[1.12.*] Deadly Reentry v7.9.0 The Barbie Edition, Aug 5th, 2021

[jrandom]

You don't say if it's for stock or RSS. If stock, set reflection to 0.25.

direction I think to 0, 1, 1 (on iPhone and can't double check)

if it's for RSS you might get away with the same values for a lightweight plane. Heavies like the KSO25.....Well check the last few pages on the kso thread and see the kso25 config I linked to. I also posted it here a few pages back. If you can't find it I'll repost it when I get back to computer.

Ack! Sorry, should have mentioned it's for RSS/RO. I'm building spaceplanes and ballistic aircraft while I wait for RSS/RO to stabilize enough for my next attempt at a moon landing. I need the spaceplane and B9 parts to be more heat-tolerant, but I don't want to step too far out of bounds from reality. (Otherwise, I'd just crank up the max temperature to some silly value.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it's just pointing me at a reference with enough information for me to translate the values into what ModuleHeatShield wants. I'll check out the KSO25 config when I get home this evening as well.

[NathanKell]

You're going to want to use 0,0,0 as the direction, since mirroring doesn't (the wing on the other side is flipped...). As for reflectivity, probably something in the 0.9 range IIRC. Needs mucho shielding.

[jrandom]

You're going to want to use 0,0,0 as the direction, since mirroring doesn't (the wing on the other side is flipped...). As for reflectivity, probably something in the 0.9 range IIRC. Needs mucho shielding.

Darned flipped wings. Wonder if that's fixable...

And 0.9? That's a lot of reflectivity! Does that kinda sorta match the behavior of real-world thermal tiles?

Also, any recommended max temperature with reflective heat shields? I bumped up the wing and control surface parts from RO's 800 degress to 1700 degrees, but with reflective shielding, would 800 be a more realistic value to use?

[NathanKell]

No (crewed craft) heatshield has been hotter than 1530C, I believe (constant from Mercury through Shuttle, more or less). No idea what the max on Stardust was, or ICBMs, but probably close to that. So 1700 maxtemp sounds reasonable.

Here's a way to find out. Give them 0 reflectivity, then tweak the HeatMultiplier in the debugging window until they're surviving. Then give them reflectivity of 1.0 - (new heatMult)/25

Should give you a rough estimate of what they need.

[SpeederAlpha]

Looks like a problem with the part's animation. I considered the possibility that the one shot setting was confusing ModuleAnimateGeneric but it still did it even if I set it to false. I don't know what in the animation could do something like this but I don't think we have access to the original mesh so doing anything with the animation isn't an option. Another animator module might fare better but I don't like any of the alternatives out there. (Firespitter would be an obvious alternative but I've had issues with Firespitter before and would not feel comfortable making it a dependency)

I'm not familiar with Unity at all, so this is a shot in the dark, would skipping the animation (jump immediately from open to closed/and closed to open) while in the VAB help at all?

[Starwaster]

I'm not familiar with Unity at all, so this is a shot in the dark, would skipping the animation (jump immediately from open to closed/and closed to open) while in the VAB help at all?

No, it would be best to just leave it alone in the VAB. Don't animate it at all until you get it into the real world and need to use it for reentry. Until then just don't do anything with it.

[panarchist]

No (crewed craft) heatshield has been hotter than 1530C, I believe (constant from Mercury through Shuttle, more or less). No idea what the max on Stardust was, or ICBMs, but probably close to that. So 1700 maxtemp sounds reasonable.

Here's a way to find out. Give them 0 reflectivity, then tweak the HeatMultiplier in the debugging window until they're surviving. Then give them reflectivity of 1.0 - (new heatMult)/25

Should give you a rough estimate of what they need.

Well, except for Apollo, which reached 2,760C (5,000F): https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/CSM05_Apollo_Flt_Tests_pp33-38.pdf

1700C is reasonable for the RCC portions of STS, but STS never had to deal with lunar reentry temps.

[NathanKell]

panarchist: Huh! I thought with a lifting reentry they had comparable heat loads, just longer time in atmo...thanks!

[Angelo Kerman]

With DRE .6.2.1 and stock atmosphere and new stock mk2 spaceplane parts, I have yet to build a spaceplace that survives re-entry. I am using default settings for DRE. I have tried deorbiting just enough to get the camera flip and angled the nose up between ten and twenty degrees, from a 100km orbit. Each time I crash and burn. Any tips on how to properly survive reentry with the new mk2 parts?

