Jump to content

What would be a good use for an aerobraking heat shield?


Recommended Posts

Let's say that I want to send a large interplanetary ship to Jool and get into a circular orbit/moon transfer using aerobraking. Now, I have that 10m heat shield that I won't need anymore. What would be good uses for it?

I have thought of the following possibilities:

- Atmospheric probe: I jettison the shield before I circularize my orbit, so the periapsis lies within the atmosphere and the shield will plunge into Jool after two or three more orbits.

- Laythe probe or lander: If I've got a massive heat shield, I can land a whole base on Laythe!

- Impactor: Leaving stuff in outer space without any use to it is uneconomical. Let's smash the whole thing onto Tylo!

- Orbiter or Probe: The heat shield can become an independent probe or supply station capable of aerobraking to drastically change the orbit. Maybe even using it as a tug when constructing a space station around Jool later?

What are your ideas? Are there any crazy or complicated things that I could do to my unneeded heat shield?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good lord, where did you dig up a 10m heat shield?

If you haven't been to the Jool system in 1.0.4, be advised that Jool is highly toxic to aerobraking these days. May have better luck with Laythe.

You've got a nice set of ideas there. Personally, I'd just let it go-- dead mass is dead mass, if it's served its purpose then discard. For example, the atmospheric-probe idea: yes, you could do that... but you could just as easily do the same thing with a specialized (and tiny) atmospheric probe/lander that you release at the same time as the heatshield, which would do the same job and would have the advantage of being small and light, so you could actually land it on the surface with a small chute and get useful science out of it.

Heat shields are good for, well, shielding heat. ;) Once they've served their purpose and you don't need them for that anymore, then they're basically just dead weight. And KSP doesn't really have any good uses for dead weight, at least as far as I can tell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It can be a nice and enigmatic orbital memorial talisman which would mysteriously shine from the deep darkness, perfectly visible in telescope.

Also a Pioneer-10/11-style picture or a Kerbo-Cola commercial probably could be depicted with Nebula Decals mod.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  Fearless Son said:
I say drop it into Jool on the way through:

http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/139/ksp.png

Aaah, "the most Kerbal vehicle ever built"... :D

Be careful with aerobraking over Jool as Snark mentioned (maybe wait for 1.0.5), but personally I would use it to try and land a base on Laythe.

But since I haven't really tested the new reentry system anywhere else than Kerbin (waiting for 1.0.5 :blush:), I don't know if your heat shield would still contain enough ablator after the Jool aerobraking to also land on Laythe...

Or maybe, trying to aerobrake directly at Laythe to get a capture, get your Pe out of the atmosphere, do orbital stuff around Laythe, then land a base on the surface.

Using Laythe to brake into the Jool system can be a tricky but very rewarding feat. I did it a few times in previous versions, but I relied a lot on Mechjeb aerobraking predictions because I don't like using F5/F9 to find a good approach and Pe...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...