Your Reentry trajectories

[MedwedianPresident]

Post how you land your spacecraft on Kerbin here!

I personally do a rather shallow trajectory which allows for maximum range and flexibility. I generally do a 30 kilometre periapsis that is located several hundreds of kilometres in front of the target, i also take care of kerbin's own rotation. I once landed a unpowered spaceplane at KSC using this; i overshot the landing site but i made a space shuttle final approach-esque turn and i finally hit the runway softly.

What trajectories do YOU use for bringing stuff down from orbit?

[Madrias]

I tend to try to create massive trails of reentry effects as I don't typically run with FAR or Deadly Reentry. If I see the flags at the four corners of my runway and I've got enough juice left in the plane to hit it, I try for it, but otherwise it's an intent to be as spectacular as I can with my returns.

[wasmic]

I generally burn from the desert, which makes for easier targeting.

[TimePeriod]

Yea Jeb didn't enjoy the +20g deceleration

[MedwedianPresident]

Skip reentry is a very interesting concept - it can even be used to multiply the range of the spacecraft as seen in this video about a WWII era german concept.

[Guest]

Not in stock KSP. You need FAR for that, or the capsule won't generate any lift and just fall back to Kerbin.

[Kasuha]

I'm usually trying to hit land and if possible, get near to KSC. Apart of that, anything goes. About the most extreme reentry I ever performed was hitting Kerbin at about 8 km/s on return from Jool almost vertically near the middle of the globe because KSC happened to be at that point at the moment. The window to open chutes during that descent without ripping them off or hitting the ground was about one second and yes I had to do it several times. Or sometimes I enjoy very shallow reentry with periapsis about 40 km which allows me to get down with almost no reentry effects.

[SkyHook]

For shuttles:

-100KM circular orbit

-190m/s Deorbit burn, with projected impact slightly past KSC.

-Control altitude with pitch and steep final approach.

For pods:

-30km periapsis.

-Hang on!

[kiwiak]

Not in stock KSP. You need FAR for that, or the capsule won't generate any lift and just fall back to Kerbin.

Does FAR allows for skip reentry? Interesting.

Edited March 14, 2014 by kiwiak

[Xetalim]

Uhm.

How I re-entry?

Well, bring my PE below 40 kilometres.

?????

Profit

PS: Don't forget the parachutes

[timsfitz]

I land my space planes at KSC but everything else I usually don't care where they land. In early career I try to aim for biomes I haven't hit yet to squeeze the science.

[pauix]

I do whatever the leftovers of my fuel tanks and my RCS let me do and then, when I notice my periapsis is too high, I EVA and push the rocket until I get to 30,000m.

[Rockfire]

As I have deadly reentry, tac and far, I usually aim for 30km, tends to cause a skipping reentry but I try not go any lower in cause of spontaneous disassembly, but the downside is your spending a long time in space and could run out of resources.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Rockfire

[The Destroyer]

Well, I usually try to aim around the "Kafrica" contient, (KSC) usually do OK,

Just... 10 km pe?

But, when I have extra fuel returning from interplanetary and Minmus, STRAIGHT DOWN

...Don't forget to deploy all the chutes and burn any remaining fuel, just the atmosphere isn't enough 0_o

[Skorpychan]

If I have plenty of fuel: 30k periapsis from about a 75K apoapsis. Slow, gentle re-entry.

Not much fuel/I'm lazy: ~30K periapsis from wherever. Meh.

I'm out of fuel/screwed up fuel lines again: Periapsis to under 70k, aerobrake aerobrake aerobrake.

Interplanetary return: From initial capture orbit, use as little fuel as possible to get aerobraking. Dump the lander. Burn back to a proper orbit, then switch to the lander to watch it circle around and around, getting lower each time. My cruise stages are reusable, so they need to keep fuel.

[Aragosnat]

I don't care where I land. Just as long as it is not A SSTO plane that is. Otherwise any flat non-liquid surface will do. But, I do try to go in where I have no re-entry effect as well. Which does not happen often.

[Javster]

Usually straight down unless with spaceplanes.

[OTehNoes]

1. Periapsis ~30km

2. Clench.

[cantab]

Down is down. If I care to be picky, I try and put periapsis between 10 and 30 km. Open chutes after re-entry effects are gone and I'm doing somewhere between 200 and 500 m/s. I've never landed remotely near KSC.

If I'm still carrying quite a bit of fuel, I tend to try and burn it off by burning retrograde during the re-entry. Landing heavy is a bad idea.

[NASAFanboy]

I once landed a capsule on Kerbin from an direct interplanetary return trajectory.

Reentering at 9,000m/s is scary.

[Comrade Jenkens]

At the moment I just re enter steeply due to there being no damage. I've used hyperedit to get into a retrograde solar orbit and still landed safely on Kerbin!

[merendel]

If I'm not runing DR I tend to just drop PE to 20 or so and call it good. with DR I normaly aim for 31 as the lowest PE just to be safe. I've managed to land a few capsuls witen about 20km of KSC but have yet to manage a landing withen physics range (I normaly fall short). Spaceplanes are a bit easier to target at KSC as you've got a bit of cross range flight capability that a pod, even if it still has its engien, just does noth ave.

[Jouni]

With spaceplanes, I usually go down pretty steep. For example, when coming down from a 120 km orbit, I may do the deorbiting burn at the coast of the desert, aiming something like 100 km past KSC. With a bit of luck, I can then just glide to the runway.

Other ships just land anywhere.

I'm planning to start a career mode game with FAR and Deadly Reentry when 0.24 comes out, so it'll be an opportunity to unlearn many things I'm currently doing.

[liweih]

If I am planning to land on a precise location, I would go as steep as possible, otherwise, any trajetory will be fine if we have parachutes.

[Sun]

I go a full 10km/s when coming back from Eeloo or from PF's Urania System. When coming back from another star in PF: 20km/s. Jeb did not like the 7,000,000,000,000,000 (7 QUADRILLION!) g deceleration! Ok I know I'm exaggerating, but it was about 50g reentry.