Edited October 24, 2014 by Angel-125

[Jovus]

With a spaceplane, your big advantage is that you can control altitude very well. Your big disadvantage is that you aren't as well shielded from heat as with an ablative shield. Therefore, the proper thing to do is to spend more time slowing in the upper atmosphere (around and above 30k).

[Kalloran]

I'm trying to track down an error in my debug menu, and I think it has to do with DRE. Or at least, I'm going to start here and see if I can't get some friendly direction. So, the setup:

0.25, x86, Windows7, DRE 6.2.1, Stock Drag

Spacecraft is a crewed vehicle without a heat shield, enroute to the Mun. I noticed a frame rate drop, which is not uncommon for my laptop, but I checked the Debug menu anyway and found this (Output log reflects the same error):

[ABZB]

I'm trying to track down an error in my debug menu, and I think it has to do with DRE. Or at least, I'm going to start here and see if I can't get some friendly direction. So, the setup:

0.25, x86, Windows7, DRE 6.2.1, Stock Drag

Spacecraft is a crewed vehicle without a heat shield, enroute to the Mun. I noticed a frame rate drop, which is not uncommon for my laptop, but I checked the Debug menu anyway and found this (Output log reflects the same error):

http://i.imgur.com/AKXhUC9.png

That usually happens when at least one part on the vessel had a module in its cfg (or one added by a MM patch) for which the mod dll is not present (for example, if you installed connected living space, then deleted the CLS.dll, but left the MM patches in). There are some part-only mods that hardcode various such modules into their parts, rather than use conditional MM - for example, KASA has a life support module node in the main part cfgs. I think that most mods don't look up module nodes by index # - the only ones for which I have seen this issue are FAR and DRE. [with FAR, the result is terribly glitchy, a minute or so after launch my center of mass moves backward into thin air, then I glitch-spin and explode]

[Angelo Kerman]

With a spaceplane, your big advantage is that you can control altitude very well. Your big disadvantage is that you aren't as well shielded from heat as with an ablative shield. Therefore, the proper thing to do is to spend more time slowing in the upper atmosphere (around and above 30k).

Ah, ok, so more time in the upper atmosphere.. I will try that, thanks!

[Wanderfound]

Ah, ok, so more time in the upper atmosphere.. I will try that, thanks!

Basic spaceplane reentry sequence for FAR:

1) Make your deorbit burn. If you're coming in fast, keep it shallow; if you've got enough DV to scrub most of your orbital speed in advance, you can get away with something steeper.

2) Your first job is to halt the initial drop. Forget about ditching speed or anything else, just pull the nose up so you can level out again. Pull up too hard and you'll flip out of control and/or break your wings, but too slow and you'll cook. I usually keep an AoA of 15° or so throughout the process, gradually pulling up as I go (actual recommended AoA varies based on aircraft, altitude and speed; you need to experiment for yourself). Aim to have it levelled out by 30,000m.

3) Now, watch the VSI and your temperature gauges (DaMichel's Kerbal Flight Data is very good for temperature monitoring). Gradually descend until the temperature is just shy of lethal (usually around 1,300°C on my planes), then hold that altitude until it cools. Once the temperature drops, drop with it. Stay alert and be ready to pull the nose up quickly if the temperature spikes; there's a fair lag between lifting the nose and stopping the heating, so if you leave it too late you're toast.

4) You'll probably find that you need to stay above 25,000m until you get down to Mach 5 or so. Decelerating above 25,000m is slow; decelerating below 25,000m is fast. As well as greater drag, the lower air provides enough grip to get some useful S-turns happening. If you can get your reentry speed below hypersonic and avoid the initial high-altitude cooling phase, reentry and landing is a much faster process.

[JamesL86]

I seem to be having an issue with the Inflatable Heatshield. Every time I try to launch a craft with it, it starts out inflated on the pad causing all sorts of destruction and mayhem. Now I know this sort of destruction is greatly appreciated by kerbals everywhere, but I would like to get a few to orbit eventually. I am running the 32-bit version of KSP on win7. I searched and saw a previous post from a few months back concerning this same issue, but no solution was ever posted that I could find. Not really sure how to fix it and I am completely useless at anything involving programming so I have not tried to, what the word, debug.

