Are radiators effective inside of closed cargo bays?

[Thegamer211]

All spaceplanes I make explode in re-entry because of over-heating.

I tried multiple re-entry trajectories but the cockpit always explodes because of overheating.

Re-entry heat is set at 100%.

Also kinda related, I saw someone use a mod that had spaceplane cockpits repainted in black and more heat resistant. How is it called?

answers (for time travelers and people from the future googling):

-Dont just point prograde in re-entry

-Add radiators

-Heat resistant parts (has no forum thread!?)

Do radiators work inside cargo bays?

-Yes

I have no more questions.

You can actually set the AoA in the Trajectories mod. Unfortunately, it's temporarily broken in 1.0.5

I did not knew that!

When the mod gets updated to 1.0.5, I'll try.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Thegamer211

[Gooru]

Same problem here.

Just tried to reenter with a mk1 spacepalne for 3 hours now.

I didn´t even get close. It allways explodes due to overheating.

I lowerd orbit to 72x72km to reduce speed as much as possible.

But even after that burning retrograde in the upper atmo doesn´t bring down the speed enought to survive the heat.

[KerikBalm]

Well, I've found the FAT-455 wings with their 1200k heat tolerance to be completely unable to survive reentry.

I made a Seaplane SSTO* with the mk1 cockpit, and since i wanted water landings, it had quite a bit of wing area... the cockpit gets very hot and close to exploding on reentry, but keeping a high angle of attack made the re-entry survivable... I'm not sure it would have been if I had a higher wingloading.

* Unfortunately, I can't seem to land it on water when its full of fuel, so I can go to orbit, and then deorbit and land in water, but I can't land on water while full... as I would want to do on Laythe.

I also doubt it would survive reentry when fully loaded.

[Foxster]

Do you have air brakes on the craft?

[aluc24]

All spaceplanes I make explode in re-entry because of over-heating.

I tried multiple re-entry trajectories but the cockpit always explodes because of overheating.

Re-entry heat is set at 100%.

Also kinda related, I saw someone use a mod that had spaceplane cockpits repainted in black and more heat resistant. How is it called?

What angle of attack do you use to re-enter? I'm asking because I see that a lot of people just keep the nose horizontal. Personally, I always go for 35-45° AOA, which makes wings stall and produce more drag. If the spaceplane falls too fast, you can reduce AOA to have more lift. However, to keep this AOA, you need perfect weight balance, powerful reaction wheels or a lot of RCS ports. I use the combination of these.

[GoSlash27]

TheGamer211,

I use a combination of airbrakes and s-turns. KSP is definitely pickier about reentry techniques these days.

Best,

-Slashy

[Boris-Barboris]

It was always about the same: keep AoA large. Example: http://imgur.com/a/auZlD

[Gaarst]

Using airbrakes for reentry should not be necessary.

Understand that in more realistic conditions, the airbrakes would be ripped off / molten by the reentry mechanics pretty fast. There is a reason why the Space Shuttle did not use airbrakes for reentry.

I have not tried reentries with spaceplanes or shuttles in 1.0.5 yet, but keeping a high AoA is indeed a good solution for previous versions, so it should be the same with 1.0.5.

Also, I don't remember the numbers, but the Mk1 cockpit has had one of its max temperature (core or skin) reduced. While this, in addition of the new design, clearly show that it is intended for small atmospheric planes; hence, we are now missing a proper 1.25m shuttle cockpit such as the 1.0.4- Mk1 cockpit.

[Gooru]

I tried any AoA from 0° to even 90°

I don´t have airbrakes on the craft but i´ll try even if it is ridiculous to have airbrakes of the size of the planes hull to slow down while an reentry because of a 90° wing entry doesn´t slow down enougth.

Why the hack such a stupid gameplay mechanics is introduced long after beta.... thats just ridiculous.

[Signo]

Depending on the resistance of the nosecone of choice you can completely avoid AoA.

http://www.twitch.tv/signo1974/v/25850093

In this video I re entered with 0° AoA and I dived to KSC to land on the strip.

The game settings are all by default.

[GoSlash27]

I tried any AoA from 0° to even 90°

I don´t have airbrakes on the craft but i´ll try even if it is ridiculous to have airbrakes of the size of the planes hull to slow down while an reentry because of a 90° wing entry doesn´t slow down enougth.

Why the hack such a stupid gameplay mechanics is introduced long after beta.... thats just ridiculous.

Gooru,

What's your reentry technique? Where do you set your periapsis during deorbit?

Best,

-Slashy

[Just Jim]

This is how I brought one in yesterday. AoA about 25 degrees, all engines off, upper and lower airbrakes deployed. No problems.

[Guest]

All spaceplanes I make explode in re-entry because of over-heating.

I tried multiple re-entry trajectories but the cockpit always explodes because of overheating.

Re-entry heat is set at 100%.

Also kinda related, I saw someone use a mod that had spaceplane cockpits repainted in black and more heat resistant. How is it called?

As others have said, the angle of attack during reentry is more important now. You need an AoA of about 30 degrees or more, depending on the capsule, as well as a shallow reentry to avoid over heating.

As far as the second question, the "paint" or texture of a capsule has nothing to do with heat resistance in KSP. Only the settings in the .cfg file matter. You can modify any capsule you desire. Just find the .cfg file for your favorite capsule, whether it's stock or not, open with notepad and look for "maxTemp =" and "skinMaxTemp = " and change their values to whatever you like, save the file, and done.

[Gooru]

Gooru,

What's your reentry technique? Where do you set your periapsis during deorbit?

