How good are the docking ports?

[Tokay Gris]

I do have an interesting question comming up.

One of my vessels bound for Jool has two habitats (Hitchhikers and bits of other stuff, about 4 tons each) attached to the sides (!) with one docking port (medium sized) each.

The burn to Jool (so far, I am doing the slingshot) posed no problem. With a TWR of 0.13 a chewing gum would keep them in place.

But since I am planning an aerobraking manouver at Jool and those ususally produce immense G-forces...

It will be interesting to see if those docking ports can withstand the forces.

I will keep you informed how it went.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Tokay Gris

[Atanar]

Should work just fine.

[Tokay Gris]

I hope so... Unmanned at this point. Un-kerbaled?

Slingshot didn't work.... I have to do it again anyway. Funny that... I have to burn basically in the oposite direction. Well... ok, so a 300 ton vessel is a bit sluggish.

[purpletarget]

One of the things about the current aerodynamic model is that atmo drag basically passes through parts, so there's no blocking of airflow from a part ahead to a part behind, and since all the drag values are fairly similar, there's few parts that could really start exerting much in the way of dynamic forces to tear things apart.

(Assuming stock, and no aerodynamic mods)

A couple exceptions might be nosecones, boosters, and cupola's...

Good luck.

[Tokay Gris]

So I should be save.

Only Addons are the Mapsat and MechJeb.

I feel kind of sorry for the poor Kerbals stuck in those inline command pods for days on end... ;-)

(The "Dum Vivimus Vivamus II" has one of those up front and two small tugs.... poor guys. But they volunteered!)

[miketheveeg]

always save

[Vanamonde]

Docking ports are quite strong and I've never seen one fail during aerobraking. In fact, one time I botched an approach quite terribly, dived far too deeply into the atmosphere, and nothing broke off of this until it hit the water. (Yes, that ship started off straight.)