Atmospheric Analysis in Jool?

[Kyrt Malthorn]

I was doing a little interplanetary aerobraking (and discovered how touchy this is with Jool, but it worked with enough tinkering) and noticed my atmospheric sensor claimed it could't be run, even in Jool's amosphere. Does atmospheric analysis just not work with Jool in 1.0.4 or does it need other conditions? I was barely skimming it, down to 197.7km, and traveling upwards of 8.5km/s. Do I need to be going slower? Deeper?

Edited September 18, 2015 by Kyrt Malthorn

[TheMoonRover]

I would imagine that's just too high and too fast for science sensor to properly register the atmosphere.

[Reactordrone]

Generally a high speed pass through the atmosphere during an aerobrake/aerocapture won't allow atmosphere science. you have to be established in orbit/sub-orbit before the dips into atmosphere allow readings.

[FlyingPete]

I think the way to get good science from Jool is probably to use something like this from Eve Order Zero

Just make sure that, unlike the ill-fated Atmospherikdipperkraft, things don't get worse. There is no abort to surface option on Jool...

[RoboRay]

You can't do atmospheric studies while on a hyperbolic pass through the planet's SOI.

[OhioBob]

A few missions back I sent a probe on a suborbital descent through Jool's atmosphere and I had no problem recording and transmitting data from the atmospheric sensor. The problem is surviving entry. I had a relatively small probe and I slapped a 3.75m heat shield on it. Even with that big oversized heat shield, the probe barely survived; it had only a few kg of ablator remaining when it finally settled into a gingerly descent.

(edit) FYI, I just looked up my Jool probe and I see that it's total mass was 5055 kg. Using a 3.75m heat shield, that comes to 458 kg/m². As I said, the probe just barely made it without using up all its ablator. I strongly recommend that anyone attempting this keep their heat shielding loading to ≤458 kg/m², or else you're likely to go boom! Also note that my descent was started from a low Jool orbit, so the entry velocity was as low as possible. I would have never survived had I attempted an entry direct from a hyperbolic approach. I think the periapsis of my descent orbit was 195 km, but I don't recall what my apoapsis was (probably not more than 500 km).

Edited September 19, 2015 by OhioBob