Jump to content

Parachute ripping lander apart and other landing nonsense.


Recommended Posts

First lets start with parachutes.

Radial parachutes are giving me issues with keeping my feet down while landing. The only remedy I have for this is to use several of them but it is still causing me problems. The other parachutes like the MK-16 and MK-25 are my prefered however when they fully deploy the jerk is ripping the command module off of the rest of the lander. If I try using a few radial parachutes attatched to the base of my lander they tend to want to tip my lander over.

I am trying to build a ship that can go to Eve, land, take off, and return to Kerbin (or at least high orbit of kerbin). To do this I am attempting to minimize the fuel used in landing safely on Eve, this requires parachutes but as I said, when they fully deploy the jerk is ripping my command module off of the lander and basically stranding my kerbalnauts on Eve. Are there any tips that you can give to stop this from happening? I have a refueling satellite in orbit of eve already, my problem is getting safely down to the surface with enough fuel to return to orbit.

The other bit of landing nonsense I am having is with my ladders. Both of the Telus ladders are disappearing from my lander and I don't know what is happening to them. I need them to lower my kerbalnauts to the surface and allow them to get back into the cockpit, only other alternative is to lower the struts on the lander and hope it balances on its engine.

Edited by annallia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Parachutes will indeed make a craft rip apart, I suggest letting the atmosphere slow you down more before deploying the 'chutes (put your PE @ 35k on Eve, or something similar), or use a drogue 'chute or two off the top of your craft to keep it heads up and steadily decelerating before deploying the normal 'chutes.

To address the ladders, they are retracted wherever you placed them in the VAB. You should be able to right click their small rendered form and click the "Extend Ladder" button.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had this problem when trying to test landers/base parts for the moon. About all I can say is this: more chutes and more struts. If you have radial engines attached to the core, put chutes on BOTH. If you just put them on the engines, the sheering force of the center not stopping but the engines slowing may tear it apart. Ditto for the reverse configuration. However, if you can try to slow everything down at a comparable rate, sheer forces will be less and it has a better chance at staying together. And of course struts would just give it that much more structural integrity.

As far as it tipping a bit, I think if you can get it so that it slows down to less than 5 m/s, which shouldn't be a problem on eve, I'm not sure that will be all that much of an issue in the end unless it's just tilting wildly to one side, in which case you may want to re-arrange how your chutes are attached to see if you can add them in a way that causes it to lean less.

Edit:

Also, try to make sure you make "weak points" (RCS tanks, SAS modules) in areas that minimizes the stress on those pieces. Things like RCS tanks and SAS modules are notorious for not being able to withstand the forces of a parachute deployment

Edited by FleetAdmiralJ
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Struts will help. Drogues will help. Other thing you might try is to fire up your descent engines (if you have any) to try and slow down a bit right before the chutes deploy (i.e. right before they fully open and jerk your craft). For Eve, I realize you don't want to fire them for too long; a second or two would probably be sufficient based on your design - Scott Manley does this in his Eve tutorial. Just sayin'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try attaching struts to the parachutes

The chutes themselves are not ripping away, the command module is ripping away from the rest of the lander. Though I am re-thinking the design to include struts.

Parachutes will indeed make a craft rip apart, I suggest letting the atmosphere slow you down more before deploying the 'chutes (put your PE @ 35k on Eve, or something similar), or use a drogue 'chute or two off the top of your craft to keep it heads up and steadily decelerating before deploying the normal 'chutes.

To address the ladders, they are retracted wherever you placed them in the VAB. You should be able to right click their small rendered form and click the "Extend Ladder" button.

I know you have to deploy the ladders, the problem is the little ladder thing isn't there on my module. It is there when I launch, but is getting lost somewhere on the trip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's no nonsense here, just physics at work. If you put parachutes on your pod, at the top of a heavy rocket, once the parachutes open the rest of the rocket still wants to continue down, thus ripping off from your pod. Solution: put the chutes on the heaviest part. Same if you mount more tanks or stuff radially off the center tank and put parachutes on those, the centertank will still want to continue downward with so much energy that it'll just rip everything to shreds.

And your lander tipping over because of radial parachutes is because you've put them below the center of mass, again simple physics. Solution: attach the parachutes above the center of mass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Deploy your parachutes within the atmosphere in smaller groups. Either manually deploy them with right clicking them or set them up to multiple action groups. If you still have a problem, save some parachutes to open until after they have reached full deployment height. Drag parachutes are a good option here too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well my reply is awaiting moderator approval, I took a few of your suggestions and have redesigned my lander. I stuffed a smaller RCS tank below my command module and the hitchhiker can and used a lattice work of struts to secure the two together. I also did away with the nose cones on my external tanks and put more top mounted chutes on them and a few more struts securing the base just for good measure.

All in all 1 MK25 4 MK 16XL and 8 radial chutes. Did a test drop on Kerbin and the whole thing held together (high atmo drop no deceleration except from chutes).

So thank you for the help, once my rover gets down there and I successfully land I can start ferrying my stranded kerbals to the lander and get them off that stinking planet.. and strand them somewhere else :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...