Extending landing gears causes ship destroyed message, breaks ship in half

[Fullmetal Analyst]

so when i extend the landing gears on this rocket while in orbit, something really odd is happening:

first off, it triggers a ship destroyed message, without actually destroying the ship, and i lose control
the ship keeps existing, and i can take control again from the tracking station

however, the ship seems to be actually broken in half, when i try rotating the ship, both halves are still receiving the rotation input, but rotate independently and start drifting apart

it is worth noting that the breaking only happens at the end of the landing gear sequence, and it looks like there is an impulse being applied to the base of the landing gear which likely causes the failure

after some more testing, (spamming the landing gear button after its fully extended, retriggering the impulse) the rocket actually just blows up from the repeated impulse