1.04 landings and reentry heat.

[magnemoe]

Has not used planes much since 1.0 but used some shuttle designs up to 1.02.

Now in 1.04 I find them hard to land.

This shuttle is designed for vertical landing and is a lot like an earlier design skipper as main engine, fuel, 4 man cockpit, service module in front, four pretty large fins who also act as landing legs. Two large SRB to give TWR, yes its overkill, will redesign it a bit.

Deorbit by putting Pe at 27 km.

First I tried to come down with nose forward

Anyway, tried come down shuttle style with nose forward and up. This worked nice above 30 km, below aerodynamic forced nose prograde, had heating issues before this and everything overheated, just cocpit and the two main parachutes survived.

Next I came down engine first, much faster decent because no gliding however only the airbrakes overheated some and its obviously that they can not be used as hard as earlier.

Yes this shuttle is not an plane but is it best to come in engine first with MK3 parts if you don't have plenty of wings?

[Warzouz]

If cocpit and chutes suirvived, you have a successful reenetry !

More seriously, I had some issues with MK3 reenetry in the past ***. That was in 1.02.

Your ship shouldn't explode in atmo. Do you use air-brakes ? Did you tried to put your ship sideways ?

*** I notice your ship isn't a shuttle and don't have wings. Strangely, the ship I had issue with didn't have wings either. It was a MK3 body (mostly a cocpit, and passenger bay and a small fuel tank) with 2 LVN engines on the side and a heatshield at the back. I was returning from Minmus and did 4 aerobrakes to slowdown. I blew in atmo while getting lower on the 4th pass.

[Snark]

Certainly the rules have changed, but reentry is manageable with appropriate design.

If you're going with spaceplane-style reentry, just make sure that you are sufficiently aero-steerable to be able to keep your nose up 30 degrees or so. That means, don't put your center of mass too far forward of the center of lift/drag, and also that you have appropriate control surfaces (don't rely on reaction wheels, they get overwhelmed by aero forces).

Do that, and keep Pe up around 30 km, and you should be fine. (It works because the nose-up lift keeps your altitude up, which allows you to kill lots of speed before you descend into the barbecue zone.)

Edited September 22, 2015 by Snark

[magnemoe]

Thanks and no this is no real shuttle, just 4 large fins who is probably an problem then coming in backward but don't let me keep the nose up and bleed of speed.

Backward reentry works for this as it land on the back landing legs.

[Snark]

Even without being a "real" shuttle, aero-assisted landings worked-- I use the technique on plain old cylindrical rocketships, since even a nose-up cylinder generates some lift.

For example, if you wanted to use nose-up reentry for the pseudo-shuttle you've pictured, you could just add some control surfaces to those fins in the back, and maybe some steerable canards to the front. That would give you aero steering to allow keeping the nose up.

But if backward reentry works, go for it.