Houston....I have a problem

[Rickpadwick1891]

Hi Everyone,

After 9 hours of gameplay on the full version, I have managed to get my first ship (the Phoenix 2 into a stable orbit), unfortunately the engine fuel ran out during deorbit burn before enough velocity had been lost.

How do I get him down ? I do not have enough components to dock with that ship yet as I am working on  the science mode of the game.

So what do I do ? Get him to take suicide pills and terminate the flight otherwise I think he will be up there for a long time.

Ok here we go with photos of the ship and its orbit details:

Phoenix 2 in VAB

 

Phoenix 2 final stage in orbit

Orbital schematic

Any and all suggestions gratefully received.

A very happy Rick (as Phoenix 2.5 went into orbit and back again safely as well).

Edited June 28, 2016 by Rickpadwick1891

[Aegolius13]

If you just want to get your kerbal down, you can send up an empty ship controlled by a probe core, get it close, and have your kerbal EVA over to the new ship.  You don't have to dock, or even match speed exactly.  The kerbal jetpack is potent!  Just make sure the new ship is not crewed (kerbals like to sneak in), and the hatch is not obstructed.

If you actually want to land the old ship, your main options are to transfer fuel, or to connect it to a de-orbiter craft that will reenter with it.  In either case, docking is required.  But once you get the claw, you can use that even if the current ship does not have a docking port.  

[Aegolius13]

Forgot, you can also just EVA your kerbal and have him push the ship in the desired direction with the jetpack.  It's kind of messy but can work if only a small push is needed.  If you run low on jetpack propellant, just board and re-EVA and it will be refilled.

[pincushionman]

You're "ealy in career." What CAN you do? If you can EVA in space, get out and push. Orient the pod retrograde at apoapsis, SAS to stop rotation, EVA, let go and float away a little, engage jetpack, push against the bottom of the pod a little bit, stop when you have about 1/3 tank left.

It sounds much more difficult than it actually is.

If you can't EVA, you can intercept with a drone craft (or a piloted craft, if you have no drone cores) that can do the same thing (push). Got to learn to intercept eventually.

Or you can wait. Once you unlock in-space EVA, all Kerbals can immediately do it.

[bewing]

First, there is no problem at all with leaving a kerbal up in orbit for months or more. So don't feel like you are in a rush.

You can just wait until you've gathered more science and unlocked a few more parts -- an OKTO probe core and a thumper booster would be enough for an easy rescue mission.

You said you are in science mode? That should mean that you already have EVA ability, as said above. So you can do as pincushionman said -- decouple the pod, stabilize it, get behind it at the Ap, and give it a few pushes until the Pe is below 69km. Then the atmosphere will do the rest for you. Doing this will cause tumbling -- make sure you understand that a tiny timewarp can stop all tumbling. Otherwise you may have trouble pushing multiple times, and boarding the pod after you've pushed it. -- The big trouble with all that is, I don't see a heatshield on your pod, so I think if you reenter the bare pod with Jeb in it -- it's gonna heatsplode anyway at 35km.

Alternately, you can try it the funny but dangerous way. EVA at Ap, do a tiny retrograde burn to get your Pe down to 60km or so, burn all your EVA propellant retrograde when you get down to 40km or so to slow down, and fall the rest of the way to the ground. Try to land on your head -- that really helps. You'll probably survive.

And you do understand the concept of reverting? If you haven't ever switched focus away from this ship, you can undo the whole launch -- and try to save a little more fuel the next time you redo it.

 

Edited June 29, 2016 by bewing

[ineon]

9 hours ago, pincushionman said:

If you can EVA in space, get out and push.

Very important if you try this: get out and push at apoapsis. @pincushionman did mention it, but I think it is worth restating. What you are aiming to do is get any part of the orbit down into the atmosphere and then let drag do the rest. Getting your PE from 85km to 55km (or something similar) should not be too difficult, but getting your current AP down would be really tricky. 

