Landing an Asteroid on Kerbin

[LordKael]

Hi guys,

Today, I decided to try and land an E-class asteroid on Kerbin's surface, because why not. What I want to know is whether anybody has ever successfully done it. I'll be posting pics once I get it down, but I wanted to first see if anybody cares.

 

[DocMop]

Someone actually attached wings and stuff on one and flew it back to Kerbin.

[Mat2ch]

I once mined one dry. It had such a huge surface area and was so light that it just floated to the ground.

[LordKael]

Both of those sound awesome. Links to threads? I'm going to attempt to attach a parachute module with a couple dozen drogue chutes and about 20 radial chutes, and then aerobrake it as gently as possible.

any thoughts on feasibility? I'm pretty sure the asteroid weighs just shy of 2000tons. Not sure how many chutes I'll need, or how to figure it out.

[charfa]

5thHorseman landing A-class asteroid on Kerbin with wings (in 23.5):

 

[Geschosskopf]

23 hours ago, LordKael said:

Hi guys,

Today, I decided to try and land an E-class asteroid on Kerbin's surface, because why not. What I want to know is whether anybody has ever successfully done it. I'll be posting pics once I get it down, but I wanted to first see if anybody cares.

It's a lot harder to land asteroids in post-1.0 than it was before.  Originally, asteroids were indestructible so could survive very hard landings, and there was also no reentry heat.  So all you needed was enough dV to get them to intersect Kerbin's surface and you were golden.  But since 1.0, I've never managed to get one to the ground.  They are a lot less tolerant of reentry heat even than unshield spaceships going sideways into the air and tend to vaporize practically instantly upon contact with the air.

[LordKael]

Landing a Class-A asteroid in the soup-o-sphere that was 23.5 isn't really the same as landing a Class-E in 1.0.5. Especially since this one weighs just shy of 2000 tons.

[LordKael]

57 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

It's a lot harder to land asteroids in post-1.0 than it was before.  Originally, asteroids were indestructible so could survive very hard landings, and there was also no reentry heat.  So all you needed was enough dV to get them to intersect Kerbin's surface and you were golden.  But since 1.0, I've never managed to get one to the ground.  They are a lot less tolerant of reentry heat even than unshield spaceships going sideways into the air and tend to vaporize practically instantly upon contact with the air.

I'm planning on strapping a crapton of parachutes, and aerobraking really slowly. I think it's projected to be around 30 passes.

[Geschosskopf]

10 minutes ago, LordKael said:

I'm planning on strapping a crapton of parachutes, and aerobraking really slowly. I think it's projected to be around 30 passes.

I'm not sure parachutes are needed because I haven't had one live long enough to need them yet.  The problem is that they're so intolerant of reentry heat that they die long before chutes become an issue.  Maybe 30 very gentle aerobraking passes would work but I wouldn't wager my career game's budget on that working.

[LordKael]

20 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

I'm not sure parachutes are needed because I haven't had one live long enough to need them yet.  The problem is that they're so intolerant of reentry heat that they die long before chutes become an issue.  Maybe 30 very gentle aerobraking passes would work but I wouldn't wager my career game's budget on that working.

I just tested it, and I got a 1924 ton rock to splash down at 824m/s. So, definitely to the point of needing a parachute system. Think 20 radial chutes and 36 radial drogues, plus a single large chute would be enough?

[fourfa]

Mine out the mass as low as you can get it, unless you just want the challenge

[LordKael]

21 minutes ago, fourfa said:

Mine out the mass as low as you can get it, unless you just want the challenge

definitely just doing it for the challenge. Not much else in the game that hasn't already been done by somebody, so I figured this would be fun.

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

It's a lot harder to land asteroids in post-1.0 than it was before.  Originally, asteroids were indestructible so could survive very hard landings, and there was also no reentry heat.  So all you needed was enough dV to get them to intersect Kerbin's surface and you were golden.  But since 1.0, I've never managed to get one to the ground.  They are a lot less tolerant of reentry heat even than unshield spaceships going sideways into the air and tend to vaporize practically instantly upon contact with the air.

Found this in 1.04, tried to aerobrake one, Pe higher than 30 km and in Kerbin orbit still it exploded around 40 km, the tug lost the claw and all solar panels. Also found that at least the smaller one is easy to blow up with engines. 

[Terwin]

One thing I noticed when I brought an empty class A home in 1.0.4 was that asteroid samples are per biome, so I carted it around to various KSC buildings and got lots of samples out of it.

Not that I had much of anything to do with those science points mind you, I just found it amusing.

 

[Jetski]

I landed a smaller unmined one class B I think, by doing a deorbit burn, then detaching my ship, and switching focus to the asteroid and watching it do a ballistic approach.   No chutes or anything, landed fine on land, and after a quick save revert, in the water.  I was throwing rocks  Tried to use it as ballast for an underwater base, but it floated if anything at all was attached to it.  Probably different for a big one, but no heating problems or anything for me.

[The Optimist]

I was inclined to believe that asteroids have a really high heat tolerance (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 K) by the wiki page about Kerbol.

 

Maybe we should fix that?

[CalculusWarrior]

The fun thing about the new water system is that at high speeds, drag becomes lower (this is to assist with aircraft taking off from the water). Hence, the faster you enter the water, the deeper you will go. Try to deorbit the rock near the deepest point of Kerbin's ocean and hit the bottom. You shouldn't need parachutes, or any of that nonsense, just a lot of speed.

[fourfa]

Many, many things on the wiki are terribly out of date

[Mister Dilsby]

Have not tried this yet in 1.0.5, but I think I'd want to stick something very draggy at one end and point a lot of thrust in the opposite direction. Powered descent is your friend for surviving atmosphere.

[Aegrim]

Didn't somebody make a video of them slam dunking one from orbit through a hoop they'd built at the ksc?

 

At work so can't search myself right now.

[Skorpychan]

21 hours ago, Terwin said:

One thing I noticed when I brought an empty class A home in 1.0.4 was that asteroid samples are per biome, so I carted it around to various KSC buildings and got lots of samples out of it.

Not that I had much of anything to do with those science points mind you, I just found it amusing.

 

Oh, that's brilliant. I've got to try that.

Possibly along with building it a rover so it can be self-propelled.

[Terwin]

9 hours ago, Skorpychan said:

Oh, that's brilliant. I've got to try that.

Possibly along with building it a rover so it can be self-propelled.

Ok, turns out it was a class B

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[LordKael]

21 hours ago, CalculusWarrior said:

The fun thing about the new water system is that at high speeds, drag becomes lower (this is to assist with aircraft taking off from the water). Hence, the faster you enter the water, the deeper you will go. Try to deorbit the rock near the deepest point of Kerbin's ocean and hit the bottom. You shouldn't need parachutes, or any of that nonsense, just a lot of speed.

To be clear, you're suggesting that the faster the rock enters the water, the better this would work?