Recover and Reuse SRBS

[RUD Everyday]

In the future, will I be able to recover and reuse my SRB'S like on the Shuttle Missions? 

[Spicat]

You can just put a parachute on them and recover them

[pandaman]

3 hours ago, Spicat said:

You can just put a parachute on them and recover them

Unfortunately that doesn't work (not yet  anyway).  Nor did  it work in KSP1.

Things in atmospheres that aren't on the ground disappear if they get more than about 1.5km from the  'drop' ship (to avoid excessive atmospheric  calculations at a guess).  KSP1 eventually increased this distance to just over 20km , but that's still nowhere near enough for booster recovery. 

[zeekzeek22]

put a control node on your SRBs so they're trackable/recoverable vehicles. Just like in real life, adding recovery hardware is heavy, expensive, and it's a trade to decide if it's worth it.

[pandaman]

16 minutes ago, zeekzeek22 said:

put a control node on your SRBs so they're trackable/recoverable vehicles. Just like in real life, adding recovery hardware is heavy, expensive, and it's a trade to decide if it's worth it.

As per my above post...  This doesn't work unfortunately,  they 'dissappear' before they reach 1.5km from the mother ship in atmosphere. ..  I know, I tried.

[zeekzeek22]

Oh really? Sorry I was shooting from the hip with what worked in KSP1. So you can't split to two crafts in atmosphere...hmm.

[pandaman]

2 hours ago, zeekzeek22 said:

Oh really? Sorry I was shooting from the hip with what worked in KSP1. So you can't split to two crafts in atmosphere...hmm.

No worries.

It's not actually splitting the craft that's the problem, that bit works fine.  The distance limit was there because of the aerodynamic calculations.

Initially in KSP1 things disappeared at (I think) 2.3km .  They eventually increased it to 23km, but that's still not enough to recover boosters or stages.

There were mods that gave stage recovery, but I didn’t use any so I don't know how they worked.  But I think they checked if you had sufficient parachutes and then assumed they were recovered.

Edited April 5, 2023 by pandaman