The thermophilic spacecraft

[WarpPrime]

The Challenge:

Build a non-spaceplane spacecraft that can aerobrake from over 6 km/s in a flyby of Kerbin, into some sort of stable orbit (yes, you may use a rocket engine to burn at apoapsis so your periapsis is above 70km, but no more). You may not use a heat shield of any type, and cannot use plane parts of any kind on the entry vehicle. You cannot burn any fuel within 50 Mm (50,000 km) above Kerbin.

Submission criteria:

Fastest orbital velocity at the time of atmospheric entry wins. Your submission does not count if some part of the entry vehicle explodes due to overheating. Please post a screenshot of the NavBall/screen at the time of atmospheric entry, showing the velocity. You can post other pictures/videos of the mission as well, but this is not required.

Leaderboard:

1st place: N/A

2nd place: N/A

3rd place: N/A

 

Honorable mentions (Achieved 7.5 km/s or higher)

Nobody... yet

Edited March 16, 2021 by WarpPrime
honorable mentions

[Single stage to ocean]

doable with a probe core and the bouncy heatsheild

[Vanamonde]

15 hours ago, Single stage to ocean said:

doable with a probe core and the bouncy heatsheild

So do it.

[EveMaster]

On 3/14/2021 at 4:48 PM, WarpPrime said:

You may not use a heat shield of any type, and cannot use plane parts of any kind on the entry vehicle.

Maybe you have to drop this requirement. 10km/s is pretty fast. You have to shed off at least 6.6 km/s to get down below Kerbin escape velocity in a single pass.

Have you tested that this is possible to do without heat shields and space plane parts?

With heat shields it is definitely possible, I have aerobraked to an landing on Kerbin from over 10km/s before.

[Single stage to ocean]

My idea would be a 100 fairing attached to eachother, but no fairing it self, we dont want it aerodynamic,

[camacju]

This is definitely possible if you use aerodynamic glitches. Without those it's harder.

A possible glitchless idea would be to have a fairing with a large heat sink of parts with a very high heat tolerance (Vector engines?) as well as a bunch of flag radiators or normal radiators that are shielded from shock heating.

[WarpPrime]

3 hours ago, EveMaster said:

Maybe you have to drop this requirement. 10km/s is pretty fast. You have to shed off at least 6.6 km/s to get down below Kerbin escape velocity in a single pass.

Have you tested that this is possible to do without heat shields and space plane parts?

With heat shields it is definitely possible, I have aerobraked to an landing on Kerbin from over 10km/s before.

I have successfully done a reentry on a return trip from Jool at 7 km/s without a heat shield, so it definitely is possible. I've lowered the minimum speed to 6 km/s. But it would be pretty cool if someone could break 10 km/s

[dnbattley]

2 hours ago, WarpPrime said:

I have successfully done a reentry on a return trip from Jool at 7 km/s without a heat shield, so it definitely is possible. I've lowered the minimum speed to 6 km/s. But it would be pretty cool if someone could break 10 km/s

Does the spacecraft have any functional requirements once it is on final approach? E.g. carrying capacity? Manned/unmanned? And can it jettison all rockets and fuel before hitting the atmosphere?

[WarpPrime]

14 hours ago, dnbattley said:

Does the spacecraft have any functional requirements once it is on final approach? E.g. carrying capacity? Manned/unmanned? And can it jettison all rockets and fuel before hitting the atmosphere?

There is no functional requirement, except for the fact that it can reenter the atmosphere at at least 6 km/s, and fire a short pulse at apoapsis to get into some sort of Kerbin orbit.

[xendelaar]

I made Jeb land at 11 km/s a couple of weeks ago. I would show you the video I made, but the 'craft' isn't

On 3/15/2021 at 4:38 AM, Single stage to ocean said:

doable with a probe core and the bouncy heatsheild

what is the bouncy heatshield? 

[Single stage to ocean]

the inflatble one

[OHara]

After excluding the aircraft parts and heat shields, the part with highest heat tolerance is the service bay. 

So, I made a minimal probe with the service bay, a probe core, solar panels, and minimal monopropellant to bring Pe out of the atmosphere.  I decided to go ahead and use aerodynamic glitches to maximize drag, so I put a strut between the service bay and probe core because KSP treats short gaps like that just like large gaps and imagines the full airspeed could get in there and hit the probe core.  The service bay with doors open, in version 1.7.3, is just big enough to protect the probe core from the shock heating.

It can enter that atmosphere at 6270m/s (orbital velocity) and slow to a captured orbit with the skin of service bay the staying just below its 2900K limit.

Looking at the 'thermal info' window with the alt-F12 options, I see that only the exposed skin really gets hot.  Not much heat moves to internal portions of the service bay, nor from that part to connected parts.  So, heat sinking and radiators do not seem to be very useful.  I think the game is just to make the biggest heat-resistant surface area for the least mass.

[nounou]

Mission Accepter 

[Single stage to ocean]

Put a few thousand service bays end to end and I bet you can survive 100km/s

 

[Krazy1]

On 3/15/2021 at 11:46 AM, Vanamonde said:

So do it.

Excuse me, but it seems the moderator has condoned breaking the rules of this challenge which do not allow any type of heat shields.