I’m trying to re-enter from orbit after ferrying 4 tourists. My general strategy has been to burn retrograde from my periapsis (which is at ~71 km) until the new periapsis is about 35 km. But no matter how I steer, I haven’t been able to get it low enough to even deploy drogue chutes

I also tried a strategy where I put antennae on both of the tourist pods, and separate parachutes on each, and decouplers between the two of them and before the command pod, with the intention of all 3 landing down separately. A week ago, this worked for me on a flight where the tourists only wanted to enter space. But right now, coming down from orbit, every time I try this they seem to crash…but only if I’m not observing them. They come down at a safe speed and the parachutes clearly do deploy, but then upon touching down…they’re not available to collect, and the mission is failed. I even tried switching to one of them, and then the command pod disappeared instead.

I suppose there are two questions in this: (1) how can I slow down a 3 tonne vehicle enough with fairly early tech to safely deploy the parachutes? (2) What do I need to do to make sure I can properly track separate craft after they land down?

Screenshot of KSP showing 9 techs researched, all in the first 4 tiers.

  • Mandarbmax@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    You will be able to prevent flipping during launch if you either put the top stage in a fairing to cover the wings or if you put bigger wings on the bottom. maybe experiment without wings that are upside down but idk if that is a problem or not.

    Let me know how things go!

    • Zagorath@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      I don’t think I have any fairings unlocked yet unfortunately.

      I didn’t see this comment until now, but I did just manage to get it to work after adding radial radiator panels, which I think acted similarly to the wings to add just enough drag to let me deploy the drogue chutes.