Asteroids in the atmosphere

[DoesDoodles]

So, a few moments ago a C-class asteroid I was tracking entered Kerbin's SoI. As expected due to the lack of a periapsis on the map, it is on a collision-course with Kerbin. Lucky as I am, it is crashing almost at the center of the North pole. This allows me to fly in an expedition towards the North pole that can do their thing as soon as the asteroid lands.

However, here's the question: if an uncontrolled asteroid enters the atmosphere, will it make its way to the ground or will it disappear before that? I remember hearing things about parts, flying in the atmosphere, disappearing if they move more than 2500m away from the camera, but I've also seen debries of spacecraft fly more than 10km away from the command module during reentry, and not disappearing. I'm playing on the latest version of the game, if that's of importance.

Another important question is, will the asteroid survive the heat of the reentry? Will it need parachutes to come down safely or does smashing it into the ground work too?

[Red Iron Crown]

Unfocused craft (including asteroids) that dip below ~25km get deleted. You'll have to get something attached to it or keep within physics range while following it down for it to survive.

Heat and impact tolerance of asteroids is quite high, should survive reentry and impact just fine.

Edit to be more precise: Anything not within the physics bubble gets deleted, the craft doesn't necessarily need to be focused. The physics bubble in atmo is 22.5km, which would explain the debris survival you observed.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Red Iron Crown

[DoesDoodles]

2 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Unfocused craft (including asteroids) that dip below ~25km get deleted. You'll have to get something attached to it or keep within physics range while following it down for it to survive.

Heat and impact tolerance of asteroids is quite high, should survive reentry and impact just fine.

Aaah, alright. Thanks! Hmm, will have to send a probe towards it before it reaches the atmosphere, then. Difficult, but hopefully not impossible.

Getting a drone or plane to rendezvous with it in the atmosphere and stay in range is most likely going to be a pain.

[SalehRam]

12 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Edit to be more precise: Anything not within the physics bubble gets deleted, the craft doesn't necessarily need to be focused. The physics bubble in atmo is 22.5km, which would explain the debris survival you observed.

Is there a way to increase the physics bubble range? This is something I always wanted to know/do as I have some stuff/missions I came up with that require some sort of payload drop from a plane and just forget about it and leave...

[Red Iron Crown]

5 minutes ago, SalehRam said:

Is there a way to increase the physics bubble range? This is something I always wanted to know/do as I have some stuff/missions I came up with that require some sort of payload drop from a plane and just forget about it and leave...

It should be fine if the payload is on the ground before it leaves the bubble, only stuff in flight gets deleted.

I seem to recall BDArmory enabling physics bubble size increases, not sure if it still does or not.

[Geschosskopf]

15 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Heat and impact tolerance of asteroids is quite high, should survive reentry and impact just fine.

I haven't tried to land an asteroid in 1.0.5, but in 1.0.4, asteroids hitting Kerbin direct from solar orbits would burn up almost instantly upon hitting the atmosphere.  You had to herd them into a low Kerbin orbit (with little or no aerobraking), then deorbit from there, to save them.