Aerobraking Limbo

[MilkToast]

Your goal is to aerobrake on Kerbin at the lowest altitude possible and retain enough velocity to get to space.

Mission Plan:

You will take a rocket into space, then launch a re-entry capsule from this. This craft must perform an aerobraking pass on Kerbin, then return to space.

Space for this challenge is defined as the edge of Kerbin's atmosphere - 69,078 meters. This is the point when your re-entry craft must be without thrust.

Scoring will be based on the lowest altitude (above sea level) reached by the craft, as recorded by the game altimeter.

Restrictions:

You may not have any parts that generate lift on your reentry craft - no wings, fins, or control surfaces.

Your re-entry craft may not have any parts that generate thrust - no engines, RCS, etc.

Mods for readout/autopilot purposes (MechJeb, Engineer, etc.) are allowed in the general category.

Aerodynamic mods will have their own category.

Positioning mods (hyperedit, etc.) are not permitted.

At least one Kerbal must be on board the reentry craft.

Scoring:

Your base score is your altitude in kilometers squared.

Interplanetary: Divide your score by two if you still retain enough speed to escape Kerbin SOI.

Interplanetary Impact: Further divide your score by two if you impact your craft on another planet outside Kerbin SOI. Keep in mind - there wouldn't be course adjustments possible, so I'm pretty sure this one's impossible.

Safely Home: -100 points for recovering the craft successfully.

Extreme Skydiving: -100 points for performing this with just a Kerbal

Score Example: passing through atmosphere - periapsis at 40.000 km. This is squared, yielding 1600.000 km. Round to 1600, and add additional points as necessary.

Lowest score wins.

Requirements:

You will need to post the following pictures:

-Launchpad (Multiple shots if assembling large vehicles)

-Apoapsis/before acceleration

-Before entering atmosphere, in re-entry configuration.

-Periapsis (probably wreathed in flames). Make sure the game altimeter is visible on this screen.

-Exiting atmosphere.

Addendum:

As noted by Kasuha below, Kerbals may be aerobraked without a craft, provided that a screenshot showing that pack fuel still equals 100.0% is included.

Edited November 7, 2013 by MilkToast
Rules Clarifications

[MilkToast]

Stock:

56 - TheDarkStar

656 - MilkToast

Edited November 9, 2013 by MilkToast

[MilkToast]

I'll have mine posted as soon as I can get one I'm proud of - I haven't gotten under 40km. Which is really sad.

EDIT: I didn't beat it by much, but here's proof of concept.

Altitude: 36.227 km = 1312 points

Interplanetary: divide by two

Total Score: 656 points

Category: Stock

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Edited November 7, 2013 by MilkToast
Record

[Kasuha]

Space for this challenge is defined as the edge of Kerbin's atmosphere - 69,078 meters.

I am not sure what this means. Can I get out of Kerbin's atmosphere to gain speed for the reentry, or do I have to gain that speed below the 69 km mark?

Your base score is your altitude in kilometers squared.

35589 m counts as 35 km, 36 km, or 35.589 km? (just an example)

Your re-entry craft may not have any parts that generate thrust

...

Extreme Skydiving: -100 points for performing this with just a Kerbal

Doing it with just Kerbal goes against the no thrust rule as jet pack can generate thrust.

-Launchpad

With the ship, I assume. Does that mean we're limited to just one ship and can't assemble something in orbit?

[MilkToast]

Sorry - for clarification:

Yes. You can exit the atmosphere to get speed for re-entry. There is no altitude limit - just that your re-entry craft must fit all the rules during the time that it falls in the atmosphere.

35589 meters would count as 35.589 kilometers. After I squared it, I rounded.

I suppose that using a Kerbal does violate it. Hmmm... perhaps a modification to the rules showing that Kerbals are legal as long as pack fuel is 100% at end (picture required).

And you're more than welcome to assemble crafts in orbit, although I'm not sure of the ultimate purpose of that. Include launchpad shots for major components.

[TheDarkStar]

I went and got an orbit out past Eeloo, burned retrograde, and then hit Kerbin's SoI going straight at it. Going interplanetary was not disallowed, so I'm assuming I'm fine doing this.

http://imgur.com/a/ZNlbG#0

Yep, I managed to go over 28000 km/s doing this. My score: (17.657)² * 0.5 (still can escape Kerbin's SoI) - 100 (extreme skydiving) = 55.885.

Edited November 9, 2013 by TheDarkStar

[MilkToast]

Yep, I managed to go over 28000 km/s doing this. My score: (17.657)² * 0.5 (still can escape Kerbin's SoI) - 100 (extreme skydiving) = 55.885.

Very impressive. Did the atmosphere not let you get much lower? I never thought to go that far out.

[TheDarkStar]

Very impressive. Did the atmosphere not let you get much lower? I never thought to go that far out.

I tried a few times, and my altitude was the lowest I was able to get to without reentering. I suspect people will see diminishing returns, since I have never been able to hit 0 meters above 120 m/s or so, even with the Orion mod.

Edited November 10, 2013 by TheDarkStar

[Galacticruler]

I wonder what my impulse drives might do...interesting thought, but no, I will not participate simply for the same of time.

[numerobis]

Very impressive. Did the atmosphere not let you get much lower? I never thought to go that far out.

To go 5km lower, you'd have to have enough kinetic energy to fight about 3x the drag loss. Kinetic energy and drag both grow quadratically with speed, so basically you'd need to go three times as fast, i.e. about 84 km/s. Yikes...

Still, linear increase means it's feasible to go lower.

Does a Kerbal have the least drag coefficient? I'd think the Mk1 cockpit would be better.

Edited November 10, 2013 by numerobis

[TheDarkStar]

I've heard that Kerbals have less drag, and using only a Kerbal gives you a bonus of -100. To beat mine without using a Kerbal and still going interplanetary, you'd need an altitude of about 10.572 km. Doing this would most likely require both a very well timed intercept and the Orion mod to reach the necessary ~100 km/s.

However, do note that negative scores are realistically possible.

Edit: Can you clarify the part about rescuing the Kerbal? I'm not sure if this means I can launch a second rescue mission to save my Kerbal, or if they have to be in the same mission.

[MilkToast]

Edit: Can you clarify the part about rescuing the Kerbal? I'm not sure if this means I can launch a second rescue mission to save my Kerbal, or if they have to be in the same mission.

Ideally, same mission. However, I would grant half-credit for making it down on a separate ship.

[Tobyz28]

I've heard that Kerbals have less drag, and using only a Kerbal gives you a bonus of -100. To beat mine without using a Kerbal and still going interplanetary, you'd need an altitude of about 10.572 km. Doing this would most likely require both a very well timed intercept and the Orion mod to reach the necessary ~100 km/s.

However, do note that negative scores are realistically possible.

Edit: Can you clarify the part about rescuing the Kerbal? I'm not sure if this means I can launch a second rescue mission to save my Kerbal, or if they have to be in the same mission.

Dark did you go with or against the planet spin? If against it you might have a bit more you can eek out