Parts & Vessels Parts inside fairing heating up

GradientOGames · December 20, 2023

Parts in question are batteries and solar panels inside a fairing. The batteries are fully inside and are 100% occluded by the fairing. However, while launching through the Kerbin atmosphere, the parts are getting heated up close to the point of destruction.

Included Attachments:

screenshott2.PNG.9bf38b4cc58fee87ea8a643

Spork Witch · January 7

13 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

UPDATE:

Specific to the issue I reported above with the parts overheating but, despite being in orbit, the temperature gauge doesn't go away. I looked at the JSON file this morning, and I can confirm that the temperature is not being altered once you get to orbit. I have 3 OKTO probes on my current orbital build, and they all have different temperature readings. The 3 values I am seeing in the JSON file are:

107.98793029785156

222.61271474642166

287.09805297851563

I would have expected all three of these readings to be similar, but they are not. All 3 of these OKTO probe cores are contained within a small cargo bay, and all of them were lofted into space in the Cockleshell fairing. I did check the temperature readings of the 3 cargo bays I have on the craft:

114.32187500775198

220.7256515237905

287.09805297851563

As mentioned above, it does not appear that the system is cooling parts off once they are out of the atmosphere. While the craft is moving at orbital speed, it is not under thrust AND it is not in the upper atmosphere (as defined in the game); it's current altitude is ~100km above sea level. Much like in the KSP1, I would have expected the temperature of the parts to drop once reaching orbit (or, at a minimum, once thrust in the atmosphere reduced enough to not produce extreme heat).

I can provide a copy of the JSON file from the saved game if necessary.

Save/reload seems to resolve the not-cooling and bars staying on.

More generally, and not to your post specifically, the following ascent profile will usually keep your parts safe, while we wait for them to fix fairings:

Start gravity turn ~1000m
Aim to reach 45° at 20km
Maintain 45° until Ap reaches 70-100km (w/e your preference for initial LKO is), while adjusting throttle so that time to Ap when reaching your target Ap is between 45-75s
Start turning towards 90° to build orbital velocity
From here, you can cut engines at your preference and then finish circularizing at Ap.

Additionally, you should aim for your first stage to have a TWR of ~1.2 to ~1.5; anything more and you're going to be burning too hard, too soon. If using SBRs, remember that you can adjust their thrust in the VAB before launch to tweak the TWR; they'll burn for longer, so still provide the same total ΔV.

Scarecrow71 · January 7

24 minutes ago, Spork Witch said:

Save/reload seems to resolve the not-cooling and bars staying on

Not in this case, however. I've tried reloading and restarting the game, both to no avail.

Anonymous Bug Reporter · January 7

I have included a craft file that will reliably demonstrate (via destruction of the root part on ascent, an OKTO2 probe core) that fairings do not protect against atmospheric heating on ascent.
They are supposed to do that, and they do not. If fairings DID protect against reentry heating, their heat tolerance is additionally not sufficient for such use, and I have had fairings explode from overheating in the past.

When the included vessel is loaded, please launch it and follow my usual ascent profile. That profile is as follows:
Launch at full throttle, wait till 1km altitude.
At 1km altitude, pitch to 60 degrees above the horizon, at a heading of 90 degrees.
Hold this attitude until 5km altitude.
At 5km altitude, engage the "hold prograde" SAS mode, this will begin the "gravity turn" phase of ascent.
The problem will happen before the Ap exits the atmosphere, you will see a temperature gauge show up on the OKTO2 probe core. Do not throttle down.
The thermal issue with the OKTO2 probe core will continue to worsen until the probe core fails at an altitude of somewhere between 15km and 25km above sea level.

What I was expecting to happen is that the fairing would have the thermal gauge show up on it, if anything did.
However, it is as if the game does not count the fairing as even existing for the purposes of reentry heating, which is not what I expected at all.
Additionally, I have noticed that the heat tolerance of all fairings is relatively low, this is not useful for attempting to make them work as a protective shell for sensitive payloads on ascent. Fairings do a lot more than just reduce drag, they take stress off of sensitive parts. In fact, I would argue that "protect sensitive parts" is the PRIMARY purpose of a fairing in the first place.

