Planetary probes disappearing on descent

[SnowGibbon]

Hey guys, new-ish player here, first time posting here.

In my career game I came up with a clever way to gather science on Kerbin - by putting detachable science pods onto a plane and parachuting them to the planet surface. Each pod consists of a Materials Lab, a Mystery Goo Container, a probe core and two radial parachutes.

My only problem is that, After detachment and get 2km away from the host craft, the pods have a tendency to disappear from existence all together. After I've landed the craft, the tracking centre does not show them, neither as debris or probes. Doubling back over the drop point returns nothing.

I've tested them by setting the probe core as the control point and watch it float its way down to the surface, leaving the plane to crash. The pod makes its way down without error, and with the addition of some batteries it has well enough charge to stay active past the duration of the host plane flight. I've tested this at altitudes of 20 000m and 5 000m and both are fine.

So why are my probes vanishing into thin air? Does the game hate them because they're in atmospheric flight? Is it a bug? Is it the Kraken? I dunno.

Thanks for your replies.

[vexx32]

On Kerbin, any objects below ~20km that are further than 2.5km from the actively controlled craft will be deleted. Simulating physics on objects further than 2.5km from the focus centre is simply too inaccurate and crippling for most people's machines, so KSP puts all objects further away "on rails" and simulates them in a much simpler manner. KSP basically assumes "on rails" objects burn up on reentry or simply crashed into the ground when their altitude on kerbin is lower than around 20km or so (I forget the exact altitude, sorry).

[Cerberus738]

So you have to circle around until the probe is safely on the ground? I like the concept of dropping probes like that. I've been trying to find a better way of farming science on Kerbin

[MarvinKitFox]

SnowGibbon, that approach works just fine, with two requirements..

Your mothership must be out to the atmosphere, really needs to be in orbit,

and you must transfer control to the descending probe, and ride it all the way to the ground.

Your mothership in orbit will be fine, as long as it doesnt intersect atmosphere.

Your probe will stay "alive" during descent because youa re riding with it.

Once the probe has landed, you can swap out of it safely.

If you insist on having a plane do the dropping, then your probe needs to land before it gets more than 2 (2.3?) km from your dropping plane. Not really practical.

[Markus Reese]

Despite what these guys say, there is a way to do it, but it requires nerves of steel, and also probably losing a bit of speed, Drop down to a low alitude, say 800m, kill your speed and deploy. Do a low speed circle to ensure it is down, then fly away. Else you have to do it from orbit.

I am assuming what you have is a plane that goes out to/over biomes to collect a bunch of science, then just drop it there?

[SnowGibbon]

I am assuming what you have is a plane that goes out to/over biomes to collect a bunch of science, then just drop it there?

It drops the science pods over the biome of choice before the pilot ejects (my kerbals haven't invented the wheel yet). The pods then gather the science when on the ground.

Thanks for your replies on such short notice guys, I'm probably going to try the low altitude pass idea since I intended it to be a more precise method than dropping them willy-nilly from space.

Peace out and keep an eye on your fuel, folks!

[SRV Ron]

You have to fly the probes down to the surface or else KSP will delete them once beyond 2.5 k

[Awaras]

Also, the lazor mod lets you increase the cutoff distance to what ever you want. Expect lag...