Chutes deploying early on re-entry

[KerBlam]

So, I've just completed a science trip to Mun, and I have *nearly* made it back to Kerbin. I was running out of dV on my way back so I basically got into a large eliptical orbit, and then dipped the periapsis into the atmosphere to try and aerobrake it in. I takes 3 laps to get the speed down enough that I'm definitely going to splash down. On the final lap, when I'm at about 12000m and my speed has dropped to around 600m/s, my chutes suddenly deploy and disintegrate. There doesn't appear to be any reason for this, the atmospheric re-entry effects are dissipating and I'm shedding heat. Why is it happening? It's very frustrating.

 

Edited January 12, 2016 by KerBlam

[Plusck]

Are you using stock or mod chutes?

If stock, they should never deploy until you stage them.

Were they cyan colour before you entered the atmosphere? If so that means they were staged accidentally, and if you have a quicksave you can go back, right-click and disarm them.

 

Also, I can't remember what height a staged parachute will start to deploy, but I thought it was a bit higher than that (edit: ah ok - now I see your screenshot and that looks about right. btw:). Have you tweaked the settings? They shouldn't need tweaking in stock (with the exception of the Mun-return tutorial, which has a ship with a borked parachute on it).

Edited January 12, 2016 by Plusck

[KerBlam]

Thankyou. Yes this fixed it. Must have pressed space at some point.

[tutike2000]

You can also increase the min pressure for parachutes. Could probably set it to anywhere between 0.3-0.75 for use on Kerbin.
You can also edit the default value in your chute's part files if you don't feel like tweaking it every single time you add one.

[Snark]

10 hours ago, KerBlam said:

Thankyou. Yes this fixed it. Must have pressed space at some point.

By the way:  It used to be, before 1.0.5, that if you were above the atmosphere and accidentally staged your parachutes like this, you were just hosed.  You could try to play games with minimum deploy pressure, which could sometimes save you, but there was no way to disarm them once you've pressed space bar and they're "armed" (cyan).

However, 1.0.5 added a very convenient option that allows you to fix this.  If you accidentally stage your parachutes and they haven't semi-deployed yet, you can right-click on a parachute and there will be a "Disarm" button there.  Clicking that button will make-it-didn't-happen and turn it back to white again.

[KerBlam]

Yeah I know, I remember 0.90 I hosed myself on more than one occasion, but at least it was kind of obvious that you did.

In any case, got Jeb back safe. Barely! It was borderline needing a rescue mission, or having to get out and push.