My exploration mode save that I am using has only one custom difficulty setting, and that is "Reentry heating 90%".
However, the OKTO2 probe core STILL exploded. If I had it set at 100%, I am 100% certain that the issue would have happened sooner, not later.

Included Attachments:

RovertoDunaBUGGEDFAIRING.json

Scarecrow71 · January 8

I attempted to edit the JSON autosave file this morning, change the value of the Temperature tags for the OKTO and the cargo bay involved. No dice; the temperatures were immediately reverted back to their pre-edit values. This tells me that something else is going on here, and I don't know what that is OR how to correct it by editing files. This is a bug that really needs to be checked and taken care of.

A link to the JSON file on my Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ONknS1x6FFn61sX-XE6IFwUoVkrtt-8H/view?usp=sharing

A link to the META file on my Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z22D4O0uUGI7raIfCwPxTNbKAQResktU/view?usp=sharing

Edited January 8 by Scarecrow71

asdasdzxc · January 8

There is another bug happened to me that I think its related to this one.

When I entered to Duna's atmosphere with fairing, its heated and destroyed. There was a rover inside that fairing and a DTS-M1 on the rover. When I tried to extend antenna, game says it is blocked. So I think game thinks there is a still fairing wrapped around.

So I saved the game and load again after the fairing destroyed. I could extend the satellite after loaded again.

Oak7603 · January 9

I have had the same issue and put a heat shield on a stack seperator to stop the overheating, this then caused an 'aero issue' and the normally stable rocket was hard to control. It seemed like the fairing was not providing any aero or heat shielding, like it is currently just a visual addition

Edited January 10 by Oak7603

Aevitas · January 10

Have also experienced this multiple times.

SillytheCannibal · January 25

medium fairing surrounding craft with RA-15 static antenna probe pointing upwards, after reaching around 50km it will explode inside the fairing.

Included Attachments:

DibzNr · January 25

@SillytheCannibal Merged your report with this post

The Aziz · January 30

Still in 0.2.1

Same as the latest report, only about 20km.

Anonymous Bug Reporter · January 31

Fairings to not protect from heat when launching a rocket through the atmosphere. A completely enclosed fairing will be in place and the satellite inside will still take heat damage and can explode when launching up through the atmosphere.

Included Attachments:

Greybeard · February 10

I also have the same bug, two fairings don't help. I had to disable heating in order for the game to be playable.
For the time being the devs should disable heating by default until the issue is fixed.

IanMealworm · February 10

I've noticed recently during playing, with the 0.2.1 update that the fairings have had work on them and are working to protect parts well. With that said, the issues still remains for static antennas. No other parts heat up but antennas at the tip of the rocket with a fairing over it will still heat up and explode within the fairing.

Kerbal410 · February 17

trying to get a space station and the cupola overheats in the fairing, same with lander cans in 0.2.1.

Edited February 17 by Kerbal410

Anonymous Bug Reporter · March 12

Fairings are not protecting the payload from the heat, its so bad that i had to mount a nose cone on my truss launch to not overheat the docking port.

Included Attachments:

Navoan · March 15

Plenty of replies here, but also experiencing this and is pretty game-breaking I feel.

Abakan83 · March 24

This is quite inconsistent to be honest. Fairings sized Medium and Small seem to be fine, but Large and XL fairings is completely incapable of redirecting heat. I am trying to launch a module up into orbit for my space station, but the dock just keep on burning out everytime I try to exit atmosphere. And some times, even before the plasma effect start showing on the fairing, the dock would already burn out before that.

Included Attachments:

KerbalSpaceProgram22024_03.24-20_33_57_01.mp4

DibzNr · March 26

@Abakan83 Merged your report with this post

kfsone · April 13

Seeing this with the Medium Fairing and HECS.

Parts & Vessels Parts inside fairing heating up

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