Low mass science SSTO help

[Spricigo]

21 hours ago, Tychonoir said:

If you mean to imply that the smaller craft has re-entry issues due to wing area, then no, that's not really the case. Both craft are extremely easy to fly and land.

The craft can be easy to fly and still not slowdown quickly enough. The idea here its to raise your deceleration, you can either do it reducing the mass or increasing the resisting force (Drag). To increase the Drag you need  either higher AoA or more wing area.

 

 

I don’t have a craft file, but the differences from your actual design are pretty small and easy to notice. Mainly I replaced your wings+elevon for two pairs of delta-deluxe and small landing gears for the lower tech variants.

 

edit:  mind you not exactly  a proper test, kerbin and layhte are different, and I just flight it once. I just think was a valid as design proposal to share.

Edited April 7, 2017 by Spricigo

[Tychonoir]

I should probably test more on Laythe instead of Kerbin. It's entirely possible the entry in to Laythe's atmosphere is more forgiving. Kerbin's atmosphere will melt the small intake and small landing gear.

For what it's worth, I did find a design that survives Kerbin entry with spedbrakes and a detachable flab covering the intake that has a smaller profile than the heat shield.

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Tychonoir said:

For what it's worth, I did find a design that survives Kerbin entry with spedbrakes and a detachable flab covering the intake that has a smaller profile than the heat shield.

In the previous UAV design you posted all what is needed is to replace the elevons for delta-deluxe (a bit more wing,  +56kg ) and reentry with the nose about 30° above progade. 

See my previous post where I did reentrered with steerable landing gear(lower max temperature)  facing progade.  Nothing even got a temperature bar. (in fact,  since was pointing radial out, drag was so I was subsonic when expected to be warm.)

That,  if your UAV it's not already capable of doing it already.