Jettison and Recovery

[toomuchbrew]

Does anyone know if you can jettison science states/experiments with parachutes and recover them (perhaps as debris). My thought is, you can make a large sciency rocket and then when you re-enter you could decouple the science section with chutes and land your capsule with another chute, that way you don't over power the standard chute. Am I trying to reinvent the wheel here?

Edited October 22, 2013 by toomuchbrew

[TechnicalK3rbal]

Decoupled science debris does give you science when recovered.

[Trinexx]

Decoupled science debris does give you science when recovered.

If that's the case, then you can just strap a parachute and a few separatrons to the science module on a decoupler. Point retrograde, fire the goo into a reentry trajectory while keeping your ship in orbit.

[Andersenman]

I suppose one has to keep the piece of debris focused lest it gets deleted by KSP when it falls below 20 km?

[Dave Kerbin]

I have been regularly using this to ensure samples land softly.

There is a catch though - the physics simulation only works for objects within 2.5km of the active vessel. If you let a package go from orbit and don't follow it (you stay with the ship in orbit) the parachute won't work, there will be no atmospheric friction and it will be completely destroyed (deleted) by the game when it decides it has hit the planet.

The correct way is to follow the package all the way down by switching focus to it ([ and ] keys). If you are returning more then one item at a time as I have (the pod descends on one parachute, science payload on a seperate chute) you'll need to keep them close together. Wait until you're closer to the surface before seperating and deploying parachutes, that way they will stay within 2.5km of each other despite descending at different speeds.

[toomuchbrew]

I have been regularly using this to ensure samples land softly.

Ok, so it sounds like, as long as you remain closer than 2.5km away from the active command pod or probe, the chutes will deploy and the cargo will become reclaimable? Do I have this correct?

I was putting chutes on my radially decoupled tanks to try to save "resuse" them, but they don't come up reclaimable or even show as debris on the tracking station. Is that due to the fact that after 2.5 km from the pod, they "unload" from the game?

I guess I am a little confused as to the steps you mentioned in the quote at the beginning of this post

[Dave Kerbin]

Ok, so it sounds like, as long as you remain closer than 2.5km away from the active command pod or probe, the chutes will deploy and the cargo will become reclaimable? Do I have this correct?

I was putting chutes on my radially decoupled tanks to try to save "resuse" them, but they don't come up reclaimable or even show as debris on the tracking station. Is that due to the fact that after 2.5 km from the pod, they "unload" from the game?

I guess I am a little confused as to the steps you mentioned in the quote at the beginning of this post

Yes, if they get 2.5km from your pod they unload, disappearing from the game forever.

Here is my staging and seperation. This is from 'mission 7', where I was first testing out the recovery system after my Science Jr. module was destroyed in mission 6 when it was just attached to the bottom of the pod with a single parachute.

You'll notice that my seperation and chute are in the same stage step - since they'll be seperate from the pod they won't be able to receive any more instructions, so the last instruction is to both seperate and open chutes at the same time. I've also turned my ship upside down - this is just a safety precaution since as soon as the chute opens the module will slow down. If the module was below the ship there would be a minor collision.

The stages are executed in rapid fashion at a relatively low altitude so they don't have a lot of time to drift apart (the engine section is going to fall faster, the science module slower)

As you can see the engine section rapidly catches up and passes the pod section.

The chutes fully open and they all descend in formation.

The lightest section falls so slowly that there is time for my Kerbal to get out and walk over to meet it.

However after recovering the active ship I would suggest using the recover button in the tracking station to get the rest, instead of 'flying' them and then clicking recover. I had a weird physics glitch that caused one of them to explode when I flew it from the tracking station. If you can't see them in the tracking station make sure the debris icon (left most) is selected.

[toomuchbrew]

Yeah, so I tried this last night and was able to replicate the results with science modules and command capsules in separate chute deployments. I had a lander/capsule combination (lander had Kerbals in it too) and separated about about 3km with lander chute deployment. I waited until about 2km to deploy the capsule chutes so they didn't land on each other.

Either way, if the parts you jettison are closer than the 2.5k, you can indeed recover them. Thanks for your help in the testing!

[TechnicalK3rbal]

If that's the case, then you can just strap a parachute and a few separatrons to the science module on a decoupler. Point retrograde, fire the goo into a reentry trajectory while keeping your ship in orbit.

That wouldn't work, however, as the science "debris" would not respond to the physics of the atmosphere, as it would be out of the "loaded" range.

[Sirrobert]

Decoupled science debris does give you science when recovered.

Yes they do