Astroid burning up in atmosphere

[sebbemann]

Hi!

I'm trying to land an astroid around KSC, but it always burns up in the atmosphere, around 15,000 to 30,000 meters from the surface. It is a class C astroid. I've never done this before. Would aerobraking a few orbits help with the decrease reentry speed in this case? I haven't tried it yet, because that will make it an awful lot harder to pick a landing spot.

I've seen plenty of pictures of people landing astroids around KSC on this forum. How did you keep the astroid from burning up?

In advance, thanks for any reply.

[Tatonf]

Asteroids don't have any heatshield so yes if your asteroid is on escape trajectory it have some speed to burn off first.

[Right]

Yeah, I've had this problem too. Aside from just burning a ton of fuel to slow down the asteroid adequately, my best bet would be to use air brakes to help bleed off as much speed as possible before hitting those lethal altitudes.

[Crown]

Reducing the speed by aerobraking into a low orbit first might be a good idea. I saw a screenshot someone made where the asteroid had wings and was landed that way. And maybe use rocket engines to slow down on descent to reduce heating.

Solutions might be:

* Aerobraking into LKO (Low Kerbin Orbit)

* Wings

* Powered descent