A debris question

[snow25699]

I would like to know how to remove or reduce the debris of space craft in orbit and littering the surface of the planets. It is not a big problem now, but i would not like being hit by a spent stage or something when i am on a mission...

[ramipro]

If you go to settings>Gameplay, there's an option that lets you change the maximum Persistent Debris, or amount of debris that you leave floating around. I think the default is 250, but you can change that to 0 if you want.

Also, you should start thinking about designing your rockets so that the amount of debris that they leave is not abundant. Try to make your stages so that your takeoff stage ends within a periapsis of max 40.000m. That way, the debris will be captured by the atmosphere and crash into Kerbin. Hope it helped

[heikkik]

There are some launchers here that have the option to select what parts of the persistance file to preserve when launched. Plan-O-Tron, for example, but it's had some issues.

You can also go to the map view and double-click the debris, press esc and end flight. That takes quite a lot of effort, though.

[snow25699]

Thanks, that helped. I always try to keep the spent stage within a periapsis of less than 60, which is the highest point of the atmosphere that i read else where in the forum, but after the first pass, the periapsis will increase mysteriously, and it would remain in orbit. Now that's one less thing the crew will have to worry about....

[vexx32]

If it's debris, then the orbit being in range of the atmosphere won't stop it. Physics is not simulated for on-rails objects (including atmospheric drag), and the autokill zone is down at 25km (I think).