Surviving reentry

[7499275]

Hey guys! Last night I deorbited a space station, its purpose was a small refueling outpost. I took a video and some great screen shots of it coming down.

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/j0Hw6/embed"></iframe>

What are your methods to get kerbals to survive reentry? I had six MK1 command pods with parachutes that jettisoned off the station during reentry.

Edited November 12, 2013 by 7499275

[Merinsan]

I'll be honest, I've never deorbited a station. If I was going to, I'd be sending "escape" pods up just to get them home, before deorbiting.

[Kasuha]

I never needed to deorbit more Kerbals at once than what currently available pod can hold. I'd probably evacuate the station using standard ships before its end of life, attach a probe core and deorbit it remotely. Or I'd send them a special "evacuation shuttle" made of habitable modules with enough chutes and landing legs and evacuate them all at once before the deorbit.

[Madrias]

SSTO Crew Shuttle to evacuate all essential personnel, dock to the station, forcibly deorbit using the shuttle's engines, undock and follow closely behind, but mindful of the trail of debris.

[andrebrait]

I managed to deorbit a station once. Once. Never managed to do it again

[peadar1987]

Step 1: Uninstall Deadly Reentry

Step 2: Profit

[Scarecrow88]

Every station I have built has incorporated escape pods to allow the Kerbals on board to either de-orbit and land on the body below, or has the ability to remain in orbit until a rescue shuttle can rendezvous with them.

[rholtsla98]

I usually only deorbit chunks that are inefficient but when I take down the whole thing I have no problem losing a kerbal or two to the cause XD

[Sirrobert]

If the pods were more than 2,5km away from you while in atmosphere, they go on rails and drag has no effect on them. AKA they crash (or get deleted, cause they are in the atmosphere on rails)

[Levelord]

That's a lot of batteries. What exactly was your space station refueling? Electricity?

[Brapness]

When I decided my first station's life was over I evacuated the crew onto a shuttle and then pushed the station into the atmosphere using RCS. It was once I had finished this that I remembered Desberry was in the hitchhiker storage module (this was before it had an internal view). So I put him in the Cupola to watch the descent.

In a feat of awesomeness worthy of Jebediah himself, he actually survived!

[KSK]

That's a lot of batteries. What exactly was your space station refueling? Electricity?

Of course - how else do you recharge ion powered probes?

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I'm not asking why the mun is so close to kerbin

[quietsamurai98]

Of course - how else do you recharge ion powered probes?

Solar?

To answer the question, I like to make a ship with a ton of habitation modules and parachutes, undock, and remotely deorbit the station.

[sporkafife]

I'm not asking why the mun is so close to kerbin

I didn't even notice that!! Must have been hyperedit or something, right? Or is there some camera trickery that just make it look realy close?

[Xyd]

SSTO Crew Shuttle to evacuate all essential personnel.

... I see, I see ...

[Specialist290]

I'm one of those people who never sends kerbonauts up to a space station without having some sort of "lifeboat" to get all of them out of there (usually the craft I used to put them up there in the first place), so I typically bring them back in those before I deorbit the thing.

[Geschosskopf]

To answer the question... Make sure the Kerbal is in a pod on the top end of a relatively long stack. When the other end of the stack hits the ground, the upwards force of the explosion(s) is often enough to reduce the downward speed of the command pod to a survivable level by the time it reaches the ground .