise your orbit - wait till your ship is right at the lowest point (periapsis) in the orbit (assuming it's above 70km) and then burn retrograde - this will reduce the position of the opposide point of your orbit (the apoapsis, the highest point) while leaving your peri mostly unchanged. Use the shift and ctrl, or right click on your engine to thrust limit it, to fine tune it as you near circular and you should fine it easy to get a near perfect orbit. The trick is to a) have the mid-point of the burn as close as possible to the periapsis burn in exactly the retrograde vector and c) get the burn done as quickly as possible, without overshooting it too much.

[Sharpy]

I'm wondering if the OP has mucked up his staging and has managed to deploy his parachute while in orbit - in which case, yes, you're doomed and the parachute will be destroyed.

Actually, nope. Turn the deployment pressure up as far as you can (0.5) and save some fuel to perform a braking burn somewhere around 10,000m (before atmospheric pressure kills your TWR) - maybe 300m/s dV, enough so that at 4000m you'll be below 250m/s.

BTW, don't sweat about circular orbits. Keeping the orbit mostly circular if it's a space base or some vehicle that will be the subject of rendezvous (other vessels moving in to meet them) is nice though not necessary. If you're just passing by though - there's almost zero benefits of circularizing your orbits. (the benefit is that maneuver nodes are easier to plan as your planned apoapsis doesn't change as you move the node. The disadvantage is fuel spent on circularizing it. So a volatile benefit of less stress of your wrist on the mouse, for a substantial cost of actual delta-V).

Edited July 9, 2015 by Sharpy

[Chaos_Klaus]

The problem is that by default KSP puts the chutes in the same stage as the last decoupler. That way you stage them before entering the atmo. You need to move them to a seperate stage so that you can stage them when you are slow enough.

[Kryxal]

That and setting them to .04 atm for deployment by default ... it's a recipe for crispy chutes.