Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Fishbreath]

The ETA for version 0.9 is "three weeks", which will supposedly include symmetrical reconnectors (i.e. 1-to-3 and 3-to-1), a totally redesigned staging system (so you can define as many stages as you want, any way you want), and some other changes.  Three weeks sure sounds like a long time, when you've only been playing for a week.

I lust for a proper 3-1 connector. That would make my second-to-last stage so much more effective.

Also, I lust for a stack decoupler that doesn't block itself when you attach two SRBs side-by-side.

[BloodBeard]

Actually trying to do a controled landing without a parachute, awesome. Practice for the moon.

By efficient I assume you mean for landing a lander and not just a regular capsule. Well from my experience, the atmosphere is sooo thick that you slow down incredibly fast, to the point where you eventually lose all horizontal movement and fall vertically. I'd do a regular deorbit burn (what you described is called a retro-grade burn) and wait untill you're pretty close to the ground before slowing yourself with thrusters. I wouldn't even worry about lateral movement, the atmosphere will fix that for you. Would probably take a lot of testing.

[Roboboy33]

My rocket failed because i forgot to add fuel to a liquid engine!

[alway]

Actually trying to do a controled landing without a parachute, awesome. Practice for the moon.

By efficient I assume you mean for landing a lander and not just a regular capsule. Well from my experience, the atmosphere is sooo thick that you slow down incredibly fast, to the point where you eventually lose all horizontal movement and fall vertically. I'd do a regular deorbit burn (what you described is called a retro-grade burn) and wait untill you're pretty close to the ground before slowing yourself with thrusters. I wouldn't even worry about lateral movement, the atmosphere will fix that for you. Would probably take a lot of testing.

Ya, the atmos will typically take you down to about 100-150m/s, at which point slowing down to landing speed takes a negligible amount of fuel.

[Sheb]

Wait until the athmo heat you up...

[Fikes]

What is a regular de-orbit burn? Just point yourself down?

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you're reasonably close to the atmosphere, a burn downwards might get you to rapidly slow down and deorbit. In other cases, the best way is to reverse course and slow down to less-than-orbital speeds.

[Rakonas]

In other cases, the best way is to reverse course and slow down to less-than-orbital speeds.

This, you can very easily deorbit by just slowing down. It takes much less fuel to go below the speed necessary to orbit the planet than it does to redirect your force downwards.

[Fikes]

Is there any reason to not go full throttle all the way across the sky?

[Rakonas]

Is there any reason to not go full throttle all the way across the sky?

It's less fuel efficient while still in the atmosphere than slow acceleration. There's a lot of drag in the atmosphere and your fuel is better spent above the 35km mark.

[Burnt Pies]

Also, engines overheating causes them to explode. Not the best thing to do with an engine, for certain.

[Sowelu]

I forgot which subforum I was on, and thought it was going to be like this:  http://www.astronauts4hire.org/  which is a real thing that exists.

[DrPoo]

I am designing a spacecraft composed of 4 stages, a booster stage boosting the vessel above the 35 km mark, an orbiter stage wich puts the vessel in a LEO and a deorbiting stage, then a lander module, currently i am working on the lander module, it just an space orange right now, and proably wont be anything else. I am working on an LW orbiter, wich is also going to be cool to look at when deorbiting. The deorbiter should just be a very strong engine with very little fuel capacity. The boosters are just the regular death-trap-stack-o-doom wich goes apeshit.

[BloodBeard]

The most efficient way to deorbit is to do a retro-grade burn at apoapsis. That would be burning in the direction of the yellow circle with an X through it at the highest point in your orbit. How long you burn depends on how high your orbit is, but with how powerful these engines are a few seconds at max thrust will probably be enough.

[Roboboy33]

Hey!  0.8.5 just came out!