Why do I keep landing Retrograde?

[SMALPHA]

I keep on landing pointing Retrograde whenever I try a sub orbital flight. I want to land with my nose pointing down but I can't figure out how to.

I've tried tweaking where the centre of mass is and the shape of the rocket but it always seems to turn retrograde.

[Vanamonde]

Can you share pictures of the craft? 

[Fletch4]

if your center of mass is at the bottom you will always land retrograde

 

at least, i think

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Why do you want to land pointy end first? Unless you’re trying to land horizontally with wings, you want to re-enter retrograde so the parachutes don’t get cooked by the heat and the blunt end of the craft generates more drag, slowing you down so you don’t spear into the ground at considerable speed.

There are other reasons why real spacecraft almost always re-enter retrograde, but most of them boil down to “don’t kill the crew” in one way or another; the only exception that I know of is the Space Shuttle, which glided back to a runway rather than using parachutes, but that used a pretty significant nose-up attitude for re-entry which isn’t all that far from how a capsule does it.

Pictures of the craft would help, as would knowing why you want to not face retrograde.

[SMALPHA]

 

[GuessingEveryDay]

14 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Why do you want to land pointy end first? Unless you’re trying to land horizontally with wings, you want to re-enter retrograde so the parachutes don’t get cooked by the heat and the blunt end of the craft generates more drag, slowing you down so you don’t spear into the ground at considerable speed.

I have a lander (Probe) design that puts the heat shield on the front of the craft, although I don't understand what kind of advantages you would get for using this design with Kerbals.

[Superfluous J]

Could you post a pic of it coming down tail-first? Full screen so we can see the entire UI.

If the craft is the entirety of what you put in that first pic, my first guess is that the Onion is so draggy. They're terrible for anything in the atmosphere except slowing down.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Superfluous J

[Gargamel]

Moved to gameplay questions.

[king of nowhere]

12 hours ago, SMALPHA said:

 

the onion pod is very draggy. draggy parts tend to move backwards, that's why your ship spontaneously orients itself like it does. use a more aerodinamic crew pod in its place.

though, like @jimmymcgoochie said, there's no reason to want to enter point-first.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Right… That design is really strange and also hugely overbuilt for merely going suborbital.

There is no situation that will ever require you to stick a dozen Swivels (or possibly Reliants?) in four sets of three to the side of your rocket as a second stage like that. The drag from that will be massive even without the very draggy KV-series pod which also adds much drag, plus it all adds more weight which then needs a bigger first stage. It’s also a bad idea to put engines in the centre of a stage like that as their gimbals will be far less effective and stability will be adversely affected; the KV-series pods have no internal reaction wheels either so you need good control from other sources to make it flyable.

You don’t need nearly that much rocket just to do a suborbital flight- use the pointy Mk1 or Mk1-2 (Gemini-like) pods instead to make the aerodynamics easier, or put a fairing over the KV pods if you really want to use those.

Once you have your capsule, put a single stage rocket underneath it with around 2000-2500m/s of delta-V and a TWR of at least 1.3 at sea level (a Swivel might do, or a Reliant and some controllable fins, if not then slap some SRBs on the sides) and you should reach space without any real issues. Fly slightly sideways to increase your descent time back through the atmosphere, reducing the chances of crashing into the ground because your parachutes either failed to open or broke from the stress of opening at too high a speed.