Stuck Tourist - Help me get him home

[BentRim]

I accepted a contract to take Dozon on a orbit around the Mun.  I have succesfully orbited and have tried to re-enter Kerbin and land at least ten times.  The capsule becomes unstable and turns into a bullet.  I've tried setting my periapsis to 40k, 38k, 35k and 33k.  I've done it with my fuel tanks attached and without many times and I can't scrub off enough speed to get my chute to deploy.

I believe the problem lies in that I forgot to put a heat shield in my build before I hastily launched him to the Mun.  I'm not burning up though.. and can maintain retrograde  stability for most of the trip and then it flips over and bullets prograde into the ground.

So I came up with a plan.  I circularized the orbit at about 95k and sent up a rescue ship with a heat shield.  One that I have used for many Kerbin rescues and know it will survive re-entry.   My plan was to rendezvous and then EVA Dozon into the rescue craft, land to complete the contract.... 

The problem is that I didn't know that Tourists cannot EVA...  so I'm stuck again. 

Anybody have any good suggestions on how to complete this contract and get my Tourist home?  

Edited February 5, 2017 by BentRim

[StrandedonEarth]

Hmm. I would guess that the service bay is making it flip. Have you tried setting your Pe under 30km from your parking orbit? I imagine your probe core is in the service bay. But you can set your chute to deploy when safe, trigger it, and then try to burn the service bay off before it flips. Or you could send a rescue ship with a Klaw (if available) to dock and transfer the tourist to a more robust ship.

[BentRim]

33 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Hmm. I would guess that the service bay is making it flip. Have you tried setting your Pe under 30km from your parking orbit? I imagine your probe core is in the service bay. But you can set your chute to deploy when safe, trigger it, and then try to burn the service bay off before it flips. Or you could send a rescue ship with a Klaw (if available) to dock and transfer the tourist to a more robust ship.

I will give it a try again and see what happens.  

I'm new to KSP and have not unlocked the Klaw in my career mode yet.  How can you dock without a docking port on the target ship?  

Thanks for the help.  

[StrandedonEarth]

The Klaw can grab without a docking port on the target ship and allows kerbal transfers, although it can be tricky to trigger it. The target surface should be as close to 90^o to the approach vector as possible, and you have to hit it kind of hard, which can make the target bounce away if it doesn't grab.

Good Luck, and welcome to KSP!

[BentRim]

Thanks for the advice and welcome.  This game is incredibly addicting and there is always something new to learn.

I'll try the re-entry again and if that fails I will move on to something else and try again when Klaw becomes available.  

[AeroGav]

Have you tried re-entering the vehicle intact, but with the service bay open?

That way, you will have a high drag part, which is closer to the back than the front of the ship.  It might enable it to  stay retrograde long enough to shed a bit of speed.    If you have any fuel left, pump it all to the bottom tank (the one nearest the terrier engine).

This is why aviation tech is absolutely essential even if you're doing a rocket centric career.   Steerable fins would make it possible to keep the capsule facing whichever way you want.   The simple fixed fins you get before that are a death trap.  They let you keep the correct end pointing towards space on the way up, then turn your capsule into a lawn dart when you try re-enter.

 

 

[GoSlash27]

I agree with @AeroGav. Keep the engine and tanks during reentry. Pump all the fuel into the lowest tank. This will allow you to use the engine as a heat shield and will be aerodynamically stable backwards. Once you're subsonic, ditch the stack and deploy the chute.

Best,
-Slashy

 

[BentRim]

34 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Have you tried re-entering the vehicle intact, but with the service bay open?

That way, you will have a high drag part, which is closer to the back than the front of the ship.  It might enable it to  stay retrograde long enough to shed a bit of speed.    If you have any fuel left, pump it all to the bottom tank (the one nearest the terrier engine).

 

I have not tried that.  I also was not aware you could pump fuel... so much to learn.  I figured out how to transfer the fuel.  What are the little green arrows for next to the fuel and oxidizer bars for?

[radonek]

Putting craft into spin may help with small disturbances.

[GoSlash27]

2 minutes ago, BentRim said:

What are the little green arrows for next to the fuel and oxidizer bars for?

BentRim,

 That's for disabling fuel flow from them.

Good luck on the reentry!

Best,
-Slashy

[BentRim]

55 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Have you tried re-entering the vehicle intact, but with the service bay open?

 

@AeroGav

This was the ticket.  Pumped all my fuel into the lowest two tanks.  Opened Service Bay doors and set my Pe to 45k.  I maintained retrograde and as my surface speed dropped under 1900 m/s I burned off my remaining fuel and set my chute to deploy at 5k.  I separated from my tanks at about 10k and tried to maintain retrograde.  The ship flipped right about 6k but was going slow enough for the chutes to deploy.  Made a night landing in the dark but completed the contract.  

Thanks for the help.

[GoSlash27]

BentRim,

 Congratulations! Another satisfied customer

I think you can set this one to "answered".

Best,
-Slashy

For future reference,

 When designing a capsule for reentry, you want the CoM as close to the bottom as possible. If it's closer to the front than the back, it's certain to want to flip during reentry. If you're unsure whether it'll flip or not, run an unmanned test from LKO to "certify" it. If it doesn't flip on that reentry, it'll remain stable during faster ones.

Best,
-Slashy

 

[BentRim]

10 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

For future reference,

 When designing a capsule for reentry, you want the CoM as close to the bottom as possible. If it's closer to the front than the back, it's certain to want to flip during reentry. If you're unsure whether it'll flip or not, run an unmanned test from LKO to "certify" it. If it doesn't flip on that reentry, it'll remain stable during faster ones.

 

I will make sure to take that into account in the future.  Thanks for the advice.

Where do I set the thread to answered?

[GoSlash27]

Just now, BentRim said:

Where do I set the thread to answered?

BentRim,

IIRC, you go back to your original post and edit it. It will give you the option to set it to "answered".

Best,
-Slashy

[BentRim]

1 minute ago, GoSlash27 said:

BentRim,

IIRC, you go back to your original post and edit it. It will give you the option to set it to "answered".

Best,
-Slashy

Not seeing it there.  Is it the "check" mark on the left above the upvote for "best answer" ?

[GoSlash27]

BentRim,

 I believe so.

Best,
-Slashy

[Kryxal]

Even if it's answered, a design suggestion: a Mk 1 capsule is fine to reenter with no assistance from LKO and will automatically orient correctly, consider leaving the bay below the decoupler.  If you do so, be sure to trigger the chute on the same stage.

[BentRim]

2 hours ago, Kryxal said:

Even if it's answered, a design suggestion: a Mk 1 capsule is fine to reenter with no assistance from LKO and will automatically orient correctly, consider leaving the bay below the decoupler.  If you do so, be sure to trigger the chute on the same stage.

Thanks and I appreciate the answer.  I guess I have been trying to bring as many parts home with me as possible to recover the funds. 

It's possible that from an economical standpoint it's not worth the hassle but I'm not quite sure how to evaluate that.

[bewing]

Yeah, I generally try to bring the entire rocket home. If you're good at doing contracts, the funds from one rocket aren't worth much -- but I think it's more the principle of the thing, in an RP sense.

[Kryxal]

For the three-Kerbal capsule, you can do that with a bay above it, but the instability with the small one isn't worth it.