Part recovery contracts - can you see what the target looks like ahead of time?

[Dunbaratu]

When you get one of those "recover Yadda Kerbin from orbit, and his vessel" contracts, or those "recover object Blarg form orbit", I haven't found a way to plan properly what the mission vessel should look like because I have no idea what the target vessel looks like until I get there and it comes within vessel range to switch to it.  You can't see the vessel from the tracking center because the only way to do so is to take over flight control of it, and you're not supposed to be able to do that yet.

This is frustrating because I plan for a small capsule, then get there and find it's a big one, and I can't grab it and bring it back with the vessel I showed up with because it's engineered wrongly for it.  You need a different configuration (a more expensive one) to recover a large object because of heat shielding issues - you need a very big protective occlusion area behind your heat shield to recover something like a hitchhiker can.

The only way I can think of to do this is to save the game and read the saved game file to find the target vessel and see what part(s) it's composed of.  Is there a means to do so in-game?  There really should be, because if you're accepting the contract, people on the ground would have the tech specs of the vessel and know what it is that you're going to go get.

 

[Tex_NL]

Next time you see a contract like this look at it a bit closer. Several details are given about the piece that needs to be recovered. Most notably it's size.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Tex_NL

[ForScience6686]

My method for this is a small probe and claw.  Grab and descend.  Size of object is not an issue here, only if you don't have enough chutes.

[Temstar]

The contract does actually tell you the object's length, width, height and mass.