Eve Probe

[Kickn4fun]

Well, I finally made it to Eve! I had lots of fun working on designs to allow me to get there, and learning how to change my orbit to get to Eve. But the probe I was sending kept having some Issues...

Here I am!! made it to Eve, and Earned about 1400 Science! My sister just loves me referring to Science the way the game is written  (She's a biology major, so she's studied a lot of real science)

This probe does need more solar panels, though.

The problem I was having, though, was entry into the atmosphere. Here's my rocket / just the probe.

After 2 trial probes, this is the design that finally made it to the surface. I was having issues burning up on Eve's atmosphere. the 3.75M heat shield wasn't cutting it, so when I was able to research the 10M one, I made a few changes. Here's the issue: when I deploy the heat shield, the probe starts to flip end-over-end. After many save-games, I was able to get it through this part of re-entry by NOT deploying it, and keeping one of the large orange fuel tanks attached. I would keep going pro-grade towards the ground until I started seeing over-heating effects on the science JR./solar panels, whichever it was, and then deploying the shield. It still went end-over-end, but not as badly, and I was able to discard it and the fuel tank shortly after, sending it cartwheeling into space. (This also took several tries, so it wouldn't crash back into the craft.) So thereafter, I was able to deploy the chutes, and the mono-propellant righted the craft in a retro-grade orientation. Science then ensued.

So my question is this: how to better design a probe to use the 10M heat shield? Does the shield need to be closer to the CoM? Bigger fins? ( I went with these for aesthetics mostly, so they wouldn't poke through the fairing.) Do I need to bring more fuel, and just do a rocket-powered deceleration? 

Thanks, and happy rocketing!

[Foxster]

Two things will fix it for you...

1. Get the CoM as close to the heatshield as you can. It looks like with your craft that you have a bunch of light stuff at the top and heavy stuff at the back. 

2. Air brakes. Lots of air brakes. Mount them on decouplers of some kind at the end away from the heatshield. Make sure that when deployed they are within the occlusion cylinder of the heatshield. 

[Hodo]

This was my first and last probe sent to Eve....

Done with DRE, FAR, and Remote Tech signal delay... OH was it a nightmare...  I may go back one day.

There was some technical issues but it still achieved its mission.