[Starwaster]

I seem to be having an issue with the Inflatable Heatshield. Every time I try to launch a craft with it, it starts out inflated on the pad causing all sorts of destruction and mayhem. Now I know this sort of destruction is greatly appreciated by kerbals everywhere, but I would like to get a few to orbit eventually. I am running the 32-bit version of KSP on win7. I searched and saw a previous post from a few months back concerning this same issue, but no solution was ever posted that I could find. Not really sure how to fix it and I am completely useless at anything involving programming so I have not tried to, what the word, debug.

It sounds like you might have inflated it in the VAB at some point prior to launch.

If so, remove it from that craft and replace it with a fresh one. Don't try to animate it in the VAB at all. I'm not sure why that's happening, there's something about its inflation animation that's confusing the animator module.

[JamesL86]

Oi, thanks for that mate. Yea I am building a vertical launch SSTO and I did inflate it in the VAB to ensure it covered the main engines and like properly. Now if I could just figure why Mechjeb can't land a bloody ship properly, I'll be able to get back to this career mode with this massive conglomeration of mods I got going.

[Starwaster]

Oi, thanks for that mate. Yea I am building a vertical launch SSTO and I did inflate it in the VAB to ensure it covered the main engines and like properly. Now if I could just figure why Mechjeb can't land a bloody ship properly, I'll be able to get back to this career mode with this massive conglomeration of mods I got going.

Hah! I wish I could get back to playing. All I ever do is test things....

Edit:

BTW, in case anyone hasn't seen this, nifty new heat shield to play with. It's a mechanically deployed heat shield combines the increased drag of an inflatable with ablative shields (in the form of an ablative nose cap).

The increased mass seems to help keep it stable but it does still have some tendency to flip. (though that was AFTER the worst of the reentry heating had passed so it was ok)

It's based on actual NASA concepts for a venusian shield.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/98178

Edited October 26, 2014 by Starwaster

[jrandom]

BTW, in case anyone hasn't seen this, nifty new heat shield to play with. It's a mechanically deployed heat shield combines the increased drag of an inflatable with ablative shields (in the form of an ablative nose cap).

Cool!... happen to know if there's an RSS/RO config for it?

[Starwaster]

Cool!... happen to know if there's an RSS/RO config for it?

I've been playing RSS with it and it works out ok without a special RSS config.

I suspect that its increased drag in the upper atmosphere is working out to reduce speed and heating in the lower atmosphere.

I'll likely put something out for it after I've tried it out a lot. Though I'm finding it's not generating as much drag as I'd like on Duna. Possibly because I'm using my own drag solution and therefore still dependent on mass for drag which doesn't work out so well for lightweight high drag shields like the inflatables. I'm going to go put FAR back in and see how this new shield behaves there. (like the inflatable it works by changing the stock drag properties and I'm not quite sure how FAR deals with that.... it zeroes out the drag fields but DRE's ModuleAnimation2Value is being used to alter those same fields.... hrmmmm)

Edited October 26, 2014 by Starwaster

[Brucey]

This mod seems to now be causing my stock chutes to fail due to "high temperature", even though the temperature is showing less than 100C. Max temp in VAB says 1150C. Anyone know why? Is there a fix? Stock chutes work fine without this mod.

Maybe its a known issue, I cant find any mention of it although admittedly I have not read the 257 previous pages.

[Psybathatha]

This mod seems to now be causing my stock chutes to fail due to "high temperature", even though the temperature is showing less than 100C. Max temp in VAB says 1150C. Anyone know why? Is there a fix? Stock chutes work fine without this mod.

Maybe its a known issue, I cant find any mention of it although admittedly I have not read the 257 previous pages.

Do you have Deadly Reentry installed? If you do, there was a change whereby parachutes will cut or burn up if your speed/heat is too high.

[Master Tao]

RealChutes won't cause chutes to fail due to overheating – it doesn't touch heating.

Are you talking about deployed chutes? Try deploying them at less than the speed of sound and when the temperature is significantly lower than boiling pasta.

If not, then that's a bug you should replicate and report in the DRE thread.

[Brucey]

It must be from DR then. Everything was working fine before I recently cleaned out my mod folder, and then reinstalled everything (trying to fix a totally different bug). It's definitely abnormal behavior as my chutes are having "excessive heat" even at less than 400m/s and less than 100c temperatures. (or if that IS considered normal, than I'm deleting DR). Sigh.... I guess I'm once again back in bug-hunting mode.

[Master Tao]

Yes, it's normal for chutes to fail at higher than the speed of sound. It's pretty easy to work around by just delaying your parachute deployment.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Master Tao