Edited June 29, 2016 by ineon

[MircoMars]

"get out and push" would also be my recommendation, it's also the most kerbal way of solving your problem and trains you in EVA skills. of course decouple the the rest of the craft and only push the capsule. when outside mark the pod as target, so you find it if your kerbal gets kicked off it. Quicksave with F5 before you exit, so you can get back to a save situation in case you really mess up while outside the ship...

[Loren Pechtel]

Your images don't work so I don't know what orbit you are in.

Note that if your periapsis is below 70km you will eventually come down but it can take quite a while if it's only barely below it.

[kiwi1960]

I had Valentina stay "up" in a space station for over a year once... no biggie...

 

[bewing]

I was naughty and left a kerbonaut (one that was being rescued from a derelict) orbiting in LKO in just her EVA suit for weeks, waiting for a tourist bus to come back from the Mun to pick her up.

[Tiberius K]

I once banished Jeb to endless orbit because I was fed up of him showing up in craft that were supposed to be empty upon launch!  He just sat there smirking for decades whilst the other kerbals reached for the stars...

You might figure this out yourself the hard way but if you do get out and push leave enough EVA fuel to get back in your pod!  You can also head back in to the pod to refill the EVA fuel from the mystery endless reservoir.

Re-entry should be interesting because it'll take a lot of shallow dips into the atmosphere to bring that high Ap down enough for a final capture (or a lot of EVA pushing to get deeper in).  I think the pod itself should be able to re-enter without exploding if you lower the Ap enough before the final capture (you don't always need a heat-shield).

Part of the joy of this game though is to just experiment and see what happens.  Well done on making orbit and returning Phoenix 2.5!

[Omegagoldfish]

Since there's no heat shield on that craft, Jeb's not coming back unless you send a rescue vehicle. Getting out and pushing will simply cause Jeb to eventually burn in the atmosphere.

[Tatonf]

Heatshield is not necessary for this kind of reentry.

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Omegagoldfish said:

Since there's no heat shield on that craft, Jeb's not coming back unless you send a rescue vehicle.

 

1 hour ago, Tatonf said:

Heatshield is not necessary for this kind of reentry.

...Not just for this kind of reentry, but also for a really lightweight ship.  A Mk1 command pod by itself can generally handle reentering from low orbit without a problem.

Another option for reentry is to wait until the last minute to ditch that final stack of fuel tanks-- you can orbit with the ship at an angle and use body lift to soften the entry.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves-- until/unless the OP actually has a problem with reentry heating, let's just worry about getting the Pe dropped down into atmosphere.

As previous posters have suggested:  get-out-and-push should work.  Do it at Ap, as suggested; you only need to lower your Pe until it dips into the atmosphere (say, to 60 km or a bit below), then all you need is patience. 

[bewing]

Just for my own info, I tried reentering Jeb in just his EVA suit. In the current version, it's still doable -- just barely. You need to burn something like 4.8 units of your EVA fuel to survive into the lower atmosphere. You hit the ground at about 45 m/s, and you need a little fuel to orient yourself properly for that -- so you can't burn every single last drop, either.

[Chakat Firepaw]

One thing to remember is that you still have deltaV in your ship so long as you have decouplers or stack separators.  Thus, you can point yourself retrograde at Ap and fire your decoupler to reduce your Pe.  With a long ship, like this one, you can also start it flipping end over end and decouple to send the capsule flying like a sling stone.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

On 6/29/2016 at 11:37 PM, bewing said:

I was naughty and left a kerbonaut (one that was being rescued from a derelict) orbiting in LKO in just her EVA suit for weeks, waiting for a tourist bus to come back from the Mun to pick her up.

Yup, I've left a Kerbonaut orbiting Minmus until the next tourist bus and he was "rescued" from the surface.  It was one of these recover the kerbonaut & craft deals--but the craft was buried and unrecoverable.  In learning that I got within activation range, though--so I simply took him and boosted him into orbit.  The jetpack is potent enough to reach orbit on the small moons.

[kiwi1960]

Someone's sick idea of a challenge soon....

"How many kerbals can you kill in one go....."

Even sicker will be some of the entrants....a space station with 1000 Kerbals on board heading back to Kerbin ..... the fast way.....