How to successfully lithiobrake?

[Lord_Potato]

I have a useless space station in orbit around Kerbin, but for some reason it keeps evading all of my attempts to rescue the kerbals inside. So I was wondering if it were possible to actually lithiobrake, since there is a reasonable amount of stuff behind the crew compartment.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Lord_Potato

[el_coyoto]

Yup, you can use "hardware assisted braking" ( © Scott Manley) for landings, but I've never tested these with impacts of more than 20 m/s (a bit of parachute assist).

Terminal velocity just above the ground is around 100 m/s, so, without parachutes we'd be trying to cushion a ~100 m/s impact with delicate and explosive hardware.

Might be worth it to try though, I think it could be doable depending on how your station looks like...

Do you have pictures of it ?

[Zwer.ch]

stuff

What kind of stuff?

What's your intention for the station? Lithobraking will most likely destroy it.

To get into a suborbital trajectory you need to reduce speed ...If the station has no engines/RCS onboard, you'd need to push it with another craft.

I don't know if pushing by EVA will do the trick here, else you'd need some kind of space bulldozer ..

[Kasuha]

If it is a bunch of modules docked together you can break it apart, dock a landing module with chutes to each and just land them one by one. If you use sufficient amount of drogues and main chutes, you should not break anything important.

[Padishar]

it keeps evading all of my attempts to rescue the kerbals inside

If it is a bunch of modules docked together you can break it apart, dock a landing module with chutes to each and just land them one by one. If you use sufficient amount of drogues and main chutes, you should not break anything important.

If he could dock with it (or even rendezvous), do you think he would be considering a deliberate crash landing...?

[Umlüx]

whats the problem here exactly? the rendezvous or the docking? you don't habe to dock to transfer some kerbals over. and if the rendezvous is the problem.. you could always try and let mechjeb help.

i don't think there is anyhing left after crashing a whole station into the ground.

[Kasuha]

If he could dock with it (or even rendezvous), do you think he would be considering a deliberate crash landing...?

I have no clue what his "all of my attempts" consists of and people often miss options which seem to be obvious to others. And orbital stations are IMO usually docked together from multiple parts.

Screenshot or more thorough description would probably help to narrow the range of suggestions but until we get them, all options are open.

[Starwhip]

Ha, ha, "lithobraking" is a nice term... although painful. If you want to try it, quicksave each time. Then you can revert to your station and try again.

[Claw]

By the way, if your kerbals are trapped in a module other than a capsule (such as a lab module), you can get them on EVA by left clicking on the module's crew hatch. I used to think my kerbals were trapped until I found that.

Also, instead of crashing the whole thing you can controlled crash another ship into station components if there is something blocking the hatch. It might take a few attempts to get the angle correct without destroying the whole thing.

[el_coyoto]

Ha, ha, "lithobraking" is a nice term... although painful.

LOL how painful wound "corona braking at Kerbol" sound then?

[TechnicalK3rbal]

You could turn on no crash damage in the cheat menu and just crash it.

Edit:the station, not the game.

[ShadowDragon8685]

If for some reason you have a station that has some thrust on it and you can't pull your kerbs off for some other reasons....

I would try to do as much of a suicide burn as possible. Use as little DV as you possibly can to get down - just put your PE below 69K and wait for aerobraking to happen. This could take ages, but it'll pull you down, eventually.

Then save the rest of your fuel until you're almost down to the ground, pushing down against terminal velocity, point the nozzles at Kerbin and slam the throttle on full to kill as much velocity as possible.

If you pull it off and you have enough crumple zone under you, it should be entirely possible to perform a hardware-assisted lithobraking maneuver, the kind that ends up with an intact command pod rolling around on the ground and the Kerbs within in dire need of clean shorts and swearing that they won't so much as ride an elevator off the surface of their homeworld ever again.

[dshuck]

Quicksave and try to make sure you land on the ground, not the water. Water in KSP is way more destructive than land for some reason, and I have to remind my friends of this every time I fly a plane that runs out of fuel and miss the runway as I try to circle around to land.

[Lord_Potato]

I got the station to the ground! Granted, I had some engines on it, but all three kerbals survived!

Here's all that's left of their station.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Unless you successfully landed at KSC (In which case, you're a BOSS,) those are three very, very brave Kerbonauts, to get back in the saddle. Good job!

For future use, I would suggest equipping all equipment you plan to put into Kerbin orbit that you intend to bring home again for a hardware-assisted aerobraking maneuver, IE, a parachute landing.

And good job!

[el_coyoto]

I got the station to the ground! Granted, I had some engines on it, but all three kerbals survived!

Congratulations!

Kerbal ingenuity and courage at their finest!