Best,

-Slashy

I start from a lowest possible orbit (aka 72kmx72km)

there i travel at 2291m/s with817m/s dV left.

i tried several first deorbital burns to PEs from 50km to 0km and lower.

i tried retrograd burns just before turning my nose prograde.

and then AoAs from 90° to 0°.

So i´m temted to say i´ve tried anything.

____________________________

if i do a deorbital burn with all dV left and an 30°AoA entry the flames start around 40km with V=1900m/s

i´ll explode at 30km with V=1700m/s

Edited November 15, 2015 by Gooru

[KerikBalm]

pics of your craft?

[numerobis]

If you burn off more of that fuel with a radial burn, you'll lose mass without increasing your speed.

Lower mass means less energy to absorb as friction -- or, another way to see it, if you have lower mass but the same drag, you slow down faster at the upper reaches, so your peak temperature isn't as high.

How I do this is I set Pe around 50km, then at 50km I'm pointing straight up and I burn to keep vertical velocity at zero.

The way this can fail is if I run out of electricity, flip prograde, and plunge to Jeb's doom.

[Korizan]

I use the same procedure from 70km to 130km Orbits (haven't tested other altitudes.)

Retrograde burn 150

That will put you in a nice slow decent.

I start with my nose up at 40deg and adjust accordingly, most of the time it ends up ~10 to 20 degrees around 40km but no big deal at that point.

Hope this helps.

Ps - it also makes for very predicable lands if you are consistent.

[Thegamer211]

I tried the stock crafts (dynawing, slim space shuttle).

When I re-entry, I just point prograde and pitch up or down in need of corrections. That way I can get the exact results from whatTrajectories mod says. (that was not updated to 1.0.5 yet, so I don't use it at the moment).

How can I figure out how to not miss KSC when pitching up at re-entry?

Also, it was a MOD, not just retextures. After further search, its Heat resistance parts

(Craft using HRP)

[KerikBalm]

Sounds like your problem is that you are coming in too steep, trying to constrain your trajectory to hit a spot rather than avoid overheating.

The trajectories mod tells you where you'll land if you keep your craft at a certain orientation... its not saying that you should keep your craft at that orientation...

I manage to land back at KSC without using a mod, you can learn too.

Get through the worst part of reentry, and then modify your ptich and airbreak settings as needed to glide back into KSC... but when you still have severe heating, you shouldn't be pitching down!

[Dispatcher]

My spaceplanes now make use of airbrakes and radiator panels. These do make a big difference. In fact, on my way [I]up[/I] from Kerbin, I've gone too fast and have blown up my ships due to cockpit overheating. Mounting a few radiator panels usually solves the overheating problem. Notice that while in atmosphere the panels don't tend to glow red, but once in space, convective cooling stops and radiative cooling kicks in, so you will see the radiators glow red after a fast flight up. Once you drop back down to atmosphere, the convective cooling kicks back in and the panels stop glowing red (unless the entire craft is engulfed in reentry flames).

[Mister Dilsby]

The Gliido Mk7P was my go-to SSTO crew transporter in 1.0.4; with the addition of few radiators, it still is:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Etzs1Kx.png[/IMG]

In addition to the two radiators you can see in the re-entry shot above, there is a third on top of the inline docking module, immediately abaft the cockpit. There's also a couple on the Mk2 bicoupler to deal with heat from the LV-Ns:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/8b5WjwY.png[/IMG]

... in the second shot you can see the two AIRBRAKES, but those were there in 1.0.4. Without the extra radiators, the Gliido explodes on its way to orbit in 1.0.5. With them it gets up and down no problem :) The re-entry and landing shown above was direct from Micarooni Station, altitude 400km--I set periapsis for 16km and went straight in. Did land a little short, but 'everyone walked away' and no parts came off the ship. Edited November 15, 2015 by Kuzzter

[Thegamer211]

[SIZE=1]Some type of bump. (please dont kill me mods)

[SIZE=2]Now that radiators (and a better trajectory) are the answers, and radiators cause drag (do they cause a lot of drag?), do radiators work inside cargo bays?[/SIZE][/SIZE]

[sal_vager]

Radiators don't contribute to drag inside a bay or fairing, they still work though, but then [URL="http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol2/thermalmanagement.html"][U]so did the radiators[/U][/URL] on the [U][URL="http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol2/images/fig37.GIF"]NASA space shuttle.[/URL][/U]

[Kobymaru]

[quote name='KerikBalm']The trajectories mod tells you where you'll land if you keep your craft at a certain orientation... its not saying that you should keep your craft at that orientation...[/QUOTE]
You can actually set the AoA in the Trajectories mod. Unfortunately, it's temporarily broken in 1.0.5 :(

[AeroGav]

My spaceplanes have a lot of wing area and tend not to suffer much with overheating, pitch up the nose a bit to stay high in the atmosphere and all is generally ok, even after the latest patch. But, the story changed when i tried to bring it to Eve

[URL=http://s1144.photobucket.com/user/narostel/media/LVN%20Mod%201%20test/2015-11-15_00001_zpsvuzhgp6a.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1144.photobucket.com/albums/o492/narostel/LVN%20Mod%201%20test/2015-11-15_00001_zpsvuzhgp6a.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Despite pitching to max lift, 30 AoA, and having a stall speed of less than 30m/s on Kerbin, the cockpit (followed shortly by the rest of the aircraft) explodes no later than 75km. Guess i'll be trying that "radiators inside a cargo bay trick".