To the Mun Part 2 - Parachute not opening in time

[Hershel]

Does anyone else have this problem, where you open your parachute and the parachute releases but doesn't fully open until 400m, just in time for you to get slowed to only about 55m/s before hitting the ground? I've tried this dozens of times releasing the parachute between heights of 2200 and 7800 going traveling between 210-270m/s. It doesn't seem to matter how far or how close to the ground I am, the parachute only decides to open at 400m, but by then it doesn't give enough time to slow me down. I've tried entering the atmosphere at a periapsis between 46km and 35km and it doesn't seem to matter. What am I doing wrong? Is there some auto parachute open that I can adjust? Why would they set it so low?

Thanks,

[Hagen von Tronje]

Have you checked the tweakable in VAB to make sure you didn't accidentaly move it from 1000m to 400m?

Right click the chute in VAB and set deployment altitude. Default is 1000m.

[Ripper2900]

Also doable in-flight. Not only during construction.

[Starhawk]

It sounds like your trajectory is too steep. Depending on your speed, you need to come in at a fairly shallow angle to the ground in order for the air to have enough time to slow you and unfurl your chute.

Happy landings!

[Gaarst]

Chutes deployment mechanics have been changed with 1.0.x versions.

In Beta, defalut setting for parachute full deployment was 500m above the ground, and the deployment speed of the parachute was high enough for it to deploy and slow down the craft in those 500m.

With 1.0 though, deployment is slower so default setting was raised to 1km high, so that the parachute would have time to deploy and slow down your craft.

When you create a new parachute in the VAB/SPH in 1.0.4, it automatically has a deployment altitude of 1km. The thing is, if you're importing a craft from Beta (copy/paste the .craft file or save folder), the parachutes will keep their old 500m height and therefore will not slow down your craft enough and will lead to a tragic end for your crew.

So even if you didn't change the settings from your old craft, the chutes can be faulty.

[Pecan]

^ This.

Plus, the tutorials weren't updated so the craft in that one has the 'bad' parachute settings and will kill you. Unusually Starhawk is wrong - the parachute simply opens too late to do anything.

As the others have said, you can correct those by right-clicking the parachute before your re-entry (you'll probably be a bit busy and forget, so do it sooner rather than later!).

[Hershel]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I found the default setting was 500. Increasing the parachute deployment height worked great! If anyone else is having this issue, simply right click the tip of your spaceship and increase the parachute deployment height to 650. I experimented with several different heights. You'll probably survive using 600, but you'll be hitting the ground faster than 5m/s. 650 will slow the craft down to 5m/s without leaving you waiting several minutes. Thanks again!