Unable to land on Kerbal, parachute fails

[trexmkii]

Hi,

I'm new to the game and I've decided to play the tutorial missions.

I'm trying to finish the "Get to the Mun, Part 2" mission but every time I get to Kerbal I crash because my parachute deploys too late.

If I deploy it at over 270 m/s it tears off and I get a message saying: "Parachute destroyed due to heat and aero forces"

But if I wait for the speed to get below 270 m/s the chute doesn't fully open until it's too late and the capsule crashes.

Please HELP!!! It's driving me nuts!!

[Hcube]

Welcome to the forums

I'm pretty sure you can overcome this problem by just putting your periapsis higher when returning from the Mun... it will ensure you re-enter the atmosphere at a more friendly angle and will let you plenty of time to slow down before you get too low for parachute deployment. Try putting the periapsis at something like 30 km.

By the way, that planet is called Kerbin !

Tell us if you make it

[Weaverworld]

Hi,

I'm new to the game and I've decided to play the tutorial missions.

I'm trying to finish the "Get to the Mun, Part 2" mission but every time I get to Kerbal I crash because my parachute deploys too late.

If I deploy it at over 270 m/s it tears off and I get a message saying: "Parachute destroyed due to heat and aero forces"

But if I wait for the speed to get below 270 m/s the chute doesn't fully open until it's too late and the capsule crashes.

Please HELP!!! It's driving me nuts!!

You need a flatter angle of descent, make sure that your orbital path passes through around 1/4 of the Kerbal atmosphere and you should be golden.

[Sharpy]

...or preferably set your periapsis at 48km. That takes some real trying not to survive.

Also: turn your craft sideways during the descent, or at least engine in front. Don't head the aerodynamic cone side first. (and if the aero doesn't let you stay sideways, wobble sideways as much as you can.)

Last but not least, save up a few drops of fuel and fire the engine retrograde at around 10km altitude.

Try to get the speed below 250m/s - more and the chute may randomly break off; 250 is totally safe.

Edited July 13, 2015 by Sharpy

[micha]

As long as you slow down to 250m/s before 1000 meters you're golden, unless, of course, your craft is too heavy for the number of parachutes you have on it.

[Wemb]

When you do wait till you're under 250mps before deploying your chutes, when do they fully open? If it's a Mk16 parachute, and it's appearing to fully open at 500m (you can right click on th part to check this number) then you will need to increase this above ~700-800m (make it a 1,000 to be safe) - the length of time needed for the mk16 to slow a capsule down changed recently - and new ships built with the Mk16 have a new open altitude of 1000 set - perhaps the ship in the tutorial is still set to 500m.

Wemb

[Sharpy]

M16 is notoriously terrible with a long time to open, I think some 400-500 meters nowadays, and a considerable time. A fall from a 150m parachute tower would crash the kerbal.

The radial-mounted chutes need some 150m at 250m/s and take a very short time to deploy, the tower experiment would have them open even before the dome part cleared the platform ("exploding upwards").

The XL parachute takes some more time to open, about 250m at 250m/s, but still considerably less than the M16 crap.

If you can, research the radial chutes ASAP and forget M16. It's a startup part for a reason.

[Kryxal]

Personally, I keep using the starter chute till I get drogues. I let it slow me down to halfway reasonable for landing, then use other chutes for final velocity.

[Wemb]

M16 is notoriously terrible with a long time to open, I think some 400-500 meters nowadays

No, it's even than that now - from a LKO, coming in on a reasonable shallow re-entry in nothing but a Mk1 capsule, you need about 700m to fully deploy to landing speed.

A new ship should have it set to 1000 by default, but old ships created and saved before (I think 1.0.2) will have it set to the old 500m which is fatal in most cases.

Wenb

[Bluegillbronco2]

When you start to build you own ships i highly recommend using drogue parachutes. They can deploy at about 450/ms and slow you down to a less suicidal, safe speed to deploy the mains. And it helps to land in the ocean because you always know when you come down because the ocean is at sea level. Air brakes are great too if you are coming in at a really steep angle and don't want to completely burn up.

[Kryxal]

I'll deploy the small chute at 650m and it works out well ... I'm pretty well slowed down as much as I will by 150m.