How to land a shuttle at KSC?

[amateur astronaut]

Right now i have a 110 km orbit, but i have 4 main questions: Where to put the maneuver node, where to aim the periapsis, how high the periapsis should be, and how to calculate with all that to the earth's rotation, and the drag what air makes. I made a test flight earlier on with the shuttle, and then i put the node 90 degrees ahead of the KSC and aimed the periapsis 90 degrees beyond the KSC, but i only used my eye, (just like i read somewhere in wiki) and when i reached the maneuver node, the KSC and the periapsis alligned up just to the right direction, but now, i have no idea how to recreate it again.

[Aeroboi]

Use this mod

Install it, activate it using the ksp toolbar and do a retro burn. Watch where the red arrow ends using map view, if it's over the ksc then your good. Using a space plane (like the shuttle is) you can use a pitch angle, using the flat body into the wind to aerobrake. Doing so will cause the trajectories mod ground marker to shift due to drag, skimming and deceleration and also due  to roll and yaw.

If the marker overshoots the ksc try to level off or pitch negatively with the nose to the ground with the intention to shorten out the trajectory to get your aim back to the ksc. As long as your nose is able to pitch +/- ~20 degrees you should have enough controllable stopping power.

If your space plane fails to do these maneuvers, for instance, if your nose doesn't want to pull up in the atmosphere you should try to move the wings more to the front. This causes more drag at the front allowing the nose to pull up, but beware, moving the wings to far forward and your shuttle will flip backwards in the atmosphere. When doing so try to calibrate col/com as you should always.

In most cases a well equipped shuttle should be able to do a retro burn at the other side of the planet for a few dozen m/s of Dv and be able to navigate to the runway using pitch control in the atmosphere.

Edited April 28, 2019 by Aeroboi

[amateur astronaut]

hey! I tried something before using the mod: I warped until my spacecraft was 90 degrees ahead of KSC, waited a bit, made a maneuver node a bit behind my craft, (so that it needed to circle around the planet), and the planet, the periapsis, and the spacecraft were alligned perfectly!

 

[Gargamel]

Moved to Gameplay Q's

[radonek]

14 hours ago, amateur astronaut said:

hey! I tried something before using the mod: I warped until my spacecraft was 90 degrees ahead of KSC, waited a bit, made a maneuver node a bit behind my craft, (so that it needed to circle around the planet), and the planet, the periapsis, and the spacecraft were alligned perfectly!

And how did the landing go?

I plan my retro burns by surface features, since those tend to stay in conveniently fixed position relative to KSC. For fast balistic reentry, this is desert peninsula ahead of KSC. This method was  also used in real spaceflight - early cosmonauts and astronauts were trained to expect certain prominent earthly features be visible at certain points in flight to have an independent navigation aid.

[amateur astronaut]

well, first i bend the spacecraft 40 degrees to slow myself down, then when the map show that i'm gonna "fall onto KSC" i set myself a bit to prograde until my navigation to KSC alligns up to prograde on the nawball. You'll start to descend and lose speed rapidly, but you just need to do a preflaring and you're done!