How would one land a Shuttle on Eve now adays?

[RandomUser]

I've managed to bring a shuttle to Eve, potentially with enough Delta-V for return to Kerbin even.  However, I still cannot figure out how you'd actually land it, and actually go into Eve's atmosphere, without exploding of course. 

Really I wouldn't be surprised if it was practically speaking impossible, without some incredibly convoluted system not worth putting together. 

[Geschosskopf]

How many variations of descent profiles have you tried?

[RandomUser]

One so far, not sure of many others really.  To be honest, I didn't really think about descent profiles, but now that you mention it, I might as well do a quicksave and some testing. 

[bewing]

Just so long as you've gotten rid of all your excess interplanetary velocity already, deorbiting should be trivial in a shuttle. Just come in very shallow, with the nose pointed straight up to bleed off excess speed. Eve has much nicer aerodynamics than Kerbin.

[Reactordrone]

If it has enough delta-v to get back of the surface you can burn retrograde to get down to safe entry speeds and then use ISRU to refuel on the surface. I dropped my big ISRU rover onto the surface like that, reducing my entry velocity to less than 1500m/s and dropping in without heat shields.

[Plusck]

12 hours ago, bewing said:

Just so long as you've gotten rid of all your excess interplanetary velocity already, deorbiting should be trivial in a shuttle. Just come in very shallow, with the nose pointed straight up to bleed off excess speed. Eve has much nicer aerodynamics than Kerbin.

Coming in shallow is a recipe for death on Eve unless you are perfectly protected by heatshields, since the velocities are simply too high. It's also relatively easy to lose all of the ablator on a heatshield just by trying to come in too shallow.

[cantab]

Big wings should help, and fly a high angle of attack entry to bleed off plenty of speed in the upper atmosphere where heating is gentler. If desired you can bank to maintain a draggy high AoA while reducing vertical lift.

Edited May 16, 2016 by cantab